Should you be putting a lot of time and effort into producing offers, proposals, and presentations?

Good morning and welcome to the show today. I'd like us to address a question that I came across on LinkedIn and that's whether we should be putting a lot of effort into producing offers proposals and presentations. Well, first off, what's an offer, what's a proposal? What's a presentation that is that document, or that stage of the conversation or sales cycle or business relationship, where we are showing something to someone and trying to get them to say yes to something?

Yeah, the definition of might sound vague but I'm trying to cover all kinds of situations where we're sending a WhatsApp message or a PowerPoint presentation or a PDF or a Word document or a glossy brochure or whatever. I want trying to get the person to engage our products or services. So if you are an architect, this could include the part where you are in the potential clients office and you're walking them through your, what you called your elevations and you know,

however it is You guys show your slideshows in the in the presentation process and if that's not how you Architects do it, then my apologies. I'm just riffing here since I am not an architect. And then of course if your wedding photographer and this is the part where you are sending the email or the WhatsApp messages that has you know everything gold silver or bronze, and small note about why you know this over package would be the best for them and blah blah blah.

So that is essentially is what an offer a proposal or a presentation is. You add the stage in the relationship or you have the stage in the interaction where you're trying to get them to buy something or to engage your services and to do that, you actually have to present something, you have to offer something, or you have to make some sort of a proposal, something they can say yes or no to whatever that thing is. And no matter the form that it may take.

And so is any measure of time going to go into putting these things together? Yes. Of course, there's going to be some time putting together, whatever it is, especially like, if you are the architect, for instance, the architect is not in a situation where everything he or she does can be, can be batch produced. So for the architect, every single time you're doing something for a new client? Yes. There might be certain themes like Bungalows higher Rising Factory elevations you know.

Stuff like that but essentially everything that you're going to be doing for most clients is going to be bespoke. So unfortunately you are going to have to put a lot of time in putting together that offer a proposal or the presentation. There are some people who have set offers that people can choose from a la carte menu is things like that. So, wedding photographers cake bakers. You wouldn't have to spend a lot of time putting together presentations because a lot of the stuff that you do is, you know, already patched.

So, I wedding day is a wedding day and album is an album. Names of frames. So changing the the invoice or the price quote and just flipping around the number of albums. And number of frames things like that, these other things are pretty much automated depending on the invoicing software that you use. So, a lot of times, we'll have to go into that per se. Now, there are other classes of people or rather. Let's go back to the class or people like the architect.

Who most of the things you're going to do is be Oak. Now let's ask the question. Why would a lot of time be going into this process of putting together, an offer, or a proposal or presentation and in fact, let's ask the question. Why is that timing thing? Even important? The time thing is important, because if you're going to waste, okay, not waste because this is potentially productive. If you're going to use four hours, putting together a proposal for someone, and you're sending our proposals every day and you send to every day.

So that's eight hours every day. 45 days of the week so that's 40 hours, if my math is correct. So if you spent 48 hours this week putting on proposals, you want to be sure that that time is well spent and you're getting a lot of money. So I guess that is the biggest concern. That's the biggest concern against, you know, the backdrop of this question. If I'm wasting a lot of time, putting out all these things and it's not bringing me.

A lot of Moolah is not bringing a lot of money, then what's the whole point? And by the way, should it be this? Difficult and they're much more efficient, ways of putting together a presentation. And the answer is yes. And if those are your concerns, then your reasoning in the right direction. So, putting together the proposal or the offer, you should not be time consuming, and it should be worth your while if you have an efficient Source process.

And if you follow it efficiently and diligently. So if you just randomly putting together, proposals for absolutely everyone or anyone, then you are wasting. The time because there's no guarantee that the 40 hours that you put together into producing power points and Excel sheets, and slides, and PDFs. There's no guarantee that all that time, that you've also been putting out in saying, out invoices last week is going to read is going to result in business that you get this week.

So what you should be doing actually just be paying attention to the qualification part of the Sales process, the discovery and the qualifications part. If this is your first time listening to the podcast, I'm going to give a brief overview of what qualification is, What discovery is. For those of you who are all time listeners, I'm sure you're really see how it fits together. Now, the sales process can be broken down depending on who you're talking to into different stages.

Is one stage, which is prospecting where we're looking for people who have a need for our product or service. And then there's a qualification stage where we try to engage them in conversation, try and figure out who they are. Where they're coming from, what their background is Discovery. Question is what we go straight into the need. What is the problem that we have or the vision that they're trying to solve? And that is where we get all the information that we need to make a presentation or proposal,

which is the next stage. So back to the wedding photography, example, since I've already done a lot with the architect and mrs. Or getting be in the last couple of episodes. So where are we? So the wedding photographer, you meet the bride and the groom at The Wedding Expo. Now, it's because you've done. You've been doing prospecting, you've paid to be at an event where you can meet brides and grooms, so that's prospecting.

