Secrets to Creating KILLER SALES PROPOSALS -...

Secrets to Creating

KILLER SALES PROPOSALS

Qvidian ©2016 | Secrets to Creating Killer Sales Proposals | Page 1

When it Comes to Proposals,

HOPE IS NOT A STRATEGYIN MANY COMPANIES TODAY, THE PROPOSAL PROCESS IS NOT AS EFFECTIVE AS IT SHOULD BE, OR WORSE, IT MAY BE BROKEN COMPLETELY. NOT ONLY DOES THIS LEAD TO INFERIOR SALES PROPOSALS, BUT IT CAN ALSO TARNISH THE COMPANY’S REPUTATION AND RESULT IN LOST DEALS.

There may be many different reasons for this failure. For example, some companies don’t invest in their proposal teams in terms of fully staffing them or giving employees the time, resources, or budget they need. Others don’t align proposal teams with sales or other key departments, a decision that makes communication and collaboration almost impossible. And a majority of companies are guilty of not spending enough time writing and designing proposals, resulting in lower-quality proposals that aren’t what the buyer is looking for or simply don’t stand out.

Ultimately, it may not matter what the reason is since the outcome is still the same. These companies fall into “same old, same old” thinking and habits and essentially choose to hope that whatever they produce is good enough to get them to the next stage of the sales cycle. And as the saying goes, “hope is not a strategy.”

Yet there are ways to transform proposal challenges into sales opportunities. This guide will examine many of the most common mistakes companies make with their proposals. Additionally, it will offer a number of actionable best practices — each with supporting recommendations and tactics — that any company can implement to improve their proposal processes and results.


MANY COMPANIES FALL INTO TWO PROPOSAL TRAPS TODAY. DOES EITHER OF THESE PROPOSAL SCENARIOS SOUND FAMILIAR TO YOU?

“What We Do Is Good Enough”How much effort should be put into creating proposals? It’s a question all companies face as they try to decide the right answer — and the right approach — for them. Effort might seem proportional to quality — the higher the effort, the higher the proposal quality. This sounds great, but unfortunately, proposal teams don’t have unlimited amounts of time, staff, budget, or other resources to invest.

As a result, most companies resort to the status quo or don’t look for creative, innovative approaches to creating new proposals. Many companies focus on speed and efficiency. They may do a quick “save as” of their most recent proposal, search and replace the client’s name, and assume they’re good to go. Yet such an approach can be disastrous. Consider the case of someone tasked with creating a proposal for Google. They may be tempted to open a recent Cisco proposal, save it as a separate version, and use “search and replace” to create the new proposal. All sounds great, until they realize they just invited the prospect to a follow-up meeting in “San FranGoogle.”

This approach is rationalized by the view that proposals are just a requirement —“no one reads them anyway” — and the belief that even a low-quality proposal will move them to the next stage of the sales cycle. Yet these companies are missing a significant opportunity to shake up the status quo and create higher standards for future proposals.

A Closer Look at PROPOSAL CHALLENGES


“This Looks Like a Lot of Work”On the other hand, many salespeople or proposal writers are intimidated by the perception of all that goes into a great proposal. After all, to do it well requires a lot of work: collecting all the right content, checking in with sales and other teams, writing the executive summary, engaging a graphic designer, verifying with subject matter experts, and more.

While many salespeople start out with the best of intentions, the whole process can become overwhelming, especially if creating proposals is not their full-time job. “Wait a minute,” you can almost hear them say. “This is a lot of work, and I’m not even sure we need to do this much. After all, someone told me that the single biggest factor in vendor selection is the prospect’s perception of the salesperson. So we don’t have to jump through all these hoops — I’ll focus my time on delivering a great presentation after they call us in.”

The logic may seem sound, but unfortunately, the proposal probably won’t make it to the short list.

“MANAGING PROPOSALS IS DOING THE IMPOSSIBLE, WITH THE UNWILLING, FOR THE UNGRATEFUL.”


Proposals STILL MATTERCLEARLY, MANY STILL CLING TO THE BELIEF THAT GOING THE EXTRA MILE IN CREATING SALES PROPOSALS JUST ISN’T WORTH IT. TO SUPPORT THIS VIEW, MANY SALESPEOPLE WILL OFTEN CLAIM THAT EVEN THE WORLD’S BEST PROPOSAL WON’T WIN THE DEAL ON THE SPOT.

This may be true, but conversely, a poor proposal will almost always hurt you — in more ways than you might think. Inferior proposals may cause confusion and lead to additional follow-up questions, both of which lead to excessive sales cycles. Also, if you fail to communicate your unique value or what makes you different, your prospect may focus on price only. And in a worst-case scenario, a bad proposal could even result in losing the deal.

All of this evidence points to the opposite being true: A great proposal is your single best opportunity to represent yourself. This is your chance to communicate the value of your product or service, clearly explain how you can solve the prospect’s problem, and deliver content that best aligns with the prospect’s decision-making process. Plus, a great sales proposal will help you stand apart from competitors who are still delivering average proposals.

“FEW TOOLS HAVE THE POWER OF A WELL-CONCEIVED SALES PROPOSAL.”


Quantifying the Proposal OpportunityCommitting to improving proposals seems like a great idea, but it becomes a no-brainer when you consider just how much of an impact better proposals can have on your business. For example, do you think higher-quality sales proposals would lead to higher win rates? If so, how much higher, and what kind of results would this produce? One more large deal per quarter? A five-percent increase in sales? Four or more new customers per year? More?

In today’s hyper-competitive sales environment where every deal is a battle and every dollar counts, even the most conservative estimates represent gains you may be missing out on now. And all of these sound like positive results that any sales organization would be happy to achieve.

