# A quote built from the buyer's economics > Start a proposal from what changes for the buyer, price a program instead of a lesson, offer a few clear options and terms, and fit it on one page. - Course: [B2B Marketing and Sales: Win Your First Company Customers](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales.md) - Module: Proposal and price - Lesson 21/32, ~24 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/a-quote-from-the-buyers-economics ## Where we are **Alex Tutor:** You're Klasna for Teams' first marketing-and-sales hire, and Veloria, the logistics company, is your biggest open deal. Its paid pilot with twelve dispatchers has just ended, and now Pavlo wants the real thing on paper. **Pavlo:** Can you send a proposal for all forty people? Yaryna will read it before anyone else does, so please make it something she can say yes to. **Sofia:** Easy: 800 UAH a lesson, times the lessons they need. I'll attach our price list and a page about our tutors. **Alex Tutor:** A price list answers «what does a lesson cost?». Yaryna's question is different: «what changes for Veloria, and is it worth the money?» A **commercial proposal** that starts from our product makes her do that translation alone. **Marta:** Start where their money goes today. Then our price sits next to a cost they already pay, not next to a tutor's hourly rate on some website. > **Exercise:** Which opening line of the Veloria proposal is built from the buyer's economics? ## What changes for Veloria **Alex Tutor:** Ask Pavlo what poor English costs them now. Not in feelings, in their own units: hours, mistakes, invoices. **Pavlo:** Three things. Dispatchers pass English calls to the two colleagues who speak it, so both lose hours. Customs forms go to an outside translator. And Stepan keeps a log of mix-ups with foreign carriers: wrong loading slots, missing documents. **Sofia:** Great, then I'll promise we'll halve those mix-ups. That's a strong opening line. **Alex Tutor:** Strong and unprovable. We control lessons, the schedule and the measuring, not Stepan's trucks. Write the costs in Veloria's words, mark their numbers as their estimates, and promise to measure the change together. > **Exercise:** Pavlo described what poor English costs Veloria now: dispatchers pass English calls to the two colleagues who speak it, customs forms go to an outside translator, and Stepan keeps a log of mix-ups with foreign carriers. Which lines belong in the «what changes for Veloria» part of the proposal? Select all that apply. ## Price a program, not a lesson **Marta:** Pavlo's plan after the pilot is about 300 lessons a month for the forty. At 800 that's 240,000 UAH a month, or 6,000 per person. **Alex Tutor:** Now name what those 240,000 buy: lessons built on carrier calls and customs forms, a schedule around shifts, a tutor replaced within a week if it doesn't work, and a monthly report Yaryna can check. **Sofia:** So it's the same 800 a lesson, just described differently? **Alex Tutor:** Same price, different comparison. A lesson gets compared with the cheapest lesson online. A program gets compared with the cost of the problem it solves. Keep the unit price visible, though: hiding it looks like a trick. **Alex Tutor:** Quick check on that last point. > **Exercise:** **True or false:** once you price a program, it looks more professional to leave out the price per lesson. > **Exercise:** The full option is 300 lessons a month for 40 people at 800 UAH a lesson. Which description prices a program rather than a lesson, and states the numbers correctly? ## Options and terms **Alex Tutor:** Give two or three options, not one take-it-or-leave-it number and not ten. A choice moves the conversation from «yes or no» to «which one». **Alex Tutor:** Why not just one clear number? > **Exercise:** Why offer Veloria two or three options rather than one price or ten? **Marta:** Option one: the twelve dispatchers from the pilot, about 100 lessons a month, 80,000 UAH. Option two: all forty, 300 lessons, 240,000. The pilot's 76,800 is credited either way. **Pavlo:** Yaryna will also ask about invoices and payment terms. Last time she asked for that before anything else. **Alex Tutor:** Then state them plainly: quarterly invoices, payment within 30 days, a month's notice to stop. Terms are part of the price, and we'll see in this module what a longer term really costs. > **Exercise:** Match each part of the proposal with the question it answers. ## One page **Sofia:** Doesn't a serious proposal need twenty pages? Methodology, tutor profiles, our history? **Alex Tutor:** Put those in an appendix for whoever wants them. The page Yaryna reads should fit on one screen: their situation, the outcome and how it's measured, the program, the options with prices, the terms, the next step with a date. **Marta:** And Pavlo should be able to forward it without rewriting a word. If he has to explain it, it's not finished. **Alex Tutor:** So how long should the page Yaryna reads be? > **Exercise:** Which proposal format best serves Veloria's finance director? **Alex Tutor:** Order matters too. Price before the problem looks expensive; the same price after it looks like an answer. > **Exercise:** Put the parts of the one-page proposal in order. ## Your opening paragraph **Marta:** Draft the top of the page for me: Veloria's situation in their words, how we'll measure the change, and the option you'd recommend with its price. **Sofia:** Can I use the numbers from Stepan's log? **Alex Tutor:** Yes, labelled as theirs, with Pavlo's permission to quote them. Their own numbers persuade more than ours, and they're harder to argue with. **Marta:** And no promises we can't keep. One honest page beats twenty hopeful ones. > **Exercise:** Write the opening of the Veloria proposal (3–5 sentences): Veloria's situation in its own words, how the change will be measured, and the option you recommend with its price. Facts: English calls go to the two colleagues who speak it, customs forms go to an outside translator, Stepan logs mix-ups with foreign carriers (quote with Pavlo's permission); option one is the twelve pilot dispatchers, about 100 lessons a month, 80,000 UAH; option two is all forty people, about 300 lessons a month, 240,000 UAH (800 UAH a lesson); the pilot's 76,800 UAH is credited either way. > **Key ideas** > > - Start the proposal from what changes for the buyer: staff time, mistakes, outside costs, in their own units and words. > - Mark the buyer's numbers as their estimates and promise to measure the change together; never promise results you don't control. > - Price a program (outcome, scope, schedule, guarantees, reporting), but keep the unit price visible. > - Offer two or three clear options and state the terms plainly: invoices, payment days, how to stop. > - One page in this order: situation, outcome and measure, program, options with prices, terms, next step with a date. Everything else goes in an appendix. **Alex Tutor:** Next, Yaryna will test those numbers. We'll build the case she needs: what the program really costs Veloria and when it pays back. - Previous lesson: [Case: a stalled deal, write the next three messages](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/stalled-deal-case.md) - Next lesson: [The ROI case for the finance director](https://productovi.com/courses/b2b-marketing-and-sales/the-roi-case.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.