8+ Sample Product Sales Proposal

What Is a Product Sales Proposal?

A product sales proposal is a document an individual or a business uses to pitch their services or products to potential clients and customers. This may also be referred to as business proposals, project proposals, or executive summaries.

Sales proposals can be used by sales teams, agencies, consultants, and anyone looking to show how they can serve their target market with their offerings. An excellent sales proposal will help you achieve the following outcomes:

Eventually, a good product sales proposal clearly conveys the value of working with you. It is clear, authentic, and tailored to your prospect’s needs and expectations.

What Are Product Sales?

Product Sales is when you sell a good in exchange for monetary compensation. The total number of goods you sell during this period is what we call product sales. For a customer to purchase a product, they know that it will meet a particular need they have. You can use different channels for product sales like door-to-door sales, direct sales, retail stores, telemarketing, and tradeshows.

In addition, the marketing team does not stop their work at the point of conversion. They need to go ahead and retain those customers they currently have. This can be done via various loyalty programs or email newsletters.

Types of Product Sales:

There are two key types of sales proposals:

One of the most common challenges that arises from sending unsolicited proposals is that its recipient has not budgeted for your offering or planned for it in any way. They haven’t asked for it, so keep that in mind when setting your expectations and make sure to have diverse proposal examples for these instances.

5 Strategies for a Product Sales Proposal:

There are some tips and strategies behind successful product sales proposals that can be functional to all industries and sales cycles. Implement these tips to make your proposals professional and appealing.

Analyze your prospects. Your product sales proposal will be a guessing game without deeply understanding what your prospect needs. You can look at top sales proposal examples and templates all day, but in-depth tailoring for each client is the key to success when it comes to product sales proposals. Try to uncover their objectives, budget, stakeholders and decision-makers, and urgency. Take note of the exact words and phrases your potential customers are already using to describe their situation. Use these in your proposal to make them feel truly heard.Do the same analysis on your most successful customers. You will gain the best insights by combining the above research with the data about your existing customers or clients. Your best, most successful customers are typically those that have been with you the longest; spent the most money with you; made the most repeat purchases and; referred the most business to you. They usually have a mix of these traits or even all of them. Analyze their experience as your customer—their communication with you in that process—as well as your discussions with them when they were still a prospect.Include your unique selling proposition. A unique selling proposition (USP for short) is the one thing that separates your business from the competition. It’s a statement that discerns the products you sell from all the other options on the market. It is not just a tagline on your website but, it’s the backbone of all the communications you do like branding, marketing, PR, customer service, and sales conversations.Use copywriting best practices. Websites, social media ads, billboards, and any other form of marketing rely on great copywriting. Without it, the marketing message could be uncertain. The same goes for your sales proposal. Use these copywriting principles to strengthen your proposal: use headings, bullet points, and short paragraphs; use storytelling principles in your sales pitch, making each part lead naturally into the next; only make it as long as it needs to be; use active voice to make your copy more engaging and immediate and; use high-quality graphics if they can add to your key messages.Build a sales proposal template. Build a sales proposal template you can customize to each new prospect instead of working from scratch every time you’re pitching a potential customer. Through this, your sales team can save time in the pitching process while also making sure they’re not forgetting any of the key elements of their proposal.

How To Write Product Sales Proposal In 5 Steps?

Step 1: Understand what a prospect is looking for.

It is your job to list all the pain points your prospect is experiencing. In this step, these questions should be answered:

Step 2: Dig deeper research.

This is about gathering details the clients haven’t told you. In other words, you’re looking for clues that aren’t as obvious, but convey their issue further. This includes details such as:

These insights can make your writing more specific and help you emphasize the most painful points for your prospect. They can also help you get a bearing on the reason the client is looking to move in a new direction with a solution in your field.

Step 3: List the building blocks of the product sales proposal.

No matter how specific your prospect’s needs are, your proposal will include most or all of these building blocks:

Pick the blocks that match your offering and your research from the previous two steps.

Step 4: Outline and draft the product sales proposal.

The goal is to make your proposal only as long as it needs to be—for most scenarios, two to three pages are enough. However, comprise any information you see as necessary for making your case. This will help you get the entire picture on how your offering could fit into your prospect’s life. You will clarify and clean up this information in the next step.

Step 5: Edit and proofread.

It is important to take a quick break and return to it with fresh eyes to help you notice things you’ve forgotten to include or a clearer way to make a point. Use these editing guidelines to revise your sales proposal template and make it into a tailored document for your prospective clients:

FAQs

What happens after sending your proposal?

After you send your product sales proposal, all possible scenarios fall into one of these three categories:

  • Your prospect accepts the proposal
  • Your prospect rejects the proposal
  • You are not getting any feedback or hearing back from your prospect

What makes a proposal legally binding?

