How to upsell services using proposal add-ons and maximize revenue
Learn best practices and guidance around upselling your services with proposal add-ons.
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What are proposal add-ons?
Proposal add-ons are services you include in a proposal that are optional.
This lets you:
- Upsell services and generate more revenue for your business - without the extra effort.
- Improve the client experience by letting clients add on extra services that best suit their needs.
- Communicate added value by showcasing the full breadth of your services.
- Save time by eliminating back-and-forth communication with clients that may delay the sale.
Click here to learn more about how to use proposal add-ons in your Ignition account.
Best practices
What services do I offer?
We suggest starting with offering add-on services that are popular with your current clients right now. You can start attaching these services to all proposals that you send to your clients.
If you are not sure what services you sell most of, navigate to your Dashboard and check out your Services panel. It will show you your seven most popular services that made you the most revenue this financial year. You can also export your service revenue to gain deeper insights.
An easy place to start is to offer complementary services with standard offering. For example, if you are offering Tax Planning services, you might want to offer Tax Advisory, Compliance advisory or even Company tax returns as a complementary and optional service.
Additionally, you can consider upselling different services that you don’t normally offer to your clients, such as:
- Bookkeeping
- Tax planning
- Quarterly meetings
- Individual tax returns
- Advisory/Consulting
- Business structure advisory
- Tax advisory
- Compliance advisory
- Training
- Annual business review
- Budgeting and cash flow forecasting
- Software setup and training
How do I get clients to opt into extra services?
Proposal add-ons are a fantastic way to showcase more of your services to clients and offer them the flexibility to choose what best suits them.
Promote the benefits of these extra services in your service descriptions which will then be highlighted in the proposal.
Think about the reasons why a client would want to pay you to perform a service for them, and then add those reasons into the service description of your add-on services.
It’s important to be clear and concise about your services, but you can add some context before the specific deliverables.
Here’s a payroll example below.
Service name: Payroll services (Up to 10 employees)
Service description: Take the stress away from the responsibility and the repetitive task of paying your staff’s wages.
Selecting this allows us as a professional firm to take ownership of ensuring staff are paid promptly and accurately while keeping up-to-date with the latest tax and payroll laws. This minimizes risk of process and incorrect wage payments.
This service includes:
- Processing of periodic wages up to 10 Employees, using a payroll software
- Calculate superannuation for employees if applicable
- Calculate and track accrued vacation and sick time or other benefits
- Provide direct deposit for your employees
- Online access/emailing employees payslips
- Preparation of Annual PAYG Payment Summaries (for the year ended)
- Preparation of Annual WorkCover estimates
- Lodging the Empdupe file through the ATO portal
- This service specifically excludes payroll tax reconciliations and lodgement
- This service specifically excludes annual workers compensation reconciliation and lodgement
Use cases for add-ons
The standard add-ons approach
The most common way to use proposal add-ons is to show your standard offering, and then a few extra services on the side that clients can add only if they choose.
Offering a few popular add-on services to your proposal means you can showcase additional options they may not be aware you offer.
This is a prescribed and controlled approach to your packaging whilst still offering your clients the flexibility of any extras. This practice is easier for your client to digest and understand what’s included in their engagement.
If you have already spoken to your client and clearly understand their needs, this is the best practice to take. You can build the standard proposal from the initial discovery call to ensure the basic services are tailored to their needs and then offer a suite of popular add-on services as extras they can choose.
💡 Pro-tip: You can choose a set of add-on services that you can build into your custom proposal templates and with every proposal that you send as a quick and easy way to grow revenue.
The “build your own proposal” approach
You can also use proposal add-ons to offer a “build your own” or “pick your own adventure” type of proposal.
To do this, create one proposal with an included service that states “Here are the most common options that our clients are engaged with. Please select the options you would like to receive”.
Please note: A proposal needs to have at least one required service. It's currently not possible to offer a proposal with only add-on services.
Then, make every single service that you’d like to offer an add-on service.
