Friday, September 20, 2013

Creating Customer Value In Your Proposals

Creating Customer Value In Your Proposals

By Daniel Carlson


If you have ever read a book on sales or offer writing, or attended a sales training course you'll have heard this before. Even if that is the case, it can't do any harm to hear again. One of the first topics that is always covered is features, advantages and benefits. In the end any offer whether oral or written has to persuade someone to take an action. This is performed by demonstrating the benefits of taking that plan. Clearly communicating what those benefits are will decide whether or not your proposal will be received.

On a smaller sale, particularly with products, it is frequently straightforward to list benefits, but with bigger offers you will have to search harder to understand the client's business problem and explain the benefits of your solution - that is, how efficiently and effectively your solution unscrambles their business problem.

Your solution should demonstrate not only value in price, but in the services that you offer. Value's the balance of cost versus benefit, therefore you must be explicit in highlighting the benefits to the client. The 1st rule of sales is always offering price to your customers, rather more than they'd expect. To explain, you don't have to be the cheapest offer provided you are offering more than what others are supplying.

Often when a contract has been lost, the customer will make it plain that you were too costly - but nobody ever gets told that they won because they were the cheapest. It's the best solution that sometimes wins, the one which offers the best benefits. This is going to be the most costly solution, but it still may offer the highest value.

So how do you create client value? Firstly you need to take some time to understand the customer's requirements. When you receive an Invitation to Tender, get back to the client immediately with questions. Call them. Ask for a meeting. You could have had association with the client pre-tender and have a knowledge of their business.

You must be able to demonstrate an experience of their business need so as to demonstrate that your solution will deliver the necessary benefits. You also need to understand their business if you expect to be in a position to provide a valuable service to them. WIthout knowing what they require you'll have a tough time determining what to supply that may convince them that your solution is the right one for their business.

When writing your offer, use content tailored toward the customer and their business problem. We all copy re-usable text, or boilerplate in offers, but customize it to the client. Include their name, especially in the executive outline. Let them know that the suggestion is about them, not about you.

Immediately address your customer's issues and offer persuasive ideas with distinct solution benefits and support your disagreements with evidence. When have you delivered a similar service or solution in the past? How did that client benefit? Demonstrate your capability to deliver on your promise.

Confirm a value proposition is clearly laid out and straightforward to understand. Can you include a return on investment model for the client? If so do it you are showing the customer you understand how to save their business money. Ultimately , the best suggestion is not the cheapest, but the one which offers the most benefit to the shopper for the pricetag that they are is paying. If you can do that habitually, you'll always have plenty of business.




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