Training

Welcome to pro-posal.io. This training takes you from a brand new account to sending proposals your clients actually enjoy reading. A quick note first. pro-posal.io is in pre-release, so treat these videos as a guide. Some screens may look a little different as we keep improving things. Video one gets you set up. Your account, your brand, your team and your basic settings, then a first simple proposal. Video two is all about quotes, pulled in from Current RMS, or built by hand. Video three goes deeper. Case studies, testimonials, small print, snippets and templates, so every proposal starts strong. Video four builds a full proposal, section by section, then sends it and tracks how your client gets on. And video five is for power users. Changes after you send, conversations with your client, and the extra tools. There are short videos on every topic too, for when you just need a reminder. Let's get started. Getting started takes about two minutes, and you won't need a card. On the sign-up page, pop in your name, your work email and a password. Make the password a strong one you haven't used anywhere else. Common passwords get turned away. Click Create Account, and we'll email you a link to confirm your address. Click the link, and you're straight back in. Now choose your plan. Both come with a 60-day free trial, so you can try everything properly. Solo is for one person. Team adds colleagues, manager sign-off and team chat. I'm going with Team, and you can switch at any time. Next, a few details about the business. As you type the company name, it suggests a web address for your proposals. I'll shorten it to just elevate. That's the link your clients will see. It checks the address is free as you type. Then a reply-to email, so when clients reply, it comes straight to you. Add a phone number and your business address. These show on your proposals, so it's worth getting them right. Click Continue, and that's the account created. About two minutes, start to finish. Paul, our setup assistant, takes it from here, and that's the next video. Right, the account's created, and Paul's popped up to get it looking like yours. This is the bit that makes every proposal look on brand, so it's worth doing properly. It only takes about three minutes. First, your job title. James runs Elevate, so that's Managing Director. Then a headshot. This shows on your proposals whenever you're the lead contact, so pick one where you look friendly. Not the one off your passport. Now the logos. The dark version sits on white pages, so ideally it's a PNG with a transparent background. And the light version, for dark backgrounds. If you've only got the one logo, don't worry. Skip this and add it later. Brand colours next. Ours is a deep navy. If you know your hex code, type it straight in, or click the swatch and pick it by eye. And the secondary, a bright blue, for accents and highlights. Now fonts. Montserrat for headings, nice and bold, and you get a little preview before you commit. And Open Sans for the body text, because it's easy to read at any size. Next, your About Us. This drops into every new proposal for you, so you only ever write it once. If you've already got one on your website, just paste it in. Paul can add your social links to the cover page as well. I'll skip that for now. You can add them in settings whenever you like. Last one. The default cover image. It's the big photo at the top of every proposal, so pick something that shows off your best work. You can still change it on any proposal. And that's it. Seven ticks, about three minutes, and every proposal you send from now on looks like it came from your own designer. Next, let's add the team. This is your team page. It does two jobs. It controls who can log in, and who appears on your proposals. James owns the account, so he's already here. Team Profiles are for people who should appear on your proposals but don't need a login. Your project managers, your lead engineers, even regular freelancers. They don't use up a seat. Start with a photo. Upload one, or pick something from your media library, then zoom and position it so it sits nicely in the circle. Then their name, job title and a short bio. This is what your clients read about them, so keep it warm and to the point. If they ever send proposals in their own name, you can add a signature here too. That's optional. Then add them, and they're ready to drop into any proposal. Now, if a colleague needs to log in and build proposals themselves, use Invite Member instead. Add their name and email, and choose a role. Managers approve proposals and look after your templates and library. Team members build and send proposals. Your Team plan includes five seats, and extra seats are just a pound or two a month. And if you'd like to check proposals before they reach a client, switch on sign-off for anyone in the team. Their proposals then wait for a manager to approve them. That's the team sorted. Your company details live in Settings, under Company. These are the details your clients see on your proposals and emails. Add your website, so clients can find out more about you. The reply-to email is where client replies land, and the phone number shows on your proposals, so double-check both. This is your default About Us. Paul wrote it during setup, and it drops into every new proposal, so it's worth keeping fresh. Add your social media links, and you can show them on your proposal covers. Then save your changes. Three quick settings to check before your first proposal. First, the email your client receives when you send it. Set the subject once. These tags fill themselves in for every proposal, so you'll never send the wrong client's name. Then the message. Click a tag to drop it in wherever your cursor is. And you can still tweak the wording on