Jean-Pierre Lauzier, consultant, sales speaker and author of the book “Le coeur aux ventes”, regularly gives his personal and commercial development advice on Isarta Infos. Today, he gives his tips for writing service offers that convert the most into sales.
When you present service offers, how many convert into tangible contracts? 20%, 50%, 75%? Depending on your industry, as a rule of thumb, a great success rate should be between 50% and 75%.
If you are not getting these ratios, it means that your approach needs to be improved: your offers are not sufficiently relevant and satisfactory to the needs of your prospects or clients.
Sometimes I get the impression that the role of many representatives is to respond to calls for tender. However, your role is to obtain contracts. This is a major distinction in the way you work, because it is what distinguishes an effective and successful salesperson. There is no reason why your bid-to-contract conversion rate should not be higher than 50%, regardless of the market you operate in. If you really meet the customer’s needs in your service offer, they will want to do business with you and your company.
How to increase your conversion rate?
In order to increase your conversion rate, it is essential that you understand your customer’s basic needs before making your service offer. You must not stop at the surface needs that he communicates to you.
For example, a prospect mentions to the Doe Printing Equipment representative that he wants a quote for the replacement of his machinery in his printing department. The sales representative can give him a list of products and associated costs in his quote, which the customer will easily decline if another supplier comes up with a better offer.
If the representative really wants to help the customer and put all the chances on his side to obtain this contract, he will question the customer to understand the real problem(s) he is facing with the current machinery and to know his profitability objectives. The precise answers obtained will allow him to propose a solution and products much more adapted to his real needs.
The customer will feel better understood and more confident. And even if the prices are a little higher than the competitors, the relationship of trust established with a real concern to help and a personalized service offer solving in-depth and longer term problems will make the customer choose this representative and this company.
So, question your prospect/client to find out their basic needs: levels of needs, constraints, challenges, problems, particularities, objectives, etc. This will put you in a good position to offer a strategic solution that is perfectly adapted to their needs and will bring more value to your services.
Know how to write the offer
If you have not discussed the important elements of your offer with the client before providing them with a final version of the proposal, your conversion rate into a contract will undeniably be low, as the probability that your offer does not sufficiently meet their needs will remain high.
When the client asks you for a service offer, he wants to know “how much it costs”. But what they really want is to obtain the best service or products at the best possible cost according to their objectives and needs. A perfectly tailored service offer or quote should therefore have been discussed with him before writing the final version of your offer.
Also, don’t waste hours preparing a service offer without having validated the price with him first. Tell them the price at the end of your conversation. If you are unable to do so, send him an email within 48 hours to validate the essential elements of your offer: his needs, his objectives, the solution, the approach and the price. Depending on their response, you’ll know whether or not to follow up with a formal service offer.
What should be included in the service offer
Here are the elements that should generally be found in a service offer or a quote:
- The specific needs and objectives of the client;
- The benefits that the client will receive;
- The proposed solution;
- The price;
- Terms and conditions;
- Your company (your successes, your expertise, your experience, your references, etc.).
The weight of the written proposal in the client’s decision is not as important as one might think. If they choose to do business with you, it is mainly because of the real help you will provide and the bond of trust you will have established through your approach based on their basic needs.
