Close More Deals and Build Long-term Customers Using a No-surprise Proposal

Surprises are fun when they are part of a birthday; not so much when they are involved in selling. Salespeople should do their due diligence to minimize surprises during the sales process, especially when presenting and closing proposals.

Salespeople can improve their closing ratio and improve customer results using a no-surprise proposal (NSP) technique by clarifying these five things before they build and present a proposal:

1. Clarify the customer's problem or significant challenge.
2. Clarify the customer's expectations.
3. Clarify how much the customer is willing to invest based on ROI.
4. Clarify dates and timeline details.
5. Clarify information about the seller’s product and the solution.

Here are a few advantages of a no-surprise proposal (NSP):

• NSPs close quicker.
• Salespeople usually get what they ask for when using a NSP.
• Prospects rarely utter the words “Let me think about it,” when given a NSP because they've already had time to think about what the salesperson is presenting.

Solving a client problem and closing deals are easier when sellers follow this format. Additionally, the customer and salesperson become partners during the sales process. Partnerships tend to last longer than vendor/customer relationships.