In Aug 2017, I sent out a marketing proposal for $5,000 to a new prospect.

We offered to help them with a marketing audit that would evaluate their website, email automation, acquisition processes, and analytics.

We had our usual three-step proofreading process to check the final PDF for quality assurance before we mailed it out.

But I knew something wasn’t right.

While there weren’t any obvious errors, I felt we could’ve optimized the proposal better. 

It was 99% there but 99% wasn’t what we gunned for when we began 40 Parables. 

We needed to get it right.

So I asked our designer to make some changes.

He asked me why we should bother editing the PDF since it would not update the previous version that we had already mailed the prospect. 

He was right and wrong at the same time. 

He was right that updates made now wouldn’t reflect on the file the prospect would review. 

But he was wrong to not want to set things right.

The prospect wouldn’t know it, but I would and so would God.

So we set it right – a meaningless task by most metrics.

The prospect became our client, was very happy with our service, and within 3 months (in Nov 2017) signed an annual contract with us for $120,000.

As a bonus, we happened to then use that same updated proposal format for numerous projects in the future. 

No, updating the proposal is not what got us that $5,000 project, but I would’ve updated it even if I knew we wouldn’t clinch that deal.