Business Proposal Writing Challenges

Business proposal development is a kind of method that requires a well-thought-out approach and extensive research before sending the document to the prospective client.

This article is written to address the challenges you and your sales team face when writing a business proposal and how you can overcome those challenges by avoiding a few mistakes.

What is a business proposal?

A business proposal is a document that simply outlines how your firm can help potential clients with the challenges they are facing. (Follow this checklist to build a flawless business proposal)

Always remember that your proposal is not a pitch; it’s an agreement between you and your prospective client that effectively communicates the unique problem your prospect’s business is facing ( in their own words) and presents the solution of their challenge with your expertise, reputation, and proven client outcomes.

Who needs a business proposal?

A business proposal is written by a business owner who intends to provide a solution to a huge range of business issues. 

Life as a business owner is always interesting. There are already so many businesses out there that request proposals from experienced organizations to solve their problem, it is up to each company to research the particular business and create a suitable business proposal.

In simple words, business owners use a business proposal to actually sell himself and his experience and explain why he is the best person for this job.

Related article: Common business proposal writing mistakes which cost the business tremendously

The most common obstacles to writing business proposals

Obstacle 1: Too many drafts of business proposal

Every single proposal ‘writer/contributor/reviewer’ involved in the process of proposal creation, continues creating his/her own version of the business proposal and because no one knows who is filling which particular portion of the proposal.

How to overcome this obstacle?

Proposal software offers a feature of proposal comments where the team members involved in the proposal creation process can add their comments specific to a given proposal. These comments are internal to the team. Client’s will not see those. Even better, teams can discuss activities too, such as the client’s online visit, its interaction, etc. It not only creates transparency but also helps you get your team on the same page.

Obstacle 2: Follow-up with the client to sign the proposal

Physical sign-off comes with its own struggle of sending the document to one individual, get print, sign, and scan, sending the same document to the next individual, and then again repeating the process down the line

How to overcome this obstacle?

Electronically signing a document is not only legal but also becoming a common practice among many businesses these days. The online proposal tool allows you to send a proposal and get it signed digitally by clients.

Obstacle 3: No central library

Not having a central hub for standard marketing collateral such as logo, images, best-written piece/well crafted ‘About Us’, Why Us’ ‘pricing/investment’ and likewise branding stuff and every time you have to search through folders and email marketing tools.

Unable to find the files, you get frustrated and end up creating or modifying some of these elements thus more time is wasted, no easy way to schedule content for business proposal sections.

How to overcome this obstacle?

All your essential elements like proposals sections, templates, customer information, visual content remains secure with an online centralised platform. You can tag, search, archive proposals centrally so that you never ever have to lose them.

Obstacle 4: Requesting multiple teams to gather inputs

You go back to multiple teams to gather input and feedback specific to the client’s requirement and review on initial proposal summary/ draft, MS Word files keep circulating.

How to overcome this obstacle?

But with proposal software, you can involve project proposal writers at a central online platform and allow all your internal team members from sales, pre-sales, marketing, accounting to work together. You can easily invite them to collaborate online. 

Obstacle 5: Review and approval

Then there are challenges related to review and approval. Reviewers and approvers get plenty of files and versions of those files to look and they are in a puzzle to figure out which file to take up (so they call the proposal manager to send the latest file again.

How to overcome this obstacle?

Proposal software allows you to invite internal reviewers, approvers set a deadline for the review. In fact, it automatically sends a reminder about the pending review/approval.

It’s time to go for the right process to develop and manage the business proposal.

You know these issues already. It is time to correct the process to create a business proposal that’ll help you win clients. Automate most of the mundane tasks, increase collaboration among team members and bring more transparency as well as clarity to everyone involved by leveraging the benefits of business proposal software.

Save more than 30% of the time, every time you create a business proposal template with proposal software. It not only saves significant time but also increases the productivity of your sales team enabling them to contribute best of their abilities.