Tire kickers — people who ask for proposals without ever intending to buy from you — are wasting your time and dragging down your close rates.

If you could wave a magic wand and undo all the proposals you wrote for tire kickers (who never intended to purchase anyway), your overall close rate would go up, and you’d have saved a bunch of time.

Well, we don’t have a magic wand.

And we can’t go back in time to save you from writing those proposals.

But what we can do is protect Future You from time wasters, tire kickers, and proposal writing by building you a moat.

That’s one of the reasons I love selling paid discovery and project roadmaps. Roadmaps act as a moat, protect your time, and keep bad-fit clients away.

Once you’ve launched a roadmap service offering, it’s easy to position it as the recommended (or required) way to start working with you.

That way, when a lead or prospective client asks you for a proposal, you can politely nudge them onto the track with a short message about how you best work. Here’s an example of what you could say:

Thanks for asking for a proposal. Currently, the only way I start working with new clients is with {my roadmapping service}

Over the years, I’ve discovered that my client projects are much more successful when we start our work together with a small discovery-focused project to identify our target goals and outcomes and define our ongoing strategy before writing a proposal.

Beginning with an initial discovery project is what I’ve discovered works best for my clients, team, and business. As such, this is the only way I work with new clients.

If you’d like to get started working together, you can purchase {my roadmapping service} right here (<link>). Once you purchase, you’ll receive an email with the next steps to schedule our kickoff call.

Here’s the thing

Will some people object to your building a moat, selling roadmaps, and protecting your time? Absolutely.

But what I’ve discovered first-hand is that the people who get the angriest about your moat are the same tire kickers who ask you for proposals and then never end up buying what you’re selling.

So is it a bad thing if those non-buyers end up stuck on the opposite side of your moat from you?

I think it’s a win.

After all, when you start selling roadmapping:

• You’ll save time
• You’ll start selling strategy instead of implementation
• You’ll get paid for what you’ve been doing for free all along (writing proposals)
  

If you’re wondering how you can get started selling roadmaps (and build a moat for your business), then you should check out Quick Start Roadmapping (https://kaidavis.com/products/roadmapping/).

Quick Start Roadmapping has everything you need to start selling, running, and delivering strategy-focused roadmapping projects for your clients.

You’ll receive the book, email templates, questionnaire swipe files, video overviews, and more resources with your purchase.

Read more right here: https://kaidavis.com/products/roadmapping/.

Excelsior!

Kai