Over the many years that I have worked in IT, both as an employee in a permanent traditional job, and then as a freelancer/self employed consultant, I have seen and used many different forms of quotations.   Some are better than others, some have more success than others in winning business, and some are better at reducing problems when work is accepted.

Whilst creating the perfect quotation can be something of a black art (there are numerous books published on the subject), I have taken all the various forms of quotation I have seen and used in the past, and combined then into what I believe is the perfect form of quotation for winning and keeping business.

When you have finished the sales talk, sent all the emails, completed the demos and presentations, the sales quotation is the document that a customer will use to judge whether to give you the business.  That’s why it could be the most important document you will produce in business, and why I like to build my quotation from the following parts:

The Cover Letter
Unless the project is very complex, I like to make my quotations 3 pages.  The first page is a cover letter, with the company stationary (in soft format so it can be printed, sent as PDF etc).  The cover letter gives the following details in 6 separate paragraphs (which ALWAYS fit to 1 page):

• Introduction, thanking them for the opportunity to quote for the business, and giving the quote number
• What I am quoting for – the topic, the project, the location (for multi office etc)
• What is included – what I will be providing in summary – is it a software app (if so, what does it do), consultancy (how many days, doing what), etc
• What is included in detail – how many revisions are provided, is there a beta and final delivery, when could it be delivered, does it include training, documentation, hand over, installation etc (saves confusion on what the quote covers)
• What is not included – detail what the customer needs to supply – information, hardware, software, databases, etc (again, saves confusion on what the quote covers)
• Request for a purchase order number to start work on the delivery

The Quotation
The 2^nd page of my quotations is the breakdown.   First of all, let’s cover quotation verses estimates.   I prefer to send quotations – estimates are too flexible, and gives a sense of unease to customers.  The term quotation suggests something more firm.  Now for quotations, there are two schools of thought – the overview quotation and the detailed quotation.   For an overview, you simply state the price (this project will cost £10,000).  I generally prefer the breakdown quotation, with each item listed with the delivery, number of days and the day rate (i.e, Specification production, 6 days at £475 a day, programming, 20 days at £430, etc).   Because of the type of services I offer, my quotations generally have between 6 and 8 line items on them, with of course the total price at the end.   Using an on-line accounts system like freeagent makes the creation of such quotations a breeze.

The USP
The 3^rd page is then divided into 2 half pages – the top half is my USP – why the customer should buy from me.  In my case, my USP is my quality and service guarantee – which says why a customer should purchase from me, with no risk to them – it’s a very strong sales message, and its on the back of my quote – a good place for it to be seen.

The Terms and Conditions
The final half of the third page is my abridge Terms and Conditions of work.  As I have said before, adding 12 pages of full terms and conditions will just scare people off, so the abridged version fits very well to complete my quotations.

And That’s it. That’s all that my quotations contains.   Not too long, and not just a quick 1 page quote with no detail (which leads to confusion and problems later on as nobody is sure what you are quoting for, what is being delivered, when, what is included and what is not).  If you want to add more, it would not hurt to include a relevant case study as further evidence on why your potential customer should pick you.

The final tip is to have somebody proof read your quotation (or read it three times if you are checking it yourself).

As I say, my 3 page format has been refined over time, and works for me.  It’s the perfect balance of information, without becoming a major document for the customer to wade through.   For me, it provides a 92% quote to order conversion success rate.