380 - Walkthrough of my 15k website proposal (real world paid example)

Here's a walk through of one of my real world, paid 15k web design proposals. I walk you through what I included, how I structured it and the 3 keys I recommend that every web design proposal have.

This audio is taken from a recent video I posted on my YouTube channel so I highly recommend checking out the video version if you'd like to see all the visuals!

⏯️ Watch the video version here

And you share your thoughts, feedback and questions at the show notes for this one which will be at joshhall.co/380

Quick tips:

Web proposals don't need to be complex PDF brochures to be effective—they need to clearly communicate goals, deliverables, and pricing to help clients make decisions quickly.

• Website proposals should focus on three key elements: goals and expected results, a simple outline of deliverables, and clear costs presented as investments
• The most effective proposals are scannable documents of 2-3 pages, not 20-page brochures that overwhelm clients
• Include 10-15 high-level deliverables rather than an exhaustive checklist of every task you'll perform
• Separate core website development from add-on services like SEO boosts or e-commerce functionality to create clear line items
• Consider your proposal's audience—often they need to share it with CEOs or boards who need to quickly understand what they're approving
• Real examples of successful proposals show consistent structure across different project sizes, from $4,000 to $15,000
• Payment schedules should be clearly outlined with 50% upfront for smaller projects or 30/30/40 splits for larger ones

Episode Transcript

Josh Hall (00:00):
Hey friends, welcome into the show.
This is actually a replacementepisode.
I had posted a coaching call Idid with my good friend, jason
Gracia before this aboutpodcasting and there was some
miscommunication on that.
I thought he was totally finewith repurposing that, but he
said it's actually something hewanted to keep confidential just
because he's not for sure whathe's going to do with the show.

(00:20):
So with all that in mind, Iwant to be totally respectful on
that and I do need to take someownership in saying that I
probably should have doublechecked before posting that.
So, jason, if you're listening,sorry about that, my man won't
happen again, but what I wantedto do for you is I want to
replace episode three 80 withproposals, and I'm going to
actually share with you a recentvideo I posted on my YouTube

(00:42):
about proposals, how I structurethem and actually give you a
walkthrough of three of myproposals, ranging from a few
thousand dollars all the way towalking you through a $15,000
proposal.
So that's what we're going tocover in this one.
Now I do want to say by way ofpreface this is a YouTube video

(01:03):
and it's actually a lesson frommy business course, so some of
what you're going to hear is alittle more visual.
I would highly recommendchecking out the video version
of this, even when you can, justbecause we do cover some
visuals and I think some of thestuff we talk about will make
more sense once you see it.
So I will link below to thevideo on this and this will also
be at the show notes at the newepisode for episode 380, which

(01:26):
will be at joshhallco slash 380.
So bounce over there to get thelink for this video.
It'll also be below whereveryou're listening to this podcast
.
So, without further ado, here ismy recent video on my YouTube
channel about how I landed a$15,000 web design project and
you can see the actual proposal.
Hey, web designer friend, goodto have you here.

(01:47):
I want to walk you through oneof my web design proposals, and
I'm actually going to show youone of my $15,000 signed off and
paid proposals so you can seewhat I included, how I
structured it and how you canapply the same to your web
design proposal so you sign moreclients and make more money as
a web designer.
Now a couple of quick thingsbefore we dive in.

(02:08):
This is actually an entirelesson from my web design
business course, so you willhear a mention of other lessons
and you'll see a few thingsthere.
There is a link below If youwould like access to my full web
design business course.
Now, after you send a proposal,you need to have a solid
contract.
So I do have the next video Irecommend checking out below.
That walks you through myrecommended web design contract

(02:30):
layout and you can actually pullmy contract for your business.
And then, finally, if you wouldlike a way to automate your
quote, contract and invoicealtogether, I've got a video
below for you as well that willshow you exactly how I do that
with one click using a platformcalled 17 hats.
All right, let's dive into howto create a high converting web
design proposal.
The three keys to highconverting web design proposals.

(02:51):
What's interesting aboutproposals is that there is no
right or wrong way to go aboutit.
You could have a completelydifferent proposal system than
what I use and what I refine,and it could still work.
So I'm not.
What I'm about to show you isnot the way.
It is a way to do proposals.
But one thing I will tell youand recommend that you not do is
don't make a proposal a PDFwebsite, and what I mean by that

(03:16):
is, if you just Google webdesign proposal templates,
you'll see all sorts of proposaltemplates, and they often look
like this, which is basically aalmost like a wireframe of a
website.
You'll see these proposaltemplates that look basically
like a PDF website is kind ofwhat I like to call it, and this

(03:38):
is what I recommend that youavoid.
Now, I have seen agencies gothis route and it can work, but
my personal issue with this isthat number one it's a ton of
information that people have toskim through and get through
just to get to the actualproposal, which is the
deliverables and the cost, whichis what we're going to cover
here.
But on top of this, you have toremember at this point in the

(03:59):
project, the potential clienthere already knows you.
You've probably already gonethrough a ton of information.
They probably already looked atyour website.
They've probably already seen alot of this.
We just covered questionnairesbefore this, so they probably
already got a lot of thisinformation ready to go.
They just need to make a quickdecision.
One thing to remember, too, isthat often the person you're

(04:20):
talking to will need to run theproposal by a CEO or a decision
maker you're talking to willneed to run the proposal by a
CEO or a decision maker, and ifthey have to go through a 10 or
15 or 20 plus page PDF,basically like a brochure
website, then you're likelygoing to make this situation,
this proposal, way more complexand confusing than it needs to
be.
So I recommend, in short justget to the goods, so do not send

(04:43):
a PDF website.
What I'm going to show you herein my proposals, you'll see, is
very simple and gets right tothe point.
So there are three keys thatwe're going to cover when it
comes to a high convertingproposal.
Key number one showcase thegoals and results.
Make it very clear what thisproject goal is and what the
results are that you want to getto your clients.
A lot of different ways you cando that, but that's key number

(05:05):
one.
Key number two is a very simpleoutline and outlining the
deliverables.
So this is actually, you'll see, this will be basically one
thing an outline and thedeliverables that are in kind of
an outline form.
And then key number three,before we actually take a look
at this, is clear cost in atotal.
Now I put cost total and inparentheses here, investment,

(05:28):
because if you have a programwhere you can customize this or
change the verbiage to make thisreally sound like an investment
instead of a cost.
I recommend doing that.
In most invoicing softwaresit'll be shown as total, but I
put these terms in hereintentionally, because you do
not want customers and potentialclients to view this payment as

(05:49):
a cost.
It is an investment in theirbusiness.
So if you can get to the totalor investment lingo, that's
definitely the way to go.
So let me show you exactly whatthis looks like when it comes to
Remember these three, becausethis is what we're about to look
at goals, deliverables and cost.
So what I did is I actuallymocked up myself as my own

(06:10):
client and created a basicproposal, and this encompasses
the three things we just covered.
The first thing you're lookingat right here is the goals and
the results.
So in most cases, what I liketo do is send the goals and
results as a almost like aprimer email.
So somebody gets the email andthey see the goals very

(06:33):
intentionally for a projectbefore they even see the
deliverables and the costs.
It's all about priming yourclients to understand the value
and keep in mind we've done alot, probably already, to this
point, with potential discoverycalls and a lot of back and
forth and email.
But right here, when it comes tothe actual proposal, I want
somebody to know, okay, before Ieven look at the quote, this is

(06:54):
what I want to walk away withNow.
I've always liked to do thisvery simply as bullet points.
Again, you could make thishowever you would like to do it.
You could even design this.
You could actually include thissection inside the proposal
with the deliverables.
But what I'll show you herewith my workflow in 17 hats,
which is what I use, is Iactually have a workflow that

(07:14):
we'll dive into in a couplelessons here where I like to
send the goals and the resultsas an email and then now they
can review their quote, and thisalso just lets them know.
If this looks good ie the quote, you can accept the quote, sign
the contract, pay then we'rerocking and rolling.
So now when somebody sees thegoals, which is key number one
now they can click to review theactual quote.

(07:36):
And here is the mock-up quotewith the template that I have
provided for you below.
And this literally, guys, as I'mabout to show you, I'm gonna
show you some real worldexamples.
This is it?
I don't know what you had inmind and thinking that maybe my
proposals are super elegant.
We just looked at like amock-up example where there's
like a 20-page brochure proposal.

(07:58):
That's not what I do because,again, I want somebody to see
we've already done so much work.
I want somebody to see you knowwe've already done so much work
.
I want them to see what'sincluded as like a line item
style list.
That's very simple.
You could expand on this andI'm going to show you some
examples that do expand on this.
And then some benefits and thenthe total.
So right here has total Now in17 hats.

(08:22):
If I could change this toinvestment, I would love to, but
I could never figure out a wayto do that exactly.
And then somebody can acceptthis and then you'll see here,
once we get into the lessonupcoming with the workflow and
17 hats, this bounces them overto the contract.
Then they're off and running.
But sticking on the proposal,here's what I recommend.
When it comes to the mainproject, I like to start out
with a bullet list that is about10 to 15 items on average.

(08:43):
Why?
Because I don't want tooverwhelm a client.
I want them to see the highlevel.
Remember, these are thehighlights.
If you give them a 250-pointlist for the project, which is
likely all the things you'll bedoing, at least you don't want
to send them your entire processwith every little nitty-gritty
detail.
So if you go through my processcourse, that is a 50-step

(09:05):
checklist process.
You do not want to send that toyour client.
You want to keep the high-level, basic things in there.
But this is what I found coveredeverything which is development
site setup in most cases, thetools that you use, in my case
WordPress, the Divi theme andplugin installations, custom
layout and design.
If you have a templated styleapproach or if you have a more

(09:25):
bespoke custom approach, you canchange this accordingly.
Web graphics I would mentionthat if you're going to be
creating actual graphics for thesite and you can always add
constraints to this andlimitations to these Page builds
so this is where every customproposal, or every proposal in
this case, is going to have somesort of customization.
Here and as we look at theexamples, I'll show you what I

(09:46):
did with different page builds.
You could just briefly say likefive to 10 pages.
You could specify what pagesare going to be in there, but
again, you don't want to makethis a 10 page document with all
the pages, so I'll show youwhat that looks like.
Next, content creationassistance.
You are going to likely beassisting with content in some
way, so I would specify thosedetails here, like, maybe you

(10:08):
help with the content for thehomepage and a couple of service
pages, but they're providingabout contact, all the others
good stuff contact form styledand created.
Every site is generally goingto have a contact form.
Uh, if they you could putmultiple.
You could maybe get a quoteform in here, if it's a little
more robust.
In most of my projects I offerup to 10 stock images, which

(10:29):
luckily nowadays are so manyfree stock images sites.
But if you have a premiumaccount, you can mention that
here.
Social media integration basicSEO foundations.
Now, if you have add-ons forSEO, I would recommend doing
that as a separate item, whichI'll show you here.
Next, when we look at realexamples optimizing all image
and graphics for web.
That would include some bestpractices for accessibility,

(10:51):
like alt tags and stuff likethat Responsive design, so
making sure clients know it'sgoing to look good on mobile and
tablet.
Google Analytics integration ifyou do that for your clients,
and then, once it's all ready,new site transferred to live URL
.
Now, regardless of the size ofthe project, this is my middle
tier.
Once we get into services andpricing here, this is the
mid-range tier that I recommendfor you in order to do a

(11:14):
successful six-figure business.
All projects generally hadthese core elements in them.
Some projects would be less,some projects would be more, but
this pretty much encompasseseverything.
And then I always like toinclude on the actual proposal
we also provide so likeadditional benefits, and this is
where you could make this aswild as you want, but I like to
keep it simple, really clear.

(11:35):
A moving forward page withrecommendations and marketing
strategies.
Remember a few lessons backwhen I showed you the hidden
pages.
That's the moving forward pagewith recommendations and
marketing strategies.
Remember a few lessons backwhen I showed you the hidden
pages?
That's the moving forward page,the client resources page.
Even if a client doesn't updatetheir site, they get access to
that page if they want to, withadditional benefits.
And I always like to sayawesome, personalized, attentive
web design experience you justwon't find anywhere else.

(11:56):
Now I would make this your own.
I said this to a client onetime in an email and he loved it
and so I was like I'm going toput that in the proposal and it
worked really well.
And then in proposals thepayment terms and project length
is customizable and I'll showyou how to do that in a couple
lessons when I show you 17 hats.
But in my case, the paymentterms were always 50% upfront

(12:18):
and then you can always alsomake this valid.
So you can see, this proposalis valid for nearly 30 days.
So I am mocking this up on May17th 2023.
But in this case, my handsomeclient to be, josh, has about a
month to decide whether theywant to move forward.
I would not go past 30 days.

(12:38):
That's pretty industry standard.
That's actually beyond industrystandard for most proposals.
A lot of people and agencieswill end up doing about 14 days,
but I always like to givepeople a 30-day buffer, but in
often cases my clients wouldsign on immediately and then you
can set a deadline date for theproject and that is when the
remainder will be due, and Ialways like to say final payment

(12:59):
due upon project launch andthen in this case, everything
looks good.
They're going to accept it,they'll go into the contract,
which we'll cover in the nextlesson.
So that's a look at the bigthree.
I showed you the primer emailwith the goals and results.
How I formatted that was simpleas a bullet list, uh, the
outline and deliverables ofwhat's expected in the project.
I should say, too, one thing Imeant to say as we were looking

(13:20):
at that is you can always linkout to certain things, like if
somebody says what is responsive, mobile and tablet mean, you
could put a hyperlink in therein the proposal to send them
over to like a tutorial or avideo that you have for leads
that says, if you're curiousabout what responsive means, it
means it's going to look good ona phone and a tablet.
So just remember, you can kindof customize your template to

(13:41):
also link out to additionalinformation if needed and if
curious.
And then again, if you canadjust the lingo from cost to
either total or investment,definitely do it With 17 hats.
It says total, which is nice.
In an ideal world we would callit investment.
Now I told you I would show yousome real world examples.
So I'm going to show you three,these three projects that I'm

(14:03):
about to show you.
I'm going to show you theactual proposals that were
signed off on and paid Um, theyare different sizes and scope,
so I'm going to show you asimple one, a e-commerce one and
then a pretty customizable one.
So this one was for a projectthat was nearly 4,000.
And let me go ahead and zoom infor you so you can see this a
little better Now.
I did replace, because in 17Hats I replaced the branding

(14:25):
with JoshHallco instead of myagency in transit, you're seeing
from JoshHallco LLC, butpreviously this invoice showed
in Transit Studios.
So this is actually through 17Hats.
You'll see that I actuallyissued this on March 14th.
2019 is when I sold this one.
So, nearly a $4,000 project.
The redesign in this case was$34.97, which was my previous

(14:47):
base price for kind of mid-rangesites, and you'll see
everything that I just showedyou and the outline and
deliverables for my proposal.
Methodology is right here,nothing fancy.
Now, what I did do is rememberwhere I said include the details
.
This is what I said in thiscase for page builds not limited
to, but estimated 15 to 20initially, and I didn't even go

(15:10):
wild from there.
I mean, you can, you canspecify this in as much detail,
but just remember this.
Actually, in this case, they hadto get this approved by the
board.
So the board looked at this andthey didn't want to look
through a 30 page brochure, likeI recommend not doing so in
this case.
They just saw, okay, thewebsite's about 15 to 20.
Now you do need to protectyourself from scope creep, but

(15:31):
there's a lot of different waysyou can do that, which we're
actually going to get into whenwe talk about scope creep later
on in the course.
But in the case of proposals, Ijust gave myself a window.
That way, even if some of thesepages were pretty robust, we're
not going to exceed that amount, and then they could always do
additional hours and time.
This one did have a calendar, soI very clearly said transfer
calendar events.

(15:51):
In this situation, since we'reusing calendar plugin, it's
styled and formatted.
They had a donation form thatwas also embedded.
They had a newsletter sign upthat was using constant contact,
unfortunately, but we were ableto just redesign that a little
bit to make it look nice in thesite, and then everything else
is standard, like you just saw.

(16:11):
And then I did in this case nowyou could make this an entirely
separate line item, that thecost is separated, but I knew
that they were going to bemanaging events and I think they
had a blog too at some point.
So we did a custom trainingvideo on posting events, blog
posts, articles, pages, etc.
And then I offered, becausethey were a local client, to do

(16:34):
one in-person training forupdating the site, if need be.
If I could go back, I would sayone in here instead of just,
and luckily they didn't abusethat.
But if I'm advising you, Iwould say specify the amount of
trainings they would get ifthat's the case.
Now, as I mentioned when it cameto SEO, these are things that
if you're going to do moreadvanced add-on work in the

(16:55):
phase one of the project, Iwould add them as a separate
item.
Remember when we talked aboutclear cost and deliverables.
This shows what's involved inthe redesign the main part, and
then this most all my clientschose and you'll see this with
the other proposals as well andthat is what I like to call SEO
boost.
If you have not been through mySEO course, I teach about how
you can create a basic booststyle program.

(17:18):
That's almost like afoundational SEO on-site
settings.
It just boosts it a little more.
You do a few more keywordsmaybe up to 10, site optimized
for 10 keywords integrated insite content and this was really
affordable at $4.99.
But when somebody's payingseveral grand, this was just an
upsell and what I found thatthis was likely going to lead
into recurring income with mySEO services.

(17:39):
So I generally always includedSEO boost and I do generally
already talk to the client bythis point so they're not like,
oh, what's this SEO thing?
I let them know I do have anSEO boost that I recommend that
we can add on top of your site,particularly in this case,
because most clients do an SEObut some clients actually didn't
care.
So in that case I wouldn't doan SEO boost if, for any reason,

(18:02):
they just didn't.
And then here's the all the uhwe also provide.
So you'll see here this one waspaid initially in April 24th
for nearly two grand, and thenwe ended up wrapping the project
up in August, so little bitlonger than ideal, but, uh, we
were pretty swamped at thispoint when we had this project
going on.
So it all worked out well.

(18:22):
Now, this project was for ane-commerce site and I did hide
the client details and thecompany names on these just to
give them some privacy, and inmost cases clients were really
cool.
But just for the sake of this,I want to make sure that, since
we're actually looking at thedeliverables and what they're
paying, I did hide theirinformation just for privacy

(18:45):
purposes.
So same thing here.
You'll see, even on ane-commerce site.
It's very similar.
Now this one has a couple morepages.
This one has three total pages,but still very easy to scan.
And you'll see as you look downhere because this was a pretty
complex e-commerce build there'sseparate line items that I
moved and included outside ofthe main website design.

(19:08):
I moved and included outside ofthe main website design.
So this was an $8,000 websitedesign that was issued in June
of 2019.
Same thing Now.
In this case, though, becausewe're dealing with e-commerce
site, I specified a little morewhat's involved with the page
build.
So initially, that's a key wordthere, because if she wanted
more in this case my client hereshe could have let me know,
like, hey, I actually want to domore pages and I'll be like,

(19:31):
yeah, great, we can totally dothat for additional retainer of
work, not in this first phase.
So this included up to 30 pages, essentially, and then, if you
happen to know the scope of theproject, that's where you could
do an estimate.
But this included the homepageshop page with 10 to 15
categories, faqs, specials page,contact, et cetera.
I'm not going to read everysingle one of these, but that's

(19:52):
what was included in this sitefor the main aspect of it.
And then we got down into theextras SEO boost.
We just talked about how mostclients sign off on that.
There was some extra Googlestuff, because this was a brand
new website, this was not aredesign, so we had to set up
Google for her as well, which Idid pretty fair at $4.99.
So in the case of a Googlebusiness, now this is

(20:15):
essentially like a Googlebusiness setup.
And then in her case, sheneeded some training.
This was an e-commerce sitethat she was going to be
managing with a VA, so we didcustom training videos for all
this stuff, again very fairlypriced considering all the work.
Pricing is up to you dependingon where you're at.
In my case, I knew this wasgoing to be likely at least a
$10,000 project, so I was prettyfair on all this stuff to make

(20:37):
it.
These are add-ons, so I didn'twant her to see like a $3,000
add-on that is like whoa, that'slike half the price of the
design.
And then we did a very, verybasic logo.
I have to say this was one thatI knocked out, I think, in
round one.
So, uh, if you do not dobranding or logo design, be
careful with this kind of thing,but I was.

(20:57):
It was already a previousexisting relationship with this
client and she was awesome, soshe signed off immediately on
that we also provide.
Now, here's a biggie.
We'll come back to this, Ithink, at some point when we
talk about additional work too.
Now, here's the biggie.
We'll come back to this, Ithink, at some point when we
talk about additional work too,I did offer additional work

(21:20):
that's going to be inside of thestore, because she was actually
really getting intricate withsome of the things.
This was an intricate site andit took a lot longer than we had
anticipated, but we got paid.
It ended up working out.
So this actually ended up beingan additional type of thing
that she signed off on.
Altogether, this ended up beinga nearly $12,000 project, and
we did this one in a 30, 30, 40split, or, I'm sorry, we
actually did this in a 40, umand then 30% 40% split.

(21:44):
So there we go.
That is a look at one projectthat was an e-commerce build and
the final project I'm going toshow you here was the top
project that I ever did, at$15,000.
Well, $14,999, but come on,come on, one of you here was
like it wasn't quite $15,000,.
Josh, I'm going to say that was$15,000.
Dang close enough.

(22:05):
I think this client bought me acoffee, so we'll say it was
over 15.
Anywho, same thing.
Now, this was not an e-commercesite, but this was an intricate
site in the way of this was abusiness that had auctions and
categories and some custom posttype style set up, because they
were doing auctions withdifferent categories of auctions
and they needed a template thatthey could easily add on to,

(22:26):
and so that's exactly what Ispecified here.
Auction pages build out 30 to50 pages initially, so I think
this site ended up being likeabout 75 pages when we launched
Categories for live upcoming andsold auctions.
So, again, this type of project.
I got the scope based off ofall the questionnaires that we
just went over and a couplediscovery calls in this case,

(22:47):
and I laid out exactly what isgoing to be involved here.
Now, this was coming from anexisting site too, so I needed
to be careful that we're notgoing to lose any SEO settings.
So I made sure to try to makesure we didn't lose much SEO.
Anytime you do a redesign,there's going to be some
fluctuation in Google, but ifyou do well in SEO, you can

(23:07):
actually get better resultswithin a couple months.
So that was involved in this aswell.
And then the extra line itemfor this was actually just
boosts.
So, yes, I could have doneadditional things here, but one
thing to keep in mind this is anexample that's different from
the e-commerce build on the lastone, because essentially with
the last one, my client couldhave said, hey, josh, I want to

(23:28):
do this, this and this, butlet's drop SEO boost and drop
this.
Then I would just read I wouldredo this proposal.
I would say, okay, let meupdate the proposal and send it
to you.
So that's actually why Irecommend to separating the
different add on services orupsells like this, because your
client, if you have a systemwhere they can just check what
they want, cool, but I actuallyprefer it this way because this

(23:50):
is what I recommend.
And if they say, hey, we'reactually good on SEO boost, I'll
say, cool, no problem, we canadd this on later and we'll do
that.
And there it is.
You'll see.
This one was a $15,000 project,signed off on March 2018,
second payment this was a 30, 30, 40.
And then, a few months later,got the final down payment at
5,000.
So there we go, guys.

(24:17):
That is a look at actualproposals following this
framework of the big three keysshowcasing the goals and results
, a simple outline with thedeliverables and very clear
separated cost of total of eachone of these outline and
deliverables.
So, again, this is the entirelesson from my full web design
business course.
There's a link below with moredetails on how to get access to
that.
If you would like me to guideyou through all the aspects of
building and growing your ownweb design business, there's a

(24:38):
couple of videos I'm going torecommend you check out.
Next, right here is a videoabout contracts, because once
you send a proposal, it's got tobe backed up with a nice
contract.
And right here is a video onhow to put quote, contract and
invoice all together with oneclick using a platform called 17
hats.
I'll see you over there.