each proposal before it goes out. Next, VAT and currency. Choose whether VAT shows as its own line, is included in your prices, or isn't shown at all if you're not VAT registered. Prices are always stored without VAT, so you can change this whenever you like. Finally, Current RMS. Add your Current RMS subdomain and an API key from your Current RMS system setup, and connect. We're already connected here. These two switches decide what happens when a client accepts. With Read only off, pro-posal.io adds a note to the job in Current RMS, with the date, any extras they chose, and the accepted total. Tick Convert to order, and the job moves straight to an order as well. Leave it off if you'd rather do that yourself. Let's build a first proposal. Click New Proposal, and type the client and the event name. Pick the Simplified Proposal template, and click Start with Paul. Answer Paul's questions in your own words. A sentence or two is plenty for each one. He'll ask about the date, the venue, and who's looking after it. If you don't know something yet, just say so, and he'll leave it for you to fill in. A couple more, and he builds it for you. And there's your first proposal, ready to check through and send. This is the proposal editor. Your sections are down the left, a live preview of the proposal sits in the middle, and the settings for whichever section you're on are on the right. Click any section to jump straight to it. Change something on the right, and the preview updates as you type. Everything saves automatically. See, saved, down in the corner. So there's no save button to forget. To change the order, just drag a section up or down. I'll move the team above the quotation. If a client doesn't need a section, hide it with the eye. It disappears from their proposal, but it's still here if you change your mind. Add Section gives you every type of section there is. We'll go through them all in the next few videos. Preview opens the proposal in a new tab, exactly as your client will see it. Back in the editor, you can download a PDF at any time, even while it's still a draft. And the lightning bolt is Power Mode, for editing the raw content directly. Most people never need it.

Time for your first proposal. Click New Proposal. Click Pull from Current RMS, and search for the job by its number. It fills in the client, the event, the dates, the venue and the quote total, straight from the job. Pick a template. Full Proposal is a good place to start. Then click Start with Paul. Paul asks a few questions about the event. Answer in your own words. He already has the job details from Current RMS, so he only asks about what he can't see there. He asks about the things that matter, like the venue, the timings and who's leading it, so the details are right first time. If something isn't decided yet, just say so, and he'll leave it open for you to fill in later. A few more answers, and he's ready. Then he builds the whole proposal, written for this client. Here it is. Your cover, a personal letter to Rebecca, and your understanding of the brief, ready to check through. Paul writes everything except the prices. For those, open the Quotation, and click Pull from Current RMS. Each group comes across with its description and its total. And it checks the total matches the job in Current RMS, so you know nothing's been missed. When you're happy, click Send, add your client's email, and send it. Before we look at the quotation, a word on Current RMS. A tidy quote in Current RMS means a clean proposal, every time. pro-posal.io pulls your quote group by group. The group name becomes the heading, the description becomes the words your client reads, and the group total is the price. The individual items stay behind the scenes. So, four habits. Put every item in a group. Name your groups the way your client thinks. Write a description on every group, in plain English. And check your totals before you pull. And four things to avoid. Items outside a group get swept into one called Other. Blank descriptions leave your client with just a heading and a price. Anything in a description goes on the proposal, so keep internal notes elsewhere. And keep your groups one level deep. If you price the whole job as one deal, set a deal price on the opportunity. Your proposal shows one package price, with every group listed as part of it. That's when good descriptions matter most. So before you pull, a thirty-second check. Then let's see it in pro-posal.io. Here's the summit job from earlier, set up the right way. Six groups, each with a clear description and its own price. And here's the Corrivale awards, priced as one deal for the whole job. One package price, with every group listed as included, and the descriptions doing the selling. Then choose how it looks. Classic table, Minimal, Two Column, or Hero Total, which leads with the big number. Now a job that wasn't set up properly in Current RMS. Pull it in, and you can see the problem straight away. A group called GRP1, and no descriptions at all, so there's nothing here for the client to read. The fix is in Current RMS, not here. Name each group clearly, give it a description, then pull again, and it comes through clean. Not using Current RMS? You can build the quote by hand, right here in the editor. Open the Quotation. Start with a group for each part of the job, named the way your client thinks. Then add the items in that group. A description, a quantity, and the price without VAT. Add another group for the next part of the job, and keep going. Optional add-ons are extras your client can tick for themselves, like filming the awards. The total updates as they choose. And add a discount if you need to, as a fixed amount or a percentage. The totals work themselves out, with VAT shown the way you've set it in your settings.

