5 Ways to Streamline Your Proposal Process
One of the biggest complaints I hear is how time-consuming proposal writing can be.
At many companies, proposals fall to the salesperson, marketer, business owner, or assistant, all of whom have many additional responsibilities that must be completed in addition to proposal writing.
If that’s the case for you, then the steps below can help you to streamline your process, so you spend less time creating proposals and more time ticking items off your to-do list.
Document Key Information and Points of Contact
When working on a proposal, the last thing you want to do is go searching for a piece of information on your company or solution as the deadline approaches. To avoid this last minute scramble, create a single document with the most common details that you will need to include in your proposal. Examples include:
Company address
Founding date
FEIN
Applicable registration numbers
How to get a Certificate of Insurance
Who to contact for financial questions
Points of contact at key partners
These questions come up most often in RFPs, and many forms will ask for this information (especially in the government space). By having all of this information in one place, you save time when you’re working on the actual proposal, giving you more opportunity to focus on refining your strategy.
Template
A good, easy-to-update proposal template will save you many headaches down the road. If you don’t already have one, you can check out this blog post on what you should include.
Your template can include standard content (see below) or simply be a designed document that sellers can use to send out an on-brand, professional proposal.
When creating your template, make sure that it is designed in a software that can be used by everyone responsible for sending out proposals. For example, if your sales team doesn’t have a license to Adobe InDesign, avoid using that for your template and instead go with something else that they can access.
Boilerplate/Content Library
Well-written content that is already tailored to your audience will make creating winning proposals much easier. To get started on this, document the most common sections you include in your proposals and draft content that you can use as a starting point going forward. The goal is to have content that you can easily customize to buyers without having to write from scratch each time.
One way to make your boilerplate content more tailored is to create it for specific audiences. For example, if you sell to both K-12 Institutions and financial organizations, they might have very different needs and goals, even though they purchase the same solution. To account for this in your content library, you can draft two pieces of content for each section – one for K-12 and one for financial customers. This allows you to use industry-specific language in the proposal, making your boilerplate content more tailored and reducing the amount you have to customize when it’s time to send out the proposal.
Editable Graphics
Content is just one of the ways you can tailor your proposal to the buyer. Graphics are also an excellent way to connect with the reader and establish your trust and authority.
Because every buyer is different, some graphics will resonate more than others. Where possible, having editable graphics will enable you to incorporate more tailored information to the buyer.
For example, let’s say you have a standard graphic that lists the number of customers you’ve supported. One way you can customize this is to update it to be industry-specific customers. Using the K-12 example above, instead of saying the overall number of customers, you can change the graphic to be the number of K-12 institutions you’ve supported (or include both!). This establishes credibility in their specific industry and makes the proposal feel less cookie cutter.
You can do the same thing with any process graphics, team overviews, company metrics, and other key sections.
Proposal Software
A good proposal software can make creating proposals significantly easier. That’s only if it integrates well within your overall process.
For example, if you respond to a lot of government RFPs, you likely will be creating your proposals in Word because these RFPs have specific formats you must follow (and sometimes they ask for electronic files in Word). This means that a proposal software that only exports to PDF is not going to be much help. Instead, search for one that aligns with your process.
In general, companies choose proposal softwares for the following reasons:
Ability to store content library in a centralized place
Well-designed and easy to update templates
Analytics and tracking for customer engagement
Convenience and user experience
If you respond to RFPs, the best options will have a focus on RFPs, such as RFP360, RFPIO, and Loopio may be a good fit.
If you do not respond to RFPs, then it’s easier to rely on the template within the platform. Many options also allow you to take payment within the same tool as the proposal, streamlining your sales process. Some good non-RFP options include: Pandadoc, Propisify, and Better Proposals.
With all of these steps implemented, you’ll have a much more streamlined and easy-to-follow process whether you hire new team members or operate as a proposal team of one.