Dayana Mayfield

How to Add an E-Signature to Google Docs for Free [3 Ways]

If you want to add a signature to a Google Doc, you have a few different options.

You could use Google Drawing, try Google’s new e-signature tool, or upload a photo of your signature to your document. All of these methods are free and easy.

But they don’t provide an ideal experience for you or your client (which is why we’ve included a bonus method!). For a more professional look and full visibility into the signing process, you might want to consider proposal software.

Keep reading for tutorials and pros and cons on each method

Cold Calling Advice From a 16-Year Sales Vet

Talking to people on the phone is easy, right?

In a world enamored by text, phone calls aren't as common as they used to be, making it all the more awkward when you have to run outbound calls as part of your job. Add in prospect resistance, and you've got a recipe for a very difficult day.

But cold calling still offers an amazing opportunity to drive leads, which is why most B2B businesses still practice it regularly.

So, how do you succeed?

To get expert cold calling advice, our VP of marketing Nadia Milani sat down with Tom Slocum, a 16-year sales veteran and GTM consultant at The SD Lab. He shared some smart tips to guide you no matter your experience or comfort level.

Keep reading for the top highlights from our recent installment of The Closing Show Live or watch the full video.

(Or, skip to minute 24:02 to hear playbacks and reviews of real cold calls.)

15 PandaDoc Alternatives: Which One is Best for You?

These PandaDoc alternatives do it all: send proposals, automate workflows, collect e-signatures, and process payments.

But which one is right for you?

Maybe you want to help your sales team send proposals in a fraction of the time. Or, maybe you’re hoping to get contract features inside a client operations platform.

Whatever your motivation for seeking out a PandaDoc competitor, we’ve got you covered with tips on how to choose the right one plus a list of the top 15 options.

What’s in this guide:

• Why look for a PandaDoc alternative?

• How to vet PandaDoc alternatives

• Top 15 PandaDoc alternatives for 2023

7 Customer Research Tips from “The Customer Whisperer”

In 2014, Katelyn Bourgoin founded a peer-to-peer mentoring platform for female entrepreneurs. She was VC-backed and convinced she was going to be the next big thing. In 2017, it all crashed down around her.

Why? Despite doing 300 customer interviews, her approach was all wrong. “We built the wrong thing,” Katelyn admits.

In a fortunate turn of events, one of her VCs asked her to consult on marketing for their portfolio of startups and her obsession with customer research was born. Since then, she’s interviewed thousands of customers as part of her consulting services at Customer Camp and taught startup leaders how to run interviews themselves.

During a recent episode of The Closing Show Live, our VP of Marketing Nadia Milani sat down with Katelyn to get her very best customer research tips.

Watch the full interview or keep reading for her top-notch advice.

How to Write a Proposal Letter for Any Use Case [+ Templates]

Whether you’re writing a business proposal, project quote, or sales pitch, you’re going to need a top-notch proposal letter.

This letter provides context to the recipient, sets the tone and style for the proposal, and encourages the recipient to review your complete proposal.

But…writing is hard work!

To make things easier, we’ve got a simple 5-step process to help you craft your letter.

Below, you’ll also find 3 unique templates with an example proposal letter for each.

What’s in this guide:

• What is a proposal letter?

• 5 steps for writing a proposal letter

• Proposal letter template #1 (Sales pitch)

• Proposal letter template #2 (Project quote)

• Proposal letter template #3 (Business partnership)

Emails for Proposal Submissions: 4 Methods With Samples

You’ve written all the essential sections for your proposal. The design looks great. Now…all you need to do is craft the perfect email to submit your proposal to your prospective client.

But, writer’s block is settling in. You’re not quite sure what to write in your proposal submission email.

Don’t fret. To help you cross this task off your to-do list, we’ve rounded up 4 unique methods for writing proposal submission emails. Plus, we’ve got email samples for each method.

