How To Write Estimates

I've just had two wonderful compliments from a potential client, and I hope he doesn't mind me quoting him...

"Thank you for your email. The questions are good, and show a) interest on your part, and b) an apparent desire to have your proposal be accurate and meaningful. I appreciate both points."

"Thank you for your prompt response. I must say that, without comment on the dollar amounts, I am very appreciative of the format of your estimate. A detailed breakdown as you have offered instills confidence for me as a potential customer that you understand the task, and can clearly estimate and communicate its scope through the time and money involved. Keep up the good work."

So it made me think maybe I should delay my yapping about the chocolate site and go through how we generate and send estimates since it might help you.

Who is Generating Your Estimates?
Is the sales person generating estimates? Maybe he or she isn't doing the best job possible. Well if you only do a few things and they're always the same price, then he or she is probably doing a fine job. :) But if you're anything like us and you do custom programming on every project, you may want to involve the staff who would be doing that work.

When I get information from a potential client, I forward it immediately to my staff. I turn faxes into PDF files and forward emails. I want my staff to know as much as I know, and I'll comment on things if I know something that can help. So the artists get the parts of the project that would require their work and the programmers get their part. Each are clearly told what they are expected to do and what to make sure they exclude. For example, I love to do some work on each client, so if I'm going to work on the design, I let the programmers know they will get finished templates from me and I don't even write to the artists. :)

Along the same lines, I often detail what the client DOESN'T want or need since I have healthy brainy folks on staff who are always looking to add more. And why not. :) But sometimes the client KNOWS they don't want a certain feature or they don't want us to use a certain programming language. My staff needs to know that up front since working around special requests might change a price I'm familiar with.

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