2 August - Customers buy outcomes, not products and services

Hello Subscriber,

Apologies that yesterday’s email was sent out late. This was because of a technical problem with our email delivery service. Hopefully, everything is back to normal this morning!

This week, the topic of our emails is how to make our proposals more effective. Today is all about what you choose to emphasise in your proposals.

What part of a proposal might you choose to emphasise? Here are some options I frequently see when I’m reviewing proposals with clients. I often see proposals that:

1. Focus on what they’re selling - the details of the products and services that they’re recommending.

2. Focus on their team - the people that make them great as a company, and why customers can trust them.

3. Focus on their history - how long they’ve been in business and the awards that they’ve won

I strongly suggest that NONE of these is the right answer!

Here’s what I believe is the correct answer. Your proposals should emphasise the outcomes your customers will achieve from investing in your products and services.

What will your proposal do for them?

This is the thing that your customers are really interested in. Or at least it should be! Sometimes, the people you speak with can get caught up in the technical and detailed aspects of what you’re selling. And this might lead to your proposals being full of the products and services that you’re selling.

But then, your contact person shows your proposal to their colleagues. And funnily enough, they’re less interested in the details of HOW your proposal will deliver benefits. They’re much keener to understand WHAT it will do for them!

The power of a great title

And there’s one place where you can most strongly emphasise the focus of your proposal on outcomes as opposed to anything else. That’s the titles of your proposals.

Here’s an exercise. Have a look at some of your most recent proposals. Your proposals might be big, multi-page documents. Or they might be proposals in emails. Your proposal title might have a page all to itself in a long document. In an email, the proposal title is the email subject line.

As you look at your most recent proposal titles, what do they say about what your proposals are offering?

Is the focus of your proposals on what you’re selling and your company?

Or is the focus of your proposals on outcomes for your customers?

Here’s one area of practice to emphasise today

The most common reason that proposals DON’T focus on outcomes for customers

• The single most common reason that proposals fail to focus on outcomes for customers is that proposals are heavily templated.

• Everybody gets the same documents, and salespeople only change the details of what they might be selling to each customer.

• “Copy and Paste” heavily templated proposals seem to offer the benefit of efficiency and speed of production.

• There’s the safety that comes from the fact that people are not changing very much, so they can’t make too many mistakes if their writing skills aren’t great.

• But they’re missing the crucial value of emphasising the specific outcomes to each particular customer in their unique circumstances.

Coaching Focus

1. Look together at some recent and current proposals. What is the focus of each proposal? Is the focus on what you’re selling? Or on outcomes to each particular customer?

2. How effective are the titles of your proposals (and emails)?

3. Do your titles summarise the outcomes to each customer of the proposed investment succinctly and powerfully?

Reminder: One area of practice to emphasise today

If you have questions or comments, it would be great to hear from you. Just hit reply and send me an email.

Have a great day!

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