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7 Reasons Planners Should Stop Using Word For Event Proposals.

By David Ferguson posted Wed December 02,2015 01:22 PM

  

Two years ago I started interviewing Event Planners to find out what your biggest pains and frustrations are.  The goal of these interviews was to figure out how I could best add value to the industry and where the new business I was planning to create would fit.

Over 200 interviews later, it's clear that Event Planners do not have an easy job!  There were so many pains and frustrations and many of them serious.  I started concentrating on proposals as it seemed like an area I could make a significant impact on the lives of Planners.  I mean, there is little I can do about unreasonable client expectations or the difficulty in securing sponsorship nowadays, but streamlining the proposal process had potential.

I quizzed numerous Event Planners on their current proposal writing process and was surprised just how many still use Word to create event proposals.  In fact around 86% of Planners I spoke with still struggle using Word to win event business.

Word is an awesome tool for certain things, like the task it was created for - Word Processing.  It just does not meet the needs of Planners attempting to create well designed proposals.

Here are 7 reasons why using Word could be BAD for your event proposals:

  1. Formatting images into Word documents can be a nightmare.  Especially a LOT of images.  Most Planners I speak with still admit to spending hours formatting images in each proposal.  Every hour spent on playing around lining images up is around $100 wasted!
  2. Creating an impressive looking proposal on Word is a challenge - if not impossible without a professional designer.  Many Planning companies said they hire designers to make their proposals look professional and polished but this often comes with a cost of around $300.  More money wasted!
  3. In the 21st century, when YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine (after Google), and we are used to video as a basic visual aid.  There is NO WAY to add video to your proposals - Lame!
  4. Emailing a PDF proposal created on Word, packed with images, can be a pain in the behind.  That 25mb email limit often means that going back to re-format images further and waste even more time.
  5. You have no way of knowing if your potential client is showing your proposal to your competitors so they can undercut you or take your theme ideas.  In fact, your client keeps YOUR only real intellectual property FOREVER, once you have emailed them your PDF proposal.
  6. Once you send your client a proposal, especially corporate clients, you have no way of knowing if or when the proposal has been read.  Planners describe sending their proposals into a "black hole" and become increasingly frustrated the longer they go without hearing back.  Nobody wants to be frustrated! 
  7.  EVERYBODY uses Word.  One of the main points of an event proposal is to differentiate your company from your competition. If you use the same tools as everyone else this becomes difficult.  Ask yourself - Why does everyone use Word?  The answer is clear - because they know it and they are under the false assumption that it is FREE.

Now really, when it is clear that Event Planners are being forced to waste hours and hours - on each proposal - of time they do not have - of time that is worth at least $100 per hour - HOW IS USING WORD FREE?

Simple answer - It is NOT!

But what are the other alternatives?  

To be honest, there were none!  Until now.  

This is where I shamelessly plug the result of the hundreds of hours I spent interviewing Event Planning companies.  I did this so that I could create a tool that would solve the big problems in the industry I found.  I wanted to improve the lives of Event Planners and bring value to the industry.   Perfect Event Proposals is my solution to the problems I mention above.  Check it out to see exactly how you can create incredible event proposals that WOW clients, win more business & overcome each and every one of the problems associated with using MS Word.

(Oh - and I'd love to here your comments or experiences using Word for event proposals so please leave any comments or questions below)

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