All you have to do is copy and paste your favorite email sample and customize it to your needs. Let’s do this!

What’s in this guide:

• Why your proposal submission email matters

• 4 methods for writing proposal submission emails [with samples]

• Must-have email templates when submitting proposals

The Easy Guide to Online Contracts [+3 Templates]

In today’s business world, online contracts are common. But are they legally binding? And how do you know what to include in your contract so it protects all parties?

In our easy guide to online contracts, we answer your burning questions, offer a step-by-step process for collecting e-signatures, and share our 3 favorite templates.

You’ll get that agreement signed in no time.

What’s in this guide:

• What is an online contract?

• How to collect electronic signatures

• 3 online contract templates to try

Looking for professional proposal, contract, and quote software? Get started with Proposify’s contract templates.

Expert Tips to Revamp Your Revenue Operations Strategy

In today's fast-paced world, it's crucial for companies to be as efficient as possible to stay competitive. This is where RevOps comes in. RevOps, short for revenue operations, is a holistic approach to aligning sales, marketing, customer success, and operational functions to drive revenue growth. It's the engine that helps everything run smoothly, from top-of-funnel to revenue through expansion.

Nadia Milani, Proposify’s CMO and the host of The Closing Show Live dove into all things RevOps on a recent episode. She sat down with special guests, Rosalyn Santa Elena, founder of The RevOps Collective, Adam Pelley, marketing operations manager at Proposify, and Colin Tanner, revenue operations manager at League to discuss the value that RevOps brings to the table and how to craft a winning strategy for RevOps implementation.

Watch the full episode here or keep reading for their hottest takes.

How to Align Your B2B Sales and Marketing Teams

With more metrics, more channels, and more trends, B2B marketing and sales alignment isn’t going to get any easier in 2023.

So, we chatted with Jessie Lizak, CMO at BDEX, and Eddy Bahnam, Founder and Sales Consultant at EB3.

This dynamic duo cohosts Whiskey Wednesday, a weekly evening podcast that brings sales and marketing together like never before.

Jessie and Eddy work on improving sales and marketing alignment within their in-house roles. PLUS they collaborate together to grow Whiskey Wednesday (with Jessie bringing the marketing expertise and Eddy bringing the sales swagger), regularly chatting with experts in both fields on their podcast.

Needless to say, they’re really in the trenches.

Keep reading for their hot takes or catch the full episode here:

How to Create a Partnership Proposal [With Free Template]

When embarking on a business partnership, expect challenges. Partners have different personalities, working styles, daily schedules, and initial investments. You need to juggle working together (possibly for the first time) while addressing market needs and differentiating yourself from competitors.

A partnership proposal can help make those challenges a little less daunting by clarifying the details of your collaboration before you even launch your business. It can get everyone on the same page, reducing the risks of detrimental disagreements later on.

But drafting such a proposal is no small task.

To help you on your journey, we’ve got step-by-step instructions and a helpful partnership proposal template.

9 Social Selling Tips from a Pioneer of the Strategy

We sat down with social selling expert and coach Evan Patterson to get his piping-hot takes on the strategy. He’s been social selling since back when it was all manual, without fancy intent tools to help.

If you’ve been asking these questions, you’re in the right place…

How do we find the right people to sell to on social media?

How can we get our company on board?

What should and shouldn’t we measure?

The answers await. So keep reading for Evan’s very best social selling tips.

Or catch the full episode here:

7 AI Writing Ideas to Speed Up Your Next Sales Proposal

Marketers, sales professionals, and business leaders are all talking about the power of generative AI.

AI writing assistants are already being used to craft blog post headlines, outlines, and even paragraphs.

But what about proposals?

Is it possible to use AI to create a better proposal in less time?

We ran some experiments to find out how AI can help you write a proposal today—not guesses about the future (though we have some of those too).

Keep reading for our favorite ways to use AI to your advantage, pitfalls to watch out for, and free and affordable AI tools.

