Proposal Kit

Monday, July 18, 2011

How to Write a Food Industry or Catering Business Proposal

Learn how to go about creating a food industry business proposal that will win more clients or sell more products. Anyone can slap a price quote together, but that isn't often a winning strategy, especially when there is so much stiff competition. You need to show your potential client that you can be trusted to deliver on the services they need. This article will teach you how.

Do you need to write a proposal to promote your food-related business to a prospective client or to get funding? It doesn't have to be an intimidating process. The goals for any business proposal are: introduce yourself, highlight your products and/or services, describe the costs, and convince the client that you are the right choice for the job or you are worth investing in. To speed up the proposal writing process, you can use pre-designed templates and get ideas from sample proposals.

Whether you are describing a catering service, pitching a food service (deli) to be installed within another company, buying or selling a food franchise or food vending business, requesting that a grocery store of specialty store chain carry your food product, or even asking for funding to start up or expand a restaurant, the proposal structure will be similar. Here's the basic structure to follow: introduce yourself, then summarize the prospective client's needs, describe your services and costs, and finally, provide information about your organization, your credentials, and your capabilities.

For a food-related business, you will also need to include some detailed information about your services, menus, or products that are of interest to the specific client. For example, a catering service might need to include menus and décor themes from which the client can select, and a food vending operation might need to explain how machines will be operate and which items will be stocked.

Always keep in mind that the purpose of a proposal is to persuade your potential clients to give you their business or loan you their money. You must prove that you can deliver the products or services they need. A simple price list can never substitute for a real proposal.

Proposals should be targeted to a specific client. This means you need to gather information about your client so that you can present a proposal tailored to that individual client's needs. It's never a good idea to send all prospective clients the same sales letter. Clients are much more likely to accept a proposal tailored just for them.

So, let's get back to the order described above. Start your proposal with a Cover Letter and a Title Page. The Cover Letter should deliver a brief personal introduction and contain your company contact information. The Title Page is just what it sounds like: the name of your specific proposal (for example, "Proposed Catering Plan for Your Awards Banquet", "Proposal to Place Food Vending Machines in Community College Buildings" or “Business Plan Funding for Hot Stuff Bakery”).

After this introduction section, add topics that describe the needs of your client. If you are presenting a proposal for a complex project, you may need to write a summary to precede the detail pages. In a proposal for a corporate client, this is normally called an Executive Summary. For a less formal but still complex proposal, it's more often called a Client Summary. In this summary and the following detail pages, you should demonstrate your understanding of the client's requirements, goals, and desires, as well as discussing any restrictions or limitations you are aware of. This section should be all about the client.

Next is your chance to advertise yourself. Follow your introduction section and the client section with pages that describe what you are offering. These pages might have general headings like Services Provided, Samples (offering the client to pre-sample selections from your menu or food products), Benefits, and Services Cost Summary, Product Cost Summary, Entertainment (if provided with food service), as well as more specific pages that detail the products and/or services you can provide and explain the associated costs, the number of people that will be served and so on.

Your specific business will determine the specialized topics and pages you need to include in your proposal.

A catering service might need to include topics like Specialization (to highlight a specific niche you excel in) Services Provided, Options, Cost Summary, Events, Entertainment, Rentals, Special Needs, Policies and a Contract and Terms.

A deli or fast food franchise might want pages such as a Location Analysis, Future Potential, Financial Information, Income Project, Feasibility Study and other business opportunity templates describing the business opportunity.

A company selling a product to a store might include Product Cost Summary or Price List, Distribution, Market and Audience, Marketing Plan, Ingredients, Packaging, Footprint, Cost/Benefit Analysis, Quality Control and Benefits.

A business proposing to provide school lunches for students would need to provide additional details to show they can handle the volume and safety requirements. You can add topics for Requirements, Facilities, Safety Plan, Training Plan (for how your employees are trained), Certifications, Insurance, Quality Control, Experience, Capabilities, Capacity and so forth.

