Obvious to You Is Not Obvious to the Buyer

A consultant asked BWWL® a question about her own expertise: "Do you think someone at that level wouldn't already know that?"

"Someone at that level" was the buyer. A senior executive, the person who signs the proposal.

The question assumes the buyer already knows what you know. If that were true, the buyer would not need to hire you.

You may have a proposal or a renewal going to a buyer like that before the year closes. The parts of your work that feel too obvious to mention are usually the parts the buyer cannot do. Leave them out, and they never get a price. You are the only person at the table charging yourself nothing for them.

Why it lands

If you have ever cut a line from a proposal because it felt like showing off, this is that reflex, named. None of this is a personal failing. Expertise hides from the person who has it.

1. Assuming seniority means the buyer knows your field

A title tells you what the buyer is responsible for. It does not tell you what the buyer can do. An executive who runs a division may never have read a vendor contract line by line.

What it costs. The step stays off the proposal. A step that is not on the page does not get priced.

The correction. List what you do in the first week of an engagement without being asked. Each item goes on the page.

2. Leaving out the work that feels easy

Easy is the product of years. The buyer is not paying for how hard the work feels to you. The buyer is paying for the outcome the work protects.

What it costs. The fastest part of your work is often the most valuable to the buyer. It is also the first part you cut.

The correction. Write down three things that take you minutes and would take the buyer's team weeks.

Translation: the buyer pays for what the buyer cannot do. What you find obvious is usually on that list.

3. Explaining the method instead of naming the outcome

When the proposal walks through how you do the work, the buyer starts to feel it could be done in-house. The method becomes the product, and a method looks cheap once it is explained.

What it costs. The buyer prices the explanation, not the result.

The correction. Name what the work prevents or produces, in the buyer's money. Keep the method for the engagement.

See the difference? The buyer needs to know what arrives. Not how it is built.

4. Discounting before the buyer asks

The question "wouldn't they already know that?" is a discount. It happens before the proposal is written, with no one else in the room.

What it costs. The buyer never sees the full scope. The fee is set against the reduced version.

The correction. Write the list from mistakes 1 and 2 before you write the fee line. Nothing comes off the list because it feels obvious.

The example

An illustration, not a client case.

A compliance consultant reads a vendor contract and finds the indemnity gap in ten minutes. To her, that is reading. To the buyer, it is the clause that would have left the company holding the loss. If her proposal says "contract review," the buyer prices reading.

Your template

The decision: ____________ (proposal, renewal, retainer)
The person who signs: ____________
The date it is due: ____________
Three things I do in minutes that take others weeks:
  1. ____________
  2. ____________
  3. ____________
What each one prevents or produces, in the buyer's money:
  1. ____________
  2. ____________
  3. ____________

What the record does not do

The list shows what the buyer would be buying. It names the outcomes.

It does not say what those outcomes are worth in dollars to this buyer. That number comes only from valuing the documented record, not from a peer's rate or last year's fee.

Before the proposal goes to the buyer, put the obvious work back on the page and have it valued before you write the fee.