Need to impress a client to close a deal? Present your solution in a compelling manner. Learn how to use PowerPoint to make business proposal presentations.
Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Advertisement Sep 7, 2023 • 26 min readWinning a potential client is a challenge. You need to present your solution in a compelling manner. A business proposal presentation template can help.
Do you need to impress a client to close a deal?
Everything begins with a good business proposal presentation. Maybe you're trying to sell your products or services to a prospective client. Or you might be proposing a new venture internally. Either way, knowing how to make a business proposal that stands out will help your leg up on the competition.
In this guide, we’ve outlined some valuable tips for business proposal presentations. We’ve also lined up some creative business proposal PowerPoint templates to make you feel inspired and get you started. Finally, you'll learn how to make a proposal presentation with PowerPoint.
Are you interested in learning how to use PowerPoint to make business proposals? Watch this quick screencast to learn all about creating proposals with PowerPoint:
Or study the complete written tutorial below.
Jump to content in this section:
A business proposal is any business offer document sent to a prospective client. Its main goal is to persuade an organization to buy your product or service over your competitors. This is why a business proposal can make or break a deal.
Usually, a proposal can be solicited or unsolicited:
Here’s a sample business proposal PowerPoint presentation. It comes with a clean and modern design. It's both informative and visually appealing.
A business proposal PowerPoint presentation is highly recommended because of its visual narrative. But proposal presentations don't have to be overly formal.
In fact, making a business proposal PPT presentation is complementary to that. It'll help you convince potential clients even more.
The quality of your proposal presentation affects your chances of closing a deal. Poorly designed business proposal PowerPoint presentation are simply less persuasive.
If you want to know how to make a business proposal presentation that captivates your audience, we've got you covered. Here's a guide with tips and inspiration to craft the perfect proposal presentation.
Before doing any business proposal, it’s crucial to do your homework first by knowing who your potential client is. You need a complete picture of your clients. That includes how they operate and what their business needs are. Without these, it's hard to deliver a proper business proposal presentation.
The first step is to conduct client research to develop a more detailed idea of their needs and how your services or products will satisfy them. Here are some tips to study your clients:
Use the research to adapt your business proposal PowerPoint presentation. The tone of your contents and design elements should adapt according to your clients. Your clients will appreciate this research when they see the business proposal presentation.
What are you bringing to the table? How do you plan to solve their problems? Why should they choose your solutions over others?
Take what you’ve learned from client research and put it into your proposal presentation. The best way to show how you can solve their problem is by telling them exactly what they're in for through the first two slides.
Summarize your solution in a brief and concise manner from the very beginning. Let them know what certain aspects of your solution will help them achieve their business goals. This will keep your clients engaged with the rest of your business proposal presentation.
A business proposal structure will sketch how your presentation will run. Having a robust and seamless structure will help you navigate your presentation much easier. This will also prevent you from missing some important messages and so that your thoughts won’t get easily rambled.
There’s no right or wrong structure to your presentation proposal. It actually depends on how you want to tell your message across your potential clients. Here are some common elements requested in a business proposal:
Instead of writing a lengthy paragraph or text-loaded slides, break down your ideas into simple words or phrases. Then, accompany your business proposal PowerPoint slides with impactful images. Photography is a powerful tool to enhance any dull slides and deliver more striking messages.
As much as possible, just keep one photo for each slide or for each point you want to relay. Too many images can also be distracting. Remember, images are just supporting materials to your main content. They act as attention-grabbing elements and will keep your contents more memorable.
Color immediately tells you about your brand and distinguishes you from competitors. It's ideal to use your branding colors. If in case, you only have one color to use, create a color palette of at least three colors to work with. It should be complementary to your brand and must be consistent throughout the presentation.
If you’re unsure which color palette to use, Coolors can help you explore and generate the right color combinations. Although, most business proposal PowerPoint templates already have a built-in color palette that you can use. The key is to align it to your brand’s main color. Thankfully, it'll be easy to do in your PowerPoint proposal template.
Contrast is a crucial design element when learning how to make a business proposal PowerPoint presentation. It plays a vital role in text legibility. There are certain colors that don’t contrast well like pink on the background and yellow for the text. Ensure that you've got enough contrast between the background color and the opposing text color.
Text legibility is also a priority when using an image as a background. A pro tip is to add a black overlay on your text with 50% transparency. This will cast a shadow on your text, becoming much easier to read. There are many proposal presentation examples with great contrast you can use as inspiration.
It’s fun to include different design elements into your business proposal presentation. These typically make the content more attractive and compelling. But you also need to give some room for your business proposal PPT to breath.
Presentation proposal designs are effective when they're used at a minimum. Overdoing it will just make your business proposal PPT to get cluttered and harder to digest. Adding some white spaces or negative spaces into your presentation is a good aesthetic composition.
