I Sent a $30K Worth of a Proposal to a Multinational Corporation

Last month, I sent out a $30,000 proposal. It was the highest number I’ve ever quoted in my life. And before anyone assumes this is a flex, let me make this clear upfront: the proposal got rejected. I made zero dollars from it.

But the experience reshaped how I look at this industry, and it will do the same for anyone operating at the lower end of the market so please read this.

Last month I paused taking project. I grounded myself, stepped back from small-ticket projects, and focused on recalibrating how I operate.

Right in that period, a meeting landed on my calendar. Fully inbound

I opened the company profile and immediately understood the scale. This wasn’t some small brand. This was a multinational corporation operating across markets, doing billions in annual sales, with a portfolio full of names like Ferrari and Porsche and you name a car they worked with them.

Knowing the stakes, I went deep.

My research document ended up being 20+ pages.

I analysed their past projects, their engineering workflows, their market positioning, and their organisational setup.

By the time I got on the call, I knew their business better than some of their internal teams.

Then the real conversation started.

He told me their board of directors are looking for Ai agent and then I tell him few ideas and then he get an idea after seeing my demo.

they wanted an "Ai-Agent” – an AI system trained on every project they had ever done, capable of responding like a technical engineer. Not a chatbot. A functional engineering assistant that could understand car systems, models, components, and historical data. They can validate their ideas to it.

If a regular client had asked for this, I would have priced it around $4,000. But this wasn’t a regular client. The scale, complexity, and operational value were on a completely different level.

We booked a new call

I built a demo.

I showed them a prototype.

It solved exactly what they described just not yet at the enterprise level they needed.

On that call, they asked for the offer. That was the hardest moment. But I had done the research, I had clarity, and I had positioned myself as a partner, not a vendor and with a legal register business (I was taking the project under a registered business)

So I said it:

“It’s going to be $30,000.”

No hesitation from them.

No shock.

No pushback.

Their only response:

“We don’t care about the price. We just want this level of quality and you need to do that”

That one sentence changed how I see this industry.

I sent the proposal. They reviewed it with their team and they present the it to their client.

Six days later, I got the email.

They liked the proposal.

They liked the approach.

They liked the solution.

But they were entering a company-wide restructuring and adopting a new data architecture. Because of that, they put the project on hold and decided not to move forward as the CEO want to start the project on 3 Quarter of next year.

Rejection.

End of story.

Zero dollars collected.

But here’s the part you need to understand.

The rejection wasn’t because of the price.

The price didn’t even register as a “concern.”

That was a first for me.

And it exposed the real lesson:

There is money at levels you can’t even imagine. The problem isn’t the market. The problem is the level you’re selling at. You can't image the wealth people have.

I spent a year chasing small clients who negotiate every line item, who want discounts, who treat $300 like a major investment.

Meanwhile, corporate teams send $30,000 proposals to review without blinking.

This experience didn’t give me revenue.

But it gave me calibration.

A mindset shift.

A new operational standard.

So no, this post isn’t about celebrating the proposal.

It’s about recognising that the market is bigger than your current pipeline.

People have budgets far beyond what you think is “expensive.”

And if you want to level up, stop operating like a small vendor and start positioning yourself where real capital exists.

That’s the actual learning.

Reach out to multiple national companies.