In this short Q&A video, sales coach Ryan Dohrn answers a viewer’s question about whether the number of proposals written each week is a reliable gauge of sales success. He advises that employees should generally follow their boss’s directive but cautions against writing generic proposals merely to hit a quota. Dohrn stresses the importance of targeting proposals based on recent client interactions and only using blind proposals in niche situations where the salesperson already knows the client’s needs (e.g., ad sales to realtors). He recommends asking management for the rationale behind the metric to ensure alignment and avoid wasted effort. The video concludes with Dohrn’s contact information for sales coaching and speaking engagements.
Questions this video answers
Dohrn says: Do what your boss asks, but proposal count alone isn’t the best gauge of success. Focus on targeted proposals based on client interaction; blind proposals work only in niche, well‑understood markets. If unclear, ask your manager why the metric is used.
Chapters
Hey friends, Ryan Dohrn, your sales and marketing coach. Thanks for sending in your questions. I'd love to answer these questions. By the way, next one comes from Rebecca from Charlotte, not too far from Charlotte, a couple hours from Charlotte. Okay, Rebecca asks, Ryan, we are now being gauged on how many proposals we write in any given week. Is this an accurate gauge of sales success? All right, so Rebecca, I'm gonna guess that your boss is asking you to do this and you're gonna now send this video. If I, if I agree with you, you're gonna send it to your boss, right? Okay, so first and foremost, number one, Rebecca, you should probably do what your boss says unless you potentially don't wanna work there anymore. So that's kind of the first thing. The second thing though is I'm not a big fan of just writing proposals to write proposals. I would rather be a lot more specific. Have an opportunity to, to rely on having a client interaction to make sure the proposal is right on target and things like that. Now, with that being said, I don't know exactly what you sell. So in a lot of circumstances, you can propose business based upon a particular type of client set. So for example, let's just say I spent a lot of time in the ad sales world selling advertising. My license plate says ad sales on it. Okay. Um, in that particular case, if I'm only selling to realtors, I can probably send a proposal to a realtor without ever actually meeting with them because I pretty much know what they're probably going to need. However, friends, I'm not recommending that. So those circumstances could potentially— could be okay. Now, you might email me back and give me more specifics on this, Rebecca, but I would say first, do what your boss says. Secondly, it's probably not the best gauge of sales success. But if you don't understand why you're being asked to do it, I think you should humbly go to your boss and simply say, hey, Julie, hey, Bob, I'm just not following you on this. I want to be supportive of your efforts and what you're asking us to do, but I'm just not understanding why it's okay for us just to send generic proposals to a large group of people. So I hope that's a good answer for you. Do what you're told, get a little more information, but recognize There are some circumstances where you can send blind proposals, but I would tell you this, honestly, I don't have a lot of success with that. So my fingers are crossed that maybe there's some method to the madness there in the background. All right, Rebecca and everybody, thanks so much for your questions coming in. Send those questions to ryan@ryandohrn.com. And if you're looking for a sales coach or a virtual speaker for your next sales meeting, reach out to me, contact me over at ryandohrn.com. My last name is D-O-H-R-N. All right, friends, we'll talk to you next time.
