Questions to ask before submitting a corporate proposal

by Davina Schonle | Aug 15, 2021 | Business

A couple of weeks ago we covered one of the secrets of corporate proposals – uncovering the RIGHT need. If you don’t identify and clarify the right needs you will be wasting both yours and the company’s time and you may not get another opportunity again.

This week we wanted to take you through some questions to ask before submitting a proposal. This assumes you have nailed down the details of the budget (what they are wanting to spend on this), the details of the solution and who/how many people it is for (depending on what your proposal is about, of course).

Here are some useful questions to ask:

What will the next steps be? How will this be approved?
It’s good to know how decisions are made in this company, it could be that this proposal needs to be taken to a certain meeting that is only held monthly for example. It could be signed off by a finance team which could cause some additional delays. Based on the value of the contract the number of decision-makers/stakeholders involved can vary. What are this business’s internal approval processes? It is good to understand this so you know how long it will really take to become fully approved.

Is there anything else that you need to know or are there any other people in your process?
It’s good to find out who will be making the final decision and how many people are involved in the decision-making process. Often we talk about ‘decision-makers’ but the reality is there are often more than one person involved and can influence the decision so over time it is good to find out the true influence and power of the stakeholders involved.

Who will have the final say, what are that person’s priorities? It is good to find out exactly who in the business has the final approval on this and what this person’s top priorities are. If your proposal does not solve the decision-makers top priorities then it is very unlikely to be approved.

How soon would you want this to take place/start? Sometimes the company has no intention of doing the work until a couple of quarters later so it is good to find this out up front. Urgent to one person can be completely different to another person. For corporates urgent can mean 3-6 months so you need to get on the same page and manage expectations. This ideally should be identified before this stage but we have included it because it is so important.

Is there already a budget identified? If there isn’t a budget identified then the individual may need to source this from a central resource which could require additional sign off and take more time. It could be the budget has already been allocated for this and this will speed things along.

Are you reviewing any other offers? There is a debate whether this is a good question to ask or not. It is personal preference and it depends on what industry you are in/what you are offering because sometimes you want to position yourself as the only solution, other times you need an opportunity to address any concerns they have and why they may choose another provider. It can be good to know how many other offers you are up against as this could elongate the approval process. Our advice is to ask this question if the relationship is good.

Do you need anything else from me to help you cross this over the last hurdle? This is a great question to help you identify what else you could add into your proposal that might answer a question or a concern during the approval process.

Is there anything that could delay this from going ahead?
For example, it would be good to know that a new senior leader is entering the business which could change the businesses priorities.

Think about one of your recent proposals. Did you have all of this information? Would it have helped?

Next week we will be looking at why you might be asked for a proposal and the ways companies can formally request proposals.