16. How to win more deals with effective proposals— 30 Days Of Medium
Welcome back to 30 Days Of Medium.
Thanks to everyone who has been reading, clapping and commenting so far! Today’s topic is ‘How to write proposals that close deals’.
You can catch up on the first 14 days of my 30 Days Of Medium challenge below if you missed them:
0. 30 Days Of Medium
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2. How to find a business you love — 30 Days Of Medium
3. How to build your own website — 30 Days Of Medium
4. How to measure your website’s performance — 30 Days Of Medium
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7. How to measure success — 30 Days Of Medium
8. Understanding the Online Sales Funnel — 30 Days Of Medium
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13. How I grew my Medium following 6,500% — 30 Days Of Medium
14. How you look at things matters — 30 Days Of Medium
15. How to SELL services to small businesses — 30 Days Of Medium
16. How to win more deals with effective proposals — 30 Days Of Medium
17. How to setup an online store in 10 minutes — 30 Days Of Medium
18. How to work from anywhere — 30 Days Of Medium
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Last time I talked about selling services to small businesses, so I think this article is the natural progression from that.
What is a proposal?
A proposal is an outline of what you propose to do for a client in the B2B (business to business) world.
If you sell to other businesses you should be very familiar with the proposal, it’s how you acquire new clients and a big part of how you sell services.
As well as containing what you propose to do for your client, depending on the size of the proposal, it will also contain things like a timeline, deliverables and terms of the agreement.
Read on to find out how to structure your proposals the right way to win more deals.
What’s included?
All proposal content is different.
Proposals differ depending on the size of the deal and complexity of what is being proposed.
I sell to small businesses so my proposals are typically a good mix of simple and comprehensive.
They don’t have pages of terms and conditions, but they aren’t void of detail either.
Typical small business proposals should include:
- Situation Appraisal (1 paragraph setting the scene)
- Objectives (what is the clients business objective)
- KPI’s (how do you measure success)
- Competitive Analysis (brownie points)
- Options (different priced packages with differing amounts of value)
- Terms (for small deals, a simple 1 page overview of terms and conditions)
- Social Proof (testimonials and reviews)
How do you get this information from the client?
If you can get the client on the phone, great.
This will allow you to build a bit of rapport with the prospective client and is the easiest way to information gather to ensure your proposal is as detailed as possible.
If not, create an information gathering document or series of questions and have prospective clients fill them out.
The more info you get the more tailored your proposal is, the better chance you have of closing the deal.
The magic of ‘options’
Nothing will help you close more deals than introducing options to your proposals.
We love options.
Whether it’s picking the mega, all inclusive, ultimate sumpreme-o package on our holiday, or upgrading on a fast food meal, options turn a potential no into which yes.
Options are different bundles of value.
The simple way to use options is to offer three packages, or three options, for each proposal.
Each option should be a collection of value you will deliver to the client to help them achieve the objective laid out at the start of the proposal.
For example:
Option 1 — Basic value, basic price tag
Option 2 — Moderate value, moderate price tag
Option 3 — All the value, premium price tag
As price goes up, so does the value you deliver.
What this does is prevent you losing deals deals on price or by not understanding the clients driving motivation.
Some clients are purely budget driven.
They won’t care what you tell them. They want the cheapest option and will bargain till the cows come home.
The best clients are value driven. They want all the value, and they want to achieve their objective above all else.
They are happy to pay a premium if they achieve their objective.
If you take away one thing from this, let it be the magic of options!
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