Helping you create amazing sales proposals
Oct 18th, 2011 by admin
Security group G4S, a ProposalGENie customer, is set to become one of the world’s largest private sector employers after agreeing a deal to buy the cleaning and catering provider ISS for £5.2bn.
The enlarged G4S will have annual revenues of £16bn and employ 1.2m staff, more than double Tesco. It is understood the new company would be second in the world only to retail behemoth Wal-Mart.
Sep 21st, 2011 by admin
Aug 19th, 2011 by admin
“Using ProposalGENie for the past 12 months our win rate has improved by 20%. And this during a recession, in competitive telecommunications!” Andrew Smart, Ardencom
Ardencom increased their monthly sales by £30,000 and spend only £200 doing so
Ardencom (www.ardencom.com) are suppliers of telecom systems and markets don’t get any more competitive than telecommunications. Yet, even in the current difficult trading conditions, they have witnessed a surge in annual sales and they put it down to one change they made; the introduction of Proposal GENie.
Following the introduction of GENie, they could:
This all added up to a substantial growth in sales for a minimal investment.
It’s a story we’ve heard over and again from Proposal Genie users – one client added £1 million to their gross profit in the first year.
To find out how ProposalGENie can impact your sales, visit www.document-genie.com or speak to a proposal consultant on 0845 458 8548. ProposalGENie is one sales tool that really works and delivers instant results.
Aug 11th, 2011 by admin
Just received this from one of our customers:
“I work as a volunteer for the York and District brand of MIND. MIND is a charity which supports people with mental health issues to gain advice, support, advocacy and other services. Last year, Nick Hilsden from DocumentGenie put forward his product for free to support the company, as we were having huge difficulties in securing resource for writing proposals to get funding for the charity.
As a group who depend on volunteers to survive, the charity is always low on funds and proposal writing has been a thorn in our side from the time I started to volunteer. Often, bids for grants and funding would take second place to priorities such as supporting our service users, but this meant that the charity ran the risk of running out of funds and being compromised. At the time when Nick offered his support, we were in the position where support groups for service users had to be amalgamated or closed down, because we no longer had sufficient funds to continue them.
Nick Hilsden worked with the director of MIND in York to install the ProposalGenie software on our systems. He ran a training session for the volunteers to teach us how to use it, and supported us with implementing and maintaining the Genie software.
Since his intervention, writing bids has become a much more simple, professional and streamlined process. We have secured enough funding to continue the charity without additional help. Our pre-written content has been uploaded to the system, enabling us to produce professional-looking, well-written and persuasive documents in the fraction of the time we would have managed without the software in place. It takes us about 60% less time to produce a bid than it used to.
Having software in place to enhance bid writing may sound like a small thing, but for a charity struggling with resource and time, it has proved to be invaluable to us. Nick has always been available to offer his support with technical issues, and it has dramatically changed the way we can submit bids. The software even enables us to produce formatted documents that look visually appealing in very short timescales, reducing hours of effort and making us real contenders for funding applications.
I can’t thank Nick and the ProposalGenie team enough for what he has done to empower our charity to achieve more, attract more funding, and have the capacity to produce successful bids with minimal resource. I only hope that through nominating him and the team for the APMP award I will be in a position to give the firm something back for the time and care they have invested in our charity.
A year on, and our supprot groups are still running, which helps a great number of people who would not otherwise have access to support. Nick’s intervention played a direct part in this achievement.”
Mar 30th, 2011 by admin
Whilst some of the GENie team were out and about over the past few days we spotted several of our customer’s products.
What this shows is that ProposalGENie applies to any market sector and allows you to win more business!!!
Mar 18th, 2011 by admin
We have tested GENie with the newly released IE9 and all is well. In fact, IE9 is faster at rendering pages than IE8 and earlier versions so is well worth upgrading too.
Feb 28th, 2011 by admin
Personalizing your business proposal takes more than just putting the buying company’s name on the cover of your proposal and mentioning it every now and then throughout the pages of the proposal. An important factor that determines the client’s decision of whether to choose your company out of all the rest is the way your proposal reads and how it gets the message across. Of course, the buying company also considers other factors such as costs and feasibility of the solution, but if your proposal is written poorly, they might not even read up to the pages in your proposal where those are discussed.
1) Pay Close Attention to What the Client is Saying
All too often, companies and individuals making a sales pitch become too focused on selling their product, instead of first taking note of what it is exactly the client needs. If you want to know how to write a proposal that will effectively show the client that you’re on their side, you will have to pay attention to the issues and concerns they raise. These concerns may stem from different aspects of your proposal, like feasibility, costs, and implementation.
