How to Craft Sales Proposals That Actually Convert

Today I'd like us to look at sales process optimization or before I begin, the usual apologies because I'm not in my audio booth today. And then my sore throat, my cold slash sore throat is getting worse. But I figured anyway, I've been gone for two days, so might as well just go ahead and make the podcast recording because I can't tell you know how soon I'm going to get better or not. So I hope you guys appreciate what it is that I go through for your own benefit and let's see what else.

OK, Then I was having a conversation with someone earlier. I'm a friend, you know, slash client. And he asked me, you know, what's the truth behind my sore throats. And, you know, I explained that growing up as a kid, I was always prone to these sorts of things. But then, you know, I grew up and then they stopped happening. But then now that I have children constantly sneezing on me, I, you know, sneezing and hacking and bringing stuff back from school.

So I, I've started getting those things again. So what I told him was that in a couple of years I should be free because my boy should be teenager soon. The baby should be a teenager in roughly 88 years, 7-8 years. The baby should be a teenager in 7-8 years. So in less than 10 years, I'm going to be free. So it was only after we finished the conversation that I thought that, OK, perhaps even there was some shade, you know, going on there, like, what's the truth behind, you know, your sore throats and everything.

So just in case there are a couple of you who are thinking in that line, you know, I might as well just put it out here in the open that as far as I know, you know, sore throats and sore throats and colds and things like this, you know, I'm not sexually transmitted. So it's not because I'm leaving the Vida loca. That's the reason why I have these infections. But don't worry. Yeah, they come and they go. So it's just part of life.

So where was I? So today, sales process optimization, that is what I want us to tackle today. So First off, what is it? What is sales process optimization? Of course, if you check the interwebs or your business book, business books for those who have access to those sorts of things, you'll find technique, correct definitions. But the working definition that I'm going to go with for the purpose of the podcast is this, that every single time you hear sales process optimization,

we're just talking about making your proposals effective so that they address the main concerns that your customers have. Now, some of you are going to say proposals. What does that have to do with me? Because as far as you're concerned, you don't issue proposals. But think of it in this sense, don't think of a proposal as a document, but think of a proposal rather as a stage in business and selling conversations. So if you're a wedding photographer and you do not send a two page document in PDF

saying this is my proposal, but you do get to that stage where you say, OK, Mr. and Missus Brighton, I heard you guys out. I think this is what we can achieve. This is what we're going to be able to do. I'll guarantee this, I'll guarantee this. I should have your photos ready in about 3 weeks. And to do all of that, all you have to do is to make an 80% deposit. The total cost is going to be 350,000 naira. Now that conversation that you have had, even though you didn't reduce it to a document, that is a proposal because a proposal is just something that somebody can say yes to or they say no to.

Because after all, for those of us who are married, when we're proposing to our wives, you know, we didn't send over APDF, we got down on one knee. I mean, for those of you who got down on one knee, I still receive Flack till today that I didn't get down on one knee. So if you're single, you're a single man, please get down on one knee so that you don't receive any Flack for that in the future. OK, Sorry about that. What was I?

Yeah. So a proposal is just something that somebody can say yes or no to, whether it's a customer or whether it's your babe. So. Yeah. So it doesn't have to be something that is written on APDF document. So yeah. So I don't think of a proposal as a document, but think of a proposal as a business stage. So if you're making sure that your proposal, whatever it is that you write or whatever it is that you ping in the WhatsApp or whatever it is that you say verbally when they're sitting in front of your office or excuse me, when they're sitting in front of your front of you or whether you're at the office or wherever it is.

So whatever it is they say, we just need to make sure that the thing, the proposal is on point. Because if your proposal is off point, if your proposal misses the mark, then it's not going to add any credence to the sales process that is not going to make it easier for you to seal the deal. So you actually might be the best wedding photographer, the best Carpenter, the best engineer, the best project management specialist, the best graphic designer, the best whatever it is that is the market in your city, in your location, in your whatever.

But The thing is, if your proposal misses the mark, if the PDF that you send is off points, if when you're yawning or yawning total or better, then it's not going to help you seal seal the deal. So when we're talking about sales proposal optimization, trying to make our proposals effective, there are a couple of stuff that we should be paying attention to. Now, for those of you who've been listening to the podcast for any length of time, you already know some of them.

