Make it personal. Always use a personal tone in your proposals, particularly at the opening and closing. Make it even more personal by referring directly to the contact(s) who will be reviewing the proposal. I usually refer to prospects by their first names and their company name or team name throughout the body of the proposal. One technique to keep it personal is to think of your proposal as a detailed letter -- if you open it with "Dear Mary and John," the tone will stay conversational and personal instead of dry and technical. People like engaging in conversations more than reading technical documents.
Pinpoint the pain. Once you've spoken directly to the prospect, focus on the pain points, not your offerings. Use the opening paragraph or two to demonstrate that you really understand their business and their pain points. You can capture that understanding in a list of up to 12 bullet points. If you cannot quickly capture their core pain into less than a one-page letter or bullet point list, either the client isn't clear on their needs, or you should consider bringing someone else in to help you get clear on their needs. Go back to the prospect and ask more questions until you full understand their problems and concerns.
Outline each recommendation. If you have clearly demonstrated that you understand their needs and have highlighted all of their pain points, make the recommendations for how to address those pain points. Depending on the type of services and products you offer, the solution might include one or many different products and services. Clearly identify your recommended offerings and identify:
Pinpoint the pain. Once you've spoken directly to the prospect, focus on the pain points, not your offerings. Use the opening paragraph or two to demonstrate that you really understand their business and their pain points. You can capture that understanding in a list of up to 12 bullet points. If you cannot quickly capture their core pain into less than a one-page letter or bullet point list, either the client isn't clear on their needs, or you should consider bringing someone else in to help you get clear on their needs. Go back to the prospect and ask more questions until you full understand their problems and concerns.
Outline each recommendation. If you have clearly demonstrated that you understand their needs and have highlighted all of their pain points, make the recommendations for how to address those pain points. Depending on the type of services and products you offer, the solution might include one or many different products and services. Clearly identify your recommended offerings and identify:
- Which pain points each offering addresses
- What's the scope of services involved with each offering
- What the final deliverables would be
- What results the prospect should expect from the recommendation
The detailed scope information provides the prospect with a realistic picture of what's involved with helping them achieve great results with your recommendations. The will more quickly see the value in the elements that you have to offer. But save the pricing information until the next section.
Clarify the terms. Of course, everyone wants to know "How much is this going to cost me?" The terms section clarifies how much it's going to cost and how they will engage with your company. Decision makers tend to be Type A personalities like me: we like options. If there is only one option on the page, we feel like the information is incomplete. I like to provide a couple of options for either bundling offerings together or for implementing the recommended services in phases. Provide three to five options from which the decision makers can choose, and put in all of the basics regarding items like the policy for expenses (i.e. do you charge for mileage and travel for clients outside of your base location for meetings, etc?), payment terms, any discounts, copyrights, and schedule information. This will help to answer a lot of questions in advance of the proposal review meeting.
Demonstrate positive ROI. It is critical to show your prospect how they'll get positive ROI (return on investment) by working with you. For the longest time, I left this information out of my proposals. Once I started to include this, the close rate skyrocketed. Make it very clear in real currency (i.e. dollars) how working with you is the best choice. So many prospects get hung up on the cost of a project that they might not always be thinking about the ROI. If your solution costs $50,000, that looks like a lot of money. However, if your solution cost $50,000, and the company will save $3 million in the first 12 months due to greater efficiencies and cost savings, $50,000 becomes a minimal long-term investment, not an exorbitant cost. The project fee is less than 2% of the overall savings they'll see in just one year. You can demonstrate ROI like this in your proposals by asking the right questions during the Needs Assessment stage of the sales funnel.
A compelling proposal gives you the tool you need to demonstrate that you understand the prospect better than any of the other options that they have reviewed. By making it personal, pinpointing the pain, outlining each recommendation, clarifying the terms, and demonstrating a positive ROI, you'll have a great proposal with which to negotiate a long-lasting client engagement in which a relationship is built and everyone wins.
Clarify the terms. Of course, everyone wants to know "How much is this going to cost me?" The terms section clarifies how much it's going to cost and how they will engage with your company. Decision makers tend to be Type A personalities like me: we like options. If there is only one option on the page, we feel like the information is incomplete. I like to provide a couple of options for either bundling offerings together or for implementing the recommended services in phases. Provide three to five options from which the decision makers can choose, and put in all of the basics regarding items like the policy for expenses (i.e. do you charge for mileage and travel for clients outside of your base location for meetings, etc?), payment terms, any discounts, copyrights, and schedule information. This will help to answer a lot of questions in advance of the proposal review meeting.
Demonstrate positive ROI. It is critical to show your prospect how they'll get positive ROI (return on investment) by working with you. For the longest time, I left this information out of my proposals. Once I started to include this, the close rate skyrocketed. Make it very clear in real currency (i.e. dollars) how working with you is the best choice. So many prospects get hung up on the cost of a project that they might not always be thinking about the ROI. If your solution costs $50,000, that looks like a lot of money. However, if your solution cost $50,000, and the company will save $3 million in the first 12 months due to greater efficiencies and cost savings, $50,000 becomes a minimal long-term investment, not an exorbitant cost. The project fee is less than 2% of the overall savings they'll see in just one year. You can demonstrate ROI like this in your proposals by asking the right questions during the Needs Assessment stage of the sales funnel.
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