30 Deal Closing Business Proposal Ideas [With Examples]

Want to increase your closing rate?

We’ve got expert ideas to help you take your business proposals to the next level.

Say goodbye to boring, stale proposals. We’re going to bring your pitch to life so that prospective clients can’t help but say “yes.”

From video embeds to editable pricing tables to high-quality image galleries, you’ll find tons of smart ideas to apply to your unique services.

5 Steps to Writing a Business Plan Cover Letter [+ Templates!]

Every business plan needs a cover letter. Also known as an introduction, executive summary, or overview, your cover letter is your first impression.

It sets the stage for the rest of the document and tells the reader what to expect. Most importantly, it compels the reader to spend the time it will take to review the plan in full.

But how do you write a cover letter? What should it say?

There will be no guesswork here. We’re covering all of the essential deets to include. Plus, we’ve got templates to make your life easier.

Tough Year? Here's How Pro Sellers are Prepping for 2023

Sometimes ho ho ho feels more like whoa whoa whoa. As in…How can I close a couple more deals before everyone disappears? And how can I make our solution a priority for my leads come January?

Maybe you’ve had a tough year and gotten a lot more “Nos” than you’re used to. Or maybe your year was okay, but with the slowness of the holiday season settling in, you’re starting to worry about further economic downturns.

When the sales environment is tough, it can be challenging to stay upbeat and confident. But stay upbeat and confident you must.

During our holiday episode of the Closing Show Live, called Sleigh Your Targets, we chatted with four sales experts to help us buck up for the final push of Q4 and the year ahead: Tyler Lessard from Vidyard, Amy Volas from Avenue Talent Partners, sales trainer James Buckley, and sales development director Jesse Gittler.

Watch the full live event for their best tactics or keep reading for our favorite takeaways.

Sell Like You: Own Your Unique Sales Style to Unlock Growth

Do you put more trust in “the experts” than yourself?

Are you always searching for the next best framework?

These are signs that you’re struggling with mediocrity. Not because you are mediocre, but because you haven’t yet tapped into your unique style and personality as a salesperson.

When you’re out of alignment, your results will be so-so.

Jeff Bajorek, the creator of the #SellLikeYou movement, says that helping sellers believe in themselves is worth more than skill training. He laid down some piping-hot motivation on our recent episode of the Closing Show Live. And in this case, a video is worth a million words.

Catch the full episode here for his walkthrough of how to get yourself aligned with who you truly are. Or, keep reading for his step-by-step process to hone your unique selling style and transform your potential.

“You’re the secret ingredient to your own success.” - Jeff Bajorek, Sales Trainer

How to Write a Sales Proposal Designed to Close [+ Templates]

If you’re working on a sales proposal, there are probably two things you care about:

1. That the proposal will close.

2. That you won’t have to spend hours creating it.

You shouldn’t have to guess what to write, wrangle obnoxious software, or pretend to be a graphic designer.

Our actionable guide to creating a sales proposal will help you cover all the necessary details to win over your prospect—all while saving hours of time.

Plus, we’ve got examples and templates from a variety of industries, from consulting to construction.

Here’s what we’re covering:

• What is a sales proposal

• 3 sales proposal examples

• What to include in a sales proposal

• How to write a sales proposal

• 7 tips for sales proposal writing

• How to follow up on a sales proposal

8 Pro Tips for Asking Better Sales Discovery Questions

You can ask discovery questions that impress your buyer and show them that you’re the right person to help them. Or…you could totally blow it and bore them with the same basic questions they’ve heard on every other sales call throughout their entire career.

So, how do you make sure your discovery questions set you up for success?

We chatted with Hannah Ajikawo, CTM consultant for Skaled and a top voice in sales on LinkedIn, to learn how we ask better questions and improve the buying experience.

Click here to watch the full interview, or keep reading for Hannah’s best advice.

