Do you need to write a proposal to promote your financial services business to a prospective client? It doesn’t have to be an intimidating process. The goals of any business proposal are to introduce yourself, highlight your services and/or products, outline costs, and convince the client that you are the right choice for the job or worthy of being trusted with their finances. To speed up the proposal writing process, you can use pre-built templates and get sample proposal ideas.
Whether you’re describing an accounting, payroll, insurance, or brokerage service, opening a franchise, or even applying for financing to start or expand your business, the proposal structure will be similar. Here’s the basic structure to follow: introduce yourself, then outline the prospect’s needs, describe your services and costs, and finally provide information about your organization, credentials, and capabilities.
For a financial services company, you will also need to include detailed information about your services or products that are of interest to the specific customer. For example, an accounting firm may need to include a variety of options depending on the size of the client’s business (services for a one-person business will be different from services for a 10-person business if you’re also doing things such as payroll services). An insurance broker may need to explain different types of policies for a wide variety of situations.
Always keep in mind that the purpose of a proposal is to persuade your potential clients to give you their business or manage their hard-earned money. You must show that you can deliver the products or services they need. A simple price list can never replace a real proposal.
Proposals must be addressed to a specific client. This means that you need to gather information about your client so that you can present a proposal tailored to the needs of that individual client. It is never a good idea to send all potential clients the same sales letter. Clients are much more likely to accept a proposal designed just for them.
So, let’s go back to the order described above. Start your proposal with a cover letter and title page. The cover letter should offer a brief personal introduction and contain your company’s contact information. The title page is exactly what it sounds like: the name of your specific proposal (for example, “Accounting and Payroll Services,” “Get Ready for Financial Freedom,” “Insurance Policy Options for Westbridge, LLC,” or “Refinancing of your mortgage”).
After the introduction section, add topics that describe your customer’s needs. If you are submitting a proposal for a detailed set of services, you may need to write a summary before the detail pages. In a proposal for a corporate client, this is typically called an Executive Summary. For a less formal but still complex proposal, it is often called a Client Summary. In this summary and the following detail pages, you should demonstrate your understanding of the client’s needs, goals, and desires, as well as discuss any disclaimers or risks that need to be disclosed. This section should be all about the client.
Next is your chance to advertise. Follow your introduction section and client section with pages that describe what you are offering. These pages may have general headings such as Services Provided, Policies, Benefits, Service Cost Summary, and Product Cost Summary, as well as more specific pages that detail the products and/or services you may provide and explain associated costs.
Your specific business will determine the specialized topics and pages you need to include in your proposal.
An accounting and payroll service may need to include pages with titles such as Specialization (to highlight a specific niche in which you excel), Services Provided, Accounting, Reporting, Tax, Project Management, Administration, Audit, Options, Summary of costs, Policies, Billing, as well as the Agreement and Terms pages.
An insurance broker may include topics such as Needs Analysis, Client History, Insurance, Coverage, Policies, Risk Analysis, Recommendations, Comparison Chart and Options, in addition to the standard service topics. Since proposals in some areas may be binding on the contract, make sure limitations, coverage exclusions, and time limits are covered in your disclaimers, and consult your local attorney to make sure your proposals and contracts conform. to local laws.
A financial company can include topics such as Financing, Payment Plan, Options, Consolidation, Collateral and Guarantees, Payment Options, Payment Schedule, etc.
A company that sells investment or brokerage services will need to include information not only about its products and services, but in these times, such a company must also provide impeccable credentials. Consider adding information about your services provided, products, policies, disclaimers, risk analysis, risk management, industry trends, recommendations, return on investment, commissions, assets, clients served, references, experience, ratings, reputation , customer service, company history, and so on.
If you’re applying for financing to start a financial services business (anything from a small accounting firm to an insurance franchise), you’ll want to add pages like Competitive Analysis, Industry Trends, Market & Audience, Marketing Plan, Insurance. , liability, timeline, financing request, services provided, products, company operations, balance sheet, income projection, sources of funds, uses of funds, personnel, legal structure and any other subject required by the lender.
In your latest proposal section, provide your company details, including pages such as Company History or About Us, Ratings, Certifications, Memberships, Testimonials, Our Clients, or References. Your goal in this section is to convince the potential customer that they can trust you to deliver the goods and/or services they need and want and manage their money responsibly.
Those are the basic steps to organize and write the proposal. But you’re not done yet. Once you have all the information on the pages, focus on making sure your proposal is visually appealing. Incorporate your company logo, use colored page borders, and/or select interesting fonts and custom bullet points to add color and flair. Just be sure to match your company’s style when making these selections.
To finalize your proposal, it is essential to check and spell check each page. It’s always a good idea to ask someone other than the proposal writer to do a final proof, because it’s all too common to overlook mistakes in your own work.
When the final touches are complete, print it or save it as a PDF file and then hand it over to the client. Which delivery method you should use will depend on your relationship with your prospect. While it’s common to email PDFs to clients, a well-printed, personally signed, hand-delivered proposal can make more of an impression and show that you’re willing to go the extra mile for the client.
So, in summary, a financial services proposal can vary greatly in content depending on the business and the size and needs of the client. The content of each company’s proposal will need to be a little different. But all of these proposals will have a similar format and will follow a similar structure.
If you want to get started with using pre-built templates with easy instructions and extensive content suggestions, you can use the proposal pack, which includes all the material mentioned above. It also includes sample completed financial services proposals that will give you great ideas and help you easily create your own successful proposal.
