5 Common Challenges Faced When Developing a Project Proposal 

Are you facing challenges in developing a project proposal? Deadline is approaching fast and you are not sure how to start writing the proposal?

Calm down!!!

You are not alone.

It’s not you but it’s the sales process that needs to be corrected.

A project proposal creation is a kind of process that demands a well-developed approach and a thorough investigation before submitting the document to the prospective client. (Here are a few guidelines you can follow to create an ideal project proposal template)

This article is written to highlight the challenges you and your sales team faces when developing a project proposal and how you can overcome those challenges by avoiding a few mistakes.

Common Challenges Faced When Developing A Project Proposal Template and How to Overcome

1. Too many versions of project proposals

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

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.

Know more about the benefits of the project proposal template

2. Making requests

You have to keep requesting information from multiple teams in order to fill out the proposal. 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.

Learn more about how to write a project proposal

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.

Searching through the documents to find the content that “fits” is like finding a needle in a haystack. This process is though familiar and common but is never as quick and easy as we hope nor it is 100% reliable. 

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 project proposal sections.

Enter content library- the hub of your entire sales proposal process. A content library is a central place that everyone on your team can access to find everything they need to build a proposal; right from product or service descriptions to bios, fee tables, proposal sections, visual elements such as images, videos, snippets, or any other pieces of content that don’t really change from each proposal to proposal.

4. Delay in review and approvals

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.

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.

5. No transparency

The proposal owner can not easily know who has reviewed and approved the proposal internally and have to keep following with stakeholders before sending the final proposal to a client; thus spending even more time.

With precise intelligence, know-how prospects interact with your proposals. Once the prospect opens your proposal, know detailed insights in terms of how many times s/he has viewed the proposal, top sections viewed, how long, etc. Based on this information you can take the most suitable and proactive action. 

You know these issues already. It is time to correct the process and start using a proposal template (Explore the ist of 25+ project proposal templates) to create a project proposal that grabs the attention, follow the checklist, automate most of the mundane tasks, increase collaboration among team members and bring more transparency as well as clarity to everyone involved. With proposal software, save more than 30% of the time, every time you create a project proposal template. It not only saves significant time but also increases the productivity of your sales team enabling them to contribute best of their abilities.