Letting go of a potential client

[Solta]

I sent out a proposal to a potential client last week for web dev. services after two meetings. During the last meeting I gave them a range for the estimate of cost and they seemed ok with it. After I quoted them in the proposal(a little on the higher end of the range), they said that it was way more than they expected to pay, but they would get back to me.

5 days later, no response. I assume they're shopping around for better quotes.

Anyways, I have a couple of projects in the pipeline and at this point would prefer not to move forward with this person if they accept my quote. In general, I sensed that they were expecting the world but would not be willing to pay for it and would probably be very difficult to deal with.

As I await their response, how do I let them know politely and professionaly that my proposal is no longer valid?

[Macro]

I like your thinking. Too often it's the case that businesses think that the client should never to allowed to get away. I let many of them go away. I encourage some of them to go away and it works great as a marketing tool, don't ask me why. The persistent ones are charged more when their original quotes run out. Maybe you should send a revised quote, valid for 30 days, at 30%/50%/100% more than your previous one. (You'll be surprised how often that works for us - people come back and actually pay the higher price!). You'd say that this revised quote replaces all earlier ones.

If your hunch is that they are going to be difficult to deal with - walk away! It's taken me a long time to accept that some customers are just not worth working with. If they do call you tell them that you're very busy and you'll get back when you have a spare moment ;-)

[iamlost]

You did not mention a time limit in your proposal and your comments imply that there was none. It is common (and in my mind critical) business practice to set a limit - 30 days is common, but it can be whatever you want.

If there was a limit you have to wait it out and honour acceptance within that period.

If there was no limit you should send them a followup saying that due to increasing workload the offer must unfortunately be withdrawn - but you hope to work with them in future :) or must be accepted by a certain date.