Why I Stopped Sending Proposals

(And What I Send Instead)

For years, every Squarespace project enquiry got the same treatment: a detailed proposal. Scope, timeline, deliverables, terms, pricing breakdown. Beautifully formatted PDF. Very professional. Two to three hours of work, every single time.

Most of them went nowhere.

Not because the proposals were bad. They were thorough, clear, and well-structured. The problem was that clients weren't reading them. They'd skip straight to the pricing page, see a list of line items, and start doing mental arithmetic about what they could cut. Or they'd get overwhelmed by six pages of process detail and just... not reply.

So I stopped sending proposals. I replaced them with a one-page project outline. And it changed everything.

What a one-page project outline looks like

The outline has four sections. That's it.

The Problem. I write this in the client's own words. Literally copied from what they told me on the discovery call. "Our website doesn't reflect who we are anymore. Customers can't find what they need and the mobile experience is terrible." When a client reads their own frustration written back to them, they know you were listening.

What We'll Build & Why. A short summary of the solution, followed by a handful of bullet points covering the key areas of work. Each bullet has a bold label and a one-line explanation of the outcome. Not a feature list. Not a page-by-page sitemap. Just enough that they understand the scope and can see how it solves their problem.

The Investment. One number. Not a line-item breakdown. If I offer a payment split, I note it briefly underneath. That's all.

What Happens Next. One clear action. "Reply to this email and we'll get started." Then two or three bullets explaining what follows: agreement, invoice, kickoff session, timeline.

One page. Takes about 20 minutes to put together instead of three hours.

I've turned this into a template you can use for your own projects. Grab a free copy here.

Why this works better than a detailed proposal

This isn't about being lazy. It's about understanding how clients actually make decisions.

Most clients don't read a six-page proposal. They open it, scroll to the price, and react emotionally. If the first thing they see is a list of 15 line items adding up to £4,000, their brain starts looking for things to remove. "Do we really need SEO setup? Can we skip the mobile optimisation?" You've accidentally given them a menu.

A one-page outline doesn't have a menu. SEO isn't a separate line item. It's just part of the solution. There's nothing to cherry-pick off.

It shows confidence. A detailed proposal can feel like you're justifying your price. A one-page outline says: here's the problem, here's what we'll do, here's what it costs. No over-explaining. No 12-paragraph methodology section. Clients respond to clarity and confidence, especially at the £2-5k level where they're making decisions quickly based on trust.

It respects their time. Small business owners are busy. They don't have a procurement team reviewing documents. They have 10 minutes between meetings to decide whether to move forward. One page, one price, one next step. That's a decision they can make on their phone over lunch.

It protects your scope. When deliverables are listed as individual items with individual prices, every single one becomes negotiable. When the solution is presented as a cohesive whole, the conversation shifts from "can we drop this?" to "are we doing this or not?" That's a much better conversation to have.

When this doesn't work

I'm not saying proposals are dead. There are situations where you genuinely need a detailed scope document: enterprise clients with procurement processes, government tenders, projects over £10k where multiple stakeholders need to sign off, or any situation where the client explicitly asks for a detailed breakdown. These have all been clients we’ve built Squarespace sites for, it’s not just the SME businesses.

But for most small business Squarespace projects? The local studio, the growing ecommerce brand, the consultant who needs a professional web presence? A one-page outline is more effective than a polished proposal.

These clients want to know three things: do you understand my problem, can you fix it, and how much.

Answer those clearly and you're done.

How to write one that actually converts

A few things I've learned from using this format on dozens of projects:

The Problem section does the heavy lifting. If you nail the client's pain in their own words, the rest of the document almost sells itself. They feel understood. Spend your time here, not on the pricing box.

Keep the "What We'll Build" bullets outcome-focused. "Site structure: pages built around your core services with a clear path from landing to enquiry" is better than "Build 8 pages including Home, About, Services, Contact, Blog, FAQ, Portfolio, and Terms." The first one describes value. The second one is a shopping list.

One number (or a tight range). The moment you break pricing into components, you invite negotiation on each component. If you know the full scope, give a fixed price. £3,500 is £3,500. If there are unknowns (content supply, number of pages, third-party integrations), a short range like £3,000-£3,500 is fine. It's honest, and it still reads as one decision, not fifteen. Either way, the payment schedule goes underneath in smaller text.

Make the next step stupidly easy. "Reply to this email" is better than "Please review the attached terms and conditions, sign the agreement via HelloBonsai, and submit your deposit." Remove every possible friction point. You can send the agreement and full statement of work after they've said yes.

I use the same template structure for pretty much every project. If you want to try it, download the one-page project outline template here.

The numbers

Since switching to this format about 18 months ago, three things have changed:

I spend way less time on proposals. 20 minutes versus 2-3 hours. That's real time back in my week for actual billable work.

Fewer clients ghost after receiving the outline. The simplicity makes it easier to say yes (or to say no quickly, which is also valuable).

Almost nobody asks to remove individual items from the scope. The "can we drop X to save money" conversation has essentially disappeared.

I'm not going to pretend the outline is the only reason for any of this. Experience, positioning, and better discovery calls all play a part. But the format change was the single biggest shift in how smoothly projects move from enquiry to signed.

Try it

If you're spending hours on proposals that go nowhere, try the one-page outline on your next three enquiries. Keep it tight: their problem, your solution, one price, one next step. See how it feels. See how clients respond.

You might not go back.