Are your sales proposals & presentations letting you down? How do you know?
Let me ask you 2 simple questions…
- What is your conversion rate of sales after a sales proposal? it should be quite high as you are quite far down the sales process.
- Do prospect often ghost you after you send a sales proposal? i.e. do you find it hard to follow up afterwards to gain the business?
In our 6 weeks sales training programme, we allocate a full module specifically dealing with sales proposals. It’s really important that this part of the sales process is done right.
The other day, one of our students told me “this is my favourite module !!”. I find most student’s favourite module is the one where they have the big AHA! moment.
It made me think, I haven’t done a blog on sales proposals properly… but such a large topic! So here goes!
Get a sales proposal right and you will convert well and grow your business and get it wrong and you will struggle.
There are so many things you can do to write a better sales proposal …So. I picked 3 TOP TIPS you can take on board straight away that will improve your conversion rates.
👍 TOP TIP #1 Start With The Prospect
Do not fall into the trap of starting your proposal by introducing your company, your team and abilities/general benefits of your products.
I don’t know who started this trend but pretty much every standard/generic sales proposal I see has about 3 pages of all about them before ever mentioning the prospect in any way. Apart from perhaps the name of the company on the front page.
If you want to get a better response to your proposals, start with discussing the client rather than you. A good way to measure this is how many “we” (that is you!) words are in the sales proposal versus “you” words (the prospect).
GOOD PROPOSAL = YOU > WE
👍 TOP TIP #2 Don’t Assume They Remember All Your Value
So this one comes up often. Sure, I see many proposals that outline the solution, thing is they focus on what the solution is and how your products will solve it and be used.
But… rarely do I see in a proposal a true setting the scene of why they are wanting to solve the solution and creating a value-based case on why they need to work with you!
And the thing is, if you have qualified & done discovery well you have a wealth of information that you have gained for this very purpose.
I used to also be very guilty of this… I thought that the prospect remembered everything we talked about on the discovery call. It would be rude for me to repeat it all and bore them to tears with stuff they already know, right?
There are three reasons why I was completely wrong.
- They do frequently forget and then can’t remember the true value of your offer
- They don’t feel like you fully understand their issues & your solution is weak
- They show the proposal to their colleagues/boss who didn’t attend the meeting you highlighted all the value in (if you did!). They don’t see the value and your prospect is starting to forget too as they are busy people, and your wellbeing is not their priority.
And these three things will lose you the business and will initiate ghosting.
👍 TOP TIP #3 Include A Clear Next Step!
Many sales proposals fizzle out… usually because they are rushed or are badly structured.
It is super important that a next step is included in a sales proposal. And, it needs to be very clear what it is.
How to write a better sales proposal? Don’t be afraid to make it perfectly clear what the next step is… examples of what next steps look like if you can’t think of any.
- Send payment to (with instructions) & what happens next
- Sign contract that is included with … & a date & what happens next
- A follow up meeting date & time.
I hope you find this super practical, and that you get better results using these 3 TOP TIPS FOR WRITING BETTER SALES PROPOSALS.
If you want to have a chat about this further, get in touch.
