How to write a brief that gets good proposals

Most weak proposals are answers to weak briefs. A provider reading “we need a video for our launch” has to guess the length, the budget, whether anyone is filming and what happens after delivery. Some guess high to be safe, some guess low to win, and none of them are comparable. Ten minutes spent on the brief is what turns five guesses into five offers you can read side by side.

Start with the outcome, not the deliverable

“A 60 second video” is a deliverable. “Something we can run on Instagram and at the stand during the exhibition, to explain what the product does to people who have never seen it” is an outcome. The second one lets a provider tell you that two 20 second cuts would work better, which is the kind of advice you are hiring for.

Say what success looks like in plain terms, even when it is not measurable. A provider who understands the job prices the job; a provider who understands only the file prices the file.

Give a budget range

Withholding the budget feels like negotiating strength. It is not. Without a range, proposals arrive at every scale, and you spend the week comparing a AED 3,000 offer with a AED 40,000 one because neither knew which question you were asking.

A range does not commit you to spending it. It tells providers which version of the work to propose: the one shot in a day, or the one with a crew and a studio.

On INFLUR you set a budget range in AED when you post a project, and providers see it before they write. If you genuinely do not know, say what you can spend at the top and ask what is possible within it.

Say what already exists

This is the detail that moves an estimate most, and the one most often left out. Footage you already own, a logo and brand files, a website that has to stay on its current platform, a half finished design, a system the new work must connect to: each one changes whether a job is two days or two weeks.

• Files and assets. Name what you have and what state it is in, rather than promising to “send everything” later.
• Constraints. A platform you cannot leave, a brand rule you cannot break, a supplier already contracted.
• What is missing. Saying “we have no brand guidelines” is more useful than silence, because the provider can price creating them.

Be honest about the deadline

There is a real difference between “we would like it soon” and “the event is on the 14th”. A fixed date changes who can take the work at all, and it is better to lose a provider at the brief stage than to discover in week three that they were never going to make it.

If part of the work is urgent and the rest is not, split it. A first deliverable by a date and the remainder after is easier to price and easier to keep.

Say who decides

Work slows down at approvals, not at production. Name who signs off, how many people have to see it, and roughly how long that takes in your company. A provider who knows there are three reviewers plans for it; one who assumes a single decision maker quotes a timeline that was never achievable.

Name what you need at the end

Not just the finished file. Source files, the working project, the fonts, the accounts, the documentation, the right to reuse the work in advertising: each of these is a reasonable thing to ask for, and each is a reason a proposal costs more or less. Asking after delivery is the expensive way to find out they were not included.

The habit worth building: read your own brief as if you were quoting it. If you could not price the work from what you have written, neither can they.

A short checklist

• What the work is for, in one sentence a stranger could follow.
• The deliverables you think you need, and what they are for.
• A budget range in AED.
• The deadline, and whether it is fixed.
• What exists already, and what does not.
• Who approves, and how many of them there are.
• What you need handed over at the end.

None of this requires knowing how the work is done. It requires knowing what you want and what you have, which is the part no provider can write for you.

Services in this guide

• Video Creation
• Brand Identity & Logo
• Web Development