Which Sales Proposal Is More Effective?
SCENARIO: You're writing a sales proposal for a technically-oriented company. Their business model absolutely depends upon 24/7 support from its vendors, including your firm. Their RFP contains the following question: "Do you have 24/7 support?" You want to provide the answer that's most likely to help the customer select your firm. Here are your choices:
Response #1: Guarantee it. Make it perfectly clear that your firm not only offers 24/7 support but guarantees it, with financial penalties in the event that you are unable to provide it.
Response #2: Expound on it. Provide detailed technical information on your support system, so that the customer can see that you're capable of providing that support 24/7.
Response #3: Differentiate it. Describe what differentiates your 24/7 support from the competition's and how those differences will impact the overall cost of support.
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The best answer is: Response #3: Differentiate it.
A proposal is a sales tool, not an information packet. The purpose of a proposal is to make a persuasive case that leads to a sale. If you're writing a proposal, you must assume that other vendors are also writing similar proposals. Therefore, the customer's most important concerns should be handled as competitive issues, rather than purely technical or purely business issues.
Here's why the other two responses are weak.
Response #1: Guarantee it. Since you've not yet worked with the customer, they have no idea what your guarantee is worth. Furthermore, the idea that you've proposed financial penalties suggests that your firm is so accustomed to failing in support that they've set up a system to deal with it. If I were the customer, this approach would make me very nervous.
Response #2: Expound on it. There's nothing wrong with providing technical details, but if you limit your response to such information, you're forcing the customer to carry the burden of understanding how those technical characteristics translated into financial impact, and how they compare to the technical specs of your competitors. Even propeller-head decision-makers will likely balk at this.
By contrast, putting your response into a competitive context turns answering a simple question into an opportunity to create a perception of value that will lead to a successful sale. It also allows you to introduce business issues (Response #1) and technical issues (Response #2), in a context that helps ensure that you'll get the business.
For example, rather than just "guaranteeing" up time, you could write something like this:
Every vendor in our industry offers a guarantee and we're aware of three vendors who offer their customers a rebate if they fail to provide support. We strongly recommend that, if you buy from a competitor, you buy from one who offers such a rebate. However, we believe that you would be better served by our service, because, based on independent studies (technical comparison appended), our up time of 99.9% is the among best in the industry. We therefore provide the replacement of lost income of our customers on those rare occasions when we cannot provide support.The above paragraph has all the advantages of the first two responses, but none of the disadvantages, and make it painfully obvious that your firm is the better choice, over the competitors. What's more, you've guided the customer through the comparison process and very likely torpedoed most of the competitive bids.
BTW, the above is based upon a conversation with the amazing Tom Sant, probably the world's foremost expert on sales proposals.
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