Once you have a call with a marketing agency or consultant you consider hiring to help you solve business problems or take your business to the next level, you will probably receive Digital Marketing Agencies in Southampton a formal proposal from them that contains the project’s scope and price.
So what next?
I’ve talked to many people (2,000+) over the last few years about hiring a marketing firm or consultant. Many have a great understanding of what they are looking for, but when it comes to choosing and negotiation there is a lack of knowledge.
It is completely understandable because there are not many (good) online content about what you can / should negotiate and what not / can not.
In this article we will cover:
Why the proposal is a starting point, not a final offer;
What to negotiate in the proposal;
What did not negotiate in the proposal;
How to choose.
A proposal is a starting point
Let’s take this out of the way first.
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There are two different ways to approach finding an outside company to work with (marketing or otherwise):
Blast out wide Request For Proposal (RFP) and invite companies to submit their best bids, then collapsed and select from there;
Talk to each company and ask them to send the proposed scope of work and if they think they can deliver on what you want and need.
In the Credo we take the second approach because we believe it is better to speed up to get in front of the company that specializes in what you need.
In this approach, proposals and working towards an agreement is not final until you have signed a contract. When the agent or agent sends a proposal to do the work, that the initial proposal was not their final offer. This is the starting point for a conversation.
Of course, at any point either party can walk away if the two sides do not think that what you are working towards will either achieve or become a successful project.
Everything in the proposal are negotiable – price, scope, structure – but you have to do well and in a way that ends in a win-win situation for both parties.
money-making emotional, illogical
Before we enter into negotiations on proposals or evaluate the proposals, we need to talk about how we make decisions of money. This is true throughout the business and personal – emotional money decisions. We can get out of it, but not before we admit that money makes us feel a certain way because of their background and fears in life and our business.
From a psychological perspective, we have all the budget-conscious. We would like to think that we would like to know first what we are going to get, and then what it would have cost us. In fact, too many of us look at the price to see how that hit us or meet our budget, and then what is on offer.
Do not forget the money that is inherently emotional. We like to think we make rational decisions around money, but really we make emotional decisions most of the time when it comes to what we spend. Just take a look at all the books written about the money becomes emotionally and how to get past them:
The next time you receive a quote from someone for something, pay attention to emotions. When you receive a higher quote than you expect, instead of saying “it is outrageous and we can not afford it” asks “Why is this much higher than I expected and it was worth it?”
Of course we all have an absolute max we can spend. No one has a limited dollars to spend even if you Google or Apple. Everyone in the business have a budget that we can not exceed, but even with the available budget I’ve seen people balk at a specified price without seeing what they are being proposed for spending it.
With that said, let’s talk about the negotiation proposals.
What to negotiate the proposal
There are two common questions that I hear in the proposal stage.
From the agency side, I hear “Why do Digital Marketing Companies Southampton people just go straight to the budget without reading everything else?”
