When you wrote your first sales proposal, you probably grabbed an existing company template, or something you used before, made some adjustments, added what you needed, and sent it off. The next time, you took what you did the time … Read More
proposals
Oracle OpenWorld, Cloud MarketPlace, Online Proposals and America’s Cup
It’s Oracle Open World and I’m on a plane to San Francisco. 60,000 people converged on Moscone Center to learn more about Oracle’s big push into the cloud, including Compute Cloud, Storage Cloud, and Database Cloud. While these announcements are … Read More
The One Question to Differentiate and Win More Proposals
Great post from Matt Handal on The One Question That Can Dramatically Increase Your Proposal Wins. I won’t give away the ending here, but it’s worth the read, especially if you are struggling to figure out why you’re not closing deals.
Sales Proposal Writing Tips: Staring Down the Blank Screen
Did you ever have a great meeting with a prospect, when everything felt clear and straightforward, like the deal was in the bag, and then you got back to your office to start your proposal and you stared at that … Read More
Rules for Proposal Writing and Fiction Writing: Not What You Think
I’ve read plenty of proposals that sound like (bad) fiction. I’m not talking about the rules that says “don’t write fiction for your proposals.” That ought to go without saying. I’m talking about a great piece of writing advice from Chuck … Read More
Follow up on proposal discounting
A while back, I wrote about a customer who wasn’t sure whether he should offer a discount to a prospect. He ended up following my advice and not offering any preemptive, arbitrary discounts, but he did offer 2 conditional discounts, … Read More
3 Tragic Misconceptions about Proposal Cover Letters
Here’s a great piece by Matt Handal about proposal cover letters. The most important part is the first: “Don’t include a cover letter in your proposal. It’s not going to convince us. So, don’t waste your time.” Why would he … Read More
Tips for Adding Videos to Proposals
Videos are a great way to make proposals really stand out. You can use videos to: Introduce team members who will work on a project. Demonstrate products and solutions in action. Provide testimonials. Show details of a location in a … Read More
A Faster Proposal Process Saves Time for You and Your Customers
Creating and closing proposal more efficiently is a big win for personal and company productivity, and it’s also a big win for your customers’ productivity. Do you hate the grunt work of answering RFP questions or just having the seemingly … Read More
Simple Sample Proposal Template
Need a simple sales proposal template? It’s easy to get anxious about whether your proposal covers the right things, in the right way. While there’s no universal, “perfect” template, here’s an outline and a way to get an actual proposal … Read More