This allows your clients to pick their own package - giving them full flexibility.
Although this does require more decision making from your client, it’s framed as the ultimate flexible package which showcases your breadth of expertise.
This can be a good introduction to your services for new prospects that you have not yet spoken to, or alternatively for hesitant prospects that have not yet become clients.
Provided proposal templates with add-on services
To help you kick-start with proposal add-ons, we have created various regionalized proposal templates that are free for you to use.
Simply navigate to Templates → Proposals → Provided templates → Select a specific template to get started.
Intro message and email templates
Here are some intro message and email templates that you can copy and paste into your Ignition account to use when offering proposal add-ons.
Intro message (standard add-ons)
Hi {{ contact.addressee | default:contact.name }},
Here's our proposal for you to review and sign based on an assessment of your current wants and needs.
The review acceptance flow is very intuitive and will allow you to step through the services proposed, the scope, and an outline of when those services will be provided.
There are also a few optional services that we think would be valuable to you. Please select them if they interest you and they will be added to your agreement.
You'll also be taken through the pricing schedule which outlines our prices for those services.
If you have any queries please let us know.
Kind regards,
{{ practice.name }}
Intro message (build your own proposal)
Hi {{ contact.addressee | default:contact.name }},
Here's our proposal for you to review and sign.
Please select any services that you want and need in the Add-ons step and they will be added to your customized proposal.
Once you’ve selected all the services you wish, review the scope of the proposal where it outlines when those services will be provided. You'll also be taken through the pricing schedule which outlines our prices for those services.
If you have any queries please let us know.
Kind regards,
{{ practice.name }}
Email template (standard add-ons)
Hi {{ contact.addressee | default:contact.name }},
Thank you for choosing {{ practice.name }} as your business partner. We are looking forward to working closely with you.
As promised, the proposal for your services is linked above. This is an online proposal which includes a detailed summary of our agreed services, a payment schedule, and terms of business.
We’ve also added a few optional services that we think would be valuable to you. Please select them if they interest you and they will be added to your proposal.
The process to accept the proposal is simple. Click the Review & Sign button at the top of this email, follow the steps on the screen and reach out if you have any questions.
You'll receive a signed copy of the contract as soon as you accept the proposal. We also store a copy on file if you ever misplace it.
Once again, we thank you for your business and look forward to getting started.
Kind regards,
{{ practice.name }}
Email template (build your own proposal)
Hi {{ contact.addressee | default:contact.name }},
Thank you for choosing {{ practice.name }} as your business partner. We are looking forward to working closely with you.
As promised, the proposal for your services is linked above. This is an online proposal which includes a detailed list of services you can select from, a payment schedule, and terms of business.
The process to accept the proposal is simple. Click the Review & Sign button at the top of this email, follow the steps on the screen and reach out if you have any questions.
You'll receive a signed copy of the contract as soon as you accept the proposal. We also store a copy on file if you ever misplace it.
Once again, we thank you for your business and look forward to getting started.
Kind regards,
{{ practice.name }}
Real practice use cases
Learn how Ignition power user Michael Ly uses add-ons to upsell in his practice!
When to use proposal options vs add-ons
| Which feature to use | When to use this |
| Proposal add-ons | When you want to offer extra or different services to provide awareness that you offer them, additional value and earn more revenue year-round. E.g. Optional payroll services, tax return services…etc |
| Proposal options | When you want to give your clients choice whilst still encouraging them to upsell to a larger pre-determined package with more value. E.g. Basic, Standard and Premium packages |
💡 Pro-tip: For new clients, you can also use discounts on your add-on services to incentivize them selecting the add-ons for a bigger engagement value.
If you are going to use proposal options, we recommend having less add-on services per option as this can be a bit too complex for your clients.
If you plan to only offer one proposal, then you can offer more add-on services as your clients will not be as overwhelmed with choice.
Want to learn how to upsell effectively in Ignition?
Download our upselling checklist here!