Guide to doing unsolicited proposals by Matt Cameron

Guide to doing unsolicited proposals by Matt Cameron

Close is at today’s Sales Hacker Conference in San Francisco and we’ll be taking notes and sharing the best talks of the conference with you. List of all talks.

MATT CAMERON, VP of Sales, Scripted

Proposal writing:

Eventually you are going to compete with companies that have an army of people who help with writing proposals.

History:

Used to work for large companies:

HP

Wang

EDS

Salesforce.com

Yammer

Scripted

**Has spend $0.5M to acquire a customers in the past.

Guide to doing unsolicited proposals

Here is how you write a proposal for a large enterprises.

Dont lose a deal alone, don’t win a deal alone. Win as a team. Use your board members and investors to help you with your relationships.

If you are going to compete against a giant, don’t go head to head.

use minimum viable headcount

1. Prospect intelligence - research your prospect:

Pro tip 1: Guerrilla tactic: Look at a prospects relationships on LinkedIn to learn more about how they think.

Key Individuals:

work history

state of origin

publications

Pro tip 2: Find your target decision maker group. Use your investors to get intros, and go and have lunch with them. Understand their issues, their workflow, their needs.

2. Do competitive analysis of your competitors for the prospect:

Deeply understand your competition and then show this to your prospects. Put your best food forward.

Description of offerings

Style

Target Market / Strategy

Customers

3. Create a Strategy statement:

We will maximize our strengths in […] by […]

We will minimize our weakness in […] by […]

We will neutralize their strengths in […] by […]

We will amplify their weaknesses in […] by […]

4. Create a Solutions worksheet:

Solutions

Alternatives considered

Discriminators

Proof/Experience/Performance

5. Draft headings, themes and graphics:

Tip: a pull quote looks like a graphic, but is easy.

Best: a quote from a customer.

2nd Best: a quote from an industry leader

3rd Best: a quote from an executive in your company

6. Write an executive Summary

should summarize the entire document.

price

next steps

how you should engage

Add a graphic or use a quote:

analyst quote

customer quote

executive from you company quote

7. Use graphics as a weapon to ensure your intent is understood

Summary:

Research your prospect - Firm and individuals

Know your competition - plan to outflank them

Address the competitive strengths/weaknesses by ‘ghosting’ them

Weave your message throughout the proposal

Use Four box organizer for unsolicited proposals

Next steps:

Check out notes from other talks from Sales Hacker Conference

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