July 2009
Trust Tip 72: Write Your Next Proposal with the Client
by Charles H. Green on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 (post #39)
Our normal modus operandi, of course, is to leave the meeting and say,
“Thanks, that was a really helpful meeting. I’ll get you a written proposal via .pdf and FedEx next Thursday, and we look forward to hearing back from you a week later.”
What if, instead, you were to say,
“Thanks, that was a really helpful meeting. Why don’t you book the same conference room again next Thursday morning, and let’s write this proposal together.
“I’ll bring all our cost charts and resource pricing tables, as well as various background and qualifications materials. You bring the requirements materials you need.
“We’ll work together to jointly define problem statements, approaches, timing, pricing, outcomes and outcome measurements.
“It will still only be a proposal —I realize there’s no guarantee. But it will be the best darn proposal we ever wrote and you ever got, because we’d agree—to the best of our ability—how we would work together in advance to address all your issues and build those approaches into the proposal itself.
What do you say? ”
We normally think of the sales process as something that precedes having a good customer or client relationship. First we get the sale, then we can be all trusting and collaborative.
Writing the proposal together, with the client, changes that. It creates trust and collaboration before the sale. It models those attributes in the proposal process itself.
Doesn’t your client deserve the best proposal possible? Don’t you? Why not work together—on the same side of the table—to make sure you both get what you deserve?
Charles H. Green is founder and CEO of Trusted Advisor Associates; read more about Charlie at http://trustedadvisor.com/cgreen/
You can follow him on twitter @CharlesHGreen
posted in Trust-based Selling, Building Trusted Advisors
Maureen Rogers said
http://www.pinkslipblog.blogspot.com/
Charlie - The timing of your post is interesting, given that I just got off a conference call with a prospect in which we worked through the initial proposal we sent, refined it, did some brainstorming, re-thought some initial assumptions on both sides, and came up with a far stronger plan than we'd started out with. It helped that may team is pretty sure we're getting the work, but I like to think that we'd have been willing to do so even if the project were more up for grabs.
I guess my question is whether a prospect/client would be willing to go through this effort with multiple vendors - even knowing that it increases the likelihood of stronger proposals. And if they just did it for one vendor, would it open a can of worms with the other guys who would cry foul if they didin't get the deal.
posted on Thursday, December 21, 2006