{"id":2552,"date":"2022-11-14T22:36:43","date_gmt":"2022-11-14T22:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/salesexcellenc.wpengine.com\/how-to-create-a-compelling-sales-proposal\/"},"modified":"2022-11-16T13:14:22","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T13:14:22","slug":"how-to-create-a-compelling-sales-proposal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/salesexcellence.com\/how-to-create-a-compelling-sales-proposal\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Create A Compelling Sales Proposal"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"w-richtext-figure-type-video w-richtext-align-center\" style=\"padding-bottom:33.723653395784545%\" data-rt-type=\"video\" data-rt-align=\"center\" data-rt-max-height=\"33.723653395784545%\" data-rt-dimensions=\"854:480\" data-page-url=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/QtzW8gt8xK0\">\n<div><iframe allowfullscreen=\"true\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/QtzW8gt8xK0\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>\u200d<\/p>\n<p>Here are just a few suggestions:<\/p>\n<p>1. Talk about where they are today. The proposal needs to be about them, not us. It\u2019s about the customer and the customer\u2019s business, not about us and our company and how great we are. This points back to the model that I teach, selling the current state, Point A, and the desired future state, Point C, before we get to selling the solution, Point B. There\u2019s no other place that this is more important than in a written sales proposal. We should have some segments in our proposal to talk about where the customer is now. Explain that we\u2019ve interviewed certain people who taught us some things about what\u2019s going on in the organization today. Give them a really good overview about what we understand about their current state. This does several things; we gain some credibility, of course, because it shows that we\u2019ve done our homework and we know what we\u2019re talking about.It also demonstrates that we\u2019re really interested in them, it helps us define that that we\u2019re addressing the right concerns. When this proposal travels beyond the several people that you know and to the other people in the approval process, they\u2019ll see that we\u2019ve taken the time to find out where they really are.<\/p>\n<p>2.Talk about where they want to be. The second segment needs to be about their desired future state, or Point C. We\u2019re talking about their goals, their objectives, the things they\u2019ve said that they\u2019re trying to get done in the next two, three, five years. If we can articulate where they are now, their current state, and where they want to go, their desired future state, and it\u2019s accurate, it feels like we\u2019re on their side. That we\u2019re working for them, part of their company trying to solve the business problems that they\u2019re trying to solve.<\/p>\n<p>3. Make recommendations. Once we\u2019ve defined the current state and the desired future state, it\u2019s time for our recommendations. Here\u2019s where we put all the information and details about your product or service. You might want to put some of the very technical details and put them in an appendix. Talk about the solution, what it does, how it works but if there are drawings, tables, a lot of technical data, I encourage you to put them in an appendix so it doesn\u2019t muddy up the proposal. We want them to go from A, to C, to B moving pretty quickly into the value segment. What I mean by value segment is explaining what the solution is going to do for their business; the ROI analysis, a case study of another client that saw certain returns. Make sure it has a heavy and substantial value segment to it. In this value segment make sure we\u2019re not only talking about value we can help to add but identify ways we can help them minimize or mitigate risk. You might have heard me say before that when a customer can\u2019t tell the difference between you and a competitor, sometimes what makes the difference is which one is less risky. If we can articulate how we help minimize risk, it makes the value segment that much more important. There may be other things we want to include such as testimonials, references, past clients, which help to further mitigate risk by showing that we\u2019ve worked with other companies like theirs.<\/p>\n<p>4. Explain how to move forward.The last section is where we define the steps for moving forward. I put a lot of care into this because the proposal is not only asking them to buy something but the client needs to know what happens after they buy something. I like to put a lot of energy into defining the things we\u2019ll do together from Point B, where a transaction takes place, all the way to Point C, where the client starts to derive all the value that they\u2019re expecting to see from their investment. By defining that and creating a step by step process with a table that includes dates and who\u2019s going to be involved, we\u2019re essentially creating an implementation plan. A customer\u2019s comfort in transacting, or moving to Point B, is in direct proportion to their comfort and feelings of safety and their ability to see what\u2019s going to happen between B and C.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There\u2019s a lot to be said about this topic so I\u2019ll only cover a small portion of it in this video segment, but I\u2019ll cover a few things about how to structure your sales proposal to make it more compelling, more interesting, hopefully make it more valuable and more likely that your client will want to move forward with it. (VIDEO INCLUDED)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How To Create A Compelling Sales Proposal | Sales Excellence International<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/salesexcellence.com\/how-to-create-a-compelling-sales-proposal\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How To Create A Compelling Sales Proposal | Sales Excellence International\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There\u2019s a lot to be said about this topic so I\u2019ll only cover a small portion of it in this video segment, but I\u2019ll cover a few things about how to structure your sales proposal to make it more compelling, more interesting, hopefully make it more valuable and more likely that your client will want to move forward with it. 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