So, next is going to be qualifications you guys. Thanks for coming to the booth. Whoo, you guys, how did you guys meet, how long has the relationship been going on? How did he propose, you know, blah, blah blah. You just trying to build some Rapport. Get some information about them, the helps you suss out who the potential clients are? You know, the kind of people that they are their economic background a interest Stuff like that.

You get a viable. Whether he has to be good at working together. Then eventually, you get down into the whole point of Discovery. That's what you start asking, much more pointed questions. Like, okay, what's your eye? Your perfect idea of wedding photography. Like, okay. It looks like you like movies, idealize, kind of stuff, but all I do is black and white and I keep it candid. It's not the kind of Photography that you guys are interested in and if they say no, because you've been asking direct questions, this is the point where you say goodbye and there's no point in putting Being together an invoice for these people because your skill set and the inventory that you have is for a certain kind of Photography that they do not like.

So there's no point in wasting time to put together an email and WhatsApp message or whatever for them. You're best off, just say oh I'm sorry looks like we're not, the people are not going to be able to work together. However, I know this guy who only or I know this girl Katrina. She's really good. Correct photographer. She does the kind of thing it would like how about I'll hook you guys. - oh yeah, sure. No. Problem you take their phone number and you do just that after the event is over, hook them up with coonley or hook them up with Katrina and or Cami and guitar camera.

A, you know what invested like 120k for this event so far? I'm not getting any leads. So Cami I beg. You know, I'd really appreciate it. If you do a deal with these people, can you spot me 10 grand? Okay, spot me 20K or something like that. So cry and farm it out. Try to make a referral to somebody who you think is competent and should be able to satisfy them. In this case, there's no point in putting any time or putting any time and attention on the putting together a proposal for them.

That's because you have been paying attention at the qualification stage and at the discovery stage. So you've seen that. There's not much chance of business coming out here and you guys are not going to be a good fit so there's no point in working together. So this is how the qualification stage and the discovery stage saves you. A lot of time and effort and help. You weed out people that you should not be wasting time putting together proposals for because as an architect, as a wedding photographer as a, what else?

Chicken poultry seller, you shouldn't be putting together proposals for, absolutely and everyone. So your poultry seller, somebody comes to your farm and then they ask about now ask about how much you sell layers or how much you sell broilers and stuff like that. You have those conversations, you know, discovery. The qualification. So sorry. Yeah, yeah. Qualification Discovery questions. So qualifications. Okay, thanks for coming to the factory.

How did you guys hear about me? Oh, by the way, where's your own Farm? Oh, you don't have a firm yet, you're just thinking of setting up a farm, okay? Or you think that this is a good business opportunity? Why do you think so? Okay, because you went to some seminar that was advertised on cool FM radio, okay? No problem, you give them a tour. How long have you been business? Okay, you're retiring, perm. Sex. Okay, you've collected your pension you want to attend to the business, you give them a tour of the factory.

You know, you ask them a couple of questions, okay? When you buy a broiler is exactly what you want to do with the broilers. Are you using it so that you can sell eggs or do you want to be selling it for the meat? You know, those are all sorts of things. Now, this example that I've given right here, you've seen now that this is somebody who is asking about chickens, just because the person is interested, it's not as if they have a, what's it called?

Noah Factory. A poultry, they don't have a poultry of their own. They're not thinking of setting up a poultry yet, they just came by your place because they held that you're the specialist and it's something that they're interested in because they're getting ready to retire from active service. And if I attended one or two business seminars, in this case, it's probably no point in putting together a proposal and offer a presentation for this person on stop, supplying broilers, or layers, or whatever, please.

For those of you in the poultry, space, forgive me. If I'm using the wrong terms, you know? I'm just freestyling here, man. Is, you know, in this space but I know that I don't know, difference in your Broiler and the layer, okay? I think Leslie eggs, when he you guys get the point. I'm freestyling here. I'm just riffing. So there's no point because this person even though they've come to your place and they have asked all the right questions,

it's clear that they're not getting ready to take action anytime soon. They haven't bought any land, they don't have any buildings, they don't have a concrete plan to go ahead. So there's no point in putting together, any offer or proposal or a presentation because there's no sense of Urgency here. The person isn't ready to take action. The person is just curious. Personally just asking a couple of questions. So in this case, what you should be doing or at least people in the online space, they call it a also called relationship nurturing.

Yeah lead. Nurturing relationship, nurturing. So you do you hang with the person's phone number and you push the you push the contact a couple of months out or a couple of weeks out or whatever. And checking out person from time to time you say, but a sec. I don't know how you doing. You guys are retired. How's life in retirement? Okay, you guys are collected your check. So how far are you still interested in that that chicken chicken wearing idea are you are you taking you know, you putting a putting together?