But for the newbies, this is your first time listening to the show. Now, let me run through a couple of things real quick. This is not going to be an exhaustive list because proposal optimization, you know, like anything in sales, you know, we can say plenty, plenty, plenty. We can talk for hours about these things. But here's a couple of stuff that you ought to be paying attention to that excuse me. If you give it your best, then your proposal should be much more tight and much more on the mark.

So one thing that we need to pay attention to is jargon. Now jargon is not a good idea. A jargon is just another way of saying technical lingo. Now the problem with technical lingo, technical words and stuff like that, it leads to confusion unless you're talking to a technically literate crowd. So wedding photographers, you are not talking to somebody who's technically literate. So stop talking about aperture and shutter speed and stuff like that.

The average boy does not know what's up and you're just confusing her. It's another thing that adds to the mix. So don't say stuff like that. However, I spoke about you project management specialist. If you're a project management specialist and you're trying to design a system for people in the oil and gas space and that's different. You know, you, you're a specialist, the person is an engineer, blah, blah, blah. So you guys can be talking your technical jazz because you know,

it's it's your people, so you won't understand yourself. So when you're not dealing with a technically literate crowd, just keep the jargon to a minimum. Some people like to use the jargon because it helps you to build credibility. So back in the day, I'll see some new people coming into the field. Wedding photographers will be talking about, oh, ISO, aperture, blah, blah, blah, micro, 3rd, 4th camera, full frame. Something, something, something.

Yeah, I get it. When you talk like that, some people be like, oh, more like this guy knows the shit. Like we have to use this person because he's talking the con D3 something something full frame, whatever camera aperture this blah blah blah night control ISO. Yeah, you can you can impress some people that way. You can make it appear more impressive than you actually are. But use this tactic sparingly because anything backfires.

But anything will backfire real huge and you'll find out that they'll leave you and they'll go and do the deal with somebody else that you might, you know that this person is an idiot. Like how can they go with this person? It's just because the person being an idiot did not use heavy language. The person use idiot level language and they're able to understand the idiot and that's why they went with him or with him, even though you're the better photographer or the project management specialist or whatever.

Next is readability. Sorry, one moment I'm sniffing too much. Let me just go sort myself out and I'll be back real quick. OK? Yeah, I'm back. Sorry about that. I guess I might have to take a couple more pauses as the records recording goes on. Now, I guess this is one of the benefits of just making this podcast an audio only podcast because actually, if you guys can see me, I don't, I don't think that would be a good idea,

making a podcast episode this way. Yeah, with puffy eyes and sniffles and all that. All right, so jargon, that's the first thing. Keep your jargon down to a minimum unless you're talking to a technically literate crowd. So if you're a professional accountant, because there's there's a body in Abuja called the Association of Forensic Accountants, blah, blah, blah. I think those are the people you call in when you think your accountant is doing you or Joro or you feel like, you know,

people are investing money here or there. I need a specialist to dig deeper, find out, you know, what's the formal one, what's going on? So those are the people you call. So if you're a forensic accountant and you come in and you're talking to the CFO of the organization and fellow accountants, yeah, sure, no problem. You can be telling them accrualities, cash basis, that net withdrawal, this, you know, blah, blah, you know, all those gross, this net, this, you know,

talk about technical terms, that's cool, they understand you. But if you're a member of the Association of Forensic Accountants of Nigeria and the person that you're talking to is a lowly, let's say the person is a lowly primary school principal, you know, like at my own level, you're now telling the person cash accrual net, this gross, this, you know, EBDA earnings before interest depreciation and you just, you just lose the guy.

So yeah, that's the thing about jargon. The next is readability. That's for those of us who send PDFs or invoices or whatever. Now our readability just means make this document, make it relatively easy to read. So you should be using sparse sentences. Don't do paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, paragraph, small, small sentence space, small sentence space, small sentence space because the average person is skimming. Even children of nowadays don't read again, they skim.

It's something I've been quarreling with with my kids. I'm like, look, calm down. I understand you're trying to get through this thing quick, but you need to learn how to read properly first before you learn how to speed read. Everybody they try speed read these days. So just keep it sparse. Don't, don't do block, block, block, block, block. Simple sentences, give space, short sentences. Let it be the kind of thing that somebody can just skim through and understand that.

