Supplemental Resources for Chapter 3
Avoiding the ‘Big Black Hole’ of Business Proposals I
Have you experienced the ‘Big Black Hole’ of the sales process? It’s like this: You receive a well-earned request for a proposal, spend precious time crafting it, hit “send” and anxiously await a response. And then surprise, surprise, you’re rewarded with nothing but silence.
You follow up with an email. Nothing. You leave a voice mail. Nada. You send another email. Nope, nothing doing.
Welcome to what I call the ‘Big Black Hole’ of business proposals -where proposals go to curl up and die. If this happens to your company, you’ve got company.
Nobody has time to waste on proposals that go nowhere. Here are two concrete steps you can take to maintain control of the sale and keep your proposals away from the ‘Big Black Hole’! (Stay tuned for steps three and four in my next blog.)
THE PRE-PROPOSAL STAGE
The good news is that your competition most likely skips the Pre-Proposal Stage. The bad news is that you might skip it, too.
When you receive the proposal request don’t get excited and start preparing it straight away. Have a short discussion with your prospect to elicit the information you need to craft a winning proposal.
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Avoiding the ‘Big Black Hole’ of Business Proposals II
In Part 1 of Avoiding the ‘Big Black Hole’ of Business Proposals, I covered the first two steps that will help you receive a well-earned request for a proposal including what to do in the Pre-Proposal Stage and how to Structure Your Proposal.
This week we will explore the final two steps to ensure a positive outcome – the Proposal Delivery and Closing Time.
PROPOSAL DELIVERY
If at all possible, deliver your proposal “live”; either by phone or in person. You can use this additional touch point as an opportunity to remind the prospect what he/she said was most important to include. You can also ask if anything changed since the original request.
As you walk your prospect through the proposal, you will hear objections and can answer them on the spot. You can even make changes to your proposal, if needed.
At the end of your conversation, remember to ask, “What do you see are the best next steps?”and then set a date and time so these next steps happen. It’s completely alright if the next step is as simple as a 10-minute check-in call two weeks later. It will keep you “top of mind” and have your proposal moving through the sales process.
CLOSING TIME
In my experience, closing a sale is the logical next step of business development well done. Sometimes at the moment of final decision, there can still be some lingering doubts or emotional reasons preventing the prospect from moving forward.
If you find yourself in this situation, you can ask, “What’s holding you back from making a decision?” Or, “During our initial meeting you said that X was important to you, if we don’t proceed together on this project, how will you solve this problem/challenge?”
Critical Step: After you ask one of these questions, BE QUIET!!!
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