Case studies are your proof. Every one you add here can drop straight into your proposals. I've already added a few, so let's add the big one, last year's Northern Innovation Summit. Up top, you can set the section's title, subtitle and intro once, and it's used on every proposal. Now, New Case Study. You get a clean page, laid out like an article. Start with a strong cover photo, because it's the first thing clients see. Then the title, the client, where it was, and when. The summary is the short version that shows on the case study card inside your proposals. A sentence or two is plenty. Below that, tell the story. Use headings to break it up. The brief, what you delivered, and how it went. If you've already written it up somewhere, just paste it in. Headings and bullet points come across too. Then add a photo or two from the event. It really helps a client picture it. When you're happy, publish it. Published case studies are added to new proposals automatically, and each one gets its own page that you can share with anyone. Back on the list, the tick means it's included on new proposals by default. A cross means you'd rather add it by hand, like this one. Next up, testimonials, FAQs and big numbers. Testimonials, FAQs and big numbers all work the same way. Add them once here, and they're ready to drop into any proposal. Let's start with testimonials. Add who said it, their role, and the company they work for. A photo makes a quote feel real, so add one if you've got it. Then what they said. Short and specific beats long and gushing, every time. FAQs answer the questions clients always ask, before they've had to ask them. Write the question the way a client would ask it, and keep the answer short and plain. This box means it's included on new proposals automatically. And big numbers are your track record at a glance. Years in business, events delivered, that sort of thing. Small Print is where your terms and policies live. Anything you add here can sit at the bottom of your proposals, so the paperwork is always there when a client says yes. First, your company details. Your registered address, plus your company and VAT numbers if you have them. They appear in the small print footer. I've already added our hire terms and our social media policy, so let's add another. Give it a name, and upload the PDF. Now choose how it behaves. Mandatory means it's on every proposal and can't be removed. Default means it's included, but you can switch it off. And Optional means you add it when you need it. Our health and safety statement goes in by default. I'll add our sustainability policy as optional. And if a document expires, like an insurance certificate, give it an expiry date, and it stops appearing on new proposals once it's out of date. Everything you upload anywhere in pro-posal.io lands in your Media Library, sorted into logos, covers and team photos. You can upload here too, a few at a time, so your best event photos are ready and waiting whenever you build a proposal. Snippets save you writing the same section over and over. When you've got one you're proud of, save it as a snippet. Click the scissors, give it a name, and save. Now it's one click away on any proposal. Here's another one. Add Section, then the Snippets tab, and pick it. It comes in exactly as you saved it, photos and all. And it stays linked to the snippet. Improve the snippet later, and any proposal using it offers to update to the latest version. If you want to change just this copy, click Detach, and it becomes its own section. All your snippets live in Settings, under Snippets. Edit them there, or create a new one from scratch. Templates set the starting structure for every new proposal. There are two ready-made system templates, and you can build your own. Click Create Template, and give it a name and a short description. Now add the sections you want, in the order you want them. The cover, Accept and Small Print are always there for you. Your quote, your team, your best case studies, and a gallery. Snippets go in too. So the awards running order we saved earlier is ready and waiting on every awards proposal. It saves as you go. Next time you start a proposal, just pick your template.