Oh, OK, four days of coverage, 350 images, photo book will be delivered in two weeks. OK, The amount you're supposed to pay is 400K if they just look at a flash with the whole thing. No Allah, no problem. So readability, pass out your sentences. Keep the words simple, let people be able to read it sharp. Of course, in my own opinion, the number of pages, I mean the less the pages the better. I think A2 page proposal is better than a 15 page proposal.

You know, does just me. And also it depends on like I said, the technical literacy of the crowd. So if you're dealing with back to the accountant thing, you're a member of the Association of Forensic Accountants of Nigeria and you're preparing the proposal for the CFO and the chief accountant and whatever. And yeah, sure, no problem in that case, 15 page document, no Allah, because you know, it's all of you know, you will know yourself.

So they will know how to read the whole thing. But he's a common simple guy like me. When I say simple, I don't mean dumb. I just mean relatively speaking, as far as, like, accounting is concerned. You know, I'm a layman. So if he's a layman like me, one part, one, one page proposal, that's all. That's all somebody like me needs. Let me understand. I know that. Oh, OK. OK. OK. OK. Yeah. This thing is confusing at all,

but OK. This is what this guy thinks we can do. This is how he thinks we can do it. He thinks we can do it by this date. And he wants me to pay him this much. OK. I agree yes, or I don't agree no. Now this is something that I think is a Nigerian problem. The next one, and I'll say turn the structure upside down. I'm assuming it's a Nigerian problem because well, of course I schooled here in Nigeria now just like most of you guys listen to the podcast.

But then by the time I got for my masters, I just realized that the way we Nigerians write, it's we have a unique writing style. First off, we have verbose as in we use a lot of words. I've used plenty of big language and then the structure of our essays or proposals is different. What we do, and that's how we've been taught over here, is we start from premises and then we go to conclusion. So we start off by saying based on this condition, based on that, based on this and this and this and this leads to that and that leads to that.

And then the conclusion is going to be the final paragraph. So for the purposes of exams, yeah. Those of you who are still in uni, follow that structure. Start from your premise, argue all the way, get to your conclusion. In fact, for those of you who are currently doing your undergraduate in law, please start from your premises. Show your premises, show your work. Then the final paragraph is going to be conclusion. So for the purposes of school,

those of us who are still in school, this is how you do it. Premises to conclusion. Now for business purposes, turn the thing upside down on his head. Say the conclusion first, then go into the premises for business purposes. Your first paragraph should well, first of all, OK, that's another one. That's first of all, talk about your customer, your client, show your understanding of their problem and their situation. Don't talk about you, excuse me,

don't talk about you. Don't talk about your passion, your founding history, your board of directors, blah, blah, blah, things like that. If you must put all those things, all that one, you know, founding history, My passion is photography, my passion, there's my passion that, you know, blah, blah, blah, my unique vision. Put all of that in the end. The beginning should be say something about them. OK, No, no. OK, let me go to forensic.

That'll make more sense since most Nigerian wedding photographers don't submit proposals anyway. Those have been written proposals. So yeah, forensic accounted. So you start off with the person that Shashikmur Primary School is the leader in something, something in Abuja, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. You've spoken about them, then next you know do Nigerian writing, but then you turn it upside down. You start with your conclusion.

You will now say that my conclusion for Shashi More International Primary School is that we pursue this diseases that, that, that, that, that to try and uncover fraud, outline their books and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You will now start going into details. Now the reason for your recommendation is this, that because if you understand correctly, this has been going on, that has been going on. You need this material, you need that material.

You want to do this, you want to do this. If you do this, it might show this. If you show this, it might show that as where you now enter the whole story, Excuse me, but for the purpose of business writing. The thing is, the reason why we turn it upside down is when the owner of Shasha Primary School holds this proposal, he's able to read the first two paragraphs to understand that, oh, OK, this is where this guy is going to,

as in all these two pages. The whole point of these two pages is to say this is what we're supposed to do. So in fact, what I recommend for people to do for sales, people that I've worked with when it comes to these sorts of things, I tell them, just go ahead, write your proposal normal as you normally write it. I don't touch it. When they bring it, I now say, OK, please send it to me. Soft copy Microsoft Word. When they send it, soft copy,

all I do is I just cut and paste, cut and paste, copy and paste. I just turn the whole thing upside down. I send it back to them. Some people see it and get the point, like, oh, OK, but there's some people you know now it's how I've been taught to read in Nigeria. So some people just don't like it. Wasn't able to get it, like, oh, OK, I didn't add anything to it. All I did was I just turned it upside down as well. The effect is still the same.

