Proposal request
Five working days
Request a proposal for your store
A written proposal with the scope, the sequence, the price and the named people who would do the work. Free, non-binding, and specific enough to take to a board. This page tells you exactly what arrives, what we need to write it, and when asking for one is premature.
TURNAROUND
Five working days
TYPICAL LENGTH
Eight to twelve pages
COST
Free
OBLIGATION
None
Every proposal is written against your numbers, not assembled from a template with your logo dropped on it.
- What arrives
Six things, every time
A proposal that leaves any of these out is a brochure. Ours is structured the same way whether the engagement is $3,000 a month or $30,000.
The constraint we think you have
- Named in one sentence, before any scope is described
- The evidence that points at it, from your own data
- What we expect to move, and roughly by how much
Scope, in the order it happens
- Which service lines run, and which deliberately do not
- A ninety-day sequence sized in weeks, not a wish list
- What is in month one versus what waits until month three
Price, with the reasoning
- A monthly figure, not a range you have to call about
- What drives it up or down for your catalogue and channels
- Any one-off costs stated separately from the retainer
The people, by name
- Who runs each discipline on your account
- Who you speak to weekly, and who owns the number
- No sales engineers who then hand you to somebody else
How it gets measured
- The metric that decides whether this worked
- The baseline it is measured against, and the date it was taken
- When you would reasonably expect to see movement
Assumptions and exclusions
- What we have assumed that could turn out to be wrong
- What is explicitly not included, so nobody discovers it later
- What we need from your side, with the hours it will cost you
Proposals are written by the strategist who would run the account, not by a business development team. That is why they take five days rather than one.
- The shape of it
Front-loaded, deliberately
The first page is the argument. The scope and the price follow from it rather than leading it.
Most agency proposals open with an About Us section, a client logo wall and a description of the agency’s methodology. By the time anything about your business appears, the reader has skimmed four pages. Ours opens on page one with what we think is holding your revenue down and why we think it — then everything after that is the case for fixing it in a particular order.
That structure has a side effect worth stating: if we cannot name a constraint from what you have given us, the proposal says so rather than padding. Occasionally the honest version of page one is that you should take the free audit first, and we will tell you that instead of quoting.
- No logo wall, no methodology diagram, no filler case studies
- Every number in it traceable to something you sent us
- Written to be forwarded internally without a covering explanation
- From your side
What we need to write it
The form below asks for most of this. The more of it you can give, the more specific the proposal — and the less of it reads as assumption.
None of this is a prerequisite. We will write a proposal from the store URL alone if that is all you want to share, it will simply carry more caveats and a wider price range.
- Your store URL, and any marketplace storefronts
- Roughly what you turn over online each month
- The gross margin band your catalogue sits in
- What you are spending on marketing now, and where
- What you have already tried that did not work
- Whether there is a deadline or event driving this
We do not ask for analytics access to write a proposal. That comes later, and only if you decide to go ahead or to take the free audit.
- The timeline
Request to proposal in five working days
No discovery workshop, no mutual NDA before anyone has said anything, no three-week scheduling exercise.
01
You send the form — day zero
Ten fields, most of them optional. If something in it is unclear we email a single follow-up question rather than booking a call to ask it.
02
We look at your store — days one and two
A strategist spends real time on the storefront, the category layer and whatever public marketplace presence exists, and forms a view on the constraint.
03
We write it — days three and four
Scope, sequence, price and people, written by the person who would run the account. Reviewed by one other specialist before it leaves.
04
You get it — day five
Sent as a document you keep. We will walk you through it if you want, and we will not chase you twice if you do not.
If you need it faster than five days, say so in the form. We will tell you honestly whether a rushed version is worth having.
- On price
Why the number is in the proposal and not on the call
We publish packages. What we cannot publish is which one your catalogue actually needs.
Our pricing page carries three packages and what drives the cost of each. For most brands one of those is the answer and the proposal simply confirms which. For the rest — multi-marketplace sellers, large catalogues, brands mid-replatform — the honest number sits outside a package, and quoting one on a first call would be a guess dressed as an answer.
Either way the proposal states a figure rather than a range, along with what would move it. If the figure is higher than the band you gave us, it says so on page one instead of at the end.
- Before you ask
Five times a proposal is the wrong request
We would rather tell you this here than write you a document that cannot be acted on.