Accelerate Proposals With The Right TechnologyThe first step in generating better proposals is freeing up time to focus on improving quality. Technology plays a big part — effective RFP tools automate content-creation processes, so your team will spend less time writing proposals and more time focused on closing business. These solutions help ensure relevant content is always accessible and up-to-date, so team members can generate compelling sales proposals in a fraction of the time and create better, client-focused responses.

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE YOUR PROPOSAL PROCESSES?Assess your current state of proposal processes and quality by asking four important questions:

1. Do you have dedicated proposal support?2. Is this person or team viewed as a strategic (important) part of the sales process?3. Has a proposal ever contained information that led to contractual issues?4. How would you rate the overall quality of your sales proposals?


Creating Winning

PROPOSALS THAT WINAT THIS POINT YOU MAY BE SAYING TO YOURSELF, “ALL OF THIS SOUNDS GREAT, BUT HOW DO I START CREATING BETTER PROPOSALS? WHAT DOES A GREAT PROPOSAL EVEN LOOK LIKE?”

The Seven Deadly Sins of Proposal WritingFirst, let’s take a quick look at how not to create proposals. Qvidian’s guide of the “Seven Deadly Sins of Proposal Writing” highlights the worst mistakes you can make, why they cause chaos, and how to avoid them. These “sins” include:

1. Failing to qualify the deal

2. Not focusing on what the customer cares about

3. Not structuring the document persuasively

4. Failing to differentiate your offer and your company

5. Not offering a compelling value proposition

6. Not making it easy to understand and use

7. Failing to proofread, edit, and remove credibility killers

THE FIVE KEY BUILDING BLOCKS TO CREATING EFFECTIVE PROPOSALSFollow this proven framework to create proposals that are:

1. Centered on the client2. Persuasively structured and organized3. Decision oriented4. Value based5. Clearly written and cleanly designed


FIVE KEY BUILDING BLOCKS TO CREATING EFFECTIVE PROPOSALSTO AVOID THESE SINS, YOU SHOULD INSTEAD FOCUS ON A FRAMEWORK WE CALL THE “FIVE KEY BUILDING BLOCKS TO CREATING EFFECTIVE PROPOSALS.” BY FOLLOWING THESE BEST PRACTICES, YOUR PROPOSALS WILL BE:

Client-centered: First, make sure that your content is not too focused on your company, product, or service. You should always speak to the prospect — identify their challenges, describe how you can solve them, or deliver a solution that will provide significant benefits for them.

TIP: To see if your content is too focused on your own company, run your finger down any margin and see how many references you find to yourself. As a rule of thumb, the prospect should be mentioned three times as much as your own company.

Persuasively structured: To organize your content and present it in a compelling way, follow the “NOSE” methodology as defined by Qvidian founder Dr. Tom Sant in his book, Persuasive Business Proposals:

Needs: Offer clear evidence that you understand the prospect’s needs, issues, or specific business challenges.

Outcomes: Demonstrate how you will deliver the business results, improvements, or outcomes they seek.

Solutions: Provide a recommendation of a specific solution as well as how your company is the best vendor to deliver it.

Evidence: Give your track record of success and specific reasons why the prospect should choose you. Be as specific and creative as possible by including data, metrics, customer quotes, references, and more.


Decision-oriented: Carefully consider what factors are most important to the prospect and how they might influence a decision. Make sure to emphasize these as key messages — with proof points — in your proposal. This may seem like an obvious point, but it is commonly overlooked.

Value-based: Additionally, specific value-based proof points are often missing. Provide as many metrics as possible — such as ROI, productivity, cost savings, time to value, and more — and make sure they are client-focused, credible, and linked to your differentiators.

Clearly presented: While style is not more important than substance, it can make a difference. Write your content in a business casual tone while avoiding technical terms or excessive jargon. Also, if possible, work with a graphic designer to make the best use of color, graphics, imagery, and white space. Your prospect will thank you for it later.

BY AVOIDING THESE MISTAKES AND FOLLOWING THESE BEST PRACTICES, YOU WILL IMPROVE THE OVERALL QUALITY OF YOUR NEXT SALES PROPOSAL — AND YOUR

CHANCES OF WINNING THE BUSINESS.


Conclusion:

MAKE IT EASY FOR YOUR PROSPECT TO SAY YESWHILE IT IS TRUE THAT A GREAT PROPOSAL WON’T WIN YOU THE BUSINESS ON ITS OWN, A POOR PROPOSAL CAN UNDO ALL OF THE HARD WORK YOU’VE INVESTED OR EVEN RESULT IN YOU LOSING THE DEAL.

By avoiding the most common proposal mistakes and following our best practices for creating winning proposals, you will significantly improve the quality of your proposal. Even better, you will better position your organization to reap the benefits that matter most: New client acquisitions, increased revenues, and higher profits.

Qvidian provides cloud-based sales execution solutions that save sales and content teams time while improving effectiveness and optimizing productivity. From content automation for managing sales assets to digital playbooks that guides successful sales behavior, Qvidian’s proposal software enables teams to more easily access, assemble, deliver, measure and manage sales content. Qvidian’s innovative software and advisory services offer real-time insight to ensure selling teams do what’s needed to win, by driving repeatable methodologies and making organizations more agile.

With over 1,200 global customers including Dell (NASDAQ:DELL), Citi (NYSE:C), Aramark (NYSE:ARMK), CA (NASDAQ:CA), and Rosetta Stone (NYSE:RST), Qvidian is helping organizations significantly increase their profitable revenues while eliminating waste and reducing costs.

For more information, visit qvidian.com or call 1-800-272-0047 or +44 (0) 870-734-7778.

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