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Lately I have been working with businesses who want to reduce the time it takes to close the sale. They are each selling different things to different people but one thing they have in common is that they are getting a lot of interest at the sales meeting and then, too often the sale stalls and ends up going nowhere. A common factor in each case was a weak sales proposal.
The proposals looked good in terms of presentation style but if you had not been involved in the sales discussions then it was actually very weak.
If you find yourself regularly losing sales even though you thought you had it in the bag then it might be worth making sure that your sales proposals are not letting you down. Here are 5 common mistakes I find when reviewing sales proposals for clients:
Mistake #1 - Not enough detail
Imagine you went to your doctor. You were in pain and expecting some help. The doctor had just been seeing someone else immediately before you. Instead of asking you the normal questions, the doctor just starts telling you, very enthusiastically, how similar your pain is to the previous patient, what is wrong with you and what medicine you need to take.
Why are so many sales proposals unsuccessful? You spend all time and effort on putting them together, only to see your hopes for a successful sale turn to dust.
I was helping a client to make her pitch more powerful the other day and l was struggling to get her to stop talking about problems people do not realise they have. At times like this I use my ‘Spotty Face’ analogy.
Imagine you are a doctor and a lady comes to see you with a spotty face. She is a grown woman and is worried that the spots are not very attractive to say the least. The doctor asks lots of questions about the symptoms before making the diagnosis that she has a rare allergy. The lady makes a few changes and very quickly the spots disappear. She is overjoyed!
