The State of Proposals

The Big Numbers

We mined the data for the State of Proposals report from proposals created through Proposify in the past year.

1,280,657 proposals studied
across 27 industries
generating $2,427,531,058 USD

The companies involved varied in size from single-person businesses to enterprise-scale operations.

Company size, industry, and deal size all made an impact on closing rates.

Average value of closed deals: $13,656

But one revelation in particular completely knocked our socks off:  A good proposal can double your close rate.

How do your sales closing rates compare?

While compelling, these high-level numbers don’t tell the whole story. We subdivided our proposals in a number of ways to reveal more granular trends and insights.

And the external factor that impacts close rates the most is...

When we broke down the data, it became clear that deal size has a huge impact on close rate.

It makes sense that certain industries, such as Construction & Engineering, have larger average deal sizes and send more higher value proposals, but the trend that small deal sizes have higher close rates remains consistent across industries.

Why do bigger deals have lower close rates and what can my proposal do about it?

Don’t let the size of your company limit your deals

There's a wide range in the sizes of companies within each industry, but in general the number of employees doesn’t seem to make a difference in proposal close rates.

Smaller companies have just as much success across all deal sizes as larger companies.

While the physical handshake used to be the gold standard for many deal closures, the switch to remote and hybrid work environments means that now more business is done online than in the boardroom or on the golf course.

Physical location isn't the issue it once was. No matter where you are, with today's digital tools you can sell to anywhere in the world. And the e-signature is way more legally binding than a handshake, too!

That makes your proposal more important than ever, not to mention the process you use to create your proposals.

As the final touchpoint in your sale, the proposal is your last chance to communicate value as well as pricing. The data shows that a clear, concise, and comprehensive document that follows proposal best practices often makes the difference between winning or losing the deal.

Beat the competition to the punch with quick proposal turnaround

If your proposal process takes too long, you run the risk of letting the deal go cold, or worse: letting the competition sneak in ahead of you.

Use proposal templates to maintain consistency

“Did I change the company name on page six before I sent the proposal?!”
– Nobody who uses templates

With standardized templates and all approved assets in one place, customizing and completing a proposal can be done in record time without sacrificing quality for speed, and while keeping your branding elements consistent. 

• Use professional proposal software to connect to your CRM and automatically inputs fields including company and contact names and addresses
• Maintain consistency with standard boilerplate copy such as product or service descriptions, bios, and about the company
  
  

Retain visibility into your deal to the very end

You can tell a lot about a proposal’s status by seeing who’s looking at it, when they’re looking, what they’re looking at, and for how long.

Being able to track your proposals by their data trail creates new opportunities to increase your success rate:

• Find indicators that your deal is at risk when the proposal isn’t being viewed, or has languished for too long without action
• Time follow ups for maximum impact
• Learn what works and what can be improved in future proposals
• Create KPIs to drive growth
  
  

Accelerate the deal and boost close rates with electronic signatures

Take it one step further by signing your proposal before you send it out. It shows your commitment and readiness to begin, not to mention boosting close rates by 26%!

More eyes to win the prize

Selling to one person in a vacuum adds a ton of risk to your deal. Multi-thread for the win by sending your proposal to more than one person.

Having multiple stakeholders engaged in the deal builds momentum by:

• Getting alignment on the problem you’re solving by involving more people earlier
• Selling the deal internally with the help of multiple champions

What happens to your proposal after you click send?

The average time from first open to deal closed might be 51 hours -- a little over 2 days -- but as with everything else, various factors can influence proposal timings.

• Deal size has the greatest impact on close time -- the money at stake, the longer it takes
• Company size has little impact -- as we saw before with close rates, smaller companies experience the same timing trends as larger ones

Follow up for the win

You might be tempted to think that once you’ve hit send your work is done. You’d be wrong.

Automatic reminders are handy, but they shouldn’t replace diligent monitoring of your proposal’s status. Use the timing benchmarks to guide when to nudge the deal forward.

• After 1 day: if you see your proposal hasn’t been opened, follow up
• After 2 days: If you haven’t heard back yet, follow up
• If the view count stops at 7, follow up
  
  

Don’t be afraid to ask what you can do to seal the deal

The negotiation doesn’t end after you click send.

All it might take to bring your prospect off the fence and onto your side may be a little tweak to the deal. Don’t be afraid to revise.

• If they ask you for a revision it shows they’re still interested and engaged – don’t miss that opportunity to close the deal.
• Even if you get rejected, see if there are changes you can make to rescue the deal.

Page count: less is more

“How long should a proposal be?”
— Every sales and marketing professional we talk to

How long is the idea proposal?

You’re not going to like our answer: as long as it needs to be.

The reason why we can’t be more definitive about the ideal proposal length is because there are a lot of factors that contribute to how long a proposal ought to be.

• Does the proposal represent the entire pitch, or is it the culmination of a long sales cycle? 
• How large is the deal?
• How complicated is the deal?
• Do you simply need to summarize the deal, or do you also need to sell yourself?

In general, we can say this: shorter is better.

Do proposal sections matter? Yes, yes they do

When it comes to the sections in a proposal, there is more to look at. 

Starting with the basic number of sections, we find the same results as with page count: less is more.

As for what those sections ought to be, there is a common structure we found in successful proposals. The specific titles for each section can vary, but the flow in winning proposals is usually similar.

1. Cover Page
2. Executive Summary / Introduction / Project Summary
3. Approach / Solution / Our Process / Overview & Goals / Scope of Work
4. Deliverables / Products / Timeline
5. About Us / Our Team / Team Bios / Why Us?
6. Pricing / Your Investment / Fee Summary / Quote / Budget
7. Terms & Conditions / Sign Off / Next Steps / Acceptance

Section views tell us what matters most to buyers

Knowing which sections other businesses put into their proposals is one thing, but which sections are prospects actually looking at?

• Buyers spend the most time scrutinizing the finer details like Pricing and Terms
• Senders spend the most time preparing fluffier sections like the Executive Summary

We’ll revisit this disconnect a little later when we look at the tone and language, revealing some important insights about how to boost your close rates by improving your proposals.

Interactive pricing tables increase buyer engagement with upsell opportunities

It was very common for proposals to present their pricing in a table format.

• Advanced proposal software can go a step further and allow sellers to include pricing tables with editable quantities and optional rows
• Buyers can fiddle with the numbers, changing quantities and adding or removing features until they find the pricing they’re comfortable with
• Often, interactive pricing tables result in a larger deal size than originally proposed

Use forms in proposals to collect information and boost close rates

Incorporating fields to collect contact and billing information demonstrates your commitment and professionalism while also smoothing the path forward. 

• You’ll need to get the information into your CRM eventually
• