Some sales people think that because they’re great at selling face-to-face, they don’t need to put a lot of time or effort into writing a winning proposal. They feel that their verbal skills did all the selling for them.
That’s where many of them come undone.
Unless your prospect hands you a check “on the spot”, there’s still a chance they won’t purchase from you.
After all, once you’ve left their office, and a day or two passes, that’s when the excitement levels start to fade and the fears and concerns start to rise to the surface.
1. The competition:
There’s a fair chance that your prospective client has approached one or more of your competitors too so you’re not the only company in the running for their business.
Sure, your face-to-face presentation may have “wowed” a prospect but if you’re the first person they saw, who’s to say that the other sales people didn’t do just as good a job at “wowing” them.
2. Selling to those visual types:
For visual people, it gives a visual representation of your selling argument in its entirety so these types of people are more likely to take in what’s written on paper than what is explained to them.
3. Long lead times:
If the decision making process takes some time, it’s naturally important that your proposal re-sells them on your product and business to jog their memory.
4. Convinces the “non-present” decision maker:
In many situations there’s a fair chance that all the decision makers may not have been present at your initial sales presentation.
A proposal that epitomises “salesmanship in print” does the selling for you so the decision maker doesn’t need to rely solely on the feedback from the person you made direct contact with.
Copyright 2000 Words that Sell Pty Ltd
Kris Mills of Words that Sell ( http://www.wordsthatsell.com.au/ ) is a top selling copywriter, trainer and author of numerous how-to guides including Proposals and Tenders (Bids) that Sell. Kris has also produced a FREE ebook entitled “11 Bid Writing Sins and How to Avoid Them”. To arrange a FREE copy, visit:http://www.wordsthatsell.com.au/tendersebook.htm