Dropbox Sign (Formerly Hellosign) VS. DocuSign Comparison

Are you wondering how Hellosign compares with DocuSign?

Well…Dropbox recently acquired Hellosign, so the platform is actually now called Dropbox Sign.

In this guide, we’re comparing Dropbox Sign versus DocuSign to help you choose the ultimate e-signature platform.

Which one is right for you? It depends—do you want to get the cheapest option that covers your basic needs? Or are you willing to pay more for advanced analytics, team collaboration, and security?

No matter your e-signature needs, all of the answers are about to be crystal clear.

Comparison Categories:

• Reviews

• Unlimited Signature Requests

• Conditional Fields

• Integrations

• Custom Branding

• Pricing

• Templates

• API

• Security

• Analytics and Reporting

• Additional Use Cases

Ramp Up Your Revenue with Customer Success Expansions

When customers sign up, they’re putting you to the test. Most accounts don’t give you all of their business right away. They give you a taste and see how you can handle it.

Customer success holds the keys to limitless revenue potential.

We sat down with our very own Jasper Goodwin, Customer Success Team Manager at Proposify, and Nick Brown, Senior CSM, to get all of the details on how they grow accounts from dozens of users to hundreds.

Keep reading for all of their truth bombs on customer success expansions or catch the full interview in this episode of the Closing Show Live.

A Sales Pro Shares 7 Tips for Better Discovery Calls

For an account executive, discovery calls are the only phase of the sales process that will happen 100% of the time. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll make it to the next step.

So you need to deliver every chance you’ve got.

Your discovery calls have a massive impact on your closing rates, your deal sizes, and how short your sales cycle is. They matter that much.

During the most recent episode of the Closing Show Live, we sat down with Daniel Hebert, Director of Sales at Q4, to learn how he approaches discovery calls and how he trains the reps on his team.

Click here to watch the full interview, or keep reading for Daniel’s best tips.

How to Write a Proposal in 10 Easy Steps [Templates Included]

You’re tasked with writing a proposal, and a lot is at stake.

Now is not the time to guess. What should you write? How can you appeal to the client’s deepest desires? How do you satisfy client expectations for your specific industry?

Now is the time to follow a proven process. We’ve analyzed millions of proposals sent with our software to see which tips and tricks actually have an impact on closing rates.

We’re covering all that and more.

Keep reading for our step-by-step guide that shows you exactly how to write a proposal simply by customizing the sections in one of our proposal templates. The right template will show you exactly what to include while helping you save hours on design and formatting.

What’s in this guide:

• What is a proposal?

• How to write a proposal in 10 easy steps

• Industry-specific proposal writing guidelines

• 3 proposal templates

• Next steps: write your own proposal

Expert Advice to Guide Your Sales Career Path

It’s a common trajectory: do one to two years as an SDR and then become an AE. But what if your career path in sales looks a little different?

In our latest episode of The Closing Show Live, we sat down with Kristen Twining, the SVP of Global Sales for Illusive, an enterprise cybersecurity solution for preventing ransomware and other cyber attacks.

Kristen's had an uncommon career trajectory, transitioning straight out of college into a field sales role, and then going somewhat backward to work as an SDR before becoming an inside sales director and ultimately a senior vice president.

We asked her what makes a great AE, how to get a job as an AE, and how to transition into senior management.

Kristen loves being mentored and mentoring others. Keep reading for her hard-earned advice, or watch the full interview here.

Sales Is Tough: How to Adapt to the Current State of the Market

When we look back at mid to late 2022, will we see the start of a major recession or a small market correction?

No one knows for sure.

What we do know is that because of this uncertainty, selling is hard right now.

So, we sat down with Asad Zaman, CEO of Sales Talent Agency, during our latest installment of the Closing Show Live. We uncovered the current state of the market and what sellers can do about it.

Click here to watch the full interview, or keep reading for Asad’s best tips.