Are you coming up with an action plan anytime soon? And if you now respond, oh yes, of collect my pension check. In fact, I was going to call. You are spoken to my cousin in in Luke bedroo. He has a plot of land. We have start declaring it. I will find out I'm going to call you. I was going to call you now. No. No, I'm glad that your your phone call came in. I mean, now it's a different thing. The person is interested.

The person has gotten the funds. They claim that they started clearing the land. Now you can start entertaining this thing that you can put together some sort of proposal. Of course, you honey to have much more conversations, but now it's looking like you can put together a proposal to sell them, 200 broilers or 200 layers or something, because it looks like this sense of urgency and a deal is imminent. So these are the sort of things they should be looking at before you invest time, or money in putting together, proposals and presentations.

And yes, for some people, it involves money because you want to make it look nice. So you send your cousin 5K, you know, if your cousin is the one who handles your Graphics and Design, you know, to just make a nice cover or you get somebody on up work on Fiverr or was this one called this? A Nigerian version of these sites? Kosh came aboard is called but there's another version of this size anyway where you can go and pay someone to do some of your design work and come up with copy and things like that.

So for some people it's not just money, it's time. So these are the sorts of things that you should be paying attention to before you put time. More effort to put up a proposal. So proposal should not be taking you time to put together. If you have done the qualification and the discovery stage of the sales. The process. Well, this processes will also help you weed out people that you not be sending presentations to now and if they're people who looks like they might be a good contact to hold onto, then what you should be employing is lead,

nurturing tactics. You're reaching out those people. Every once in a while, trying to see how they are where they are, if the their needs have changed and you're not going to be able to get a sense of, okay? It is now time to Vessel more into the relationship or maybe time to cut the people off entirely, because it's possible, they might call made a mistake and yes, she has collected disengagement benefits and stuff like that but now she's not interested in poultry anymore right now.

She's interested in cryptocurrencies and in fact she has bought her first set of Bitcoin or whatever and she's wondering how to make a buck no in that case you the poultry owner. I don't think there's any point in hanging onto my not perm sex. Number at least one business perspective because it looks like your business and paths have divulged now. So just like with the wedding photographer you know the whole thing is the same you can say okay I wish you best of luck and edit their or you can try to do the helpful thing which is okay.

You know what, I don't know anything about. I wish you best of luck in your business journey. I don't know anything about cryptocurrency on blockchain but my son runs the cryptocurrency. My son, my daughter runs a cryptocurrency one of the called Currency exchange. Why don't I put you through and maybe you'll be able to get some more value out of that instead and they might have perhaps like myself. Thank you very much.

In fact I find this whole thing confusing, you know, blah, blah blah blah. It's okay, no problem and the call then you call up your son, call up your daughter or your nephew, or whatever it is. That runs the crypto currency exchange and say, you know what? I'm sending this client your way, this potential client your way. This is the situation that retired, you know, take good care of them or and by the way you can make some good business.

Off of it, you know, spot me 5K or 10K or whatever. If you're that kind of person who pursues commission's, there are some people who on ethical grounds, or should I say religious grounds choose not to ask for commissions entirely, because some people say things like, no, I'm not going to collect a commission from anyone because God uses people to help people in different ways. So, I'm not saying collector commission, and I'm not saying,

don't collect the commission. I'm just saying that those are viable options, depending on who you are, what your philosophy is on these sorts of things. So, should be putting a lot of I'm an effort into producing offers proposed as a presentation. The answer is no, you should be putting a lot of time into them. If you don't think you're going to get substantial results from that, how do you know if you're going to get good results from that is by following the qualification and the discovery stage of the sales process.

So pay attention to that, it will make your offers your proposals, your presentations, a whole lot easier because you get all the information that you need to include it in the document on the process. And then Then it will also help you weed out people, who you shouldn't be spending time. Putting proposals out for in the first place. If it's your first time of listening to the podcast, then after you don't listen to this episode, use the search function in your podcast player, you'd be able to find lots of resources over here.

I think right now we have over four hundred and ninety podcast episodes. Sorry 590 podcast episodes were pushing on 600 right now and I've made dozens and dozens of episodes on Discovery. And Discovery qualification sales processes, things like that. So use those such as and items in the taskbar and be able to get a lot of value from all the free content that are put out. However if you do want something, that is going to be much more tailored to your situation, something that's much more involved where I can work with you to help come up with specific parts of your own sales process and help guide you through the discovery process,

the qualifications process, come up with your own sales framework or Or make your proposes a whole lot tighter and much more effective. Then I have a paid option coming up and that's going to be in five days on the 27th of March. And that is the sales Clinic. It's going to be sales coaching delivered over WhatsApp where you have guaranteed to access to me, over a period of a week. You're interested, then hit me up for details.

So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next recording where we're going to have. Have some more questions that are sort of related to this matter, but of course, also came up. Something that came across on LinkedIn. So yeah, thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys on the next recording.