The Ultimate Guide to Starting and Building Your Consulting Business

Strategies, Tactics, and Tools to
Help You Build a Thriving Consulting Business

Writing Consulting Proposals and Monthly Retainers

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While every consulting assignment is different, they all include important paperwork that prevents disagreements and legal problems. Consulting proposals and monthly retainers are far more than just legal "paperwork". Done properly proposals make expectations realistic and cement the relationship you have built in your client interviews. Monthly retainers can significantly boost your income while giving you an even cashflow.

Accelerate your business with templates for frequently used legal and project documents. You can save time using contract proposal templates that make it straightforward and keep you from turning a winning two-page proposal into a 12-page tome that no one reads.

Writing consulting proposals, retainer agreements, and Statements of Work is
the back office work that wins clients and helps work flow smoothly

How to write a consulting proposal, consulting proposal templates, retainer templates, and Statement of Work templates are all part of the Consulting Mastery Courses(tm).

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Writing Retainers for Recurring Income and
Client Support

Retainers help both you and your clients. They help you build recurring income. Retainers help your client by guaranteeing that you will be available to support them with decision making or with guaranteed work availability.

Retainers should be written as part of the original proposal and presented as a means of giving the client on-going support. Retainers are usually written for a monthly basis, but they can also be done quarterly or annually. Of course, your retainer agreement must include responsibilities, deliverables, and payments.

Writing Statements of Work to Clarify Requirements and Deliverables

Every consulting assignment, no matter how large or small, should have a Statement of Work (SOW). An SOW is like a travel itinerary that specifies cities, times, and events. It gives you, the client, and other stakeholders a clear picture of deliverables, responsibilities, and deadlines. A well-written SOW prevents disagreements and clearly defines jobs and deliverables.

You don’t always have to have a Statement of Work, but when there are questions or things go wrong you will wish you had one.

Writing Proposals that Win Clients

Consulting proposals are written by the consultant and sent to the potential client defining the work to be done, requirements, and conditions. It is a good idea to write a Statement of Work to go with the proposal.

In most cases you and the client will define the work requirements and details before you write the proposal. A good way to get buy-in and ensure your proposal covers all requirements is to have stakeholder meetings where all stakeholders build a consensus on the Statement of Work.

Structuring Proposals as Portfolios of Solutions and Fees

An addendum that covers additional work or solutions can help the client and you. You need to keep the body of the proposal as simple and straightforward as possible so it doesn’t distract or confuse the client’s decision. However, you can include additional tiers of solutions as an addendum in case the client wants to reduce or expand the scope of work.

Packaging sets of additional extensions is a little like creating a ladder of solutions with the simplest and least expensive at the bottom rung and additional related solutions (and fees) on higher rungs. The solution you and the client agreed upon should be the main solution in the proposal.

By supplying additional tiers of scope and solutions the prospect can see that you are ready to solve related problems that might arise.

Additional services you might suggest in an addendum might include combinations of,

  • Board and executive facilitation
  • Executive and management mentoring
  • Research and development
  • Project management
  • Product development
  • Classroom training
  • Online training
  • Train-the-trainer workshops
  • Manuals, eBooks, and PDFs

Your foresight in developing a portfolio of solutions shows that you have more value than just completing a simple project or task. Proposals with depth can open your prospect’s eyes to building a long-term relationship with you.

Return to top: Ultimate Guide to Starting a Consulting Business

The Ultimate Guide to Starting and Building a
Thriving Consulting Business

Get Your Free Copy
115-pages of Strategies, Tactics, and Tips to
Accelerate Your Consulting Business

Click to Download