Transmitting information and persuading people to make a change are fundamentally different goals. Human minds are not like computer storage devices. You can’t just shove a bunch of stuff in, expect some processing to happen, and a change to occur. … Read More
proposals
When to Follow Up on a Sales Proposal: The Magic Time to Boost Close Rates
In an ideal world, you would send out a sales proposal, the prospect would accept it, and your company would start working on the project. In the real world, proposals usually require follow up. Prospects have questions, concerns, and bosses … Read More
5 Steps to Deal with Sales Proposal Writer’s Block
Anyone who’s ever been asked to write anything gets writer’s block at some point. In sales, few moments are worse than when the excitement of “great, they asked for a proposal” turns into “what the heck should I write?” Everything … Read More
Your Sales Proposals are too Long
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
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