Marketing Clique

Proposals present another ideal time for marketing and sales to buddy up. According to the Sant Corporation, a leading proposal automation software company, many organizations' proposals are hastily assembled. Unfortunately, salespeople end up sending out what amounts to a jalopy–an amalgamation of disparate proposals they've sent to a variety of prospects.

Unfortunately, most salespeople resort to "cloning" as a means of getting their proposals done quickly. They borrow a proposal that somebody else has written for a different client, use the Find/Replace function in Microsoft Word to change the client's name, and print it! That's about as personalized as a can of spinach. (Plus they run the risk of having the wrong client's name show up somewhere in that proposal. You can imagine what that does for rapport and credibility.) —How to Write a Winning Proposal, Sant Corporation

The proposal is the ultimate opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge of your prospect's business challenge and how you propose helping them to solve it. While the proposal ought to be all about your prospect, it's also a time to show off your company's branding. Use this opportunity to produce a document that exudes professionalism–a foreshadowing of what it's going to be like working with your organization.

The proposal is clearly one of the most critical elements of the sales process. Research supports that the sales process, along with product and service featuers are most important to the buyer.

• Related Post: 2 Ways to Beef Up Your B2B Sales Process

Marketing and sales distilled into one document

Since the proposal is a personalized summary of what your company is going to deliver, it's a marketing project. But since it's about closing business, it's a sales project. Therefore, marketing and sales need to sit down together and agree on how proposals should be structured, from a branding and marketing standpoint. That doesn't mean that salespeople need to be sending out "boilerplate" proposals. But it does mean that your company's proposals can have a consistent look and feel–branded, instead of the jalopy that normally gets sent out.

If you have a growing team of salespeople and there is an increasing volume of proposals, sales letters, and responses to RFPs being delivered to prospects, consider hiring a professional company like Sant Corporation to support your efforts to becoming more streamlined.

Dos and Don'ts

• Do make the proposal about the prospect. Of course you need to describe your organization's approach to solving their business problem, but keep it focused on them.
• Do use consistent, branded verbiage to describe your company's products and services. It reduces confusion and makes deliverables easier to explain.
• Do keep the proposal as brief as possible. Ideally, a proposal is being sent to a prospect once there has been agreement that it is time to formalize a relationship. In a perfect scenario, the proposal is simply a way to summarize what you and the prospect have already agreed to, informally. If you haven't verbally agreed to anything it might be too early for the proposal.
• Don't deliver the proposal as a PowerPoint presentation. It's not a presentation, or a pitch. It's a proposal. That doesn't mean you can't get buy in and a verbal agreement to work together using a pitch or a presentation.
• Don't use the proposal as a detailed project overview. I know it's tempting, because your delivery team doesn't want to get roped into an underpriced project. But the project timeline and detailed description should be a separate document.
• Don't use the proposal as a master service agreement (MSA). The proposal doesn't have to be the document that gets dragged through legal. The MSA is that bugger. The MSA is a dry, boring, chocked-full-of-legalese document that only lawyers should read.
• Don't give away the farm! Some proposals end up being so detailed that a wavering prospect can take the proposal and turn your services into a commodity by pricing out each deliverable.
• Do have your colleagues proofread it before it goes out the door.
• Do consider sending a hard copy via FedEx, especially if you think the prospect is receiving multiple bids. A FedEx delivery still commands an air of urgency, importance, and curiosity in the business world. It's good insurance that your proposal will get opened.
• Do keep in mind that your proposal may be read by a number of different people, not just the recipient. So resist being overly familiar. Explain products, services, and deliverables in an easy-to-read format.