What Is Sales Velocity & How to Measure It With 3 Examples

Sales velocity is hands-down one of the best metrics to keep your eye on if you’re looking to increase revenue.

Without a clear understanding of your sales velocity, you might be analyzing your pipeline, your deal sizes, and your sales cycle without a good way to put all of this data together.

You won’t be able to forecast your revenue accurately or offer a North Star metric to your sales team to keep them on track with achieving goals that really matter to the business.

Luckily, sales velocity offers a lot of insight and inspiration. And it isn’t that hard to measure.

You should already have access to the data you need to calculate sales velocity for yourself as an individual contributor and for your team.

In this guide, show you how to calculate and utilize this metric. Plus, we offer a few examples of different velocities you can measure.

The Pro’s Guide to Handling Objections During the Sales Process

Objection protection—that’s what we want you to have.

We want you to know how to preemptively handle objections and how to get to the root of the customer’s concern.

To get all of this valuable info, we sat down with Morgan J Ingram in a recent episode of the Closing Show Live on LinkedIn.

Morgan is the VP of GTM Talent and Development and a sales consultant who upskills teams of AEs and SDRs.

Check out the full interview with Morgan or keep reading for his best objection-handling techniques.

The 10 Best DocuSign Alternatives for Each Team and Industry

There are dozens of tools for collecting legally binding e-signatures. With so many DocuSign alternatives available, it’s hard to know which one to choose.

Some of these platforms are an exact dupe for DocuSign, while others include e-signatures alongside software intended to streamline workflows for sales reps, HR professionals, and small business owners.

Are you looking for a simple e-signature tool? Or do you want e-signatures covered inside of a more robust operations platform?

In this ultimate guide to DocuSign alternatives, we do the heavy lifting for you.

We’ve hand-selected winners across a variety of categories, from the best free alternative to the best contract lifecycle management software for enterprises.

Keep reading for our list of winners and our tips on how to choose the best option for you.

What’s in this guide:

• Top reasons to seek out a DocuSign alternative

• Types of DocuSign alternatives

• Features to look for in a DocuSign alternative

• The best DocuSign alternatives for every purpose (⭐12 winners)

Personal Branding Tips for Sales Professionals [Online & Offline]

Personal branding can open new doors.

But even if you never go viral, your brand comes into play during client interactions and can really impact your numbers.

Will Aitken has certainly experienced all of the benefits of having an online presence and a unique style. Known for his humorous sales content, he’s transitioned from a sales role to a full-time content creator dedicated to edutaining salespeople. He now holds two titles: Head of Sales Content at Sales Feed and Video Content Creator at Vidyard.

Will is a firm believer that sales professionals need to have a solid understanding of their personal brand—both for client calls and social media content. And he’s showing us how.

Keep reading for his best advice, or catch the full conversation on our recent episode of the Closing Show Live on LinkedIn.

How to Write a Business Proposal [Steps, Tips, & Templates]

You need to send a business proposal, and you want it to close. But how can you improve your chances?

Every year, we analyze the proposals sent with our software to discover what makes closing more likely. We used this research to craft this very guide.

To help you write better business proposals, we’ve curated the essential proposal format, a step-by-step process, plenty of templates to help you get started, and strategies for following up.

From images to esignatures, keep reading for data-backed insights into the most successful proposals.

Proposify’s List of the Best Voices in Sales

Need to freshen up your LinkedIn feed with content relevant to your role?

LinkedIn can be a treasure trove of sales playbooks to try, mistakes to avoid, and good ole motivation.

But who do you follow to get the very best that LinkedIn #sales has to offer?

We’ve surveyed our own AEs and SDRs to find out who they love to follow on LinkedIn.

And so we present Proposify’s List of the Best Voices in Sales.

Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) Explained

If you want to know which contracts are in effect (and what stage they’re at), then you need to manage contracts throughout their lifecycle.

Unfortunately, we’re often too busy to manage contracts effectively. Managers and business owners simply save the PDF contract in their downloads folder, and forget all about it. But this paves the way for legal and financial risks.

