My wife and I are avid golf enthusiasts. Neither of us can hit the ball straight but love to watch the professionals on the weekends battle it out for the prize money.
This past weekend I watched two golfers go extra holes to see who would win the Travelers open in Connecticut. Oh, how I wish I could hit the ball the way they do.
Now why am I talking about golf? Watching them play and then see the winner pocket over $1.1 million and the runner up get about $600,000 made me think about how slim the difference can be between winning and losing.
It also made me wonder how many BSCs put everything they have into preparing a proposal for a prospect and then give everything they have when making the presentation. To take it even further, in our business we don't get anything for coming in second. We either get first or we get nothing.
So let me ask you. Do you get all the facts when doing a walk through and then THOROUGHLY prepare a proposal that extols the virtues of the prospect doing business with your company? So many times we hurriedly throw a proposal together, send it in or leave it at the front desk hoping that we are the one they will choose.
Golfers have to study each shot and make the right club selection or they don't make the shot they need to. How about us? Shouldn't we study every account we are offering a proposal to and then select the right information to place in our proposal to convince the prospect we are the company they should select and that we can best do what it is they are asking to be done?
So many BSCs are willing to just give a "bid" for service rather than finding out the details of what are required for the potential customer and their facility and then preparing a proposal that fits those specific needs.
Let me suggest that you review the information you have in your proposal and see if it really tells your story or is it just filler to make the proposal look big. Even though I had certain information that went into every proposal, we worked hard at presenting information that was germane to that particular prospect. We didn't always succeed but we were right much more than wrong.
Take the time to prepare a first class proposal. Don't settle for just dropping it off and then hoping. Be proud of what you have to offer but be sure the prospect even knows what you have to offer. What are the benefits of hiring your company over a competitor? Determine what they are, hit them hard in your presentation and go for the sale. Remember, we don't get paid for being close. We don't even get a cigar.
On another note, this is blog number 150. That's a lot of messages we have sent over the past several years. We would be interested in hearing from you as to their significance and if we should continue doing them. Let us know.
Also, as a reminder we post a FREE pod cast each week on our other site,www.kleancast.com. Hope you are watching those. No advertising, just free information.
Till next time.
No comments:
Post a Comment