Let's put it all together. A brand new awards proposal, from our Awards evening template, with the clock running. Click Start with Paul, and he'll ask a few questions about the event. Answer in your own words. A sentence or two is plenty. Paul already knows your company, your team and your case studies, so you only need to tell him what's new. He asks about the things that matter, like the venue, the timings, and who's leading it, so the details are right first time. Be as brief or as detailed as you like. The more he knows, the better the first draft. If he asks something you don't know yet, just say so, and he'll leave it open in the proposal. A few more questions, and he's ready. Then he builds the whole proposal, section by section. And here it is. Every section from the template, written for this client, and all on brand. The spec, the team, our case studies, and the running order we saved as a snippet. All of that from a blank page in a few minutes, with the clock running the whole time. Add a few photos to the gallery, pull your quote from Current RMS, and it's ready to send. Every proposal opens with the cover. Paul's already filled in the headline and the date from the job. Tweak the headline or the line underneath it, add the venue, and the preview changes as you go. The background starts as your default cover photo, but you can change it for each proposal, or use a video instead. This slider darkens the photo, so the words always stand out. Next, Specially Prepared For. This is your personal letter to the client, and it makes a real difference. There are two layouts. The Letter, and The Postcard. Same words, a different feel. Add who it's for, and their logo too, if you have it. Paul has already written a first draft of the message. Make it sound like you. Then choose who it's from. Pick the sender, and their name, role and photo are pulled straight from their profile. Add a signature for that personal touch. Now the sections that tell your story. About Us comes straight from your company profile, so it's already written. Change anything you like. It only changes this proposal, and your company profile stays as it is. Switch to Image and Text to add a photo alongside it. I'll pick one from the Media Library. Project Details is your understanding of the brief. Paul writes it from what you told him, so read it through and make it yours. This is where you show you've listened. Their date, their guests, and what matters most to them on the night. For a shorter proposal, there's the Executive Summary. It replaces the letter and the project details, so you use one or the other. Here's a one-page version of the same proposal. Add Section, then Executive Summary. New sections go just above Accept, so drag it up, under the cover. Add who it's for, then write your summary. Keep it short. What you'll deliver, and why you're the right team to do it. The project facts are pulled from the proposal. Change them here if you need to, and it only affects this section. Show quote total pulls the live total from your quotation, using your VAT settings. Then pick a layout. Two Column, Deal Sheet, Invoice Header, or Brief Card. The Text section is the flexible one. Use it for anything that doesn't have a section of its own, like how the night will run. Give it a title, and a subtitle if you like. Then a short introduction to set the scene. Now break it into subject blocks. Each one gets a title, some words, and as many photos as you like. Add a photo from your library to bring it to life. Add another block for the next part of the evening. Give that one a photo too, and keep going until the story's told. In the Gallery layout, the blocks sit side by side. Switch to Stacked, and each one gets its own row, with the photo alongside. The Technical Specification is where the detail lives. It's the part your client's production team will read line by line. Start with a line of introduction. Then add a block for each department. Sound first. Give it a title, and list the kit. Add photos too, like your control position, so they can see exactly what's coming. Then lighting, video, staging. However your team splits the work. Under File Attachments, add drawings and documents, like a lighting plot or a stage plan. And if you'd rather not hand over your designs before you've won the work, switch on Protect until accepted. Images are blurred and downloads are locked until your client says yes. A timeline shows your client how you'll get from yes to the big night. Add Section, then Timeline. Add each milestone with a date, and a line of detail if it helps. Your client can see at a glance what happens, and when. Then choose a layout. Simple, or Bold. Meet the Team introduces the people your client will work with. There are five layouts to choose from. Add colleagues from your settings, or add someone just for this proposal, like a freelancer, with Add Local. The Gallery is where your best photos do the talking. Add them straight from your library. Add as many as you like, and give each one a caption if it needs one. Show them as a grid, a carousel, or an accordion. And if you've got a showreel, add a Video section and upload your clip. Add a cover image for before it plays, and a short caption underneath. These four sections pull straight from your library. Set them up once in settings, and adding them to a proposal takes seconds. First, case studies. Anything you've marked