Well, Nick Mason, CEO of Turtl, recently sat down with two such experts to provide that exact insight; Steve Robinson, founder and CEO of Sales Engine, and Simon Morton, Sales Engine co-founder. Sales Engine is the UK’s leading sales, bid, and contract support expert as well as being one of Turtl’s valued partners.

The entire discussion (roughly 45 minutes) can be viewed on-demand and is worth a watch for anybody curious about a full breakdown of how to produce optimized modern sales proposals.

But for those who prefer to scroll at their own leisure, we’ve picked out 4 of the most informative conversation points, complete with excerpts from the recording, for you to read through and absorb.

The current status of sales proposals

The conversation about the state of sales proposals came with a mixture of good and bad news.

The bad news: “There’s a lot of very dull sales proposals out there” was Steve’s damning summary of the sales proposals scene.

The good news: “The partnership between Turtl and Sales Engine is all about trying to help customers to do something better, different, and more engaging.“

One of the best ways to combat these below-par proposals is through what Nick, Simon, and Steve identify as co-creation; working with the customer to create your sales proposal.

In Nick’s eyes, this has the advantage of turning a proposal into an internal document for the customer. There are a variety of ways to involve the customer in the proposal production process with Turtl.

An example that crops up in the talk, is to integrate a conversation recording of your salesperson and the customer’s Head of Marketing into the sales proposal. This could clearly complement the customer’s expectations and requirements and really sets the scene for a personalized proposal.

This video would then become a reference point for the decision-maker reading the proposal. Co-creation like this ensures customers have a sense of their own involvement in the proposal production process.

Looking to the future of modern sales proposals

2022 sales proposals are in for a massive reform. Just ask Steve. For the Sales Engine founder the term ‘co-creation’ evokes something more all-encompassing.

Only sending customer proposals at the very end of the production process and requesting feedback is no longer viable.

Instead, as hinted at by Nick earlier, a more holistic approach that involves both parties is proving to be more effective at securing a deal.

The future Steve sees, hinges on the idea that sales proposals become a living document. One that can be updated regularly and easily. These changes would be based on direct feedback from the customer and valuable insights into their engagement.

This new method would remove the time-consuming drafting process, trim back excess information, and turn sales proposals into reactive documents.

Collateral standardization and centralization

At Turtl, science is central to everything we do. We examine data constantly to improve our product. We share our most compelling findings through great storytelling. Then we present those findings using the most brain-friendly format available.

Access to quality information and data begins this whole process. While sales and marketing have benefited from significant data collection innovation with widely used CRM platforms such as Hubspot, sales proposals haven’t enjoyed the same enhancements.

Using Turtl to produce sales proposals documents enables Sales Engine, and our other customers, to access the Turtl Analytics Tool. As a result, users can dive deep to access valuable data about their sales proposals.

As a result, the opportunities for improving performance are endless. Allowing users to experiment with new formats and discover what drives optimum results.

This aligns perfectly with current internal trends. Especially considering that LinkedIn discovered companies are currently looking for solutions to boost the efficiency of their teams and enable their salespeople to spend more time selling (currently only at 39%) and less time on repetitive and administrative tasks.

These results, and the conclusions drawn from them, allow Sales Engine to go beyond showing solid evidence-based proposals to customers. It allows them to look at the past for directions and towards a future of optimized sales proposals.

What kind of proposal isn’t personal?

Answer: A bad one. And no, that’s not a riddle.

In fact, 47% of buyers “strongly agree” that they’re more likely to consider a brand when a sales rep provides personalized communication.

Personalization played a recurring part in the trios’ conversation. Since the launch of Turtl Labs last month, marketers have proof that deep personalization has huge effects on content performance and engagement.

Nick, Steve, and Simon’s conversation also touched on another noteworthy aspect of personalization. Perhaps a consideration that sales leaders should be thinking about for their own teams.

“Making things easy for the seller is fundamental,” Steve explains. “Make it easy and prove that it has an impact, this is the best way to get more from your sales proposals, and more from the teams producing them too.”

As such, capitalizing on Turtl’s automated personalization function, which is proven to increase engagement, means one less task for sales teams writing these sales proposals. Marrying automation with the in-depth knowledge of a salesperson leads to enhanced results for Sales Engine’s sales teams.

Steve and Simon aren’t the only ones seeing the benefits of Turtl saving businesses time and money. We recently revealed that Informa Markets saw a 90% reduction in production time by switching from static legacy formats like PDFs and presentations to inventive Turtl Docs. As a result, 1,540 hours are saved per person a year, and therefore Informa Markets finds $138,000+ annual savings.