After a lead has been
nurtured to sales-ready status, the right steps are taken by the sales team to
move it through the funnel. They begin proposal
discussions early, but only present their proposal when they are positioned to
win politically, technically and financially.
Otherwise, they’ll join a pool of sameness and compete on price instead
of leveraging the business advantages to be gained from their solution.
An excellent executive
summary will create an emotional attachment to your proposal if the buyer plays
a role in co-authoring it. This story
can be jettisoned from the body of the proposal and reviewed by senior
executives who don’t want to spend time studying details. This enhances the buying team’s image and it
will help the sales team to minimize competitors who want to compete on price.
Early draft(s) of the
executive summary must develop the Proposal
UVP
that correctly associates your solution with the buyer’s business
situation, challenge and desired results, which you learned about during the
early stages of the sales cycle. For
example, it should discuss the impact of your proposal on the lifetime
cost that the buyer will pay for your solution through quality, reliability, maintenance,
obsolescence, licensing and relationship features. You can also highlight the business benefits
the buyer’s organization will derive from image, productivity and financial
advantages related to your solution.
Each sales opportunity will
require its own Proposal UVP even if you are managing multiple opportunities
from the same buyer. Each opportunity
has its own emotional, subjective and objective drivers that must be understood
and addressed. Regrettably, only 20% of
sales reps have a strong business acumen that they can use to translate their
product knowledge into business benefits that will be derived by the customer.
A winning proposal must not
only benefit your buyer, but it must also produce optimal gross profit for your
company. Allowing yourself to be drawn
into price negotiations Vs. transactional bidders will leave GP on the table. Product feature/benefit comparisons between
vying competitors almost always wind up in a price concession.
Does this Proposal UVP concept
make sense for your business?
