BY GEOFFREY JAMES @SALES_SOURCE

A simple template that can help you close millions of dollars of business deals throughout your entire career.

Shared: From your friends TechAutoCareers.com® the online resource for the Automotive Sales Consultant

In "How to Write a Killer Sales Email," I explained how to use email to start up an email dialog with a potential customer. This post describes the other end of that sales process--the email you send to close the deal.

Proposal emails are not the same as the formal sales proposal written in response to an official Request For Proposal (RFP). I discuss formal sales proposals in "How to Write an Executive Summary."

Proposal emails are summaries of the discussions and dialogs that you've had with a potential customer and a written, explicit statement of the business arrangements you've discussed.

You write a proposal email after you've come to a basic agreement with the customer about what you're providing and what the prospective customer will pay. The proposal email has the following structure:

1. Statement of gratitude (1 sentence)

2. Problem definition/financial impact (1-2 sentences)

3. Desired outcome (1-2 sentences)

4. Proposed solution (2-5 sentences)

5. Proposed price (1 sentence)

6. Risk reduction (1-2 sentences)

7. Next step (1 sentence)

For example:

John,

First off, I'd like to thank you for the time you've spent helping me understand your needs. (statement of gratitude.)

As I understand it, your service technicians are spending several hours a day driving from job to job, which is costing your company $1 million in lost revenue. (problem definition/financial impact)

You would like to reduce driving time that your current staff of technicians can service more customers. (desired outcome)

As we discussed, our OptiRout system will generate a more efficient driving itinerary, resulting in an ability to service between 10% to 20% more customers. (proposed solution)

As you know, the base price for our product is $10,000 with ongoing support costs of $1,000 a year. This includes customizing the system to match the driving conditions in your geographical area. (proposed price)

Based upon the benefits of more efficient routing, you should achieve return on investment within one month of installation. (risk removal)

We can begin work as soon as I receive your go-ahead via email. (next step)

Mary

For complex business arrangements you may also need to create a "letter of agreement" that specifies detailed terms. If this is the case, the next step in the proposal email would be the go-ahead for you to create the letter of agreement. I'll discuss those in a future post.

As with all business emails, make every sentence as concise as possible. Avoid jargon and biz-blab. Do not provide additional information of attempt to sell something else that hasn't been discussed. Remember: no surprises.

I'm going to repeat: no surprises. While your sales proposal email is technically a "sales document," it's not where you do the selling. You do that while you're having a dialog (either by telephone or email interchange) with the potential customer.

I've used this template to close the final deal for dozens of projects. It's simple, straightforward and, most important, gets the job done. BTW, I discuss sales messages, emails and sales scripts in my free weekly newsletter.

What do you think? Is this something you can benefit from or do you have a few tricks up your sleeve that are just as powerful? Make your voice heard by leaving a comment below. Don’t forget to hit the share button if you know others who will find this post useful.

I.C. Collins ~ Author, Educator, Trainer and President: Has One Simple Goal: Improve a Million Automotive Sales Consultants Lives with our ebook "How to Succeed in the Automotive Sales Industry"

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