As you know I don’t do much corporate work (yet), but our company is getting into it more and more.

I recently wrote a sales proposal and the feedback I had to it led to an “AH HA” moment.

Business or Sales Proposals Are Really Sales Material…

What do I mean by that? Just because a company agrees and says “send me a proposal” does NOT mean that they are convinced or sold.

I recently made that assumption. All I sent back on the proposal was “what they’ll get” and “how much we would charge.”

The response was… “wait…what exactly are you doing and how does this help me?”

It was then that I realized a sales proposal is really just another addition to your arsenal of sales materials. Even though it’s a proposal, you can’t forget to SELL in it.

The proposal we are re-doing now has the following:

- Detailed list of BENEFITS from what we’re doing (not just what we’re doing).

- A complete detailed picture of HOW we’re going to do it (so they understand that it’s not really all that easy).

- ITEMIZED costs (this is critical, you can’t just throw numbers at them, make sure they understand why the numbers are there to begin with).

FINALLY…(my biggest tip).

We did our OWN “cost/benefit analysis” FOR them. How?

A good sales person is one who gets as much data from his potential customer first. You should have enough data to fully understand how your service will impact that company.

Let’s use an example to really understand:

Assume the company you’re selling to currently has $10,000,000 in sales and they convert at 10% at an average sale price of $100,000.

So, this means they’re talking to 1,000 companies, they close 100 of them and that’s how they hit $10,000,000 in revenue. Now, let’s assume YOUR service can help they close 20% better (of course you have to have some proof to back this).

** ANOTHER BIG TIP: Pick VERY conservative numbers. Numbers that even they cannot argue with. This way, they see it and say “WOW, if just this LITTLE change can have such a large impact, imagine if…” SOLD!

Now this means that with your service, they’re conversion rate will go up to 12%. If they went back and talked to the same companies, they should now close 120 at $100,000. That would mean that they’re total revenue would be $12,000,000.

An increase in revenue of $2,000,000!

Let’s assume that your service cost $100,000. If IN your proposal, you were to provide this example, can you imagine how much more powerful your proposal would be?

How can someone say no to a service that costs $100,000 but returns $2,000,000 (worst case scenario)!

If you really want to close the sale fast, have a face to face meeting, gather as much data as possible and do as much of the “cost/benefit analysis” for the company as you can.

You’ll shave weeks if not months off the sales cycle.

Popularity: 40% [?]