So yeah, for academic purposes, premises they show to your conclusion, but for the purpose of business persuasion, at least in Nigeria and in Commonwealth based countries. So Nigeria, UK, I'm assuming Malaysia, you know Australia, that sort of thing. Start with conclusion first, then I'll show your work later on. Let's see what else? OK, technical. Sorry, hold on, let me go sort myself out and I'll be right back. OK. All right, I'm back.

And by the way, if any of you is going to give me a one star or a two star review, just because I've been sniffling in this episode, I'm going to hunt you down and I'll knock you on the head. So still leave your reviews. Five stars. Yeah. So where was I? Let me see. OK, So turning proposal upside down. OK, that's cool. I came up with what was it? OK, Shashagun. Yeah, I remember Shashagun because I think it was one of our textbooks back when I was studying law in Obafemi.

Or all of university. The greatest university on the African continent, in fact, the greatest university in the world. Where was I? So now technical data. Now that some of you who in the process of what you're doing, you gas put technical data. So if you're an engineer know how know how the technical data has to be in the report because you can't put the report, you can't submit your proposal. I'm not sure the amount of load that the building is going to carry or the amount of wear and tear and something, something,

something. So all that technical data gas be there. You have to put everything there. So that one is duly, if you let's see what else those of you in the technical space now. So like I said in the beginning, project management people will do online gas work. All that technical data has to be there because your people they have to scrutinize now, because you will send a proposal to the client. The client is of course going to take it and give the engineering house and say I organ engineer,

this is the proposal that they gave me. Scrutinize this thing. Is this thing workable? Is it not workable? If it's workable, how can we reduce money, you know, blah, blah, blah. So excuse me. So all your technical data has to be there for those of you who are writing stuff. But The thing is, just know that you shouldn't be putting this thing in the beginning because it's overwhelming and confusing for most customers. So yes, OK, MD is the person who is going to receive the report.

But like I said, turn the whole thing upside down. Let Olga MD or whoever it is, if you're an architect, let mommy and daddy who's reading the report, let them see and understand. OK, this is where you're heading. Then the technical data and all the overwhelming, overwhelming and confusing stuff now will be in the middle so that if daddy and mommy see it and they like it, they said, OK, yeah, this house thing, it will work.

Then for technical recommendations, maybe they'll show that one to their child who just finished studying architecture or just finished studying civil engineering to say, hey, cool, this is what the person showed me. Like, I like the drawing, but you know, you look at this one, see if it makes sense. So that's how you structure it. All that technical stuff, all that data, all your diagrams, all your everything is going to be in the middle.

Now for wedding photographers, OK, photographers don't do it. Let's see who else can I use? Anybody get the point here? For those of you who are doing non-technical stuff, there's no need for this. For those of you who are doing highly technical stuff, it has to be there because you have to show your homework because people need to know how you arrived at your conclusions. Now, does it have to be pretty? Your proposal?

Does it have does it have to look fine? Now it's not a bad idea to have the marketing people look at it and give you thing colour, give it font, you know, write letterhead. You emboss this place and you what's the opposite of embossing? Embossing is when you do the thing and then the. The letters will now come up, then the. The opposite of embossing is what is a depression or whatever anyway. So you emboss or you depress or you do.

So yeah, you make the whole thing look fine. So it doesn't have to be fine. In my own opinion. I I don't think so. It depends that things get more technical and more complex or more whatever. I guess it's going to look good that even though the 30 pages inside the proposal normal, normal printing on Microsoft Word, it might help if the first page is nice, glossy, embossed with correct logo and everything. You now do a spiral binding, but you don't do this plastic spiral binding that you do when you go to when you go to a business center and the local business center that is around the neighborhood, you give it that spiral binding that that correct one, that one that looks like is metal.

Everything is nice and shiny. You now package everything and you send it in. So it depends. Yeah. By my own opinion, I I pay more attention to all the other things we've been talking about. What's the structure? How readable is it? You know, things like that. How relevant is it? But if you have time to make it look pretty, then by all means. Yeah, sure. Yeah, pretty the thing up. But if you're going to pretty far, do you think don't use your own eyeballs or other people have specialty in these sorts of things, Just go and give it to the person who knows what's up.

