Spend more time in discovery
When it's appropriate, try to lengthen the time you spend in discovery. The temptation is to meet with a client, get excited, have a good discovery call, and then put together a proposal and send it over. That's too fast.
If the client's timeline allows for it, have multiple calls. Meet with other people on the leadership team, assuming there are others to meet with. The more time you spend marinating with them, the more likely they'll be happy to move forward.
Buyers give you very little time
There's a good reason not to rush. In Gartner's 2017 survey of 750 B2B buyers, buyers spent just 17 percent of their buying time meeting with potential suppliers. With three suppliers in the running, each one gets only about 5 percent of the buyer's time.
If discovery is one call and then a document, that's all the time you get. Every extra conversation is time they spend with you instead of researching on their own or talking with someone else.
Learn the numbers before you price
The other thing is to learn while you're in those calls, especially about money. I never want to see anybody lose a job because of price.
If you're pitching to fill an executive role, there's nothing wrong with asking for their profit and loss statement and balance sheet before you put your proposal together. They can be top level. They don't need every detail. That will give you clues about what belongs in your proposal.
You can also just ask. Here's the size of the problem you have, here's the mountain we're going to climb. What range are you looking to invest to get from where you are to where you want to be? Now you have a range in mind when you write.
Go in armed
When you send the proposal, you'll already have their financials and a range for what they want to spend to fix the problem. If they turn you down, it won't be because of money.
If you want more good conversations to bring into discovery in the first place, book a networking chat.