---
name: sales-proposals
description: "Structures and writes sales proposals, quotes, and statements of work that close: discovery-mirroring executive summaries, good-better-best option tiers, pricing presentation psychology, social proof placement, terms and validity windows, and a post-send follow-up plan. Use when the user says things like: write a proposal for this client, draft a quote, create a statement of work, build pricing tiers for this deal, respond to this RFP, put together an SOW, help me price this proposal, review my proposal before I send it, or my proposal went quiet — what now."
---

# Sales Proposals & Quotes

Turn a qualified opportunity into a document the buyer can say yes to. A proposal is not a brochure — it is a decision-support tool that restates the buyer's problem better than they stated it, presents 2-3 clearly differentiated options anchored high, de-risks the decision with proof, and makes the path to signature frictionless. This skill covers the full arc: gathering discovery inputs, structuring the document, writing every section, pricing presentation, and the follow-up plan that starts the moment the proposal is sent.

## When to use this skill

Use this skill when the user needs to:
- Write or restructure a sales proposal, quote, or statement of work (SOW)
- Design good-better-best pricing tiers for a specific deal
- Respond to an RFP/RFQ section-by-section
- Review and tighten a draft proposal before sending
- Plan follow-up after a proposal has been sent (including "gone quiet" recovery)

Do NOT use this skill for:
- Setting the underlying price model, discount policy, or packaging strategy across all customers — that is **pricing-strategy**. This skill presents prices; it doesn't set them.
- Handling the "it's too expensive" pushback after the proposal lands — hand off to **objection-handling**.
- Multi-touch nurture cadences beyond the proposal-specific follow-up plan — see **follow-up-sequences**.
- Writing the customer success stories referenced inside the proposal — see **case-studies**.
- Deciding whether the deal is worth proposing at all — run **lead-qualification** first if budget, authority, need, or timeline are unknown.
- Investor or partnership pitch documents — see **pitch-deck** or **partnership-development**.

## Inputs to gather

Ask for these before drafting. If the user can't answer, use the listed default and flag the assumption in your output.

1. **Discovery notes or call transcript.** The single most important input. Ask: "What did the buyer say, in their own words, about the problem and what solving it is worth?" If none exist, warn that the proposal will be generic and ask 3 quick discovery questions instead: What triggered the search now? What happens if they do nothing? Who signs?
2. **Buyer details.** Company, industry, size, the champion's name/role, the economic buyer's name/role, and any other evaluators. Default: address the champion, write for the economic buyer.
3. **What's being sold.** Scope, deliverables, timeline. Get concrete units (users, hours, deliverables, locations).
4. **Price and cost floor.** Target price and the minimum acceptable. Needed to build tiers. If only one price exists, build tiers around it: Better = target, Good = target minus 20-30% with scope removed, Best = target plus 30-60% with scope added.
5. **Competition and alternatives.** Who else is bidding, including "do nothing" and "build in-house." Default assumption: status quo is the main competitor.
6. **Proof assets.** Case studies, logos, testimonials, metrics from similar clients. Default: use industry-plausible placeholders clearly marked `[VERIFY: ...]` — never invent named clients or numbers.
7. **Deal mechanics.** Decision date, budget cycle, procurement/legal steps, required format (PDF, deck, portal, e-sign). Defaults: 30-day validity, net-30 payment, 50% deposit for services.
8. **Deliverable type.** Proposal (persuasive, pre-agreement), quote (price confirmation, deal mostly agreed), or SOW (execution contract, often attached to an MSA). If unclear: early-stage = proposal; verbal yes = quote or SOW.

## Process

1. **Classify the document and size it.** Quote: 1-2 pages. Proposal: 4-8 pages for deals under ~$50k, up to 10-12 for six-figure or RFP-driven deals. SOW: 3-8 pages. If the user's draft is 20+ pages, cut — win rates drop as reading effort rises; every page must earn its place.

