I’ll do anything to avoid writing a proposal

This morning I surfed funny cat videos, visited some of my favorite blogs, did some dishes, messed with my hair, organized my shoes in the closet.

I’ll do anything to avoid what I really need to do, which is to put together a proposal for a potential client to write emails and content for a “nurture campaign.” (I had to look it up.)

I hate doing proposals. One has to gather this and that, organize things, write paragraphs on the Project Scope, find Terms and Conditions that fit the situation, come up with a cost estimate… all in hopes that your proposal will stand out from the other copywriters’ proposals for a major company.

This is a big project, and I know I’d do a great job. But getting the job takes several hours of work before I even get the chance to do the work.

And I always worry that the person who is reviewing the proposal will take the best ideas from the proposals she received then go to the person she really wants to work with (which is usually the person they’ve worked with for a decade) and say, “Hey, I know you proposed this, but can you do these things instead?”

I know people do that because when I was a sales person at my old job, I’d ask potential clients to do that. I’d say, “As you go through the proposal review process and you find elements you like, please run them by me to see if that’s something we can do. I can always add it to our scope of work.” And if the client liked me, they’d come back with other people’s ideas.

I actually have a good chance of getting this job. If only I could get up the gumption this morning to put the dang thing together.

Ok. No more cat videos. After this one.