So excuse me. So like back to this whole Cyber Cafe thing. If I'm going to beautify something, I won't use my own eye and do it because what do I know about Microsoft Word and layout and everything? Better off sorting out the text. I take it to the Cyber Cafe and I say, bro, how now our business, I beg you, help me work on this proposal. They're the ones that will now know that OK, for the title page, I will increase the text to size 20 or whatever.

Then in the middle of the prompt, sorry, in the middle of the I say prompt, middle of the proposal for header, you now use H1 graphics and that is size 16 font or size whatever fonts. So like don't try and freestyle this thing yourself. The thing is the people who own this Cyber Cafe, if you just go to Cyber Cafe just to format the thing, you've already done the whole stuff. I don't think they'll collect more than 100 bucks from you at least in this part of Abuja anyway.

I don't think you'll collect more than 100 bucks from you. Is if you want them to type the whole thing that will not cost you. But are you typed it? And you say, bro, just format this thing and print. I don't think they'll collect more than 100 car from you. So you must beautify. Well, look for the people who know how to beautify. Don't use your own eye because the thing will now just will not blend. You will now use font this on the heading here and you now use font, you know, something or another heading.

It just won't add up. And I know because I've done this before. I beautified the whole thing. I thought it made sense and only for people to start telling me that, you know, font is off and this and this and this and this and now anyway, you, you catch my gist. So it's just 100 bucks. Take it down to the Cyber Cafe. How do people look over for you? Let them format the whole thing. I'm sure in Abuja and in Lagos, the Cyber Cafe definitely will have one of their employees who know how to do the whole, you know, you take your letterhead,

you shift the logo, you do this, you do that, you know, let them prepare the whole thing. Make it nice for you, make it look real good. So next, let's say relevancy relevance is just making sure that you've understood the problem adequately from the customer's point of view. This is what determines whether something is on point or off point. So if they read this document and they say that this guy didn't understand our vision,

back to the architecture thing. If mommy and daddy look at this thing, but they're like this guy didn't understand our vision, you already lost the proposal because they spoke to you. They said that they like the they like the house that Udogu Chukuti did two houses down or something. And then because of that, you now you know your wisdom, you want to go and do the exact design of Udogu Chukuti's house. I mean, if they wanted the exact design of Udogu Chukuti just told Udogu Chukuti, who is your accountant?

Abe, give us that floor plan. Let's use it. When they say I want something like this, I want something like that. It is your job as the architect. You say, OK, Mommy and daddy are sure, no problem. But I beg I didn't ask you a question. Questions to understand exactly. Now, OK, this building that you're looking at, this old goose house, what exactly about it do you like? Is it the facade? Is it the Dis? What about the Dis?

What about the that? Then you know, all the questions that the architects have to ask. If I'm asking all these questions that, you know, understand their vision that yes, they want a house that looks like Udogu's house, but not exactly the same thing. Because you will now know whether OK, spiritually these people are thinking of postmodern designs or, or classical, you know, classical ratios and all architecture stuff.

You know, you understand Archie people. So, yeah, make sure you understand the problem so that once you put the proposal down, you'll see that it is relevant. Like this guy, he understands or this babe, she understands. Then yeah, you will not start pricing whether you're going ahead or not. So make sure everything is relevant then. Sorry, one try 25 minutes. OK, you know what? This is what I'll do. So I'll stop giving guys a nightmare.

For those of you who can't stand ASMR during audio recordings, I'll pause, I'll sort myself out, I'll come back. Then I just finish this thing in, in, in the rest in another 5 minutes. OK, All right, I'm back now. Let me see if I can bring this thing to a close. Where was I? Oh yeah, someone I forgot to tell you guys. Sometimes I reach out to a bunch of you and you guys are like, what's the YouTube link? What's the YouTube link?

And I said I'm sorry. You know, my podcast is not on YouTube, so Spotify is on iTunes and blah, blah, blah. And there's a whole host of people who do not like listening to podcasts on the podcast Catcher, like my wife is one of them. So there's some podcasts that she has no choice. She has to listen to it on the podcasting app like Daily TV Mass because they're both Catholic. But the Daily TV Mass people, they're not on YouTube.

They're on, they have their own proprietary app. But everything else I said, what I said on this bunch, you know, all those kind of podcasts, she listens to them on YouTube. So for those of you who are YouTube people, you'd be happy to know that YouTube has finally sorted out the whole podcasting thing. So my audio is going to be available on YouTube pretty soon. I've done all the paperwork, I've done video submission, I've submitted the RSS feed and everything.