2. **Extract the buyer's language.** From discovery notes, pull 3-5 verbatim phrases the buyer used to describe their problem, the cost of inaction, and their desired outcome. These phrases seed the executive summary. If a buyer said "we're bleeding renewals in Q3," the summary says "bleeding renewals," not "suboptimal retention performance."

3. **Write the executive summary first — the mirror.** One page maximum, four moves in order:
   - **Their situation** (2-3 sentences, their words): what's happening and what triggered action now.
   - **Cost of inaction** (1-2 sentences, quantified where possible): what staying still costs per month/quarter.
   - **Desired outcome** (1-2 sentences): the after-state, in business metrics, not features.
   - **Why us, briefly** (1-2 sentences): the single strongest differentiator plus one proof point.
   Rule: the buyer's company name should appear more often than yours on this page. Zero product-feature lists here. A skeptical exec reading only this page should be able to approve the deal.

4. **Build the good-better-best tiers.** Three options, decision point below:
   - **Anchor high**: present Best first (leftmost or topmost). The first price seen sets the reference; everything after looks reasonable by comparison.
   - **Design Better as the intended choice**: 60-70% of buyers pick the middle option when tiers are well constructed. Better should contain everything discovery said they need — no more.
   - **Good** strips scope (fewer deliverables, slower timeline, less support), never quality. It exists to make Better look complete and to give budget-constrained buyers a yes instead of a no.
   - **Best** adds genuinely valuable expansion (more scope, faster timeline, senior staffing, extended support) at +30-60% over Better. Some buyers take it; its main job is anchoring.
   - Price gaps: Good→Better roughly +25-50%; Better→Best roughly +30-60%. If Best is 3x Good, the tiers read as unrelated products.
   - Name tiers by outcome or scope ("Foundation / Growth / Scale"), never "Bronze/Silver/Gold" — metal names signal arbitrary packaging.
   - Decision point: skip tiering and quote a single option only when (a) an RFP mandates one price, (b) the deal is under ~$2k and tier-reading costs more than it gains, or (c) scope was already negotiated line-by-line.

5. **Apply pricing presentation psychology.** Concrete rules:
   - Write prices without currency-symbol emphasis and without trailing ".00" — `$24,500` not `$24,500.00`; smaller visual footprint reads as smaller cost.
   - Precise numbers beat round ones for negotiated work: $23,400 signals calculation; $25,000 signals a guess and invites a haircut.
   - Reframe to the operating unit when it helps: "$1,950/month" reads smaller than "$23,400/year"; "$12 per user per month" smaller still. Show the annual total once for honesty, lead with the friendlier unit.
   - Put an ROI or payback line adjacent to the price: "Recovering 2 of the ~10 monthly churned accounts covers the full fee." Price should never appear on a page with no value statement.
   - Itemize scope, not labor. Line items like "40 hours senior consultant @ $250" invite line-item vetoes; "Onboarding audit and migration plan" does not. Quotes for physical goods are the exception — itemize fully.
   - Never present price in the subject line, cover letter, or page 1. Price appears after the situation, outcome, and approach — context before cost.

6. **Place social proof at the three doubt points.** Proof works where skepticism spikes, not in a trophy case at the back:
   - **After the executive summary**: one short case reference matching the buyer's industry or problem ("For [similar company], this approach cut onboarding time 38% in one quarter").
   - **Beside the recommended tier**: a one-line testimonial or metric that validates the middle option specifically.
   - **Near the price/ROI section**: the hardest number you have — payback period, revenue impact, or renewal rate from a real client.
   Logos: one row of 4-6, ideally same industry or size as the buyer, placed after the summary. Mark anything unverified `[VERIFY: ...]`.

7. **Write scope with equal precision on inclusions and exclusions.** Every deliverable gets: what it is, the format it arrives in, and acceptance criteria ("a 15-page audit report delivered as PDF, reviewed in a 60-minute walkthrough call"). Then an explicit "Out of scope" list of the 3-6 things adjacent buyers commonly assume are included. Ambiguity here becomes unpaid work or a dispute later. For SOWs, add: milestone schedule with dates, change-request process (written approval + price before work), and named responsibilities on both sides (client provides X by date Y; delays shift the timeline day-for-day).

8. **Set terms and validity.**
   - **Validity window**: 14-30 days, stated as a date, not a duration ("valid through August 6, 2026"). This is the only honest urgency lever in a proposal; a proposal with no expiry invites indefinite stalling. Tie it to something real when possible (Q3 capacity, current rate card).
   - **Payment terms**: services default 50% deposit / 50% on completion, or monthly for engagements over 8 weeks; SaaS default annual prepay with a monthly option at +15-20%; net-30 invoicing unless the buyer's procurement dictates otherwise.
   - **Standard clauses to include**: payment schedule, late-payment terms (e.g., 1.5%/month), IP ownership and transfer point (on final payment), confidentiality, termination notice (15-30 days written), limitation of liability (typically capped at fees paid), and expense treatment. Flag that legal review is the user's responsibility — draft the business terms, don't practice law.

9. **Assemble, then cut.** Order the sections per the Output format below. Then do a cut pass: delete any paragraph that describes the seller without advancing the buyer's decision (company history, mission statements, team bios beyond one line per person on the delivery team). Target: buyer-focused words outnumber seller-focused words at least 2:1. Run the "so what" test on every sentence in the first two pages.

10. **Build the post-send follow-up plan.** The proposal send is a play, not an event:
    - **Never email-and-pray on deals over ~$5k.** Book a 20-30 minute walkthrough call BEFORE sending; send the document 1-24 hours before that call so they skim, and you present it live. Live-presented proposals close materially more often because you control the narrative and catch objections in the room.
    - **Send-day**: short email framing the one thing to look at first ("Page 2 is the summary of what we discussed; the three options start on page 4"). No "let me know if you have questions" — instead propose the next step with a specific time.
    - **Day 2-3** (if no walkthrough happened): value-add touch, not a check-in. Send a relevant case study, a relevant benchmark, or an answer to a question they raised on the call.
    - **Day 5-7**: direct ask — "Which of the three options is closest? Happy to adjust scope on any of them." Naming the options invites engagement without a yes/no trap.
    - **Day 10-14**: expiry reminder referencing the validity date, plus an easy out: "If priorities shifted, tell me and I'll close the file — no hard feelings." The takeaway close often revives silent deals.
    - **After expiry**: one final note, then move the contact into a long-term nurture track (see **follow-up-sequences**) and update stage/probability in the pipeline (see **sales-pipeline-management**).
    - If view tracking (open/view analytics from PandaDoc, Proposify, DocSend, Qwilr) is available, tell the user: a proposal viewed 3+ times or forwarded internally is a buying signal — call within 24 hours of that signal.

## Frameworks & templates

### Framework: The Mirror Test (executive summary)
A buyer should read the first page and think "they were listening." Score a draft summary: (1) contains 2+ verbatim buyer phrases, (2) quantifies cost of inaction, (3) states outcome in the buyer's metrics, (4) buyer's name appears more than seller's, (5) zero feature lists. 4/5 or better passes.

### Framework: Anchor-Target-Floor tier construction
Work backward from the number you want (Target = Better tier). Floor = Target minus 20-30% with real scope removed. Anchor = Target plus 30-60% with real value added. Present Anchor first. Sanity check: would you happily deliver every tier at its price? If Good is unprofitable or Best is padding, redesign.