2) See it from the buyers perspective
It’s also important to always try and see things from the perspective of the buyer. As a member of the team making the sales pitch, it would be tempting to go on and on about your product and how good it is. This is perfectly understandable because it’s your product and you believe in its quality and functions. However, more than the impressive specifications and descriptions of your product, the client would be more interested in knowing exactly how the product or service you’re selling will provide a solution to the problems their company is facing.
Knowing how to write a proposal that would make the client feel like it’s written and addressed specifically to them is not that difficult, as long as you try to see yourself more as a solution provider rather than just a product seller.
3) Provide Detailed Solutions to the Problems and Issues Raised
In most cases, it would be impossible to address each and every question or concern the buyer raises. What you can do, however, is focus on the more pressing ones and illustrate for them how you and your company intend to resolve these problems. If the decision-maker for the buying company is a team instead of just an individual, you may want to make sure that you address at least one of the issues brought up by every team member.
In this section of the proposal, you can cite similar instances from dealing with past clients who had the same concerns as the ones your client brought up. You can then explain to them in detail how you and your company were able to prove to these past clients that their perceived risks from implementing your solution can be easily overcome.
Learning how to write a proposal that’s personalized and tailored to fit the specific client’s needs is a process – but it can be a relatively fast and easy one if you follow the tips mentioned above.
Feb 14th, 2011 by admin
If you have proposal software or are considering proposal automation, then you’ll derive maximum benefit by setting your content up in the right way. The most effective technique to getting the buyer onside and to making the sale is to express ideas and pitches from the buyer’s viewpoint.
Most companies make the mistake of making their sales proposals too seller-focused; going on and on about their track record and client portfolio, reasons why their product or solution is the best, etc. While these may be of some help building up your company and the solution you’re proposing, it also poses the risk of making you sound like you’re merely selling something instead of providing a helpful solution.
So, when you draft your proposal content, imagine that you’re the one making the buying decision. What information would you want and need to read about? That is what you need to get into your proposal system. I suggest that, if you were the buyer, here are just some of the questions you would want answered when reading a proposal:
Does the seller know enough about my business and its needs?
Being able to answer this question helps convince the buyer that you’re informed enough about the nature of their business for you to be a credible provider of an effective and feasible solution to their problem. Remember, solutions are highly business-specific. Your proposed solution should coincide with, and complement, the buying company’s current operational systems and processes.
What do I know about the seller’s background and how they conduct business?
Put yourself in the position of the buyer and write only about the necessary information about your company. Provide details on your company’s sales protocols and operational standards in easily understandable terms, and mention names of previous clients or companies and the nature of work your company did for them. This should not be general information, applicable to all-comers, but data relevant to the buyer.
Is there sufficient information on the solution they’re proposing?
Instead of merely outlining the outstanding qualities of the product or solution you’re selling, link each descriptive aspect of your proposed solution to a benefit applicable to the buyer. Explain how this or that specific aspect of your solution will help the buying company resolve their current issue or problem. Remember: no matter how excellent your product may seem, it will not appeal to the buyer if you don’t provide detailed information on how they will benefit from choosing your proposed solution.
By making your proposal buyer-centric, you will differentiate yourself from your competition, and greatly please your buyers. They will perceive you as someone who identifies with them and is serving their specific needs.
The advantage of proposal software is your content is written from the buyer’s perspective and will appeal to him or her. With your system pre-structured in this way, it is ready for each user to select the right content, knowing it is written by a skilled proposal author who knows what works for buyers. Even the most illiterate proposal generator is then able to create a proposal which is compelling to buyers.
Jan 26th, 2011 by admin
For the start of 2011 we are offering you a free ProposalGENie Entry edition. Simply click the link below, enter your details, select from one of our standard templates and you are off and running.
http://proposal.documentgenie.co.uk/6DF399/
Once you have signed up, a username and password will be emailed to you and thats it. If you need any help, check out the support videos on our website at http://www.document-genie.com/support/videos/
Nov 17th, 2010 by admin
Do you want to know the secret to structuring a proposal that will win you more business? Do you want a proven blueprint that shows you what content you need, in what order, to give you guaranteed results? If the answer is yes, click the link below to receive our special e-book completely FREE. That’s right, no charge whatsoever. The techniques in here helped our previous business rocket from £3 million to £25 million turnover in just 3 years; see what it can do for you. Please click below and start profiting immediately…
http://www.document-genie.com/ebook/
