You can be a top IT expert and a renowned professional, but if you don’t know how to write a winning sales proposal you can face problems in closing deals. Pitching your IT services to businesses or individuals is a crucial step in the process of winning new clients. Sales proposals help you present what you do and give the client a detailed insight into what they can expect from you. But, writing a sales proposal can be a challenge.
That’s why we’ve prepared this guide with essential steps for writing a sales proposal that helps you seal deals. Let’s break them down one by one and see just how easily you can master this skill.
1. Understand the Client’s Needs
The preparation process is extremely important when it comes to writing your IT sales proposal. Getting to know your client and their needs is the number one step you need to take, to write a sales proposal that speaks to them.
Make sure you know:
- what are your client’s current problems
- what they need to have fixed or solved
- how much do they know about IT
- what’s their occupation or type of business
You need to be able to address the client in a way that suits them, not you. Get to know them and focus on writing a sales proposal your client will understand and be happy with.
2. Cover the Pain Points
Once you learn about your client’s needs, you’ll need to address those in your IT sales proposal. They want to read about their side of the story, not yours.
So, focus your sales proposal on:
- their specific pain points
- solutions you offer to solve them
- benefits of the solution you’re offering
Briefly explain how you’ll make their life easier and better, with the IT solution that you’ve prepared to pitch. Show them and help them imagine using the service or product you’re offering to make sure they get the full idea of what hiring you would mean to them.
Make your sales proposal client-centric.
3. Include a Specification
A vague sales proposal is not a winning one. The client will want to know what they’re paying for, even if they don’t understand half of the IT words you’re using. Still, a detailed specification of your proposed work is a great idea.
Include a section that describes:
- the processes you’ll go through
- the people involved in creating the solution
- the phases of the project
- the tools and resources you’ll use
Include examples of your previous work, data, and stats that help support your specification. You can add charts, tables, technical lab reports, case study results, or whatever it takes to make it more informative and professional.
This will help the client understand the extent of work you need to provide, and will soften them up when it comes to accepting your price.
4. Set a Timeline
Another thing our client will love hearing about is the exact timeline of delivering the solution. This is especially the case with IT solutions that take more than a month to be completed.
Your sales proposal should include the project timeline to ensure the client knows when you plan on finishing the project, and how.
So, briefly describe:
- the phases of project completion
- the timeframe with exact dates for each phase
- the completion deadline
Tell your client exactly when the solution will be delivered to them to provide maximum transparency of your sales proposal.
5. Define the Pricing
Simply putting a price on your sales proposal won’t do the trick for most clients. You should approach this task more subtly and define the pricing in more detail.
Here’s what we suggest:
- divide the pricing section according to the different services you’ll provide to reach the final solution
- put a price to each of these entries separately
- calculate and write the final price
Clearly defined economics with details and specific entries is what every client will appreciate.
6. Offer More Solutions
Your sales proposal doesn’t have to offer only one solution but can include more. If you’re offering more than one solution, here’s how we suggest you handle it:
- Start with the most expensive one
The most expensive offer is the best one. Specify the details of the project and the result the client will receive. Then move on to the other solutions, listing them from the most expensive and complex one, to the simplest and least pricey one.
- Draw parallels
Make it easy for the client to compare two or more offers. Organize and list the details of each offer in the same order and manner, so that they can easily understand what they get or lose with each offer.
Offering more than one solution is a smart way to show your clients the range of your professional skills as well as help them choose you as their IT services provider.
7. Keep it Brief
Including all the above elements is essential for making your sales proposal truly successful. But, you should also pay attention to the length of this document.
You don’t want to bore your client or make them feel overwhelmed with the information you’ve included. Instead, they should be able to read it with ease and quickly make up their mind.
To help them feel good about your sales proposal, you should:
- keep it brief
- write simple sentences
- include bullet points
- remove anything redundant that doesn’t carry an important piece of information.
A concise and to-the-point sales proposal will help you seal the deal without much trouble, so make sure to revise and rewrite until you achieve this effect. If you want to have a professional, get a trustworthy online writing service.
Final Thoughts
Writing a winning sales proposal takes time and effort. But, it’s worth it since it’ll help you seal more deals and build better relationships with your clients.
Use our guide with 7 essential steps to write nothing but winning IT sales proposals.