Should you present one package or multiple in a proposal? Listen to this episode and see where I'm going. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This is another listener suggestion, and I was going through a list of past suggestions. And please, you can send me your suggestions as well to allenttingbusinessolutions.com dot. I'd love to give your ideas. And this is one where somebody was asking, when I give a proposal, should I present just one option or should I present multiple options so they can say I can have this or the other? And it's a little bit more complicated of an answer here because it depends upon what you do and what it is that you're selling and how many different variables there are to what you sell or variations to what you sell. Most of us listening, most of you have more things to offer than people need.
Not everything you do is right for everyone. And certainly if you sell by packages, and I like selling by packages for a lot of businesses, not necessarily all, but for a lot. And if you're selling by packages, chances are that if you present them three packages, let's say, or if you have three packages that at least one of them is not right for them, or maybe both are not right, in which case just present them with the one that gives them the results that they want. But if in your discussions with them, there are some options where the package has what they want, but they might want a variation on that. So this is one way to think about packages in a little bit different way, is think about, let's just call it a, b and c. And please don't name your packages a, b, and c. And I prefer you don't call them silver, gold and platinum either, because a lot of people are doing that, or ruby, sapphire, diamond, or whatever, a lot of people are doing that as well. Try to come up with something a little bit more creative that shows the hierarchy, maybe something local to your area or something that reflects on your business.
But let's just say that the middle package, which is usually the most popular one, you can have variations. So rather than having five or six or seven packages, I very often found with my clients that they're so similar that you really can cut it down to two or three, but then have variations. Give me an example. Let's say if you're a caterer, the menu is exactly the same except the protein. And if that's the only difference in price, then this is the package. And do it, let's say, with chicken. And then you say, and with fish, it's this much. And then with beef, it's this much.
And with fish and chicken or beef and chicken or whatever, it's this much. Right. It's still the same package with that variation, and it'll look less complicated on the page. So that's one, one idea. If you're going to propose, you can say, here's the package here, or even if it's not a package, even if you did it out la carte, here's the proposal, and then here's a variation on that. If you change this thing to this, this is how much it would be. So rather than making it look like two full, complete different proposals, it's a variation. It looks less complicated, you create less decision paralysis, less decision fatigue.
So if there's not that much difference between them, I would present it as one offering with a variation, kind of like 1.1 and 1.2. And again, don't call them that. Right. So that's one idea of it. The whole idea of proposals, though, is something that I'm torn over. I don't like you losing control where you send a proposal over to a client or over to a couple or a company or school or whatever, and then you're waiting for them to say yes. Right. There is no clear next step when it's going to happen.
And if you've heard me say, ambiguous next steps, bring ambiguous results. If you're watching on video, you see the little card here that I've handed out at many, many conferences, ambiguous next steps, bring ambiguous results, you've lost control. What I prefer is, can you send a summary in an email and say, here's a high level of what we spoke about. Here's the bottom line cost. Did I get that right? Or is there anything that you need me to adjust on that? And if they tell you you got it right, and one of those line items was that they're going to give you a deposit or retainer or whatever you call it at this time, and then the balance, do whatever is, say, fantastic, I'll send you over a link for the deposit, the retainer, whatever you call it, and then I'll get you the full details and full contract out as well. And if you need them to sign it, that's fine to me, them agreeing to that means they've committed. Sending you the deposit, the retainer, whatever means they've committed, then you can get into the details and give me an example. In my business, it's like I don't need to know what topic I'm speaking about for you to book me to speak at your event.
I don't need to know exactly what we're going to be talking about in a day of sales or mastermind for you to book me. So those details come later. But where, when, how much, payment terms, things like that, I can put into an email, into bullet points and get your commitment on that. If you need a full contract beforehand with all that. Great, I'll send it over. E sign. There you go. Make it nice and easy.
But I prefer to get the commitment on the high level details, the ones that are unchangeable and then the other stuff which if it's not going to affect the price or not going to affect it much, then let's just say here it is, here's the details, here's the deposit here, or the retainer, whatever. So can you do something like that as opposed to just sitting there making proposals day after day after day where it's taking you time to get all the details together instead of saying, hey, here's what we spoke about, we're going to do this, this, this and this. Right. It's going to. Here's the total again, includes tax, doesn't include tax, wherever you want to say it, here's the deposit or the retainer. The balance is due on this time. This is what I'm going to do. This is what you're going to do.
Did I get that right or is anything you need me to adjust? If they say you got that right, say, great, here's what happened. Now I'm going to send you over the link for the payment and then we'll get the other details. We'll set up a meeting. What I say is we'll set up a meeting for a week from now, two weeks from now to go over the rest of those logistical details and things like that. So if you need to do a menu planning, need to do other things now, if during that next meeting, they come up with things that they want that were not part of the original proposal, right, then you can say, sure, if you want to go up to number five wagyu beef, that's going to cost you this. Or if you want to have a duet plate, it's that. Or if you want to also have the monogram on the dance floor as well as the wall. Yeah, absolutely.
That would be this much more. If you want a second photo booth in this area, that would be this. Right. So things that were not part of the original, original thing. Now you can get them to sign off, give you the deposit, sorry, give you the deposit, then send the full details. And again, my preference would be to not line item everything. You can do it for yourself on the back end. But once you start line item, line item pricing, those things become negotiable in their minds.
And I've seen this with caterers where you're telling them you're going to have seven servers at x, and they come and say, oh, you know, can we save some money and just go with five? When the answer is no, you can add more, but you can't take away because you're not going to have enough servers to get the food out in time, take care of your guests the right way. So rather than line item against it's seven servers at this much, you would, it includes seven servers here. You go down here. If you need additional servers or if you'd like additional service for even, even faster, more five star service, they're this much, but you're not saying you can take any off of that. But once you've line item something, people think it's like, I could just take that off, take that off, take that off. Now if that's the way your business works, great. But for a lot of you, you're not, you already gave them a package price, you already figured it in and you're not going to take things off. So don't line item them because then they become negotiable in their minds.
Things like service and tax, whatever. Tax is fine. People understand sales tax, service they don't understand. If you're a caterer or a venue and you're doing that with service, I would prefer that you just include it total. And if it included the gratuities, tell them that. And if it doesn't, say gratuities are not included. Or you might even say gratuities are not required, but are appreciated by our staff, right? Something like that. But people understand sales tax.
They don't understand things like service charge that they don't run into in any other part of their life when they're buying things. So should you present one package or multiple packages comes back to the original conversation, which is in talking to the client or the couple or the company or the school or whatever, did you come up with a specific thing that they want and that's it, or is it, it's this, but we might go for this other thing. Or is it, here's what you asked for. And just so you know, if you want to add this, this and this these are the other things and they can add those on. So try not to confuse them. But if you want to give them. Here's an option. Here's another option.
Right. Choice of two. I wouldn't go more than that in a proposal. It's this or this and not this, this and this. You can do that on individual items. Where. Here's the package. Do you want to add these individual things on? There can be more than two, but in packages, completely.
Just cut it down to two. These are the two things. And again, could they have variations? Absolutely. For most of you, there are always variations there. So rather than making it look like another package, make it a package with a variation. Kind of like how a price fix menu at a restaurant where appetizer, entree, and dessert is one price, but if you want certain appetizers or certain entrees or certain desserts, there's an upcharge for those items. You don't have to do them, but there's an upcharge for those items. So that's kind of the same idea.
It's a package with options that have extra cost. They get to choose if they want to do those extra things or not. So hope it gave you something to think about. Thanks to the listener who suggested this, and I'll see you in the next episode.
