Have you ever wondered if how to deliver a proposal to win clients? When frequently delivering proposals to leads, you must find a method that works for you and your business. To help you discover a successful approach, we’re sharing our tried and tested way of delivering proposals to solicited leads.
Picture the scenario, you have sent a proposal to a lead via email, time passes, yet you’ve heard nothing. You reach out to them, but you can’t seem to get a hold of them – sound familiar?
In most cases, the current strategy adopted by business owners is to deliver the proposal via email. But in this situation, the prospective client will scroll straight to the price, ignoring the solution you’ll be providing…
When you let the customer review the proposition on their own, they’re likely to lengthen the sales process and even put off making a decision. To keep control of the situation, follow our step-by-step instructions and ensure you’re not losing warm leads at the final hurdle.
Step one: Prepare
So, how do you deliver a proposal to win clients? The first step is preparing. It’s imperative to plan before diving into drafting the proposal. Once you have received an enquiry, referral or meeting request, you need to research the business in question. You must get to grips with their service or offering.
The best place to start is their website, then investigate their social media profiles. Another useful source is reviews; these may be on Google, Trust Pilot or their Facebook page. This will give you a better idea of the business from the perspective of their customers – giving you the chance to ask yourself “is this a business I think I can work with?”
Step two: Discovery call/meeting
Once you have a thorough understanding of their business, it’s time to book a discovery call or meeting with them (if you haven’t got one scheduled already). This meeting is your opportunity to ask questions to understand them and their business better and most importantly what they are looking to achieve. It’s also an excellent opportunity to get to know their goals and issues and demonstrate that you understand their business.
In the same meeting, lay out your approach to how you will address their issues, i.e., have a discovery call/meeting, write the proposal, and then have a delivery call/meeting. Do not just recycle your elevator pitch; keep it focused on understanding their issues and the reason why they got in touch. Replay back your understanding of what they want to address; this way, you’ll demonstrate that you’ve been listening. It allows you to show you have a thorough understanding of their needs and the problem they want to solve.
Before you finish the meeting, ask them about any reservations they may have at this stage and work towards overcoming them. If they are sceptical, put their mind at ease with examples of what you have done with other clients and back these up with social proof such as testimonials or success stories (you may want to email these over after the meeting). Where possible – support your explanation with data to give credibility to your claims.
Also, let them know when you will be working on their proposal and while still in this session, book another meeting to deliver your pitch.
After this initial meeting, note down your understanding of their business model, exactly what they are looking to achieve and how you can support them, this will allow you to work on devising an airtight proposal.
Step three: Delivery call/meeting
You can break down this meeting into three parts:
A. Show you have listened
B. Check your understanding
C. Your plan
We can’t stress this enough – when delivering your proposal, don’t just send it via email! The recipient will scroll directly to the cost. Whereas when you provide your solution via a call or meeting, you can ensure the focus is on how you will help the business, not how much the service will cost.
A. Show you have listened
Demonstrate that you have taken on board what they said in the discovery discussion, replay your understanding of their business and what they are looking to achieve. It’s important to directly link their current struggles to how you intend to deliver the solution.
B. Check your understanding
When you finish delivering your understanding of the business and what they hope to achieve, get into the habit of asking, “What have we missed?” This open-ended question will hopefully lead to the prospect saying, “nothing! That’s everything”, meaning you understand their issues.
C. Your plan
When delivering your solution, show you value their time by pitching only the absolute essential elements and getting right to the pain points. State the deliverables, the timeframe of the project, your strategy and the cost of your services.
Once you have delivered the plan, you need to close – the closing approach you take will depend on how you confident you feel. If you think the prospect is close to signing, you could ask “when do you want to start?” or “shall we get started?” They’ll hopefully reply, “yes – works for me”. But some prospects might want a softer approach. If you feel like asking when to start would be too aggressive, ask “when will you be able to make a decision on this?”
Would you like more advice on how to deliver a proposal to win clients?
This approach certainly isn’t rocket science; it’s common sense but not common practice.
When you adopt this approach and deliver the information well, the prospect will be pretty close to signing as you can address any concerns there and then (rather than letting the recipient mull on it and talk themselves out of it!)
Do you have any questions about this approach? Or perhaps you’re looking for more guidance on how to improve your proposals. In any case, book a call or meeting with Bill to find out how we can help you win more clients.