I don't know how long the process is going to take, but just be patient. Give me like a week. And I'm sure the podcast episode should be available on YouTube soon. So if you're one of those people who've been listening to the podcast, what you've been using the web link because you don't want to download Spotify or any other podcast player, don't worry, it's going to be on your daily beloved YouTube pretty soon. So yeah, that's it.

I'm going to be available on YouTube, but it's just going to be audio. It's not going to be video. So you're not going to see me with puffy eyes and big nose sniffing and all that. Let's see. OK, yes. So before you submit the proposal, make sure you confirm your premises before you send out the proposal. Now, for those of you who've been listening to my show for a while, you you know, you know my proposal, you know I'm what I'm going to recommend this thing should be by phone call.

If you even be face, face to face, worst case scenario, video phone call. Don't try and confirm over e-mail. So sit down with the proprietor of Shasha Bone School and then you tell cabbie see, OK, let's say his name is cabbie see Shagun. OK, so cabbie see Shagun. OK, thank you very much. Blah, blah, blah. So if I understand correctly, the reason why you called me in is because you think you have an accounting problem.

You think people are stealing from you because of this. That, that, that, that, that is that correct? You have to ask and let him say Benny or he'll say, and that's not it. And then you now know that you have to go back and start asking more questions to try and figure out what the problem is. So all the architect example, you say, OK, daddy, mommy, I think I understand right now the kind of house that people want to build.

You don't want it to be like exactly like Godogo's house, but you like this and this and this elements and we can incorporate these sorts of things and still incorporate local elements into design and bond bricks and everything so they can fit your own unique sense of style. You know, is have I understood everything correctly? And then you hear mommy and daddy say, yes, my son, you've got it correctly or no, my daughter, you didn't quite get it or this everything that you are saying makes sense why you mention Bond brick.

I didn't say Bond brick. So you need to ask because if you are thinking you want to be a clever architect and you want to deliver this sort of thing, and at the end of the day, you now put Bond Brink in the design and stuff like that, they'll see Bond brick and they'll be where did Bond brick enter into this matter? You might be thinking it's a stylic, stylistic, elegant choice or whatever, but bring up all these things you know or confirm your understanding,

confirm your premises, confirm all your conclusions, confirm everything. The reason why I say do this over the phone or do it face to face is because face to face if you're missing the mark, you will see it from the person's face that you have. You have started talking off point when people start glazing over or they start frowning or there's a way you can see each other. OK, all these things I'm saying is not I'm missing the mark.

So that's the reason why I say face to face or phone call, phone call if you can't do face to face is because it's easy for somebody to interrupt you and say, Oh no, no, no, actually what I said was this dot dot, dot. And your own job is not to argue. I say no, actually Madam, you said this. Just take it out, OK? Just make sure that you confirm again before you put everything down on paper. Now some of you don't like this whole confirming your premises thing before you send.

You want to prepare the proposal and then you now send it. OK, No Allah, no problem. Well, this is what you do if you're one of these confirmed people. At the very least when before you send the proposal or on the day of sending the proposal, call the person and talk them through the proposal that same day. On the day of sending this whole thing of you send the proposal January 1st, you now call back January 14th to say, oh, I'm calling to follow up to find out how far of course they're going to ghost you.

I mean, like, what do you expect? You send the proposal January 1st and like, what do you think? Don't you know that they're talking to two or three other architects? Of course they're going to ghost you. So as you're sending the document, so Daddy, I'm emailing it to you now, but just stay on the phone. I want to confirm whether you've you've seen it. OK, Daddy, I've sent it. How far have you seen it? I was in the OK.

Is mommy there with you? OK, people on the iPad, just give me 5 minutes please. There's something the proposal that I want to explain to you people. So just open it on the iPad. Then while you're there on the phone, you'll now be talking to them. I now start talking them through this or whatever that this and this and this based on Adugu whatever. I now thought I should put bond bricks because it is hyper modern. So I know hyper modern.

It is classical modern design and Nigerian influence to make your house one in town blah blah blah. Start talking them through specific parts of proposal. Don't not a 30 minute presentation, just 5-10 minutes. Walk them through through quickly. So this way you know that at least they've given your proposal and once over. So that whole thing off, you send it January 1st, you now call January 15th. You know how far I'm just following up.

