The commercial proposal, the commercial offer or the “propel” is a document in PDF or Power Point format that you will present to your prospect following an appointment. This document constitutes a real file which details the solutions that you will bring to your prospect.
The commercial proposal symbolizes, most of the time, one of the last stages of your sales process. It is a document that you will present during an appointment that will support your speech. It will allow you to either win or lose the case. The proposal must be personalized with the issues of the prospect and detail how you will respond to them. Above all, it is a question of making your interlocutor understand that you are on his side and that you have fully understood his needs. It must contain a maximum of added value and must be very neat if you want to lead to a sale.
Commercial
Please note that the commercial proposal and the estimate are not synonymous. Although, quite often, the two are lumped together. The quotation focuses only on the price. You can accompany your estimate with a small explanation of the budget by email but most of the time, it does not go further. The quote works very well if your prospect is already convinced of your solution and wants to make a purchase.
Sales
The sales proposal, on the other hand, represents a call for the solution. It is not just a question of sending a price but rather of responding to a problem, of providing solutions to your prospect. You cannot write a commercial offer without having dialogued or asked questions to your prospect. The commercial proposal is therefore much richer, it is a real file which will cover the entire project with the problems and the solutions provided.
Market
It is very likely that you are already making business proposals, perhaps without knowing it! You may be doing all this work but in an “oral” way. That is to say that you have no document to support your statements. We strongly advise you to try the approach with a written commercial proposal. This document provides your prospect with a solid basis for future collaboration.
Why Make A Business Proposal?
As you will have understood, the implementation of a commercial proposal is a real added value which requires real reflection and thus requires more time on the part of the salesperson. But then, in the end, why write a commercial proposal and not simply send a quote?
A business proposal sets you apart. Know that some of your prospects or customers will take the time to read and reread your proposal and most certainly compare it with your competitors. Indeed, put yourself in their shoes, you have on one side, a quote from the competition, quite simple with only a price. On the other side, a nice commercial proposal with your problem and your constraints, carefully indicating how the company intends to respond to it and all the useful information.
How To Write An Effective Business Proposal?
Qualify The Prospect’s Needs
The first thing to do is to manage to delimit the scope of the project of your prospect and his company, during your commercial prospecting, to see if you can propose a solution. Carrying out a rigorous qualification phase means ensuring a good understanding of the latter’s needs and having a global vision of the prospect’s problem.
Define customer needs
In order to propose a personalized offer according to the specificities and expectations of your interlocutor, a good knowledge of your target and their point of view is essential. For example, knowing what their role is within the project, their expectations, objectives and vision…
Relevant Questions To Get Constructive Answers Could Be:
What problem do you want to solve?
What is your objective?
Do you operate with specificities that are important to take into account?
Have you ever tried other solutions? If so, what was wrong?
Thanks to this information, you will clarify the need of the prospect and its good coherence (or not) with your offer.
Write A Personalized And Tailor-Made Offer
Once the commercial prospecting has been carried out and the meetings completed, you have all the elements needed to write a tailor-made commercial offer and hope for the best results.
Ideally, The Argument Includes The Following Points:
- Explicitly restate the client's needs and ask questions. This is an asset to prove that you are listening and truly aware of the pain points he may be facing.
- Provide a description of the value proposition. Your recommendations as an expert to respond to the problem or the expectations of the prospect and his company. The clarity and precision of the various points to be resolved are essential.
- Present the benefits you bring by remaining linked to the customer's expectations. You can rely on a concrete example of a successful customer experience. The important thing is that this satisfied customer resembles our new customer in certain respects. The objective is to reinforce the credibility of your argument and to convince prospects of the effectiveness of your system, compared to competitors.
- Present the benefits you bring by remaining linked to the customer's expectations. You can rely on a concrete example of a successful customer experience. The important thing is that this satisfied customer resembles our new customer in certain respects. The objective is to reinforce the credibility of your argument and to convince prospects of the effectiveness of your system, compared to competitors.
- Your selling price proposal accompanied by other advantages depending on the type of products / services offered to customers.
- Conclude by setting a next step with client approval.
Our Advice For Writing The Commercial Offer
Speak Clearly And Simply
To establish and maintain a good business relationship with your potential client, it is essential that your interlocutor understands you easily. To do this, a simplified and clear language should be used. The technical language used internally is to be banned.
Tell yourself that the potential client is calling on you because they don’t know your area of expertise. So avoid speaking with technical vocabulary or specific to your activity. If the prospect does not understand your arguments and what you are offering them, it will be difficult for them to project themselves and this will not encourage them to sign a contract with you!
Pay Attention To Form And Presentation
- The formatting and structure of your proposal is an important criterion in gaining the prospect’s trust and in proving your seriousness and your added value. Be careful not to add information that would not be useful for the project.
- Concretely present your solution to the potential customer, step by step, before finishing with your prices.
Apply On The Conclusion
The end of your business proposal is crucial: this key step is the last impression your prospect will have is decisive, so you might as well make sure that it is memorable. To do this, end your business offer with something strong or unexpected. This could be (to be determined based on your business strategy):
- A service or feature that is coming very soon and you have identified that it might be of interest to them
- A special offer
- An invitation to an event
- A call to loyalty
Finishing on a high note will improve your chances of being chosen by your prospect in their decision-making process. This will distinguish you from your competitors, in the event that the client receives several commercial proposals.
Once you’ve finished writing the document, consider proofreading it. This is one of the most important steps, as misspellings often scare away prospects. It is your professionalism and your seriousness that are called into question. In addition, proofreading will allow you to analyze the time it will take for your prospect to read your commercial proposal.
2 Tips For This Proofreading Stage:
- Avoid exceeding 15 minutes. A document that is too long and too complex can quickly lose your potential client and make them think that it is not concise enough.
- If you take longer, see which stitches can be shortened to be more impactful.
Your business proposals will play a vital role in the profitability of your business and your business to increase your sales. The more convincing they are, the more customers and therefore turnover you will have. In other words, you will sell more.
A Good Business Proposition Brings Value
For example, if you sell an account-based marketing solution, why not include figures on its effectiveness as well as an audit of your client’s organization and a recommendation on how to set it up?
I see you coming, don’t do it with your big hooves presenting your solution as the only option. See more broadly, on the scale of its organization and its challenges. Then demonstrate how seamlessly your solution would fit into this project and how much it would increase its effectiveness.
Often, we are told that the price is the key information of the commercial proposal, everyone has only that in the mouth. The funniest thing is that often the sales people are the first to be saddened by the fact that the customer only talks about the price. If the sales people themselves focused a little less on it, the customers would probably do the same.
Bring value to bring the debate on what matters, you will see that the price will immediately be less central in your exchanges.