What is a Sales Proposal?

Sales Proposal: People use sales plans to get new customers. They list a company’s goods or services, how much they cost, any supporting information, and the terms of the sale. Proposals can be asked for or not asked for. A plan that is solicited is one that a possible customer asks for. It might come as a formal paper called a Request for Proposal (RFP) that spells out what the customer wants. It might also be a proposal sent after a sales pitch or a call with a salesperson.

A possible customer has not asked for an unsolicited sales proposal, but they may be interested in it. This kind of plan lets a new possible customer know about your business and its goods or services.

Synonyms

• Quotes on prices
• Pitch for sales
• Plans for projects
• Plans for business
• Summaries for executives

What Sales Teams Need to Know About Sales Proposals

Proposals are an essential part of the sales cycle because they help an organization make more money faster. Loopio says that 44% of the RFPs companies send out are won. A company is good at getting new business because it uses technology to make offers. The Qorusdocs report says, “Companies that use proposal software report a higher share of revenue coming from new businesses than those not using automated tools (51% vs. 39%).”

Let’s look more closely at how sales plans bring in money.

How Sales Proposals Fit Into the Whole Sales Process

Sales offers can be sent at different points in the sales cycle. They are an essential part of the sales process. The sales cycle has four main parts: prospecting, making the first contact, evaluating, and finishing. Most of the time, proposals are evaluated, but sometimes that doesn’t happen. When you first talk to a client about a low-cost product or service, for example, it might make sense to send them a proposal. In the long run, this could save you time.

Most of the time offers come after you’ve met with the prospect and discussed their needs. This helps you understand their position better to make your offer more useful. It also helps you get to know someone and earn their trust, which is very important when you’re trying to make a sale.

In this step, prospects look at your answer and see how it stacks up against others on the market. This is the best place for your plan to shine. For prospects to see why your offering best fits their needs, a well-written proposal can show off its unique features and benefits.

If a prospect wants to proceed with the purchase, they will go through the finishing stage. At this point, there may also be a proposal in some cases. When you’re selling something expensive, you might need to give a full proposal that spells out the terms of the sale.

You can be better ready for each sales cycle stage if you know where offers fit in. By knowing what a sales proposal is for, you can ensure that it is always sent at the right time and meets your buyer’s needs.

Who is in charge of coming up with sales proposals?

The answer will depend on the business and how they sell. It may sometimes be up to the proposal worker, sales manager, or director. Another study by RFPIO found that “organizations with dedicated proposal professionals submitted 3.5X more proposals in 2020.” This means that businesses that don’t have a dedicated proposal manager are missing out on money.

In some places, it might be up to the sales team. Ultimately, it’s essential to know exactly who in your company is in charge of making sales offers so that everything goes smoothly.

There are a few things you should remember if you are in charge of writing sales proposals:

• Make sure you know a lot about the things you’re selling. It would be best if you were sure of yourself when you talk about the good things about the thing you’re selling.
• It’s important to know what your possible customer wants. What do you think they want? What hurts them the most?
• It would be best if you made a strong plan that shows how your product or service can help the customer and how valuable it is.

Before you start working on a plan with a group, make sure everyone knows what their part is. Who is going to be in charge of getting data? What person is going to write the proposal? Who is going to propose? You can make sure that the proposal process goes quickly and that everyone is on the same page by knowing their job.

Ultimately, a proposal’s success depends on how well it sells the product or service. A good plan is well-thought-out, easy to understand, and convincing. It should be specific to the customer and show why your product or service is the best way for them to solve their issue. You can improve your chances of making the sale by taking the time to write a good proposal.

What Not to Do in a Sales Proposal

If you work in sales, you know how important the proposal is to closing the deal. But when they write their proposals, even the best sellers can get things wrong.

When writing a sales proposal, don’t do these four things:

Not looking into things

It’s important to know what your possible client wants before you write a proposal. Without this information, making a proposal that meets their wants will be hard.

Not making changes to your plan.

A plan that isn’t specific to the customer will probably not work as well as one that is. Please include information about the client’s business, size, and unique needs.

Not recognizing the competition.

You should explain in your plan why you are the best person for the job. But first, you need to learn about your competitors and what makes them good and evil. Then you can talk about how your products are better.

