Ryan Dohrn says stop writing custom proposals from scratch. Find a past proposal for a similar client, tweak it, and present it as recommendations in the meeting. He uses a rule of 3 and 3: three pricing options, three sentences per email, three main points in proposals. He claims this approach boosts his close rate by about 30%.
Questions this video answers
Ryan advises to stop building fully custom proposals each time. Instead, locate a past proposal for a similar client, make minor tweaks, and present it as a set of recommendations during the meeting. Use three pricing options, follow up every three business days, keep emails short (three words in the subject, three sentences), and limit the proposal to three main points. This approach can improve close rates by about 30% and reduce stress.
Chapters
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here answering your listener questions sent in to ryan@ryandohrn.com. Whether you're watching this on the YouTube channel or listening on the podcast, be sure to subscribe so that you never miss all of our updates. All right, here comes a question, uh, from one of my fellow media sales warriors out there, Cindy. And I do media sales and about 15 other different categories of sales, but I have a lot of friends in the media business. Like Cindy, and she asked this question. Even though I'm a seasoned sales professional, there's an area that I greatly struggle with. I do fantastic in speaking with people about their ad plans and their goals. We have a great conversation, then I promise to create a proposal. Then I realize the proposal's gonna take a lot of time, and so a lot of times I don't get around to the proposal or it's significantly delayed. What do I do? So Cindy, this is just a part of sales life, but your good friend Ryan is, is here to help. I tend to rinse and repeat my best proposals all the time. Now, let's back up one step though, Cindy and everybody. If every single time you meet with a client, you've got to do a custom proposal, it's no wonder that you might be losing your mind and just don't have time to do it. That's why I'm a big fan and why I talked to— dedicated a whole chapter in my sales book, Selling Forward, to not doing customized proposals. I know it sounds good, but I don't have any empirical data that doing a customized proposal actually earns more business. It's not that it doesn't work, it just takes a lot of time. So I'm a big fan, and I talk about it in the book, of recommendation-based selling. So what I do is I look at the client I'm going to meet with. Let's just say as an example, I don't know, they're a lawnmower company, just as an example. We've worked with other lawn and garden people in the past. So what I do is I look back at what we did with companies like that in the past. I take that proposal, I revise it a little bit, and I take it to the meeting. That way I don't have to leave to create a proposal. Now, people say to me all the time, oh, how do you know what to put in the proposal? You didn't ask them their goals. You didn't ask them their needs. You didn't find out their desires. Well, because typically most customers want 3 things: new business, recurring business, and more referrals. Well, because I know that, I can give them recommendations and whatever their big goal in the sky is, I can work that goal into the recommendations. Recommendations are more like channels. I just need to find out from them what creative do they want to push into our channels. So Cindy, if I'm being honest, and you've known me for quite some time, I just typically don't create proposals after the fact. I mean, I might tweak on things, but I take old proposals, I revise those proposals, call them recommendations, go into the meeting with a proposal, and I'm at about a 30% better close rate because of it. Now, don't forget, based on some of our past questions and past advice, all your proposals should have 3 pricing options. You should be following up every 3 business days, following the rule of 3 and 3. 3 words in the email subject line, 3 sentences max. Keep your proposals to 3 main points. I mean, Cindy and everybody, I think if you follow that advice, you'll just reduce your stress and get a lot more done. So Cindy, appreciate you and really, really great question. Hey, keep those questions coming. Love to answer 'em. Send 'em into ryan@ryandohrn.com. Friends, never forget, if this job was easy, if sales was easy, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. It's a great career. It'll feed your family for a lifetime. All right, stick around, stay close. More sales tips, listener questions straight ahead.