Specialty businesses such as event planners, party planners and wedding planners typically have to incorporate catering services as just one component of a larger proposal and will deal with additional topics such as the Venue, Performers, Products, Logistics, Packages and so on.

If you're asking for funding to start a food business (anything from a coffee shop or bakery to a full size restaurant), you'll want to add pages such as a Competitive Analysis, Industry Trends, Market and Audience, Marketing Plan, Insurance, Liability, Time Line, Funding Request, Services Provided, Products, Company Operations, Balance Sheet, Income Projection, Sources of Funds, Uses of Funds, Personnel, Legal Structure and any other topics required by the lender.
Here are some examples of food industry proposals created using Proposal Pack:
In your last proposal section, provide your company details, including pages such as Company History or About Us, Capabilities, Testimonials, Our Clients, or References. Your goal in this section is to convince the prospective client that you can be trusted to deliver the goods and/or services they need and want.

Those are the basic steps for organizing and writing the proposal. But you're not quite finished yet. After you have all the information down on the pages, focus on ensuring that your proposal is visually appealing. Incorporate your company logo, use colored page borders, and/or select interesting fonts and custom bullets to add color and flair. Just be sure to match your company style when making these selections.

Proposal Pack for Any Business covers all food industry proposals and includes the samples listed above. There are also some specialty design themes available.

To finalize your proposal, it's essential to proofread and spell-check every page. It's always a good idea to get someone other than the proposal writer to do a final proof, because it's very common to overlook mistakes in your own work.

When the final touches have been completed, print it or save it as a PDF file, and then deliver it to the client. The delivery method you should use will depend on your relationship with your potential client. While it's common to email PDF files to clients, a nicely printed, personally signed, and hand-delivered proposal may make more of an impression and demonstrate that you're willing to make an extra effort for the client.

So, to sum up, a food-business proposal can vary widely in content depending on the business and the project. Each company's proposal contents will need to be a bit different. But all these proposals will have a similar format and follow a similar structure.

If you'd like to get a jump start using pre-designed templates with simple instructions and tons of suggestions for content, you can use Proposal Pack which includes all of the material mentioned above. The product also includes many sample food business proposals that will give you great ideas and help you easily create your own successful proposal.

Friday, July 8, 2011

How to Write a Janitorial or Cleaning Proposal

You know your business inside and out, and you know your clients and what they need from you. So writing a business proposal to sell your janitorial or cleaning services doesn't have to be a difficult task.

There are plenty of resources available to show you how to introduce yourself, highlight your services, present your costs and help your clients understand you are the right person to trust for the job. Using pre-designed templates and samples along with some automation software can help you write your proposal quickly and efficiently.

Writing a business proposal for janitorial services is pretty straightforward (including niche specialties such as maid services, carpet cleaning services, corporate event cleanup, window washers, crime scene cleanup, smoke and water damage cleanup, commercial facility cleaning, special needs cleaning such as restaurants and gyms, and so on).

All of these situations are examples of businesses selling a service; so these proposals will all fall under the general category of business proposals offering services.

Most proposals offering services, regardless of the type of business, follow a similar structure: introductions, then a summary of the client's needs, followed by descriptions of the services and costs and information about the service provider and their credentials and capabilities.

The average proposal is five to ten pages long, depending on the size and special needs of the client and the type of janitorial or cleaning business. A very short quote or bid can be as short as a two-page Work Order and Price List.

If the janitorial proposal is for a large account such as a commercial business, you will also usually need to include detailed information pertaining to the specific client. For cleaning jobs that are smaller and narrowly defined, you can usually create a few variations on your proposal. For example, have one standard proposal for residential jobs, another for small commercial jobs and another for any specialized services you cater to.

If you are new to proposal writing, one thing to note is that a price list is not a substitute for a proposal. A proposal is a sales document meant to help persuade your potential clients to give you their business. To do that, you must instill trust that you can deliver the services that clients need. It's not all about just giving them a price quote, especially if you have competition to deal with.