### Template 1: Proposal skeleton (services/B2B, 4-8 pages)

```
[COVER] Prepared for {Buyer Company} — {Project Name}
        Prepared by {Your Name, Company} | {Date} | Valid through {Date + 21 days}

1. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY (1 page)
   {Buyer Company} is {situation in their words}. Since {trigger event},
   this has meant {quantified pain — $, hours, %, risk} every {month/quarter}.
   You told us the goal is {outcome in their metric} by {their date}.
   We recommend {one-sentence approach}. We've done this for {similar company},
   where it produced {metric}. The options below start at {Good price basis}.

2. UNDERSTANDING & GOALS (0.5-1 page)
   - Current state: {3 bullets from discovery}
   - Success looks like: {2-3 measurable outcomes with dates}
   - Constraints we're designing around: {budget cycle, systems, team, deadline}

3. RECOMMENDED APPROACH (1-2 pages)
   Phase 1 — {name} ({weeks}): {activities} → Deliverable: {artifact + format}
   Phase 2 — {name} ({weeks}): {activities} → Deliverable: {artifact + format}
   Phase 3 — {name} ({weeks}): {activities} → Deliverable: {artifact + format}
   [Proof point: "{one-line client result relevant to this approach}"]

4. YOUR OPTIONS (1 page — table, Best listed first)
   | | SCALE | GROWTH ◀ recommended | FOUNDATION |
   | Scope | {everything + expansion} | {exactly what discovery said} | {core only} |
   | Timeline | {fastest} | {standard} | {longer} |
   | Support | {premium} | {standard} | {basic} |
   | Investment | {$X × 1.4} | {$X} | {$X × 0.75} |
   "{One-line testimonial validating the recommended tier}" — {Name, Title, Company}
   ROI note: {payback logic in one sentence}

5. WHY {YOUR COMPANY} (0.5 page)
   {3 bullets: differentiators framed as buyer outcomes} + {4-6 logo row}
   Delivery team: {Name — role — one line each}

6. INVESTMENT & TERMS (0.5 page)
   Payment: {50% on signature, 50% on completion / monthly}
   Validity: pricing valid through {date}. Out of scope: {3-6 items}.
   Terms: {IP transfers on final payment; 30-day written termination;
   liability capped at fees paid; expenses billed at cost with approval}

7. NEXT STEPS (0.25 page)
   1. Reply or sign via {e-sign link} by {date}
   2. Kickoff call within {5} business days of signature
   3. {First milestone} delivered by {date}
```

### Template 2: One-page quote

```
QUOTE #{number}                                    {Date} | Valid through {date}
For: {Name, Title, Company}          From: {Name, Company, email, phone}

{One sentence: what this quote covers and the outcome it delivers.}

| Item                          | Description / unit         | Qty | Price    |
| {Deliverable or product}      | {what's included}           | {n} | {$}      |
| {Deliverable or product}      | {what's included}           | {n} | {$}      |
                                              Subtotal:            {$}
                                              {Tax/shipping}:      {$}
                                              TOTAL:               {$}

Includes: {2-3 bullets}. Excludes: {1-2 bullets}.
Payment: {terms}. Delivery/start: {timeframe from acceptance}.
To accept: {sign here / reply "approved" / PO to email} by {validity date}.
```

### Worked example: tier pricing for a $24k web project
Discovery said the buyer needs a 10-page site, CMS, and basic SEO, budget "around $25k," decision by month-end, main fear is a stale site they can't edit.
- **Foundation — $18,400**: 8 templated pages, CMS setup, launch support. (Removes: custom design system, SEO setup, training.)
- **Growth — $24,600** ◀ recommended: 10 custom pages, CMS with 2 training sessions, on-page SEO baseline, 30-day post-launch support. (Exactly the discovery scope — precise price signals a real estimate.)
- **Scale — $34,900**: everything in Growth + conversion copywriting, 6 months of iterative CRO, quarterly content templates. (Anchor; also genuinely valuable to a growth-minded buyer.)
Presentation order: Scale, Growth, Foundation. ROI line next to Growth: "Your team estimated 15 hours/month lost to agency edit requests — CMS training alone recovers roughly $1,100/month."

## Output format

Deliver to the user:
1. **The complete document** in Markdown (convertible to PDF/deck/portal format), following Template 1 or 2, with every section fully written — no bracketed prompts left except `[VERIFY: ...]` flags on unconfirmed facts and proof points.
2. **An assumptions block** at the top (not part of the proposal) listing defaults used and every `[VERIFY]` item.
3. **The send-day email** (under 120 words) framing the walkthrough or the one page to read first, with a specific proposed meeting time.
4. **The follow-up plan** as a dated 5-touch schedule (send-day, day 2-3, day 5-7, day 10-14, post-expiry) with a one-line draft of each touch.
5. **Two negotiation pre-reads**: the most likely objection to the recommended tier and the pre-planned concession (scope trade, never naked discount — "we can hit that number by moving training to self-serve").

## Quality checklist

Pass/fail every item before delivering:

1. Executive summary passes the Mirror Test (4/5 or better) and fits on one page.
2. Buyer's company name appears more often than the seller's in the first two pages.
3. Cost of inaction is quantified (or explicitly flagged as unavailable) in the summary.
4. Exactly 2-3 options presented (unless single-option exception applies), highest first, with the recommended tier visually marked.
5. Tier price gaps fall within Good→Better +25-50% and Better→Best +30-60%.
6. Every price appears adjacent to a value or ROI statement; no price on page 1.
7. Prices written without trailing ".00"; negotiated work uses precise, non-round numbers.
8. Social proof appears at all three doubt points (post-summary, beside recommended tier, near price) and every proof point is sourced or marked `[VERIFY]`.
9. Every deliverable states format and acceptance criteria; an explicit out-of-scope list exists with 3+ items.
10. Validity stated as a calendar date 14-30 days out; payment terms and deposit specified.
11. Next-steps section names the exact acceptance action and a date — not "let us know."
12. Total length within target (quote ≤2 pages; proposal ≤8 pages under $50k); no company-history filler survived the cut pass.
13. Follow-up plan has 5 dated touches, and deals over $5k have a walkthrough call proposed before or with the send.
14. No invented client names, metrics, or logos anywhere.

## Common mistakes

- **The autobiography opening.** Page 1 is "About Us," the mission statement, and the founding story. The buyer's problem doesn't appear until page 4. Buyers skim to the price, find no case for it, and anchor on cost alone. The summary mirrors them; your story gets half a page, later.
- **One option, one price.** A single quote makes the decision "yes or no." Tiers make it "which one," shift the negotiation to scope, and capture budget-flexible buyers who would have paid more. Sellers who tier typically lift average deal size 15-30% versus single-option quoting.
- **Fake-differentiated tiers.** Good/Better/Best where the only difference is support response time or a seat count nobody hits. Buyers smell arbitrary packaging and pick the cheapest. Every tier boundary must remove or add something the buyer visibly cares about.
- **The round-number confession.** "$25,000" for a scoped project reads as "we guessed," and procurement counters $20,000. "$24,600" reads as arithmetic and gets challenged far less.
- **Hourly-rate itemization on value work.** Listing "60 hours @ $200" converts a value conversation into a rate audit and invites "can you do it in 45 hours?" Price the outcome; keep the hours math internal.
- **Silent scope.** "Website redesign — $24,600" with no exclusions list. Three weeks post-signature, the buyer expects copywriting, photography, and hosting migration "obviously included." The exclusions list is cheaper than the dispute.
- **No expiry, or a fake one.** Proposals valid "until further notice" grant infinite stalling; "48-hour flash pricing" on a $60k B2B deal insults a committee that needs three weeks to convene. 14-30 days, tied to something real.
- **Email-and-pray.** Sending a six-figure proposal as an attachment with "thoughts?" surrenders the presentation to whoever forwards it internally, stripped of your narrative. Walk it through live; the document is the leave-behind, not the pitch.
- **Check-in follow-ups.** "Just bumping this" and "any update?" add zero value and train the buyer to ignore you. Every touch delivers something — a proof point, an answer, a scope adjustment offer, or a clean takeaway close.
- **Discounting without trading.** Dropping 15% at the first flinch teaches the buyer the first number was padded and invites a second round. Every concession removes scope, extends timeline, or changes payment terms — see **objection-handling** for the conversation itself.