You are collecting three quotes to compare
Proposals from different agencies are not comparable — the scopes differ, so the prices measure different things. Compare the reasoning on page one instead, or ask all three what they would not do.
You do not know what is wrong yet
If the brief is “grow revenue”, a proposal has to guess at the constraint. The growth assessment takes forty minutes and costs nothing, and makes the proposal far more specific.
The decision-maker is not involved
A proposal that cannot reach the person who signs is a document that gets forwarded, skimmed and forgotten. Bring them to a call first.
The budget is not agreed internally
We will quote the number the work costs. If no number has been agreed on your side, that quote lands as a shock rather than a decision.
You need a document to satisfy procurement
Tell us that in the form. It is a legitimate reason and it changes what we write — but a proposal written for procurement is a different document to one written to make a decision.
None of these are refusals. Say so in the form and we will write what is actually useful, or tell you plainly that a call would serve you better.
- Fit
Who this works for, and who it does not
Stated before you spend ten minutes on a form rather than after we have both spent a week.
We are usually a good fit when
- You are turning over roughly $25K to $2M a month online
- Somebody internally can own decisions and access
- You want one team across search, paid, retention and marketplace
- You would rather be told the brief is wrong than have it executed
- You are willing to be measured on margin rather than revenue
We are usually the wrong choice when
- You want a single channel run cheaply — a specialist will beat us
- You need guaranteed rankings or guaranteed returns
- The site is pre-launch with no traffic to work from
- You want reporting access restricted to the agency
- The decision is being made purely on lowest monthly fee
If you read the right-hand column and recognise your situation, the honest answer is that we would take your money and underperform. We would rather you knew now.
- The request
Tell us enough to write something useful
Six required fields, consent included. Everything else sharpens the proposal rather than gating it.
Your details go to one inbox and are used to write the proposal. No newsletter, no sequence, and no third parties. We reply within one business day.
- Afterwards
What happens once you send it
Four steps, and a firm limit on how often we contact you.
01
DAY ZERO
Not an autoresponder sequence. A strategist confirms receipt, and asks one follow-up question only if something material is missing.
02
DAY FIVE
A document you keep, with the price stated rather than ranged. Read it against our published packages if you want the comparison.
03
YOUR CALL
Forty-five minutes with the strategist who wrote it, to argue with the reasoning rather than to be sold the scope.
04
AFTER THAT
We check in once. If we do not hear back, we stop. You can pick the conversation up whenever it suits you.
- Questions
Proposal FAQs
The things people ask before filling in the form.
Is the proposal really free?
Yes, and there is no obligation attached to it. It takes a strategist the better part of two days to write, which is why we ask for enough detail to make it worth doing — but nothing is invoiced and nothing is owed if you decide against us.
How long does it take?
Five working days from the form to the document. If you need it sooner, say so in the form and we will tell you honestly whether a faster version would still be worth reading.
Do I need to give you analytics access?
No. A proposal is written from what is publicly visible plus what you tell us. Access only comes up later, if you go ahead or if you take the free audit.
Will the price be a range or a number?
A number, with a note on what would move it. Ranges exist to protect the agency from being wrong, and a proposal that will not commit to a figure has not done the thinking.
What if my budget is lower than your quote?
Tell us the budget in the form. If the work cannot be done properly at that level we will say so and suggest what could be done instead, including doing it in-house. We would rather lose the engagement than scope something that fails.
Can I get a proposal for one service only?
Yes. Tick the single service in the form. Be aware that for a single channel a specialist agency will usually beat us on both price and depth, and the proposal will say so if that is the case for you.
Do you sign NDAs before a proposal?
We do not need one to write a proposal, because we do not need confidential material to write it. If your procurement process requires one, note it in the form and we will handle it before anything is exchanged.
What if I would rather just talk first?
Then do that. A thirty-minute strategy call costs you less time than this form and often makes the proposal unnecessary, or much more specific if you still want one.
- Other routes in
Three ways to start that are not this one
A proposal is the most committed of the four. These are the lighter options.
THIRTY MINUTES
A conversation with a strategist about your constraint. No deck, no scope, no obligation to go further.
FIVE DAYS
A ranked constraint list, a twelve-point scorecard and a ninety-day sequence. Yours to keep either way.
FORTY MINUTES
The same twelve points, published in full with every threshold, so you can find your constraint without us.
Not sure a proposal is the right next step?
Most brands get further with a thirty-minute call or the free audit first, and the proposal is better for having waited. All three cost nothing.