Whether you sell the latest clothing styles wholesale or deliver mulch to homeowners, effective sales proposals and estimates are a must. As an entrepreneur, writing sales proposals and estimates is a huge part of getting new business.
Here’s some tried-and-true wisdom on how to get the most mileage out of your sales proposals.
Know your audience
You must know how your potential customer thinks. Once you understand that, you can create a relationship and a proposal that pitches to their style. “The bottom line is ‘different strokes for different folks’,” says Edie Raether, a sales consultant based in Holly Springs, N.C.
Before writing a sales proposal, understand the client’s wants and needs, dominant buying motives, and value that your product can provide. Proposals can help clarify your role as you seek to create those relationships.
Include the key components
After your clients read it, you don’t want them feeling like they still have questions for you that went unanswered.
The proposal should begin with the most important part: an executive summary. This should be an overview of the discussions that have already taken place between you and your client. “Explain what you are offering in terms such as ‘our solution’ or ‘our product,’” says Michelle Shoenecker, a proposal manager for Fiserv, a Milwaukee-based company that provides information-management systems to the financial and health-benefit industries.
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