I’ve always been a fan of precise language in proposals.
Internally, it creates great back-check with our team: Did we deliver what we said we would?
For clients, its purpose is more important. It sets clear expectations.

This is the start of a series I’ll post on regularly “True Partnership: Behind the Blueprint”.

The focus of this series is simple. Provide practical, real-world insights into how high-performing engineering firms and project teams actually operate. At this risk of this coming across as legal advice, I’ll say this clearly: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Involve your own counsel and risk advisor.

In my own effort to eliminate unnecessary steps, I personally combine “proposals” with “offer letters”. In most cases, I structure them to function as a binding agreement upon acceptance. For a majority of projects this is more than sufficient. For complex projects (or when preferred by the client or required by the funding source) I sometimes format them with planned obsolescence, i.e. to be superseded by a full form AIA contract, or similar, when appropriate. Since my proposals are formatted to serve as contracts and therefore govern the project, I build them around a blend of two common frameworks: “the 4 Ps” and “COLIC”. As it turns out, these same components give a great format to provide a lot of early clarity to clients.

The meat of the proposal though is the scope of work. From a contract perspective, this covers the 𝐏roduct (4 Ps), 𝐎ffer (C𝐎LIC), and, for my lawyer friends, is my delivered half of 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. I give a project overview, a specific line by line list of the exact scope of work my firm will perform, a listing of the anticipated deliverables, and some sort of timeline or other 𝐏erformance measure as applicable to the project.

I format my proposals as a letter. First and foremost, I think this makes it feel more personal. It also documents the discussions I’ve had with the client that led to the proposal and therefore shows a 𝘮𝘦𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴. Since it’s addressed as a letter it also clearly outlines the receiving 𝐏arty.

Within the letter I 𝘰𝘧𝘧𝘦𝘳 clear 𝐏ricing for the defined scope of work (i.e. the clients half of 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭 𝑪𝘰𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯. And then provide a space for both parties signature for 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘱𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘦.

Contracts too often are thought of merely as protective tools. No doubt this is an important feature, but done right they can provide something that’s more important 99 times out of 100: they create mutual clarity before the work begins.