Picture the scene: you’ve spent weeks building rapport with a prospect, you understand their business inside out and you could recite their requirements in your sleep. Only then to fall down at the last hurdle – they don’t like your proposal. In my experience, the main reasons people have rejected my proposals are either:

• They don’t fully understand the offering
• They can’t see the value
• It’s too long and not engaging enough
• It’s passed onto someone senior in the business who just skips to the last page to see the prices.

Lots of businesses use video in their sales process already but how do you increase sales close rates with it?

The benefits of using video in sales proposals

• People who may not have been involved in all of the sales meetings can see you and get a better understanding of who you are and what you’re offering
• Prospects get a clearer explanation of what you’re offering and are therefore better equipped to make an informed decision
• You’ll stand out! This may be the 6th proposal they’ve received, yours will be the one they pay attention to
• If you use the right platform you can get data on how many times they have watched your proposal and how much of it they have watched.

Before you make the video

The only surefire way to use video to its full effectiveness is to make sure you’ve done the groundwork first. Clients want their proposals to prove how their problems will be solved, answer the unanswered and provide clarity.

If your client has provided you with their own brief, mirror this back to them when putting together your proposal. Structure? Copy it. Choice of language? Reflect it. Font? Why the hell not? The only thing you won’t be mirroring is the format. Personally, I like to put together a PowerPoint (or Google Slides) deck which walks them through what working with Noisy Little Monkey looks like. The structure usually looks something like this:

• Where are you at right now? (Reiterate challenges they’ve stated in their own brief with some extra nuance provided by the conversations I’ve had with them.)
• Where do you want to be? (State the goals they’ve outlined in their proposal, with a little spice that you’ll have from finding out their personal goals and how they align with the professional goals.)
• How are we going to get you there? (Typically, this is different for each client.)

The most important thing for these slides is to keep the text to a minimum. Get the important points on the page – the rest you can sell in the video.

Making the video

Once you’ve equipped yourself with a dazzling presentation, it’s time to rehearse. I have tried winging these before and trust me, bad idea. Grab your boss, a colleague  or a mirror and go through each slide. For each slide, you want to bring everything back to your client – their goals, how this particular element is going to solve a problem, how it’s going to make them famous in their organisation. The slides are your sausage, you are the sizzle.

My top tips for recording the video sales proposal:

• Use Soapbox or Vidyard so you can monitor when they’ve watched the video. This will increase the likelihood of a well-timed follow up. It also means you can share your presentation while recording.
• SMILE. Be excited about what you’re selling. Chances are if you’re visibly excited they’ll elicit the same emotion. Don’t overdo it though, you’re not selling life-size Tom Hardy models. (Unless you are, then hit me up 👀)
• Make sure you’re saying “you” more than you’re saying “I” or “we”. This is their proposal after all.
• Explain each aspect of what you’re proposing and sell the benefit to the client. For example, one aspect of my proposals is an SEO audit, but the benefit of this to a client is actionable tips to help them get ahead of their competitors on Google.
• Summarise at the end. Be really clear I.E “this is your challenge, here is how we are going to help with that.”

After you make the sales proposal video

Once you’ve filmed your sales proposal video and are happy with it, it’s important to add captions for those with hearing impairments. You can use Rev.com or similar to burn subtitles into your video or use an app that adds them on during filming.

Now it’s time for that killer email to go with the video. Keep the email simple and set them a deadline for when you’re going to follow up on your proposal. Try something like:

“Hey Rami,

Here is your video proposal. Once you’ve watched it and had time to digest, I’ll be in touch to discuss next steps and any questions you may have. How does Wednesday sound?”

But does this actually increase close rate?

Yep. Looking at our HubSpot reporting, prospects who received a video proposal from us rather than a word document are way more likely to be a win. In fact, I’ve had multiple requests for training on how to do a video proposal because it made “such an impression”. Not to toot my own horn but toot toot.  

That’s all from me folks, hit me up on LinkedIn for more sales tips.