Proposals and estimates can be a huge waste of time, especially if you're not diligent about sorting prospects before doing them. One method I use for sorting prospects is a white paper.
Here's how it works.
A while back, I was exchanging emails with a prospect, and we scheduled a phone call. Now, based on a few different things like organizational structure and philosophy, I was pretty sure they wouldn't be a good fit. However, I decided to have a conversation with them before I completely disqualified them.
Once on the phone call, I asked, "So why are we talking?"
"We're about to hire six to eight people this year," she replied.
"Is that because of growth?" I asked.
She got really quiet. "No," she finally said.
It turns out they had a team of around thirty salespeople, and a new vice president of sales had been hired. A number of the team didn't like some of the changes she was making, including things like accountability.
She then asked me for a proposal. People who ask me for a proposal tend to live in a world where proposals are normal. Of course, that doesn't mean I actually do a proposal for them.
I responded, "Before we do anything, I'm going to make a suggestion. I'm going to email you a link to a white paper that gives you a high-level overview to our methodology. Before I potentially waste tons of your time, download that and read it. Then tell me if we should still talk."
Before we hung up the phone, we settled on a follow-up conversation. I sent her a calendar invite, and she quickly accepted.
The next day, I got an automated email from my website letting me know she had downloaded the white paper. A couple hours later, I got an email letting me know she'd declined the appointment she had already accepted.
I shot her a quick email. I asked, "Did something come up, or should I take that as a sign that we're done?"
I got a succinct reply back. Suffice it to say, we were done. She didn't like our methodology. She wanted her people to take more meetings and do more proposals. She didn't like that we go against traditional sales methods so we can save time, energy, and money.
Which was, of course, ironic since she and I had just saved tons of time with the white paper.