Line breaks add more white space, which gives readers’ eyes a break before going to important messages. This allows them to absorb the information better. To add more white spaces, use numbered lists and bullet points to your slides.
How you visually deliver your content in your PowerPoint proposal template will also matter. This is where typography becomes a crucial element on how to make a business proposal. You should establish a typographic hierarchy that'll help you organize your content better. For example, you should have various font size and font family rules for headings, subheadings, body copy, etc.
This will help you differentiate certain ideas and body of thoughts easily. If all your contents have the same font family and size, this will easily ramble the messages that you want to relay. With hierarchy, your contents are quicker to scan and read.
Variety of slide layouts is also important on a business proposal PowerPoint template. Having just one slide layout across your presentation will make it dull and boring. Make sure to excite your audience by using varied slide layouts for different ideas or sections.
The best business proposal PPT designs are visual. That means you'll need the amount of text in the business proposal document. A business proposal PowerPoint should be your guide when presenting and not a fully written document.
The use of iconography will help you lessen the number of texts in your PowerPoint. This will also help you relay your ideas much faster. Remember to align the icons to your brand and they should all be uniform in style.
Lastly, close your business proposal presentation with a compelling call to action. You’re proposing because you want your audience to take specific actions at the end of the presentation.
With this, make sure that your audience knows what to do next. As much as possible, keep your call to action direct to the point and clear enough to comprehend. Don’t forget to set timelines and expectations for follow-ups.
If you're creating business proposals quite often you should consider Envato Elements. It's a one stop shop for all your creative needs. Access thousands of business proposal presentation examples, images, graphics and all sorts of design assets for a low monthly fee.
Sign up for Envato Elements and get instant access to a library of over million digital assets. That includes top modern business proposal presentation examples.
Envato Elements is a great choice if you need design assets on a regular basis.
Business proposal PPT presentation designs will impress in 2023. The advantage of premium templates is their ease of use.
In moments, you can see how to make business research proposal presentation designs. Let’s learn how, in just five quick steps.
Planning to follow along? Head over to Envato Elements and download the stunning Business Proposal template set today!
Let's get started:
If there’s a single key factor in any successful business proposal presentation, it’s brevity. Talk too long and you’ll lose your audience, and along with them, any chance of success with your proposal. This means it’s important to select only the slides that most benefit you.
To do so, go to View > Slide Sorter on PowerPoint’s ribbon. This shows a series of thumbnails for each slide in the deck. You can press Delete on your keyboard to remove any unwanted slides that you have selected.
Plus, you can click and drag the thumbnails to reorder the slides. This is how to make proposal presentation designs from Envato Elements work for you.
Finished? Back on the View tab, click on Normal. You’ll be ready to edit right away!
A proposal presentation, by definition, will be full of words. These explain your proposal in detail and communicate it to your audience.
Premium templates like this make it easy to customize this text. Notice as you work on a slide like slide 1 here that there's already text on the slide.
This text, though, is simply a placeholder. To add your own words, click on the placeholder text box until you've got the contents selected.
Start typing on your keyboard. PowerPoint adds your content into the existing text boxes. This saves you time by avoiding the need to construct sleek slide layouts from scratch. Repeat throughout your slide deck as needed.
It’s easy to think that proposal presentation templates are static in their styling. But that just isn’t so. For example, you can add text effects to any of the words that you place on your slides. To do that, first ensure that the text is selected.
Then, go to the Home tab on PowerPoint’s ribbon. Just left of center, you’ll see the Font section. From the dropdowns, you can change things like the font size and style. Or you can click the adjacent buttons to highlight text or make it bold or italicized.
Slides like slide #4 here have cool shapes in a modern color palette. But you aren’t required to use these same colors. In fact, color changes are how to do a proposal presentation that’s unique. For example, you can match your slides to your brand colors.
To do this, click on one of the shapes to select it. On the ribbon, open the Shape Format tab.
You’ll see several options here, and the one you’re looking for is Shape Fill. Open it up and choose one of the color thumbnails. PowerPoint automatically changes the color of the shape that you selected.
Pictures: they’re how to make proposal presentation designs unique. To add photos here, click on one of the photo placeholders like the one on slide #4. Then, go to the Picture Format tab on the ribbon, and choose the Change Picture dropdown.
From here, click From a File. Browse to an image file stored on your computer and click to insert it. In this tutorial, we're using a warehouse image from Envato Elements.
PowerPoint will import the photo, sizing and scaling it to fit in the placeholder. It’s a very easy way to build impressive proposal presentation slides in 2023.
Designing a beautiful and compelling business proposal PowerPoint can be tough. After all, we're not all graphic designers. Luckily, highly customizable business proposal presentation templates are a major help. Great business proposal designs have the blueprint already built for you.
