Have you experienced the ‘Big Black Hole’ of the sales process? It’s like this: You receive a well-earned request for a proposal, spend precious time crafting it, hit “send” and anxiously await a response. And then surprise, surprise, you’re rewarded with nothing but silence.
You follow up with an email. Nothing. You leave a voicemail. Nada. You send another email. Nope, nothing doing.
Welcome to what I call the ‘Big Black Hole’ of business proposals -where proposals go to curl up and die. If this happens to your company, you’ve got company.
Nobody has time to waste on proposals that go nowhere. Here are two concrete steps you can take to maintain control of the sale and keep your proposals away from the ‘Big Black Hole’! (Stay tuned for steps three and four in my next blog.)
1.The Pre-Proposal Stage
The good news is that your competition most likely skips the Pre-Proposal Stage. The bad news is that you might skip it, too.
When you receive the proposal request, don’t get excited and start preparing it straight away. Have a short discussion with your prospect to elicit the information you need to craft a winning proposal.
Here are a few questions you can ask to learn what you need to know:
- What are all the outcomes you are looking for from the project?
- What’s important to you in choosing a vendor?
- Who else is involved in the decision, and what’s important to each person?
- If you receive multiple proposals and they all look the same to you, including the price, how will you go about making a decision?
- If you receive multiple proposals and each vendor approaches the proposal differently, how will you go about making a decision?
- When would you like the work to start, when would you like it to be finished? (You can leverage this information if the decision process stalls.)
Critical step: Before ending your discussion, ask for a date and time to walk your prospect through the completed proposal so you can answer any questions and discuss next steps. Not all prospects will agree to this but give it a try nonetheless.
In my experience, this is the single most successful way to deliver a proposal. The advantage of walking your prospect through the proposal, instead of just emailing it, is that you maintain control over the communication. (More on this in my next blog.)
If your prospect insists on receiving the proposal first, set a date when he/she can expect the proposal and then set a time the following day to answer any questions and discuss next steps.
2.Proposal Structure
A good proposal strategically and deliberately leads the prospect to a “Yes” answer. If your proposals don’t get a “yes” as often as you’d like, here are a couple of ideas for you.
First, mentally align yourself with your prospect’s objective. Remember, the most important factor in the sales equation is the decision maker. This is the person who gets to say “yes”.
Second, pre-think any objections your prospect might have and answer them within the proposal. Finally, be sure your proposal includes these three pillars:
1. Background. At the very beginning of the proposal, restate what your prospect told you was most important to him/her (and anyone else on the decision-making team) using his/her exact words.
2. Provide strategically thought-out options. The first option is exactly what your prospect requested. The second option builds on the first, providing a few bells and whistles that are of value to the decision maker. The third is a BIG IDEA. Do you always include one of those in your proposals? What is this? It’s your solution to your prospect’s request…on steroids. Too often sellers fail to include an idea that can triple the size of the sale. Take the time and think BIG, you won’t be sorry.
3. Next Steps. Lay out next steps that make it easy for the prospect to say “yes”. Be sure your proposal includes a reminder about the date and time for the follow up phone call to review the proposal.
Critical step: Don’t hit send before you do this! Evaluate your proposal from your prospect’s point of view. If you were your prospect would you say, “Yes, that’s exactly what I need, let’s move forward” or would you have doubts? Worse, would you not know how to evaluate the proposal, leading you to put it aside to review later?