What is a Sales Proposal? 

A sales proposal is a vital document used by all types of organizations to highlight or advertise an organization’s services and products to potential customers. Typically, a sales proposal will be a high-level overview of why a potential customer should work with an organization. These documents are written to be persuasive and to clearly articulate to customers that your organization has a solution that solves common pain points. 

Sales proposals are part of the overall sales cycle, journey, or pipeline, usually falling somewhere in the middle or near the end. They’re critical documents that help organizations of all types win valuable business. 

Types of sales proposals 

Solicited Proposals  

When an organization requires a specific product or service, it often seeks out a wide variety of companies to potentially solve that need. This process usually involves sending out a Request for Proposal, known as an RFP. Organizations use RFPs to inform contractors and vendors of a specific project and collect or solicit bids.  

These types of sales proposals are known as solicited proposals, as they are sent to companies that have directly requested proposals. Typically solicited sales proposals will contain specific key information outlined in the original RFP such as company background, pricing, project scope, and overall fit. 

Proactive Sales proposals 

Unlike solicited sales proposals, proactive proposals are sent out to potential customers who have not publicly identified a concrete product or service need. A proactive proposal will look very similar to a solicited proposal, so it’s best to think of these types of proposals not as separate documents, but as a different approach to winning business. 

Done well, proactive sales proposals prove to prospects that your organization can uniquely solve their challenges—perhaps in ways they haven’t even considered. Implementing a proactive proposal strategy differentiates your organization while also increasing the odds your company’s unique value proposition will reach decision-makers at the right time instead of getting buried in a mountain of competing RFP responses. 

Key parts of sales proposals 

Successful sales proposals tell the complete story of your organization, highlight a customer’s pain points, and clearly articulate how your organization can provide a solution. Given that the ultimate goal of any sales proposal is to win new business, your proposals should always be persuasive, concise, and consistent. 

Here’s what you’ll typically find in a sales proposal: 

Title page 

Title pages create the first impression of your organization, they should be branded and professional while being short and concise. 

Executive summary 

Sometimes called executive overviews, these sections summarize key points of your proposal. They should be persuasive while also succinctly explaining what a potential customer will find in the rest of your proposal. 

Company and product overview 

Use this section to introduce your company and provide crucial background on your history and product or service offerings. 

Problem statement

Your problem statement should identify the potential customer’s problem and how your organization can address it. 

Price quote 

Price quotes should be detailed breakdowns of potential costs and pricing structures. If your organization can’t provide a specific price or cost breakdown, you should provide a general estimate of costs. 

Sales content 

Generally, these sections are the main part of a sales proposal. What counts as sales content varies from organization to organization but this type of content explains features, highlights benefits, and provides supporting sales information. 

Importance of sales proposal in the sales cycle 

Many sales cycles include sales proposals, especially if your organization is pitching work to mid-market or enterprise-grade customers. Typically, solicited proposals appear toward the middle or end of an organization’s sales cycle, acting as a final persuasive push to close business. 

Presenting a well-crafted sales proposal provides a structured and formal communication highlighting your organization’s product or service. Usually, by the time you’re submitting a proposal to a company, your sales team will have already done some heavy lifting around prospecting, qualifying, connecting with, or nurturing this potential customer.  

A well-crafted sales proposal will help your team close the deal and win business by demonstrating how your organization understands the potential customer’s unique challenges and pain points. After reading the proposal, a potential customer will understand that your organization has a carefully considered, custom-tailored solution on hand to address their specific needs.   

What are the stages of the sales cycle stages? 

Sales is a complex and ever-changing profession and what’s standard in one industry might not be standard in the next. However, the average sales cycle will contain these key parts: 

• Prospecting
• Qualifying
• Connecting
• Nurturing
• Offering
• Closing

Each of these stages is a valuable part of the overall cycle, however, sales proposals generally fit into the middle to end stages of the cycle. Most sales proposals will be presented in the offering or closing stages of the cycle, though sales or proposal professionals might still have some input in the earlier stages such as prospecting and qualifying. 

What is the role of proposals in each stage? 

While a sales proposal might not be directly involved in every step of the sales cycle, some form of content will be. From prospect to close you’ll likely be working closely with the sales and proposal teams to make a great impression and help win more business.  

Prospecting and qualifying

Your sales or proposal team might have some input during the prospecting and qualifying stages of a sales cycle. While they start crafting a sales proposal yet, their opinions might be valuable to other sales team members. 

A proposal professional might help with prospecting by keeping an eye out for posted RFPs within your industry. A proposal team might give guidance on whether a potential customer qualifies or has a richer insight into similar prospects you’ve written proposals for before. 

Connecting and nurturing 

During the connecting and nurturing stage of the sales cycle, your team will simultaneously be learning more about the potential customer while providing a first impression of your organization. By now, many proposal teams will have already decided whether they’re going to submit a sales proposal to this potential client and might already be constructing it!  

Additionally, during this stage of the sales cycle, a member of your team might be regularly communicating with your potential client and learning more about their specific needs and requirements for a sales proposal. After they gather this information, they’ll pass it on to proposal team members to help them craft the final sales proposal.    

Offering and closing 

By now you’ve found the perfect opportunity, qualified it with your team, connected and nurtured it so it’s thriving, and are ready to make an offer and close the deal. Here’s where your hours of hard work hunting down answers, collaborating with subject matter experts, and perfecting and polishing your sales proposal will pay off. 

During this phase of the sales cycle, your team will likely be finalizing the details of the proposal you’re about to send to a potential customer. This phase is where you’ll make sure all the details are accurate, provide any necessary info given to you by your previous connection, and solidify a price structure for any product or service you’ll be offering. 