What's the best way to learn how to make proposal presentations? Lean on the work of others. Here are five top business PowerPoint proposal templates that you can use or draw inspiration from:
Proposal PowerPoint is a clean and scalable business proposal PowerPoint template. It has the striking colors and graphics that set it apart from the pack.
Suitable for: eCommerce, product promotions, enterprise accounts.
Minimal Business Proposal PowerPoint is a creative and multipurpose template. It's minimalistic so that your business proposal isn't a distraction from the content inside it.
Suitable for: Fashion, design, and IT industries.
Project Proposal PowerPoint Template is makes a data-driven presentation visually appealing. Its design is simple yet highly effective, making it a top research proposal presentation.
Suitable for: In-house special projects, small and medium businesses.
Business Proposal PowerPoint Template has grand and bold designs to help your proposals stand out.
Suitable for: All types of industries, small or large enterprises.
Pro Business Proposal Template - (PPT) is intended for traditional style seekers. It's got a good balance of professional and modern designs. Try it if you have plenty of pictures you want to add to your presentation proposal.
Suitable for: Companies with traditional style but also want to amp up their game.
The above is just a small selection of awesome and modern proposal presentation examples. To see even more great PowerPoint templates, check out these posts:
To make sure your presentation looks modern and professional, it pays to know the current PowerPoint slide design trends. Here are five quick business proposal slide design trends to make use of in 2023:
Your proposal cover is a great way to pique the interest of your audience and give them a quick taste of your brand. Make an impactful proposal cover by including a photo of your business or your team. Or choose another eye-catching image.
Odds are you or someone you know prefers dark mode to the default look of your phone or favorite app. Applying this trend to your presentation proposal lets you create a look that works for those members of your audience. It's also a nice break from traditional white backgrounds.
Use plenty of infographics, charts, and other visual elements to present the data in your proposal. This will make it easier for your audience to visualize abstract ideas and make them more engaged with the proposal.
Consider using a vertical layout for your business proposal. Since most proposals are in horizontal format, this is a good way for yours to stand out. Check out Envato Elements for vertical PowerPoint proposal templates.
Don't forget about 3D characters when customizing your PowerPoint presentation proposal template. Using 3D models is one of the hottest presentation trends in 2023. They add another layer to your work and makes your business more personable.
So, you’ve decided to build a business research proposal presentation in PowerPoint. But you may still have a few questions. When you think of how to do a proposal presentation, it always pays to know how PowerPoint can work for you. Here, we’ve answered five common PowerPoint questions:
PowerPoint business proposal presentations lean on creative design ideas. The best way to get these ideas is through the use of premium templates from Envato Elements.
These templates have two key advantages:
The pre-built layouts take the hard work out of the design process. Instead of beginning from scratch, you can take a layout and drop in your own content in seconds.
Learn more about PPT design ideas in our tutorial:
Yes! Animations prove how to do a proposal presentation that'll impress any audience. PowerPoint’s Animation tab gives you plenty of options.
Plus, Envato Elements PPT templates are often pre-animated. This saves you time, since the content you add will already be animated.
For a complete look at proposal presentation animation, check out our complete guide:
It’s easy! PowerPoint slide designs that impress audiences aren’t difficult to build. But you need to remember a few basic rules:
Need to learn more? We've got a full PPT slide design tutorial for you:
Infographics are a hallmark of the best proposal presentation designs you’ll see in 2023. These are illustrations that combine information and graphics to present ideas in style.
If you need to know how to make proposal presentation designs that are sure to impress, infographics are the place to start. Find out more here:
Yes! In 2023, the ability to share proposal presentation decks online is very important. In just a few quick steps, you can prepare and share them on video-conferencing apps like Zoom. This is increasingly important in 2023 and helps set the stage for your success.
Read more on PowerPoint and Zoom here, to help share your next proposal presentation:
PowerPoint is a powerful program that allows you to create any type of presentation. There’s a lot to learn about making great PowerPoint presentations and we've got plenty of tutorials to help you:
Any good business proposal is accompanied by a powerful business proposal PowerPoint. If you want your message to be more impactful, ensure that you've got followed our above guide on how to make a business proposal presentation.
There’s a wide range of business proposal PowerPoint templates from Envato Elements. These serve as inspiration to help you get started.
But, above all, it won’t be as effective without understanding who your prospective client is. Know what your clients' needs are and how your solution could help them. These are the two key steps to help build compelling business proposal presentation.
Editorial Note: This post was originally published in June of 2019. It's been revised to make it current, accurate, and up to date by our staff—with special help from Brenda Barron, Andrew Childress, and Nathan Umoh. Video added by Andrew Childress.
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