A person in one of my groups commented:

New biz owner here. How normal is it to send someone a proposal and never hear from them again?

The price is actually low to standard but I've had it happen about 4 times in the last couple months.

Now I want you to think of how many times you ignore e-mail before you open it up, or open it, then say to yourself, “I'll deal with it later,” and then never do. Marketers know this and they send long series, including many on the day of the closing of their offer.

But then you've got to have an offer closing. Building in urgency can make a huge difference.

And be wary of being too cheap. People think they get what they pay for. If you are too cheap relative to the competition, they'll think they are not getting as much, and might actually go with someone who costs more because of the perceived value.

There are a bunch of steps I'd take here.

1. Determine the unique value you add. In other words, why would your potential client choose you instead of anyone else. And it could just be something as simple as you answering the phone in an industry that is notorious for it's practitioner's being non-responsive.

2. Since you are so unique, you are worth more. Set a target/retail price that's on the high end. Again, you've seen this a hundred times. James did it with his Altucher Report. Get it now and Ihttp://www.jamesaltucher.comll give you lifetime access for $X, but I expect that this will be $X a month once this is fully built out. Probably set this out in the reverse order.

3. Hone your story, your why. People don't respond to what you do but why you do it. It's an idea strongly pushed by Simon Sinek, but I find a good example of it in Marissa Murgatroyd's offer for her Message to Money program, particularly in the presenter profiles. (This event might make sense for you as well).

4. Get creative about pricing. If yours is a one time service, maybe there's an ongoing component you can provide. In one of my incarnations, I waive a $500 set up fee because I expect the $50 a month I expect to earn over a long term will more than compensate. It will also set me up for better cash flow down the line.

Now it's time to make a time limited offer:

During this special launch, my service (worth $Y) is available to you for .80% of Y (or whatever you are comfortable with. In another of my incarnations, I'd discount up to 80%), but this special price is only available to the first N customers, or for M time.

If you have authorization to send them e-mails, you could set them up with an auto-responder e-mail sequence that builds up to the end of the offer. You could do this anyway, if you are approaching businesses, under the US CAN-SPAM Act, but it's against the Terms of Service of most of the companies providing this service. But it's better policy to run permission based lists as you are less likely to end up with a blocked mail account having been tagged as a spammer.

So that's a lot said in response to a short comment, and I'm only getting started. And now, if you see that I might also make a difference for you and your business, I invite you to schedule yourself, and we'll see what we can do to rock your business.

Peace.