I said I should greet you, blah, blah, blah. This is how people enter into ghost mode. So yes. So at the very least for those of you who want to finish and then send it that day, you know, talk them through the proposal that same day. Now when you're doing that, make sure you get an advancement after this proposal stage. So after you say, oh daddy is mommy there? OK, open 2 pages on the PowerPoint, blah, blah, blah. Finish the whole thing and then ask, ask them what would you like to do next?

And then keep quiet and then hear whatever they say. That is your advancement. That is the next stage you need to do. By the way, if they say, let me think about it, that's not a good, that's not a good thing to hear. But anyway, we will talk about that in the future episode. So I prefer that you say what the next step should be, but some of you don't want to be rude. So ask them what would you like to do next? And then keep quiet.

The way I prefer it is you be more assertive. You can say something like, OK, mommy, most of our customers usually take like 3 days to review this proposal. You know, would that be OK for you? And then they'll say yes or they'll say no. Some people might say yes, three days is OK. But you know, Kunle is still in school, he's coming back, he's coming back in two weeks time. And you know, since he studied architecture, I want he's my first son.

I want him to look at it before we say yes. So but see this is the thing. Now that you've brought up this thing and they're now saying it, you yourself, you now know that. Oh okay, normal normal though have taken 3 days to look at this thing but they want their first son Kuli to come home from writing exams from UI and then to look at the whole thing because you know, we're getting old. We don't make any decision until our oldest son looks at something or our oldest daughter looks at looks at something.

So as people are talking back and forth like this before the phone call leaves ends, you now know that OK, even though I'm sending this in January 1st, realistically speaking, I'm not going to get a yes or a no until February 14th when the oldest son or when the oldest daughter is back from exams. Now you know, this is how you stop getting headache because you're calling to follow up and you're wondering, did they read it?

They didn't read it. I thought we had a nice meeting. What happened? They don't like me. Is it that my body is smelling? Do I need to work on my elocution? Is it that I didn't package myself well, you know, blah, blah, blah. And all the heartache that we get when we send people proposals and then we haven't heard from them. So we should make sure you get the advancement at this current proposal stage as you guys are talking.

So that's how I prefer you take care of the whole thing. So at this stage, most of our customers usually do ABC, you know, does that make sense to you? Excuse me, Do you want to say yes or they'll say no, You know, different ways. Like another thing I like to say is, OK, if this proposal hits all the key problems, or if this proposal can guarantee you ABC and XYZ, how soon would you be ready to begin? And then you keep quiet and then you're now here.

That's the stage where somebody will say, Oh yeah, sure. If the proposal guarantees me XYZ, I'll be ready to go by the end of the month. I'm expecting some money. But when that money comes, we'll still negotiate because that 2.5 you've quoted is, is is too much. You see, now that's a hopeful conversation. If somebody says, let me think about it, that's not a good thing, there's a problem. But we'll get to that in, in another podcast episode then,

OK. Apart from advancements, just make sure you're getting feedback repeatedly at this proposal stage, you know, as you're having conversations with them, as you're talking to Cabbie about his school, you should be asking, is there anything we haven't covered so far? Most of our customers experience XYZ. Is that a problem for you as well? You know, blah, blah, you know, just beginning feedback show as you're going because a whole bunch of continual feedback is to make sure that you understand their problem and that you haven't left anything out.

If you've left anything out of the proposal, it's going to come back and it's going to bite you. So we need to figure out all these things. One, be sure we're emphasizing the right thing also, because sometimes you assume something's a big problem, but there for them is a minor problem. So you need to find out about those sorts of things now. Then also make sure that you have figured out the decision making process before you send over your proposal because if you haven't figured out the decision, who is making the decision what the decision making unit is?

OK, back to the mommy and daddy, the Akita case. If you don't figure out that on everything they do, they want their oldest daughter to say yes. If you don't figure that out, then you're just going to be wasting your time. You need to know that oldest daughter is always included and then you need to find a way to start including oldest daughter in this conversation because as you're talking to mommy and daddy, you get off the phone,

you know, call oldest daughter and you say hi, Yaboha now, blah, blah, blah. This is architect Kuli. I just finished talking to mommy and daddy about some also, how are you, how's the family, blah, blah, blah. You people talk everything and then give her updates. You're following her along. You know, it's a different thing than you've been talking to mommy and daddy for three months straight and then now they want you to start talking to Yabo,

the oldest daughter in month 5. You know, Yabo doesn't know you. That whole thing of building relationship, building trust. You don't have to start all over again. It's plenty of wala. So figure out early that oldest son or oldest daughter is going to be involved in it and then try and find a way to reach out. All this on oldest daughter. Start keeping them in touch. These things make easy for you to seal the deal at the end.

