Fed up chasing quotes and proposals? Part 3

I mentioned in my last blog on this subject how there was a radical thing you could do to ensure you are not chasing proposals. I deliberately left this idea out so you wouldn’t be distracted by our investigation of the Decision step. Thank you for coming back for more to discover my outrageous idea to stop chasing proposals.

What would happen if you didn’t send a proposal or a quote at all? No, bear with me, it’s not as absurd as you might think. One of my clients tells me, having worked with me for a while, “I don’t send quotes, I send invoices”. Wouldn’t you like to be in that situation? Perhaps your first thought is, in your business world, that would be impossible. If you refused to send a quote, you wouldn’t get any business as all your competitors freely send out quotes and your prospects won’t do business without a free proposal. Another client of mine told me just that too, and now they only do paid-for reports, even though all their competitors offer free quotes. Their conversion rate is almost 100%. Would that be a great position to be in? In a similar way, if you ever become a client of mine, probably all you’ll have got is a confirming email and a contract.

Let’s think about this mad idea a little more. If you have a great relationship with your potential client, you have spent time being genuinely curious about the real underlying problems your prospect has, (in a way that leaves your competitors looking like by-standers). Moreover, you have crafted an investment and decision journey with your prospect in a way that makes you the easy and obvious partner to do business with. Why would they need anything more from you to get at least something small started with you? And would they want to go through all that again with somebody else? Not that any other competitor would ever bother to be this closely involved in the first place.

In other words, if you do a really first-class job of Bonding & Rapport, Up Front Contract, Pain, Investment and Decision, then the need for a quote, a demo, a proposal, or a presentation, decreases dramatically. In fact, the few times I have to do a quote, and not just send a conforming email or contract, I immediately suspect I haven’t done one of those steps as well as I should have.

There will always be times when you still need to do a presentation step, I appreciate that. But don’t assume that is inevitable. Have in your mind that the best way to not chase proposals is not to do them.