Sales proposals are necessary for companies to increase sales and grow their businesses. However, creating a sales proposal can be a daunting task. It is important to have a well-organized and thought-out proposal to make the best impression on potential clients. In the sales process, it can be frustrating when you don’t have information at your fingertips. One way to help organize and improve your sales proposal is to use a dashboard.

In the digital age that we live in, we all want information at a glance, and that is exactly what a dashboard gives.  Dashboards can help alleviate this problem by providing a visual representation of the proposal’s status, including which sections have been completed and which still need to be finished. This can help salespeople stay on track and ensure that no important details are overlooked.

A dashboard is a tool that allows you to track your progress on specific tasks or goals. The right dashboard can transform both your success and the delight of operating your sales process.

What is proposals dashboard?

There are several definitions of the term “dashboard”- my favorite is by Steve Wexler, the one that caught my attention from the book The big of dashboards, in which he defines “a dashboard as a visual display of data used to monitor conditions and facilitate understanding.”

It means, a dashboard is a tool that provides a visual representation of your KPIs in the form of graphs, charts, or maps to further drill down the data.

So basically, the proposals dashboard is a sales intelligence reporting tool that collects and displays critical metrics and key performance indicators related to your proposal on a single screen and enables sales teams to monitor and examine sales proposal performance at a glance. Sales proposal dashboards extract and communicate high-level insights such as revenue, winning rate, average deal size, sales proposal velocity, average proposal cycle length, and much more.

In sales, the teams are under constant pressure to increase their productivity and close more deals. A big part of this is the proposal process, where teams need to quickly develop proposals that are both accurate and persuasive. This can be difficult, especially when sales reps are working with limited time and resources. Dashboards can help sales reps streamline the proposal process, making it easier to gather data and create proposals that win deals.

Proposal dashboards provide an at-a-glance view of where a team is in the proposal process. They can help identify obstacles and track progress against milestones. Dashboards can be customized to show data specific to the proposal process, such as how many proposals are in the draft stage, how many have been sent to customers, and how much revenue is expected from proposals under consideration.

 

What is the purpose of a proposals dashboard?

Sales proposals are an important part of any business and should be created with a clear purpose in mind. A well-constructed dashboard can help you track the progress of your proposal and ensure that it meets all of the necessary requirements. It not only provides an overview of sales performance and progress at a glance but helps to identify areas of strength and weakness so that corrective action can be taken where necessary.

In the context of a sales proposal process, dashboards can be used to monitor the progress of individual opportunities, as well as the overall pipeline. This allows sales managers to track and forecast sales performance more effectively.

Main purposes of a proposals dashboard

• For monitoring the progress of a sales proposal process.
• It provides a quick and easy way to see where the proposal stands in relation to its goal, and it can help identify potential problems
• Visual presentation of all the necessary performance metrics
• More informed decisions based on sales intelligence
• Increased profits-  Dashboard shows you exactly which aspects of your sales proposal process are underperforming. When you understand this, you know exactly where to focus your time to increase results.

 

What are the benefits of a proposals dashboard?

Dashboards are a great way to visualize your sales process and track your progress. They can help you to identify areas where you need to focus your efforts and improve your sales proposal process.

Proposal dashboards offer many advantages that enable you to refine your sales proposal process: 

• All-in-one: Previously users would spend a significant amount of time studying and evaluating several reports in order to reach a final decision on the proposal. Sales proposal dashboards provide an efficient and effective way to manage the sales proposal process. They offer a centralized location for all the information related to a proposal, from initial contact through to final negotiation and closure.
• Drill-into-details: However, having all-in-one does not imply a lack of details. proposals dashboard is designed to allow users to drill down as far as they need to.
• Easy to read and understand: Proposals dashboards are designed in such a manner that even persons without prior knowledge of sales, finance, proposals, or marketing can readily interpret the data displayed on the screen.
• Create sales-driven strategies with real-time data and drive profits: Sales proposal dashboards provide an efficient way for sales teams to visualize their proposal pipeline and track the progress of individual proposals.
• Refine your proposal process: Sales proposal dashboards can help sales teams identify bottlenecks in the sales process and make changes that will improve their efficiency.
• Mobile device accessible: Proposals dashboard is designed to work with any mobile device. The idea of the dashboard is to get the most up-to-date information to anyone, wherever and at any time.

Examples of Helpful Sales Proposal Dashboards

• Proposal Performance Dashboard: The proposal performance dashboard provides a comprehensive view of overall performance of a company, its sales proposal team members/ sales reps considering sales proposals sent. You can get visibility into sent proposals, won proposals/ completed deals, monthly deal closure rate, number of proposals sent, number of proposals viewed, conversion rates.
• Proposal Pipeline Dashboard: Proposal pipeline dashboard shows how a sales proposal is moving through the pipeline of proposal stages like create, sent, client view, signing, accept, reject, payment, etc. A proposal pipeline dashboard is an interactive tool wherein you can drill down through proposals data.
• Proposal Conversion or Win/Loss Dashboard: Proposals Conversion Dashboard tracks the win/loss rate for the proposals you send to your clients/ prospects.
• Proposal Conversion Trends Dashboard: This dashboard presents historical data of proposal conversion rate on month-on-month basis or year on year basis.
• Proposal Funnel Dashboard: As the name suggests, proposals funnel dashboard presents sales proposals flowing through the sales funnel stages like Draft, sent, viewed by client, signed, paid.
• Proposal Engagement Dashboard: The proposal engagement dashboard provides a set of clear indicators about how clients have engaged with the proposals your company has sent.
• Proposal Activities Dashboard: It breaks down the activities your proposal team members are completing on a daily basis; it also enlists important events when the client views, signs, rejects the proposal.
• Live Proposals Dashboard: This dashboard tells you what is at stake at the moment. How many of your proposals are out for client review and waiting for their decision.
• Proposal Content Dashboard: This dashboard helps you monitor usage patterns of sections used in your proposals/ regularly used proposals (i.e. templates) and it generates insights to most popular sections, engagement rate, visit duration, exit rate, etc.
• Client-Proposal Interaction Dashboard: With this dashboard, you certainly understand the interest levels of your prospect/client in your proposal but it goes beyond to help you qualify the interest level.
• Team Performance Dashboard: The team performance dashboard provides a complete view of the performance of each sales rep member involved in writing, sending proposals.

Wrap Up

Dashboard for the sales proposal process can provide a valuable overview of the progress and health of the proposal. It can help identify and potential problems, enabling sales teams to address them quickly and efficiently. By providing a graphical representation of data, a dashboard can also help sales teams to better understand their proposals and make better decisions. A dashboard is an essential tool for any organization that wants to improve its proposal process.