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Typical Proposals vs. Co-Creation Proposals
Here are the specific differences with recommendations
Peter Button
February 05, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes
Hello Sales Reset Community
At the start of this week, your first Weekly Sales Reset newsletter introduced the differences between two very different types of sales proposals.
typical proposals: Proposals that seek to get a purchase order immediately for the products and services you’re selling.
co-creation proposal: Proposals designed to secure agreement to collaborate in proposal development.
I suggested that maybe 20% of your proposals should be written as co-creation proposals. I recommended you review your recent and current proposals to see which might have been better as a co-creation proposal.
Now that we’ve introduced the big idea of “co-creation proposals”, let’s examine the differences in more detail.
We’ll start with a quick reminder of our recommended proposal structure.
Reminder of our Sales Reset proposal template
In a previous newsletter, I recommended the following structure for your proposals.
This structure makes it easy for people to forward your proposals to their colleagues:
title: Your proposal title should create a great first impression and ideally focus on the proposal's outcomes for this specific customer.
summary: Busy, senior people are unlikely to read your whole proposal. They’re more likely to read the whole of your summary. Write this summary of your proposal last.
background: Briefly explain what has led to this proposal and the elements of the current situation.
outcomes: You helped your customer define these outcomes with your coaching skills.
recommendations: Briefly explain the products and services you recommend to achieve their desired outcomes.
investment: Provide sufficient details about the costs of your products and services.
return on investment: Demonstrate how your recommended investment will pay for itself.
next actions: Clarify who will need to do what and by when to proceed with these proposals.
appendices: If you need to include detailed specifications, use clickable text links to online resources or put them at the end of your proposal. This will make your proposal faster and easier to read.
Comparing Proposals
Based on this recommended proposal structure, let’s compare the content of typical proposals and co-creation proposals:
Proposal Section | Typical Proposals | Co-Creation Proposals |
|---|---|---|
Title | The proposal title is all about what you’re selling | The proposal title is about the benefits of collaborating in proposal development |
Summary | Summarising the proposal to purchase | Summarising the proposal to collaborate |
Background | Informs senior decision-makers about the background of a proposed commercial investment. | Informs all key stakeholders about the background of a proposed investment of time and effort in co-creation |
Outcomes | The ultimate outcomes of an investment in your products and services. | The outcomes of collaboration, regardless of whether or not they choose to buy from you |
Recommendations | Details of what you’re selling | Details of how you propose to collaborate |
Investment | Primarily focused on the financial cost of the proposed investment | Primarily focused on the time and effort cost of the proposed collaboration |
Return on Investment | How will the financial investment pay for itself? | How will this investment of time and effort deliver value? |
Next Actions | Lists the actions required to make an investment decision and seeks the purchase order | Lists the actions required to commence collaboration and seeks agreement to proceed |
Appendices | Provide detailed information about your company, products, services, etc. | Information about your collaboration processes |
Have a go!
The first time you try to create a proposal in this new format, it will take longer than repeating your normal proposal process.
Take a look at your current opportunity pipeline. Choose the situation where this approach is most likely to be successful. Then, try it!
You might like to ask your sales team leader for support and feedback. It’s almost always helpful to involve other people so you can benefit from their different perspectives and experiences.
I’ll be hugely interested to hear your feedback on this big idea.
Just hit reply to send me an email with your observations.
Have a great week!
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