But how do you do that if you’ve just explained to the prospect that every solution is unique to the prospect’s circumstances?
Custom Proposals Take Time
Custom proposals take time, and the time lapse between an initial meeting and a presentation puts a seller in jeopardy of losing the deal.
A seller needs to understand that someone with less money to phone number library spend doesn’t need a whiz-bang proposal with a Powerpoint deck set to music.
When a prospect with a limited budget has just reacted to your passionate storytelling and has made an emotional decision to buy, you can’t give that prospect additional time to think about the logic behind their spending.
When you do, you run the risk of other, possibly more pressing, business problems surfacing.
Time Kills Deals, Not Bad Luck
When time elapses between a prospect’s initial enthusiastic response and a get new insights immediately seller’s custom presentation, the prospect often says they can’t move forward because they must deal with something random like a broken water heater. You might think that is just bad luck.
Well, it’s not. It’s predictable. A broken water heater is just analogous with all the possible scenarios that could play out in the few days that pass between your prospect’s ‘yes’ and their signature.
Not only could any one of these things happen, but they are also very likely to happen. Time kills deals, it’s that simple.
So, what can you do? How can you give your prospects the personal attention that they expect and deserve and still avoid deal-killing delays?
Customize From An Existing Template
Customizing proposals based on a template can help you avoid a time lapse and close the deal more quickly – in fact, on the spot.
Think about it. There are probably less than a handful of options for your prospects within their price range.
So, with three different proposals on hand to use as templates, you can easily create a customized proposal when you’re with the prospect.
Here’s how it works:
Keep three proposals with you that hit a typical range of price points or options. The china data next time you are in front of a prospect who says, ‘work me up something for $2500’, you can say something like this:
“Absolutely. Although all our solutions are customized, I just recently worked on a $2500 schedule for another business. Although it may not be exactly right for you, I’d like to show it to you so you can get some idea of what we’d be doing.”
Then, you pull out the $2500 schedule and customize it right in front of them. Once you’ve gone over it, you get him to sign the paper and promise you’ll deliver a more formal version later.
Build The Proposal Before You Leave
Many years after learning this lesson from my mentor, Dick Harlow, I had the opportunity to consult the sales department of a large HVAC company in Atlanta.
The sales technicians at this company responded to leads that were generated online and through phone calls. Their process included going to the home of the prospect, doing an inspection of the existing HVAC unit, asking a bunch of questions about the prospect’s perceived needs, and then building a custom solution.
Each technician had their own system for what happened between the time of the inspection and the presentation of the solution. The most successful ones asked if it was okay to sit at the kitchen table and create a plan based on their observations.