So excuse me. Also, one more thing about this whole decision making thing and people that have authority to make decisions is there's no point in sending the proposal out to the houseboy if Madam is the one that's going to make the buying decision, right? Except if Madam and the houseboy have a special relationship. Now I know that that's an off color joke, but you get my point. You need to make sure that the proposal is being reviewed by someone who has the right level of authority to say either yes or to say no.

Now, I know that the houseboy and the Madam thing, yeah, I was just being tongue in cheek there. But honestly, as was, I was submitting a proposal to one of these oil and gas firms in Abuja and I did everything that I thought I should do. I was in touch with everybody. Some members of the board even graduated from OAU. So I was even using that OAU angle, you know, greatest affair, blah, blah, blah, that whole thing going to the office once in a while, I greet everybody and I thought that we were good to go.

I don't believe that the whole proposal got torpedoed because the secretary there didn't like me. So I'm telling you guys, this thing live now, the secretary can stand in between you and your children's school fees. I know it sounds like a joke, but it can happen. The thing was that that secretary, she joined at a very low level and worked her way all the way to the top, and she's now secretary for the MD. But The thing is, secretary,

because she's been there for a very long time, has been responsible for planning every single thing that goes on in the organization. I didn't do my homework, so I didn't know how important this secretary was. And there was one of those days I was having brain touch. So I didn't pay her respect. And to be honest, that's how everything just died. She she had her own person. So decision making authority doesn't always mean you're looking at Orga and MD and or not, you know, sometimes houseboy has authority.

Sometimes secretary also has authority, you know, so play by ear, use majority, use wisdom. Don't disrespect anybody because you think she's just a secretary. Don't disrespect her can turn around and bite you in the bomb. You find out that when it comes to planning events in this organization, nothing gets planned until the chief secretary has has looked at it. So yeah, I've been in that situation before. So the benefit of figuring out all these things, optimizing your proposal is basically increase conversion rates.

You increase your chances of turning people from prospects or contacts into customers. You shorten your sales cycle. You make decision making faster. You're going to enhance your reputation because if you handle things like this mommy and daddy who want to build a house, they might not know why. They would just know that you are a correct architect and they will refer you time and time again. That can be architect Benny, as in she's a correct architect,

you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's all these things making sure that you real professionally your sales process and following a well thought out framework. So make it look like being professional then yes, let me just wrap it up here since it is 40 minutes now, what should you do after listening to this episode? Take all your proposals that you have, stuff that you've even sent out before, and then listen to this episode again.

And now consider if there's any particular aspect of sales process optimization that you've heard before, whether it can help improve proposals that you sent out. So you can think about content improvement, for instance. You know, that's deciding what goes into the proposal from the customer or client's point of view. Now, remember, design enhancement is OK, but if you must beautify, don't beautify by yourself, except if that's your profession.

So design enhancement is cool and that's what most people go to. Well, please, it's not about how beautiful the proposal look because I have seen plenty of beautiful proposals that are just rubbish. They're not going to do anything. It starts off with technical report with Jing jargon and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. There's no how anybody's going to understand this thing. So design enhancement is cool, but just tap it down.

Tap it down for now. Focus on content improvement. Focus on what it is that is going in there. So tell your marketing people. Yeah, yeah, we'll beautify this thing, but let's be coming down 1st until we figure out the right information that's supposed to be in the proposal. So let me wrap it up here. Sorry for the sniffling. I'm sorry, that was a long episode. And don't give me a one star review because of the sniffling.

Like I said, I'll find you and I'll knock you on the head. So keep it 5 stars because I know that some of you have you guys acting the fool with all the value that I deliver here. How can you come on, give me anything that's less than five stars. So yeah. So that's all folks. Connect with me on WhatsApp for questions, for quick tips and for insights. The phone number is 080 64662140 and the country code is +234. Also connect with me on LinkedIn.

LinkedIn is the best social network for business and career development and networking. So if you're about if you're finna take these things serious, then you should be on LinkedIn. So the name to search for once you get on LinkedIn is Tavishima Ayede. I'm the host of the show, so thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode.