What is the Difference Between a Contract and a Proposal? 🖋️📝
If you’re a service-based business owner, WillowSpace is a fantastic CRM platform where you can build beautiful, easy contracts and proposals for clients.
With WillowSpace, you can have your clients sign digitally, making it easy to move on to the next step! Plus, you can set up automated reminders and templates to keep things moving more efficiently.
Let’s dive into the differences between a project contract and a project proposal.
Let’s talk about proposals!
🌟 What’s a project proposal?
When we mention proposals, we’re talking about the document you send to a lead or potential client BEFORE they sign on to start a project with you.
A project proposal might include:
a project summary
project timelines and phases
more information about your processes
propose specific packages or options
showcase work and results you’ve achieved for past clients
proposed pay schedules and investment
This should be treated as a marketing effort and therefore may benefit from cleaner design and branded content like your logo, colors, fonts, imagery…etc.
⌛ When should you send a proposal?
A proposal might be something you send after a consultation call (like we do over at Function), or it might be something you send to respond to an RFP (request for proposals) or a job posting.
It’s the final interaction you have to present yourself as the best candidate for the project or job, so personalization and effort go a long way here!
đź’¬ If you want to dive into more on proposals, check out our previous article, What to Include in a Design Proposal.
Let’s talk about contracts!
đź“„ What is a Contract?
A contract is a legally binding document. This is more in-depth than a proposal when it comes to detailed specifics about the project, like:
deliverables
timelines
budget
pay schedules
late fees
assumptions/risks
confidentiality
sharing agreements
cancellations or terminations
In a contract, you’ll want to make sure you are covering all the bases to protect yourself and to protect your client during your work together. This is a great document to review in a call so that your client understands your boundaries, and you can kick off the project on the right foot.
This document should be treated as a legal effort and it is always a good idea to have a legal professional review your contract for you ahead of time.
We know legal services are not cheap, so if you need a starter, check out templates online, like The Contract Shop (aff. link).
đź“„ When Should You Send a Contract?
A contract is typically sent off during the onboarding stage, prior to a deposit, or with a deposit attached to it.
At Function, we send our design contracts once the proposal has been officially accepted, and after we send our new clients a form to fill out with their contact information on it. That way we can make sure the contract has all of the client’s accurate information before sending.
Once a client signs the contract digitally, we’re ready to send them the deposit invoice to get the project started!
WillowSpace can help you create beautiful, converting proposals & easy-to-sign, digital contracts! 🤩
Make your life (and your clients’ lives) easier. WillowSpace allows you to create stunning proposals or upload your own PDFs where clients can then easily accept or decline. You can do the same with contracts.
Contracts don’t have to be ugly! Build clean, easy-to-read contracts in the builder, or upload your own branded contract to your client portal. From there, clients can easily review and digitally sign on the dotted line. And when things are easier for clients, they’re quicker to sign-off!
And no more follow-ups either! Set up automated reminders so that clients don’t miss deadlines and projects keep moving along smoothly.
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