Eric Deeran argues written proposals kill deals by inviting price-shopping and losing momentum. His framework closes on the call instead: discover pain, quantify the cost of inaction, present a plan, get agreement before naming price, then invoice immediately. Verbal closes convert three to five times better than email proposals.
Stop sending proposals. They are killing your deals. Here's what most agencies do. You send the proposal, you're super proud of it, you design it really well, you think through it, you're like, oh, this is an amazing proposal, let me send it over. The client opens it, maybe they skim the price and they skip everything else that you put in there. Then they send it to 2 or 3 competitors to price shop you. They'll show it to their spouse or CFO who was never on the call and is skeptical, and all they see is the price. Then they hit you with, I need to think about it, this is a big investment, or we don't have the budget. Which really just translates to the urgency is gone, and then they ghost you and the deal is gone. Most agencies send proposals because they are uncomfortable with an actual sales process, but it is losing you deals left and right, and I'm gonna show you exactly how to fix it. Because the proposal didn't lose you the deal, sending it did. Here's what sending a proposal actually does. Number 1, it invites price shopping, people to shop you around to other competitors 'cause now they have a price and a proposal from you. Number 2, it strips out all of your conviction because you are not there to walk them through the proposal. You're simply just sending it over email, hoping and praying that they pay. It also invites people who weren't on the call to have an opinion now, and because they didn't have any context from the actual call, they're extremely skeptical of the price and working with you. It's also just lazy selling. Instead of spending the time to walk the client through the proposal, you just send it to them hoping and praying that they pay you. It also lets all of the momentum of the deal die because you're not there to keep them excited and walk them through the process yourself. And statistically, every hour between the call and the close is hours that the deal is dying. You need to close people on the call and bring that fancy proposal and walk them through it on a call with them. Do not send it to them without walking through it on a call. Statistically, verbal close rates on calls are 3 to 5 times higher than just sending a proposal because you can conquer objections, you can walk them through options, you can talk them through the project and get them excited about it, and you have a much higher close rate when you do it on the call. This is why you're losing deals left and right. Here's exactly what to do instead. This is what a call looks like when it closes. Number 1, you discover the pain. Where are you right now? Where do you wanna be? And understand that gap between the two things. Number 2, you need to quantify the cost of inaction. What does staying here cost you every single month? Number 3, present the plan. Walk them through exactly what you're gonna build with them together. Make sure they don't have any other questions about the actual process before you move on here. And this is key, get agreement before the price. How do you feel about the plan specifically? You are not allowed to pitch them until you get their full buy-in that this is what they need and now is the right time, and they should be asking you and begging you to tell them the price. Once you get that, move on to the next one, which is name the investment. Say how much it is, state it confidently, pause, and let them respond. Don't overtalk here. Big mistake I see is a lot of agency owners will overtalk this part because they're nervous. Say confidently and just let them respond. And then number 6, send the invoice and collect the payment on the call. If they say yes and they want to do it, collect the payment and collect the money on the call. I can't tell you how many times I talk to people where they say, oh yeah, we closed the deal, it's amazing. And I ask, oh great, did you get the payment on the call? They say, no, no, I didn't. And then, and then 9 times out of 10, that deal falls through the cracks and never closes. Get the payment on the call if they say they're ready to go. Who's on the call? Send the link, collect the money. We've walked over 88 agency owners through this exact process. If you want our help doing this, click the link below, schedule a call with us. We'll see if we can help.
