|Commercial offer in B2B
Everyone knows what a commercial offer is. In this article, I’d like to focus on and provide you with tips on what elements a good commercial offer in B2B should contain in order to maximize the chances of proving the end of the purpose for which they were created – to lead to a contract/order placement, etc.
All the following can be taken for granted, however, analyzing during conversations and meetings in many industries, and having access to a great many sales offers, I have seen how these obvious things are no longer so obvious in the daily work of sales representatives. Why does this happen, how, for various motives, do the people preparing the offers give up on holding to the standards? The most common reasons are habit, an apparent desire to “take shortcuts” and sometimes simply – laziness. And so, as a result of the inquiry, the client receives an offer in the body of the email, with old graphics, accompanied by a complicated price list in a PDF not readable by the client… instead of embedded on a layout that a team of graphic designers has worked on for 2 weeks so that it captures every detail and detail of the product or a marketing-enhanced marketing description.
Of course, sending an offer is only the beginning of its journey through the intricacies of decision-making processes on the client’s side, discussed in meetings, compared to competitors’ offers, and analyzed, if only with the director of finance, sales, production (delete as appropriate 🙂 )… or even with the spouse.
Therefore, it is worthwhile, if not to take care of the proper process of creating commercial offers in the form of a system that keeps custody of it, then at least to sprout this element of work and implement it as a binding standard.
| Lack of concern for this seemingly minor element, which is the commercial offer, is undoubtedly reflected in the money of the customers of your business, which… goes to the competition.
All right, but what should I pay attention to in order to improve the effectiveness of commercial offers? How to increase the effectiveness of commercial offers in B2B?
|Take care of the layout
The good graphic quality of the proposal you send is, in the eyes of the recipient (in a nutshell, but still), the good quality of the product you deliver or the service you perform.
Suppose your business is not ready to order a custom-designed layout for your company. In that case, there are plenty of beautiful templates to choose from, both for file standards such as Microsoft Word or Power Point, or their iOS or Google equivalents.
|Authenticate yourself
As the owner or employee of the company you represent, you know all its strengths, how many years it has been operating in the market, for whom it has worked, and how important projects it has completed – your client does not know this! Brag on your offer with realizations, experience, collaborations… anything that will build trust in your company.
|Give customers a choice
Everyone has the right to change their mind, especially the customer. If you send offers traditionally by email or via PDF your hands are a bit tied, although you can always mention alternatives, cross-sells, and up-sells in the content. If you have a personalized quoting tool take care to group related products or services into up-sells and cross-sells, e.g. when offering x m2 of sheet metal roofing, give customers the option to order additional protective covering, order a custom color, or purchase extras such as installation, or gutters. The customer will appreciate the possibility of automated selection, you will appreciate the increase in revenue for the company.
|Build the value of the product/service
For this, you can not only use descriptions but also good-quality photos, of products in their entirety and details. In the case of services, pictures of the team behind which are competent in the area of services provided. You should also use multimedia like video or 3D presentations. In the case of using email and PDF, you can send links to them, in the case of a dedicated solution you can embed them in the offer itself, which is a digital document.
|Show what the process of delivering the product or service looks like
Describe in the following steps what the process of delivering the product or performing the service will look like. Of course, not every commercial offer has to include this element, but it is especially important in the case of products whose production process is yet to come, or services that are usually delivered within a specific timeframe.
|Price is the most important!
Are you sure it is? Price will always be a key element of your offer, but don’t neglect the others, as described in the other points. Of course, along with the price, show in detail what the customer will get by using your offer. For example, if it’s going to be a service, you can indicate the man-hours needed to complete the task.
|Call to action
Don’t leave the customer on his own with no idea what to do next, of course, is determined, and he will know what steps to take, but it is worth leaving “signposts” as to what he should do next, both in a situation in which the conditions are right, and he wants to place an order and in one in which he wants to make changes to the received offer.
|From offer to order – with one click
Make it easy for your customers to further process an offer to an order! In the case of traditional forms of commercial offers such as e-mails or PDFs, you have to stop at the previous point; in the case of systems supporting the offer process, you can design them so that the commercial offer is accepted with one click and, for example, goes directly to the CRM or ERP system. It is also worth ensuring that a summary of the accepted commercial offer goes to the customer, e.g., via email.
