Sales Podcast and Blog Entry – Sales Proposals – Steve Woodruff
Steve Woodruff of the Impactiviti Blog on Pharmaceutical sales, marketing, and management writes a great tongue-in-cheek blog entry on how not to write a proposal. This entry really echoes what we talked about in last week’s podcast on “Selling Beyond the Bottom line”. Customization and listening are key to closing the deal and building long-term relationships with clients.
Here’s come of what Steve had to say:
Vendors: How to Lose the Business
Sep 6th, 2007 by impactivitiIf you’re a vendor, there are lots of ways to lose business opportunities. Here, some free advice on how to make sure your proposal remains at the bottom of the stack at decision time:
1. Don’t ask questions to try to clarify, and draw out, what the client really wants and needs. Just slam out that proposal and cross your fingers that you hit the mark.
2. When you cut-and-paste from prior proposals that you’ve submitted to other companies, be sure that you leave the wrong company name in once or twice. Also, bad grammar and misspellings are recommended to help assure the client that you are, indeed, detail-oriented.
Shane Gibson is the author of Closing Bigger the Field Guide to Closing Bigger Deals and President of Knowledge Brokers International Systems Ltd. a leading sales performance and leadership development organization. Shane divides his time between his entrepreneurial projects, speaking at major conferences and mentoring salespeople and entrepreneurs.
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