Once everything is perfect, you’ll submit your sales proposal and await a response. This stage can be where anxiety hits for many proposal professionals – the waiting game can be tedious as response times from any proposal varies wildly.  

Your prospective customer will receive your proposal and likely compare it against other proposals from similar organizations. Once they’ve fully compared and contrasted everything sent to them, they’ll make an internal decision about which proposals best fit their needs. Some organizations may ask for additional details, while some might make their decisions solely on the information contained in the provided sales proposal.  

After their decision has been made, they’ll reach back out to their contact at your organization and discuss next steps. They’ll likely quote things presented in your sales proposal, ask qualifying questions, or just iron out details like project delivery dates and overall costs. 

Who creates sales proposals 

The process of creating a sales proposal is often very collaborative. Lots of different professionals might contribute to the final construction of a stellar sales proposal, including sales team members, professional proposal writers, marketing team members, product leads, and more. 

In general, and depending on the size of your organization, the final construction of a sales proposal will live with a dedicated sales team or be the job of a dedicated proposal professional. 

Sales proposals by proposal professionals 

As the importance of proposals in the business world continues to increase, specialized roles have developed for those who work on proposals regularly. These proposal professionals might be the only person responsible for crafting a sales proposal, or they might work as part of a dedicated team housed within a larger sales team structure. 

Proposal writers have a wide range of skills but mostly focus on crafting compelling proposals based on an organization’s available content. They’ll often use a dedicated software platform such as an RFP response or proposal automation software to make their lives easier, help them manage content more efficiently, and respond faster to RFPs. 

Sales proposals by sales teams  

Larger organizations often have a dedicated sales team that specifically focuses on crafting proposals. Because proposals are persuasive documents meant to pitch products or services, they are a vital part of the sales cycle, meaning sales team members will fully own the proposal process. 

These team members might specifically focus on all aspects of a sales proposal or outsource key components to other external team members. They might get advice from subject matter experts (SMEs), review promotional materials from marketing managers, or dive deep into technical documentation from product experts. Together, this team will assemble the final sales proposal, send it for review, and track the process to record any business wins.  

Common sales proposal mistakes to avoid 

While every organization will have their own method for crafting the perfect sales proposal, there are some time-tested strategies that make all proposals better. When drafting your next proposal, avoid these common and easy-to-make mistakes. 

Failing to qualify deals

The most common mistake proposal professionals make is failing to qualify their initial deal. Often this mistake is made when professionals rush to quickly respond to an RFP, rather than spending time learning about the opportunity and how it came about. 

Before starting your sales proposal, you must understand your prospect’s needs. Without this initial discovery stage, it’s impossible to effectively align your products and services. Additionally, this initial step helps your organization save resources and win more business by only bidding on the opportunities you’re most likely to win. 

Not focusing on what your prospect cares about 

The first question buyers ask themselves when considering their options is: “Are we getting what we need?” However, many proposal writers focus too heavily on their organization’s solution, failing to tie specific solutions directly to the potential prospect’s concerns.  

Not structuring your proposal persuasively 

Your proposal content must be organized to persuade your prospect that you are the best-suited organization to solve their problems. 

Structure your proposal to highlight your key messages and the value you bring by first summarizing your understanding of your prospect’s challenges and needs. Second, paint a picture of their desired outcome and how your solution will get them there. Finally, provide a detailed solution, complete with evidence, that you can accomplish the job on time and within budget. 

Not differentiating your offer and company 

Prospects need to be convinced that you provide superior value and differentiation. Without those stand-out benefits, your prospect may assume your product or service is a commodity and focus on purchasing the offer with the lowest cost, rather than your solution, which is best suited to their needs. 

Lead with your strongest differentiators: your methodology, best practices, systems, and processes. Wow your prospects by clearly highlighting the differences between you and your competition. After all, these differences will ultimately be the deciding factor for prospects on which organization wins the deal. 

Not offering a compelling buyer-specific value proposition 

Smart buyers want a positive impact on business performance. This is the sort of compelling result that matters to them. Give your prospect evidence that your differentiators provide superior value. This can help seal the deal when prospects compare proposals. 

Not making it understandable 

Ensure your proposal is simple and easy to follow so your prospect reads it and doesn’t skim. Your sales proposal content should be written professionally and follow appropriate formatting, but it should use plain language, crisp sentence structure, and easy-to-digest information.  

Avoid using long, complex sentences or technical jargon as it often obscures your solution and company benefits. Additionally, make sure your proposal is visually appealing, with the right fonts, high-resolution logos, and precise formatting to make it shine. 

Not editing for grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other mistakes 

This final, seemingly innocuous sin can destroy your chances of winning and diminish your brand. Especially if your mistake is a credibility killer, like including the wrong company’s name or misspelling key information. 

Many proposal professionals use online editors for grammar, spelling, and punctuation. They might also utilize review and approval workflows natively found in their sales proposal automation app to speed up the review process or get feedback and approval from crucial team members. 

A well-crafted sales proposal is crucial to your success 

Bid and proposal specialists across industries understand the valuable role sales proposals play in the overall sales cycle. Professionals spend hours tirelessly crafting the perfect proposal, hopeful that their efforts will pay off. As the demand for more and more sales proposals increases, many professionals have to rely on trusted proposal automation software, like Qvidian, to help them get work done faster. 

By using the many powerful content management, proposal management and automation features found in proposal automation software, professionals can craft winning proposals in minutes, not hours.  

As organizations of all shapes and sizes continue to seek out new business opportunities, sales proposals will remain a vital tool in their toolbelt. A well-crafted and persuasive proposal addresses potential clients’ needs while highlighting your organization’s products and services, setting the stage for an overall successful partnership.