Sellers need to improve their proposal and contract operations, while buyers need to rework how they track contract fulfillment, compliance, and renewals to be sure they’re maximizing every contract.

In this guide, we dive into the key stages of contract lifecycle management and showcase smart tools to help you manage your contracts proactively.

10 Steps for Fixing Your Marketing and Sales Alignment

On our latest episode of The Closing Show, Chief Revenue Officer Connor Cox and some of our marketing and sales leaders talk about the dire misalignment they were dealing with and how they finally got aligned.

How to Write a Software Proposal (With Examples)

The software—or SaaS (software as a service)—industry provides customers with a unique mix of both products and services.

Many software companies offer implementation services, custom integration projects, employee training, and customer success manager check-ins. Large enterprise and government organizations tend to need many of these services in addition to the software subscription in order to help them get results from the platform.

For those reasons, software proposals are commonplace. Large companies are more likely to purchase software from a proposal than a one-size-fits-all subscription on the company’s website. A software proposal can clarify what an engagement includes while also selling a prospective customer on the fact that they will be fully supported in their quest for ROI.

How to Write a Proposal for a Project (With Examples)

An excellent project proposal should address the client’s main concerns and goals, sell your unique approach, and clarify the project process.

If the project is crystal clear to both you and your client, you can reduce confusion, scope creep, and complaints.

In this guide to writing proposals for projects, we dive into what this type of proposal must include and how to write one. Plus, we showcase excellent examples to copy and data-driven best practices to follow.

What’s in this guide:

• What is a project proposal?

• What to include in a project proposal

• How to write a project proposal

• Examples of project proposals

• Tips for writing a project proposal

Looking for proposal templates, automated follow-ups, and closing insights? Get a custom Proposify demo.

4 Tips That Will Make Any Proposal More Likely to Close

You’ve based your recommendations on your client discovery process. You’ve added all the essential sections to your proposal. You’re ready to hit send on the proposal and hope it will close.

But what if there were just a few simple tweaks you could do to make sure to increase the chances that it will close?

We researched over 1 million proposals that were sent with our software last year to discover what great closers do before and after they hit send.

Below, we’ve pulled out some of the best tips from this research to help you in the final stretch.

Get all of our research. We’ve included dozens of simple, data-driven proposal tips in The 2022 State of Proposals.

7 Essential Tips for Expert Proposal Follow-ups

Follow-ups are a normal part of sending proposals. But wouldn’t it be better if clients just said “yes” straight away?

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that. Proposals with reminders are more likely to close.

We analyzed over 1 million proposals sent with our software to get to the bottom of whether or not follow-ups really work, how to send effective follow-ups in less than a minute, and what you can do to close deals quicker with no follow-ups required.

Get all of our data-driven proposal tips in The State of Proposals 2022.

How to Create a Business Proposal That Closes Deals

When it comes to business proposals, there’s always room for improvement.

Small tweaks can make a big difference towards whether or not a client says “yes”—and how quickly they sign off.

Last year, over 1 million proposals were sent with our software, and we analyzed them to uncover trends. We dove into the details of what successful proposals have in common, as well as best practices that our users rely on.

We found out that winning proposals are interactive and feature multimedia content. In this post, we cover smart tips for creating proposals, based on our research.

For all of our the best proposal strategies, download The State of Proposals 2022.

Winning Proposal Structure Tips (What The Research Says)

We have the data on what actually improves the chances of a business proposal being accepted.

1,026,891 business proposals were sent with our proposal software in 2021, and our data team analyzed them to find out what successful proposals have in common.

We discovered both the proposal structure and the design elements that winning proposals share—including a way to boost your closing rate by an impressive 72%.

So keep reading for our data-driven tips on creating better proposal content.

To get all of our data-driven proposal strategies, make sure you download The 2022 State of Proposals.