A business proposal is the foundation stone of a business deal. The foundation must be strong to support the entire infrastructure. It paints a picture of your products and services to your clients with its pricing. The clearer and impressive the picture the better are the chances of closing the deal.

Requirement of a Proposal Software

Got a product or service inquiry? You need to send a business proposal.

Now, will you start digging into old files for information related to your product or service and its pricing? Will you spend time creating, editing/refining, or designing the proposal?

Phew! By the time you’re done with the entire process of preparing a proposal and drafting an email for the same, I’m afraid your client may lose interest. 

The quicker and efficient way to respond to your prospective customer with an impressive business proposal is by using proposal software. 

Proposal software can do all the above-mentioned work to create a perfect business proposal for you in just a few clicks.

Not just that, with online proposal software you can connect with your clients immediately when your product and services are fresh in their minds. 

So instead of wasting your time on the monotonous tasks of creating business proposals, utilize that time to bring new prospects to your business and generate more sales with proposal software. 

Top 6 features to look for before choosing a proposal software

Now that you know the reasons why you should start using a software tool to manage your sales proposal process, the next question comes is what are all the features you should consider while choosing the best proposal software?

Let’s find out!!!!

Business Proposal Templates and Online Editor

Creating a new proposal every time from scratch to promote or sell your product or services is simply not practical, because it’s a complete waste of your valuable time and money. 

Proposal templates are something that can save you from this big concern as they will not only help you reduce your rework time but will help you create a professional-looking sales proposal. 

So make sure your proposal software provides a pre-built framework of business proposal templates that you can customize completely to create your own as per your needs. 

Interactive Pricing

Interactive pricing is probably the most important factor of a profitable business proposal. 

A good proposal software allows you to incorporate interactive pricing tables into your sales proposals with a variety of pricing options where prospects can modify the quantity, select products or services that suit their needs. 

An interactive pricing table also allows clients to select additional services and at the end can check the updated pricing in real-time. Unless you choose any sophisticated proposal software tool you can not create an interactive pricing table in your business proposal.

Online Signature

As a leader, you need to keep up with the current industry trends to keep your business competitive in today’s marketplace. Innovations are meant to make certain processes easier. 

And e-Signature is one kind of digital innovation that you should look for while choosing a proposal software.

E-signature not only provides a seamless experience to your prospect but also saves everyone’s time by eliminating the entire process of printing, signing, scanning, and sending physical copies of your proposal. 

Content Library

The content library is the heart and soul of your proposal creation process. Without one your team lacks quick access to key information that speeds up the stressful operation of sales proposal creation. The content library is the 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, images, videos, snippets, or any other pieces of content that don’t really change from each proposal to proposal.

A good proposal software offers a content library that lets you store the common content pieces such as,

• Company descriptions
• Proposal content
• Case studies
• Product/service information
• Proposal sections
• Fee table
• Images and videos

Proposal Comments

After sending a proposal to your client, they should be able to add comments, feedback, notes, questions, or clarifications while reviewing it. Here are few features a proposal  software should provide related to commenting you can add in your business proposals,

• You should be able to receive an email notification when anyone comments on the file you’ve shared.
• You should be able to manage private comments that your clients can’t see or public comments that they can see.
• The internal team members should be able to discuss the activities such as client visit and their interaction, etc

Proposal Interactions

Choose a proposal software that provides precise intelligence about how prospects interact with your proposal. Why?

Imagine getting real-time notifications whenever a client opens and reads your proposal or getting to know the actual time your prospect spends on reading it or the insights about which all sections of the proposal he has viewed and for how long etc.

Wouldn’t it be great?

With the help of such proposal interactions, you’ll be able to track the status of your proposal, and plus such intelligent inputs will put your team in a lot better position to have successful communication with your client.