How to write a great sales proposal?

Proposals make or break your deals. Sure, your relationships with customers and the conversations you've had matter, but in the end, the proposal you write seals the deal.

While you don't need to customize every section in your proposal, it makes a lot of sense to direct your effort towards the right ideas and the right parts - to clinch your next deal.

We spoke to folks from across the industry to get a sense of what they think makes a great sales proposal, to give you some ideas. They touched upon a lot of things - we suggest bookmarking this post or printing it out for reference. We're fairly certain some of these tips will be really useful to help you write a great proposal.

Research your client and their brand

Praval is the VP of Marketing and Customer Experience at Zoho. He says he's impressed by proposals from agencies that reflect solid research about their brand. Here's what makes a great proposal, according to him:

"Sure; there could be many things but one thing that I often admire is when prospective agencies and partners come to me with solid research on what would work for a brand like ours, based on not just who we are, but who we aren’t. That, instead of a generic pitch is what is rare to find and when that happens, it’s almost always a wonderful conversation. :)"

Look beyond the brief and offer a vision

Gyles Seward, who is the co-founder of Multidots, a WordPress agency, had this to say about great proposals. The point about providing a vision that felt more than just a tactical solution based on a client's brief, stood out to us:

"No two clients are the same, there is not a one size fits all solution when it comes to websites. The role of a consultant (agency) is to look beyond the brief and provide direction and definition to any website project. Focus on the end-user and put yourselves in their shoes, understand their needs, wants and desires then interpret that into a workable vision that will deliver success." 

Personalize your proposals deeply based on the client

Shashwathi, who was previously a bid manager at Whatfix mentions that personalization when writing proposals matters the most, and impacts win rates.

"With my past experience I've learned that truly effective proposals require an extra step—deep personalization. I learned how going beyond my standard responsibilities, makes a great impact on our win rates. As a Bid Manager, I advise you to not just bid on the key requirements, but to go one step further and address a customer’s unique goals, the underlying intent of their RFP, and even their company’s mission."

Keep things simple

When I asked Kay Van Aarssen, who owns an MSP business in Netherlands, he was very straightforward and told us: "Less is more, follow the KISS principle."

We agree - I think jargons and complex information in your proposal only lead to customers choosing someone else for their next project.

If you've got more tips: share it with us on support@gobeam.io and we'll include it here with a link to your online presence!