A proposal becomes a legally binding contract if you have taught your client to abide by the terms of the proposal, sign it, date it, and send you funds. In other words, you can associate the proposal with a contract in order to save time.

4 effective sales approaches to incorporate into product sales process:

Each sales approach has its own sole strengths—along with the potential to revitalize your interest, enthusiasm, and understanding for the sales profession. Some effective sales approaches are as follows:

Premium sales approach. With the premium sales approach, sales professionals offer their prospects a giveaway or promotional item in an effort to build excitement about their product or brand. A key advantage of this selling approach is its ability to attract otherwise uncertain customers. Moreover, this free gift (or premium) can be as simple as a gift card. Sometimes, it can be an item with some connection to the product or service you sell for a living.

Product sales approach. Making an important buying decision can be exciting or it can also be intimidating. This is mainly true when you are considering the purchase of a new product or service.

Selling something new or unproven (at least in the eyes of your prospect) takes more time and attention. Potential customers conduct research and compare competitors.

Network sales approach. Whether it is B2B or B2C sales, building a list of prospects and emerging relationships with them are crucial to the process. This is where you may have a hidden advantage.

Using the network sales approach lets you strategically rely on your own list of personal and professional connections. Of any kind, your network of family, friends, and past coworkers can provide the foundation you need to uncover qualified leads and generate solid referrals.

Research shows 69% of U.S. adults use Facebook and typically have a network of 338 friends. 27% of LinkedIn users have between 500 and 999 1st-level professional connections.  Social media networks offer a natural environment to build your prospect list. Sales is about building trust. Networking is sales with people who already trust you. You can also employ this sales approach to help identify the well-connected individuals within your network who can introduce you to an untapped resource of qualified leads.

Of course, applying the network sales approach isn’t a license to go through your entire list of contacts to bother people who would otherwise not be a solid sales prospects or qualified lead. Use good judgment. If your offer can provide value, add them to your list.

Prescriptive sales approach. Providing prospective customers all the information and options they need to arrive at the right decision sounds like a good thing. After all, being supple to the direction (or whims) of your customers should make the buying process easier and ultimately increase sales. This impulse to quickly respond and offer endless support is seen in more common sales tactics, such as:

  • Ensuring customers have every case study, testimonial, and brochure
  • Adjusting your offer to meet the ever-changing demands of the customer
  • Providing customers with more time to consider all possible alternatives
  • Logic suggests being customer-centered should result in more sales. But the latest research shows that providing additional information and multiple options may actually suppress sales.

An HBR survey of 600 B2B buyers reveals it drives an 18% decrease in purchase ease. Providentially, the prescriptive sales approach takes the opposite tactic. Within the same buyer survey, it was shown to increase purchase ease by 86%. With the prescriptive sales approach, the sales professional offers a clear recommendation for action to customers—backed by a specific rationale. Any multifaceted aspects of the sale are explained upfront. If added approval is needed from the purchasing department, invite them into the sale early on.

Additionally, customers often appreciate and respect the prescriptive sales approach. It helps them see the sales representative as being proactive—predicting and eliminating obstacles. Additionally, customers who undergo a prescriptive sales process experience less sales regret and are more likely to repurchase, compared to predictable sales methods.

This approach is idyllic for leading customers through the three common buying stages:

  • Early buying stage: This is where customers have trouble distinguishing between meaningful and irrelevant information and deciding if more information is needed.
  • Middle buying stage: This is where customers encounter competing priorities and hidden concerns about the purchase. They may question their need for change.
  • Late buying stage: This is where customers become overwhelmed by having too many purchase options and confused by the late introduction of different options.

The prescriptive sales approach is more an organizational aptitude than an individual skill—one that can be applied to marketing content just as well as sales conversations.

Adapt sales tactics to fit the requirements of your particular business. By experimenting with these four different sales approaches, you can start making a selling technique that accommodates your unique product or service, as well as your customer base. Furthermore, a solid sales approach doesn’t guarantee a sale. But it will help set the stage for the next crucial steps in the process, from giving the presentation and handling objections to closing the sale and following up with.

The top 4 questions you’d ask your customers:

  • How satisfied are you with our products/services?
  • What can my company do to better serve your needs?
  • What are your biggest challenges?
  • What value do we provide?

Remember, product knowledge is the most important sales skill. Being aware about your products’ features allows you to present their benefits precisely and convincingly. Customers respond to enthusiastic sales staff who are passionate about their products and eager to share the benefits with them. Ensure that you have trained yourself or your staffs very well in handling customers and taking care of the relationship with them.