Lack of checking

A proposal with spelling or grammar mistakes will make your business look bad. Make sure your plan is perfect before you send it to the client.

If you don’t make these mistakes, your sales plan will likely win the client over and close the deal.

Eight Things That Should Be in Every B2B Sales Proposal

Pay attention to your organization when you’re writing proposals. Your sales plans should include the following things to make the reader want to buy.

Page Title

If you have your name on the title page, you can stand out from the others.

Summary for executives

Start by writing a short description. This is a summary of your proposal, with the essential points you will discuss.

A Look at the Company and the Product

Next, give a summary of your business and the things you sell. Include details about why you are qualified to offer these services or goods and how they will help the client.

What the Problem Is

In the next part, you should discuss the client’s specific issue or chance and how your goods or services can help them.

Price Estimate

Next, describe your goods or services in detail, including how much they cost.

Content for Sales

You should include sales material that helps people learn more about your goods or services. You can list your product or solution’s features and perks here.

Get ready to act.

Finally, end with a call to action that tells the client what they should do to take advantage of your offer. If you use software for proposals, ESignature makes it easy for the customer to agree or sign the contract.

Imagined scenes

Don’t forget to use pictures to keep the reader interested and going through the text.

Additional elements that are suggested

Along with the main parts of a sales proposal, some extras that aren’t required can make the experience better for the possible customer.

• Request for Proposal (RFP): If the prospect sent you one, include it in your proposal. Your proposal should include the exact terms the prospect put in the RFP.
• Terms and Conditions: These important papers can make or break a deal, so it’s best to include them (if they’re short) or link to them (if they’re long).
• Case studies and customer testimonials: Social proof is a solid way to get people to buy. It doesn’t matter how good your offer is; people will still look for other people’s thoughts. Giving examples of how your services helped past clients reach their business goals could help you close more deals.

How to Make a Sales Letter

The above points will help you start, but let’s talk about how to write a sales plan to get deals done. Do these things.

Plan out

Too many people say they don’t need a plan before they write. But a plan helps you stay organized and on track by cutting out the unnecessary and including the essential details. “Faster failure” is also possible because changing a plan is easier than a written proposal.

Make content that fits your audience.

In today’s competitive market, a one-size-fits-all plan won’t work. A well-written document that doesn’t speak to your prospect’s wants won’t work either. It’s essential to learn a lot about the person you’re talking to and their market. Learn about their rivals, market trends, and other things that affect that market. Remember that these days, people expect a personalized experience. It would be best if you showed that you care about the client and their problems. Do this by doing a thorough research and making your executive brief very short.

Think about market research.

Researching the market is an integral part of a sales proposal because it helps show how the product or service meets customers’ wants. Market research is gathering information about a product or service’s potential customers, rivals, industry trends, and other factors that may affect its success. By including market research in a proposal, you can make convincing pitches specifically tailored to target groups based on what they want instead of just guessing. This results in proposals that potential buyers find appealing.

Write the proposal: deliverables and a solution.

Offer a customized answer to show that you understand what the client wants. Make what needs to be done clear, but don’t get into the specifics until later in the discussion process.

Be Clear About Prices

Talks about prices should have started before the proposal was turned in, but including price information makes things easier for the prospect. It might be helpful to list a few different price choices along with what each package comes with, that way the buyer can see the value in each and pick the option that fits their budget the best.

When discussing price levels, buyers tend to think of the low end, and sellers tend to think of the high end. This can cause problems. A popular method is to use a three-tiered pricing summary. So the buyer can see how much value you provide for the money. American Express agrees that you should use the word “investment” instead of “cost” to emphasize your services’ value.

Pick out social proof.

Pick the most convincing social proof for each prospect with care. (This might be hard initially as you gather testimonials and case studies.) When choosing testimonials, think about the type of deal, the business, and any problems in the market. For instance, sharing the story of a large software company with a small insurance company might not help.

As much information as the case study client will allow, and stress how your answer solved their problems.

Instructions on What to Do

Incorporating a solid call to action into a sales plan can help people get closer to buying. A well-written call to action can help you make deals faster and get more leads. It must be short, clear, and easy for people to understand. Furthermore, it should be connected to the main subject of the plan in some way. Please pay attention to how it will help the customer by giving them a reason to move forward. Say something like, “Join our service today and get 30% off your order!”This kind of wording is straightforward and gets people to buy by giving them something of value.

Professional Design with a Brand

The plan should be sent in a professional, brand-named document, which could be on paper or a computer. It works well and saves time to use themes here. Make a branded template with a design that flows well and exciting details, like a custom font made by a font maker and a unique set of colors. This will keep the customer reading until they get to the call to action.

If there is a Request For Proposal (RFP), it may also ask for a specific style. Your plan should use consistent formatting, like fonts, headings, etc. But visuals can be compelling as well. Visuals are necessary to break up text and convey your message to buyers more quickly and clearly.

Cut it short.

Don’t use too much complicated language. Depending on the needs of the deal, a plan should usually be between 8 and 20 pages long. Writing briefly is more brutal, so give yourself and your staff a lot of time to develop great material.

Proofread Very Carefully!

People naturally judge, and you could lose a sale if you make a big mistake. There are typos and other material mistakes that make it perfect. Typos show laziness, which hurts trust and lowers the chance of making a sale, even if the information isn’t accurate. To ensure your plan is error-free, show it to coworkers or pay for a proofreading service.

Meet in person and keep in touch.

Meeting in person doesn’t mean the same in today’s Internet business world. Don’t think of this as talking to someone in person but as “face time.” People, especially business leaders, are often very distracted when they read plans. Meeting in person, even if it’s online, adds a “personal touch” and cuts down on distractions. Also, don’t forget to follow up! That idea might be necessary to you, but it’s likely not important to them. You can start this process in the plan by ending it with a clear call to action that encourages people to get back to you.

This advice can be said differently, but it always works with plans that focus on the client and are convincing to close more deals.

When Writing a Sales Proposal, Things You Should Think About

You now know what a proposal is and how to write one. This part discusses what should be in a good sales plan based on best practices.

Questions That Will Help You Answer

The Bank of Entrepreneurs in Canada says that every plan should answer the following seven questions:

• What’s wrong with the client?
• What’s wrong with it?
• What does the client want to happen?
• What will happen that is the most important?
• What are some possible solutions?
• What are the most likely outcomes?
• What makes us the best choice?

How do you write a sales proposal that makes your pipeline more likely to bring in money?

Sales proposals are made so that more sales are made and finished. To get them to affect your sales pipeline significantly, you need to set up ways for them to enter correct, personalized information for each buyer. You will lose money if you send generic or wrong proposals or take a long time to ensure they are perfect with personalized messages.

Don’t work too hard to sell.

By automating sales processes, you can cut down on wasted office time and make sure that proposals are correct. Everyone in your company can spend more time on activities that bring in money if you streamline administrative tasks and eliminate manual entry work. That means reps will have more time to sell than making papers or filling out paperwork.

Make the buyer’s journey more unique.

Account-based marketing plans are all about giving buyers a more personalized experience. Sending a generic sales plan after that ruins the experience when you could use your brand to set yourself apart from the competition. Giving buyers relevant, personalized material at all stages of the buying process can help your brand’s image at a significant time.

Make yourself more sensitive to buyers.

Speed is essential in how well your sales plans bring in money. Keeping the momentum going requires constant, on-demand contact with buyers. When buyers ask for something, you should try to answer within minutes. An essential tool for this is DealRoom, which gathers all the essential information about the deal in one place that is easy for both the buyer and your company to find, see, and connect with. Giving buyers a smooth sales process makes you more attentive so that you can answer their questions quickly.

Improvements Based on Data

Every deal is a chance to get better. When leaders collect data from the sales cycle, they can find trouble spots in the process and make changes. Getting real-world examples to back up how reps approach accounts helps them communicate better and close more deals. DealRoom gives groups the tools to learn how to make more money from the data they collect by putting the whole quote-to-close process on a single microsite.

Which sales proposal templates do you think are the best?

Most of the time, examples are the best way to learn. We look at four forms for sales proposals and, as a bonus, two templates for the sales process. A template can help your team figure out the best way to style something.

Don’t forget that a template is just a help. People want a personalized experience and unique material from sellers, so using generic language, images, social proof, etc., may cost you sales.

Templates for Proposals

The Bank of Business (BDC)

BDC has a document you can download with a proposal, a cover letter, a quote, a client testimonial, information about the company, bios of the team, and a quote.

It’s an elementary template that isn’t very fancy or memorable, but it has all the needed parts of your plan. It downloads as a Word file, which lets you make changes immediately, but it could be a problem for businesses that don’t have a Microsoft 365 contract. When you send your plan to clients, don’t use Word. Instead, use PDFs.

Will Qwilr

The Qwilr style is based on the Internet, which makes it very multimedia-rich. You can add videos, spreadsheets with the details of your plan, and more.

This style is easier to remember, but how it can be changed is unclear. Unlike BDC’s simple template, this template can only be used by people with a Qwilr contract (though there is a free trial). And this style likes pictures more than words, which makes it even more critical to use few words.

Make a suggestion

The designs on Proposify make eBooks look professional and easy to navigate. When you combine it online and highly styled, you might get a “heavy” document that takes longer to load on slow Internet connections.

Like Qwilr, Proposify lets you use their designs with a paid subscription, but you can try them out for free first. The templates can be changed in any way you want, which could be a good or bad thing based on how skilled your staff is. After all, there’s no point in spending money on a beautiful proposal template that your team can’t use.

This is Lucidpress

Lucidpress has a lot of templates for things like business proposals. This is a more straightforward design choice for beginners because it has a drag-and-drop interface, and you can add any sections you want. There is a free choice, but you can only use it to make three documents, and each one can only be three pages long. You also can’t use any premium templates with it. This would limit the text room people with free accounts could use.

How do you write an email with a sales pitch?

You might need to send cold emails to possible buyers before you write the sales pitch. Emails to cold sales prospects don’t bring in much money for a business if done by hand. Using a template cuts down the original cost by a significant amount.

Most sales proposal emails have four lines: an introduction that gets right to the point, a clear offer that solves the problem, a conclusion with a clear call to action, and the section where you sign off. With cold email software, you can easily change the information in these templated emails to make them your own. On their blog, they also have designs that you can copy and paste.

You need to follow up after giving a sales plan. It’s easier to write these emails because you’re writing to someone you already know, and they also give your business a better return on investment. And they are essential if you don’t want a sale to die. To avoid having too many or too few points of contact, you should be patient but consistent in how the sales and marketing teams work together.

Software for Sales Proposal

Sales proposal software simplifies the proposal process and makes sales proposals for you. It is also called proposal generation software or proposal management software. The main goal of sales proposal software is to cut down on the time it takes to make sales proposals. This can be done by integrating the software with your CRM and CPQ, using sales proposal forms, and entering information by hand.

Automation of Sales Proposal

Software is used to make making and sending sales offers faster and easier. By automating chores like making templates, collecting customer data, and making proposals, sales proposal automation software can help sales teams be more productive and get more business.

You can make better proposals, speed up the sales process, and win more deals by automating the proposal process. Automating sales proposals can also help sales teams keep track of how customers connect with them while choosing and learning more about what they need.

The next step forward for sales ideas is digital sales rooms. They are mini-sites with all the parts of a typical sales plan but are in the cloud so everyone can easily share and work together on deals.

The pros

By using a sales proposal software package, you can get many perks, such as:

• Right to use ready-made templates that make writing easier
• Because of this, your sales team will have more time to find new leads.
• Making it possible for groups to work together in real-time
• Letting everyone on the team see how a sales plan is made and comparing results to find out what works and what doesn’t
• Response time for leads is faster
• Better sales offers because they can be made quickly and are tailored to the customer’s needs.
• Keeping everything in one place so it’s easy to find again in the future
• Maybe being able to use computer signatures for authentication would save even more time

What It Does

Most sales proposal software has the following significant features:

• Share data and templates
• The ability for multiple levels of approval
• Made writing proposals easier
• Checks for language and grammar
• Allow or deny access based on user roles
• You are keeping track of the time and money you spend on each pitch so you can figure out your return on investment (ROI).
• Storing files in the cloud so that you can change them anywhere