as a default is already ticked. Untick any that don't suit this client. An investor day isn't much use for an awards dinner. Grid shows them side by side. Featured gives your best one the spotlight. Testimonials work the same way. Priya is the client here, so I'll untick her own quote, and show the rest as a carousel. Big Numbers are your headline stats, in a row or a grid. And FAQs answer questions before they're asked. Choose from your company FAQs, or add a question just for this proposal. At the bottom of every proposal sits the Small Print. Anything you've made mandatory in settings is always included. Default documents are ticked for you, and you can switch them off. Optional ones stay off until you need them. This client asked about sustainability, so I'll add our policy. Need something just for this job, like a site risk assessment? Add it here, and it only appears on this proposal. Just above it is Accept, where your client says yes. Start with a warm closing statement. You can change the wording on the button, and the thank-you message they see once they've accepted. When your client accepts, they sign right there on the page, and you're told straight away. Video six shows exactly what they see. When you're happy with your proposal, click Send. You can email it from here, copy a link to share however you like, or download a PDF to attach to your own email. Add your client's email address. You can add more than one. The subject and message come from your email template, with the names already filled in. Tweak them for this client if you like. Set an expiry date if your prices only hold for so long. After that, your client can still read it, but they can't accept it. For anything sensitive, tick Require a password, and they'll need it to open the proposal. Send them the password separately. I don't need one for this client. Click Send Proposal, and it's on its way. It's now marked as sent, and you get the link to share too. From here, you can see every time your client opens it. This is what your client sees when they open the link. Your brand, your cover, and their event, front and centre. They can jump to any section from the menu, on a laptop or on their phone. The quote shows each group with its description and price, and the VAT is worked out for them. When they're ready, they click Accept. They type their name, and sign with a finger or a mouse. One click, and it's accepted. They see your thank-you message. You get an email straight away, and with Current RMS connected, a note goes onto the job with the date and the accepted total. Once it's sent, you can see how your client is getting on. Right at the top of the proposal, you'll see how many times it's been viewed, and how long ago. The first time they open it, you'll get a notification, so you know it's landed. For the bigger picture, there's Analytics. Your headline numbers: how many proposals are live, how many have been accepted, and your conversion rate. Total Value is everything your clients have accepted, and Total Views counts every time a proposal's been opened. The funnel shows how many of your drafts get sent, and how many of those you win. And Top Proposals shows which ones are getting the most attention, so you know who to follow up first.

A few tools that save time once you're up and running, starting in your Proposal Library. Duplicate any proposal to reuse it for a similar job. Give the copy a new name and client, and everything else comes with it. Archive the ones you've finished with, to keep the library tidy. They're kept safe under Archived, and you can restore them any time. In the editor, click the pencil next to the title to rename a proposal or change the client. Once it's sent, copy the client link to share it however you like, by text or WhatsApp. Download a PDF at any time, for anyone who'd rather have a document. And the lightning bolt is Power Mode. It opens a second window for editing the content directly. Handy for big changes, but most people never need it. Once it's sent, your client sees the version you sent, even while you carry on editing. This banner is there to remind you. Make your changes as normal. The client has confirmed when they'll have the running order, so I'll update the timeline. Notice Unpublished changes at the top. Your client won't see any of this until you publish it. When you're ready, click Publish Update, and add a short note about what's changed. Tick Notify client, and they'll get an email to say there's a new version. Then publish. That's live, and the revision number has gone up. Click it to see every version you've published, with your notes. Open any of them to see exactly what your client saw at the time. Conversations keeps everything about a proposal in one place. Each proposal gets its own thread. You can see everything that's happened. When it was sent, when it was viewed, and every update you've published. And here's a question from Priya, sent from the proposal page. You'll get it by email too, so you can reply to her directly. Talk it through with your team right here, so everyone knows what's been agreed. Clients never see this thread. The same thread is in the editor too, so it's right there while you make the change. And for everything else, there's team chat. A general channel for the whole team, and direct messages. That's the full journey, from your first proposal to your client's questions. Thanks for watching.