The Proposal Arrives Too Late
A proposal can take days to prepare and still arrive before the most important conversation. Chris Do, this podcast's guest, speaks about pricing services and admits to delaying a contractor's proposal himself. That combination gives his argument its force: the seller waiting for an answer and the buyer avoiding a decision are not always different kinds of people.
The familiar sales problem begins with a call that seems to go well. There is warmth, interest, and enough agreement to suggest a project is possible. The seller leaves with permission to send a proposal and treats that permission as progress.
But one subject remains untouched: money.
Do describes creatives spending hours, sometimes days, preparing proposals after conversations that never established a budget. The document lands, the seller waits, and the prospect disappears. What looked like a promising connection ends in silence, with substantial work already invested.
The seller's disappointment is understandable. Time has been spent, attention has been given, and the conversation seemed to deserve the courtesy of an answer. Do does not dismiss that frustration or argue that a buyer's silence is good conduct.
He challenges the process that made the silence so expensive.
Qualification belongs before proposal writing. The first conversation should establish whether the client's needs and the seller's offer are compatible, including whether the money makes sense. That does not require every detail to be settled or every term to be final.
It requires enough clarity to know whether further effort has a reasonable basis. A conversation that establishes interest but avoids financial compatibility leaves the seller with an impression, not a shared understanding. A detailed proposal cannot retroactively supply the discussion that never happened.
The avoidance has an emotional logic. In Do's account, some creatives connect the price of their work to their personal worth. A client rejecting the number can feel like a client rejecting the person who named it.
Small talk becomes a shelter. Friendship seems safer than a fee. As the allotted time runs out, sending a proposal offers an apparently professional way to postpone the uncomfortable moment.
Only the discomfort has not disappeared. It has moved into an email attachment, where the seller cannot hear the buyer's reaction or clarify the assumptions behind the price. The proposal becomes the place where both parties discover whether they were discussing the same opportunity.
This is a pricing problem, but it is also a sales-sequencing problem. The distinction sits alongside the concerns signaled by 99% Of Creatives Lose Money With These Pricing Mistakes: choosing a number and handling the conversation around that number are separate responsibilities.
Do's alternative is not to rush the buyer toward a signature. It is to stop spending time on an opportunity whose basic terms remain unknown. The first call can be successful without producing a sale, provided it produces an honest assessment of fit.
The relevant measure is not how friendly the conversation felt. It is what both sides now understand that neither side should have to guess.
A Long Sale Is Not Always A Slow Sale
Asked how long closing should take, Do refuses a universal deadline. His answer begins with the size of the problem and the size of the engagement. Some purchases can be assessed relatively quickly; others deserve a much longer examination.
He uses a medical analogy to make the distinction. A toothache suggests a more straightforward problem than a serious internal-organ issue or possible cancer. The analogy concerns the care required before prescribing a response, not a promise about any particular medical procedure.
The larger or more consequential the problem, the less sensible it becomes to treat speed as the only evidence of competence. A seller eager to close and a buyer responsible for checking the risk are not necessarily working against each other. They are attending to different parts of the decision.
Do places six-figure, mid-six-figure, and seven-figure engagements in the category that can require more time. Buyers need to investigate whether the provider can deliver. They need to examine the claims made during the sales conversation, not simply accept them.
The checks he describes are concrete:
- Confirm that the provider is who they claim to be.
- Review the clients and projects behind their experience.
- Contact references and referrals.
- Consider what can fail in the proposed engagement.
These activities explain why a longer process is not automatically a broken one. Time spent verifying a provider can serve a clear purpose. Time spent avoiding an elementary mismatch does not.
A longer sales cycle does not justify a later budget conversation. This is the distinction holding Do's advice together. The final decision can require weeks of procurement and due diligence while the initial financial fit still belongs near the beginning.
His example is deliberately stark: a client is thinking about $50,000 while the provider is preparing to charge $500,000. Weeks of investigation cannot make those expectations equivalent. The process has advanced without establishing whether the parties occupy the same financial territory.
That gap is not a small adjustment waiting to be negotiated. In the example, it is a difference in the scale of the engagement. Identifying it early changes whether the work of qualification should continue at all.
The temptation is to interpret a longer process as evidence of a more serious opportunity. Do's distinction resists that assumption. A process deserves to continue because its participants have established enough compatibility, not merely because they have already invested time in it.
Diagnosis and commitment therefore operate on different schedules. The first conversation can establish the general size of the need and budget without pretending to settle the entire project. The related question raised by Can You Charge To Diagnose? belongs beside this distinction between understanding a problem and committing to its solution.
For Do, a responsible seller does not demand premature certainty. The task is to identify which uncertainties justify further investigation and which ones already reveal an incompatible engagement.
A reference check can take time. Discovering that the proposed price is ten times the expected budget should not require the reference check to happen first.
The Buyer Has A Different Version
The seller sees an unanswered proposal. The buyer sees another decision that has become uncomfortable. Do asks that the same silence be examined from both positions before it is interpreted as a personal verdict.
In his description, buyers are already thinking about affordability while the seller is still making conversation. They are considering whether the service is more than they need and whether the provider is appropriate. Money is present in the meeting even when nobody names it.
The seller can mistake the absence of a budget discussion for a neutral condition. Do presents it as something more strained: both parties are waiting for information, but one party is also responsible for supplying the price. Delaying that information leaves the buyer to imagine it.
Those private expectations matter. Do argues that a buyer can carry a number in mind without stating it or acknowledging it directly. When the proposal exceeds that expectation, the buyer must reconsider a decision that had seemed simpler during the call.
Now the document presents several problems at once. There is the amount itself, the time already spent with the provider, and the awkwardness of explaining why the project no longer seems workable. Other responsibilities compete for attention.
In Do's account, the buyer postpones responding rather than actively resolving the mismatch. Hours become days, then weeks. The opportunity falls away without the clear rejection the seller keeps expecting.
This is an explanation of one possible path to silence, not proof of what happened in every unanswered sales exchange. Its value is that it breaks the assumption that an unreturned proposal must mean the seller's work, credibility, or character has been dismissed.
Do then supplies the strongest evidence available in the conversation: his own behavior as a customer.
His pool is being repaired because of water leakage. As the contractor opens up one problem, another appears. A new proposal arrives for $7,500, an additional expense he had not expected that morning.
The reaction is not immediate acceptance or immediate refusal. He delays. The contractor waits for a decision and does not send people out while the work remains unapproved.
“We're guilty of it on both sides,” Do says.
The admission removes the moral distance between the professional frustrated by ghosting and the customer reluctant to answer. Do can recognize the contractor's position while still hesitating over an unwelcome expense. Understanding the other party's frustration does not automatically resolve his own decision.
Unexpected cost can produce indecision rather than rejection. That is the lesson the pool story supports. It does not establish that every buyer who delays will eventually purchase, or that a seller should wait indefinitely.
Instead, it shows why the moment when a price becomes known matters. The contractor's situation includes newly discovered problems, so the extra cost is not presented as something that necessarily could have been eliminated in advance. For sellers discussing an initial engagement, however, Do argues for making the known financial expectations explicit.
The aim is not to control the buyer's reaction. It is to avoid making the proposal the first occasion on which that reaction becomes possible.
State A Price Without Pretending To Know Everything
Early pricing can sound risky to a seller who has not yet explored every detail. The fear is straightforward: naming a number now will create a commitment that becomes difficult to honor later. Do's answer is to distinguish a useful starting price from an unconditional promise.
He does not insist that every seller adopt the most sophisticated pricing method available. Although he says he speaks extensively about value-based pricing, he describes it here as an advanced strategy. For the person struggling to discuss money at all, he recommends a simpler starting point.
The seller should consider what work of this kind ought to cost. That estimate then needs language that acknowledges the conditions attached to it. Clarity does not require acting as though additional requests or unusual complications cannot occur.
“This is what it should start at,” is the kind of phrasing Do offers.
The opening figure establishes a baseline. If the work remains within the expected requirements, the seller can deliver at that price. If the client wants additional elements, the parties can discuss a more customized solution that costs more.
Do's approach separates three ideas that are easily tangled together:
- A starting price establishes the baseline. It gives the buyer a concrete financial expectation.
- Added scope changes the price. Additional requirements belong in a revised conversation about the work.
- A bespoke proposal follows specific needs. Customization is available without being implied in every preliminary figure.
The qualification is not an excuse to make the initial price meaningless. Its purpose is to explain the relationship between the stated amount and the work being discussed. The buyer should understand both what the estimate describes and what would require another conversation.
That relationship makes the price more useful than an isolated number. A buyer who hears only a fee cannot necessarily tell whether it covers the intended outcome. A seller who hears only a budget cannot necessarily tell whether the requested scope is deliverable within it.
Do therefore wants the first call, where possible, to address scope, budget, deliverables, and outcomes together. These are not separate administrative details to be collected after a persuasive conversation. They are the substance of deciding whether there is a viable engagement.
The connection to You Don't Need a Personal Brand. You Need an Offer. is the emphasis on something a buyer can actually evaluate. Here, that evaluation depends on connecting what will be done with what it will cost.
This also narrows the task for the seller. There is no requirement to solve the entire pricing discipline before the next call. Do's immediate concern is whether the provider can speak clearly about a plausible fee, describe the conditions around it, and find out whether the buyer wants to continue.
A preliminary number is useful precisely because it is preliminary and explicit. It can expose a mismatch before a custom document exists, while leaving room to refine a compatible project.
The alternative is not greater precision. It is often greater effort devoted to assumptions neither side has tested.
