5 Ways Your Proposals Today Are Killing Your Business

There are a million things that your business could invest in this year. Why should proposal software be on the top of that list? Let me share with you my 5 Ways Your Proposals Today Are Killing Your Business.

Just because you’re probably as impatient as I am, let me cut to the bottom line – business development is critical to your ongoing success and proposals are the most critical business development document. Manual proposals today are costing your more than you are likely aware. Beyond just taking too much time to complete, mistakes in today’s approach are making your business look unprofessional. This leads to fewer down-selections, makes it more difficult for your salespeople to combat pricing pressure, and reduces the likelihood that the RFP issuing organization will even invite you to participate in the next RFP.

You’re Wasting Time

• If your business is like most that I have helped, 50-85% of the proposal response time is wasted doing repetitive, non-value adding, administrative tasks that could be automated.
• This wasted effort limits the time available of value-adding activities like creating client-specific, win theme rich content.
• Review cycles are rushed or skipped altogether, and avoidable mistakes remain on the final proposal.
• Your senior staff and subject experts are repeatedly interrupted with questions and help requests because proposal content isn’t properly documented.

You’re Losing Business

• Proposals don’t win business, but they are losing it for you today.
• Mistakes make you look unprofessional and are killing your proposal win rates.
• Poor RFP responses are convincing your clients not to include you in future RFPs.

You’re Losing Margin on the Deals That You Do Win

• Proposals are the “single source of truth” for your prospective clients. Outdated, inaccurate content becomes a negotiating point for your clients to use against you.
• Proposal mistakes as simple as formatting errors reduce or eliminate premium positioning.
• (Not to mention the bottom line impact from the time wasted in Point #1 above.)

Your Business Can’t Scale

• Manual processes, “pockets of good proposal content”, and the tribal knowledge of “how we get proposals done” is slow to be gained by new hires.
• Every year you plan growth but don’t grow proposal writer headcount.
• Headcount limitations make it impossible to respond to of the all RFPs that you should during peaks in proposal volume.

Your Proposal Staff is Bearing the Burden

• Under the best scenarios, proposals are a stressful, deadline driven, 100-yard dashes or effort that can wear down even the most loyal team members.
• Not having the tools to do their job well add fuel to these frustrations.