Before you start creating a tailored proposal for your more important clients, you should gather enough information about the client to present a proposal that is truly tailored to that client's needs, as opposed to just sending every client an identical sales letter (which you can usually get away with for small, well-defined jobs). A tailored proposal stands a much better chance of being accepted by the client.

So, following the general order described above, you should start out with a Cover Letter and Title Page to introduce yourself. The Cover Letter should be a brief message that shows your company contact information and delivers a personal introduction. You should print your Cover Letter on your company letterhead. The Title Page should introduce your proposal and name the specific job you are discussing.

Next, add some topics that show that you understand the needs of your client. Depending on how large a job you are presenting a plan for, you may or may not need to include a detailed summary. For a complex job that needs a summary, this proposal section is normally called an Executive Summary for corporate clients, or a Client Summary for a less formal project. This is where you talk about your specific prospective client and show your understanding of their requirements as well as their needs and concerns (such as security, liability and hazardous materials handling). This is not yet the place where you talk about your company. Put the client first.

Follow the introductions and client information with your Services Provided, Products, Price List, Benefits, Services Cost Summary, Warranty, Guarantee and Contract & Terms pages, as well as any other topics you need to discuss that describe exactly what you are providing and how much it will cost.

Many types of janitorial or cleaning proposals may also require specialized topics. These are used when you need to address specific concerns such as your employees' training; that they wear readily identifiable uniforms and carry identification and have passed background checks; that they have specialized training in hazardous waste handling, etc. This is where you would add pages with pertinent details, such as descriptions of your Insurance, Equipment, Security, Safety Plan, Training Plan, Quality Control, Certifications, Personnel, Environmental issues, and so on.

A janitorial company may have to deal with many different topics at once, such as selling both services and products as well as servicing multiple locations for a client, along with all the associated equipment and logistical needs.

A cleaning company with a very well defined niche such as a mobile carpet cleaning service will have a much shorter proposal with fewer topics.

A highly specialized niche cleaning company such as an accident or crime scene cleanup crew will have very specialized topics they need to discuss related to hazardous or biological waste handling and environmental issues.

A janitorial company performing higher risk jobs will need an extra focus on equipment, staff training, safety, liability, and security concerns.
Here are examples of janitorial and cleaning proposals created using Proposal Pack:
The final information sections you should provide in your proposal are your company details. This is where you would put your About Us / Company History, Qualifications, Capabilities, Our Clients, Testimonials or References, Policies and Customer Service pages. This information comes last in the proposal, and your goal is to convince your client that you can be trusted to deliver the services they need.

After you have all the information written for your proposal outline and chapters, you should focus on making your proposal visually appealing. Add some color and graphics by incorporating your company logo, using colored borders, and selecting custom bullet points and fonts that match your business's style.

Proposal Pack for Any Business covers all janitorial/cleaning proposals and includes the samples listed above.

Once you feel your proposal is complete, make sure to carefully proofread and spell-check all the pages. Have someone who is unfamiliar with your proposal proof it as well. It's very common to quickly scan your own work and miss mistakes.

Finally, you can save your proposal as a PDF file or print it on paper and then deliver it to your potential client. Your delivery method will depend on your business and your relationship with your potential client. Emailing PDF files to clients is very common; however, there are times when a printed, signed and hand-delivered proposal can carry more weight. It shows you value that client enough to put in the extra personal effort. The more valuable the job is and the tighter the competition is, the more personal effort you should put into the proposal and delivery.

As you can see, a “janitorial” proposal can mean something different to everyone who needs to write one, and everyone’s needs for what to include will be different.

The good news is that all janitorial proposals follow a similar format and structure, and you can find all the templates and samples mentioned in this article in Proposal Pack. And you will also find sample proposals already written that can help you get started right away.