The Moment After The Number
Do's practical advice begins by changing the meaning of the money conversation. Rather than treating it as an embarrassing demand, he frames it as respect for both parties' time. If the budget is incompatible, neither side benefits from discovering that only after a prolonged exchange.
That framing matters because it gives the seller a reason to be direct without becoming aggressive. The purpose is not to corner the buyer into accepting a fee. It is to make the decision about continuing more informed.
His suggested opening acknowledges the mutual cost of a poor fit. The seller explains that discussing budget upfront prevents both sides from spending time on something that cannot work. Then the seller names the approximate price.
The illustrative amounts are $5,000, $15,000, or $50,000. They are not recommended rates for particular services. They show that the conversational structure remains the same across different price points: insert the number appropriate to the work, identify it as a ballpark, and invite a response.
The actions are simple enough to be visible inside the conversation:
- Explain that early budget clarity protects both parties' time.
- State the ballpark price without presenting it as a final commitment.
- Pause instead of continuing to fill the conversation.
- Ask how the proposed amount sounds to the client.
- Listen closely to the answer and the way it is delivered.
Do's instruction after stating the price is unusually restrained: “be still and see how they respond.” The pause is not empty. It is the point at which the seller stops projecting assumptions and receives information.
A client can say the price is appropriate. They can say it is somewhat high. They can also reveal that it is lower than expected.
Each response tells the seller something different. Agreement suggests that the financial conversation can continue within the proposed range. Hesitation indicates that the apparent fit needs further examination rather than a quick declaration that the sale is progressing.
The point is not to treat every response as an objection to defeat. Do emphasizes that the seller is collecting valuable information. The question becomes whether the engagement is compatible, not whether the provider can keep talking until the buyer sounds agreeable.
He also asks sellers to pay attention to tone and body language, rather than listening only for a favorable word. His example is a spoken yes accompanied by a physical response that appears inconsistent with agreement. The useful editorial distinction is between noticing that inconsistency and treating it as conclusive evidence of what someone thinks.
The conversation establishes Do's emphasis on attentiveness; it does not establish that a gesture can reliably prove dishonesty. A hesitant response belongs in the assessment of fit, not in an invented diagnosis of the buyer. This attention to how a response lands is also relevant to The Skill You Need To Win Clients That No One Talks About.
A seller who is uncomfortable naming a fee can be equally uncomfortable hearing what follows it. But the response is the reason to speak early. Without it, the proposal is still being built around an untested expectation.
A Good Exit Is Part Of The Sale
Once the scope and budget are broadly aligned, the process can continue. But Do does not reduce qualification to financial capacity. A client can afford the work and still be wrong for the provider.
His account includes scheduling, expertise, chemistry, and temperament. These conditions affect whether the relationship can function, not merely whether a transaction can occur. The seller's responsibility is to assess the working arrangement as well as the purchase.
The example of pace is particularly revealing. A client who wants rapid movement can be incompatible with a provider who works more slowly. The reverse also matters: a fast-moving provider can struggle with a client who needs days to make decisions.
Neither example requires a villain. The same behavior can be acceptable in one relationship and difficult in another. The problem is the mismatch between how the parties need to work.
Do's reasons to stop therefore extend beyond an unacceptable fee:
- The available budget does not support the engagement.
- The required schedule does not match the provider's availability or pace.
- The work calls for expertise the provider cannot appropriately supply.
- The chemistry or decision-making style makes compatibility doubtful.
These are not reasons to keep a prospect engaged until a proposal forces the issue. In Do's formulation, once the incompatibility is apparent, the seller should say so. Continuing in the knowledge that the arrangement will not work is not the professional option.
A clear mismatch deserves a clear exit. That principle changes the meaning of losing a sale. An engagement that should not happen is not improved by extending the time before it fails to happen.
Do recommends directing the client toward someone better suited to the budget, timeline, needs, and temperament. The referral is part of an honest conclusion, not a punishment for failing to buy. Both sides can leave with the possibility that a different project will make sense later.
The language he proposes is grounded in compatibility rather than blame. The provider cannot move forward in good faith when the mismatch is already visible. That is a different position from declaring the client unreasonable or treating the seller's preferences as universal standards.
This is where his answer to the question of closing time becomes most useful. Some sales should take longer because the stakes warrant more investigation. Others should end sooner because the information already available is sufficient to rule them out.
The discipline is knowing which process is actually underway. A buyer checking references on a financially aligned engagement is doing meaningful work. A seller preparing an elaborate proposal for a client whose budget remains unknown is proceeding without a basic condition established.
There is no promised number of days, no guaranteed script, and no assurance that directness will turn every interested prospect into a customer. Do's recommendation is narrower and more practical: make the essential conditions discussable while both parties are still present to respond.
For the next sales call, the standard is concrete. The provider should be able to explain the work, the likely time required, and the approximate cost, then hear whether those terms fit the client's needs. If they do not, the next task is an honest exit, not a more elaborate proposal.
Do not spend days documenting a fit that was never established.
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