In order to send an official business proposal, you have to have a business plan. These are two different document types that people often confuse and mix.
Let’s take a look at the difference between the two, starting with the document you should have in place before submitting an official business proposal.
A business plan is a document that describes what your organization looks like and what services and deliveries you would provide.
As a student at BI Norwegian Business School, I learned that a business plan should include the following three elements:
A business plan is a document you would not typically send to your client but to lawyers, insurance providers, banks, suppliers and other stakeholders that would find this relevant for understanding your business and its value.
A business proposal describes what you can deliver, time frame, amount, cost and your terms and conditions. This is a document you would use to respond to a specific request from your client, or you would send it to your client or prospect describing what you can deliver, at what price.
When you respond to a specific request, also known as an RFP (request for proposal), you should follow this rule of thumb:
There are many different ways to write a business proposal, and many different solutions to write it with. For the best possible outcome in terms of control, cost-efficiency, time savings and security, use an enterprise-grade co-authoring and automation tool.
The proposal solution XaitPorter is used by companies all over the world for this purpose. Here are six key advantages of using XaitPorter to create your business proposals and other high-impact, high-value documents: