Write quotes and proposals in half the time

By the end of this, you’ll have a “proposal assistant” in your AI tool that knows your services, your prices and your tone. You give it a customer enquiry, and it hands back a first draft you only need to check and adjust.

The slow part of a proposal is rarely the price. It’s the writing around it: what the customer needs, your approach, what’s included and what isn’t. An AI assistant does that part well, once it has your material.

What you need

• An AI assistant on a business plan. Any of these works: ChatGPT Business, Gemini in Google Workspace (Business Standard or higher), Claude Team or Microsoft 365 Copilot. Business plans matter because they promise not to train on your data. ChatGPT Business costs USD 25 per user per month, or USD 20 with annual billing (about CHF 21 or CHF 17 at 0.83 CHF per USD, approximate) (OpenAI).
• Two or three past proposals you’re proud of. Word, PDF or Google Docs files.
• Your current price list or rate card.
• One recent customer enquiry to test with.
• Time: about 60 minutes to set up, then 15 to 30 minutes per proposal.
• Skills: no technical skills needed.

The steps below show ChatGPT and Gemini, because we could check their menus in the official help pages. Claude (Projects) and Copilot (agents) have similar features.

Step 1: Pick your best material and clean it (15 minutes)

Choose two or three proposals that won work, ideally one small job and one large.

Open each file and save a copy. In the copy, replace the customer’s name, contact person, address and any private details with placeholders like [CUSTOMER] and [CONTACT]. Keep your own wording, structure and prices.

You should end up with two or three clean files in one folder, named something like “Proposal example 1, kitchen refit”.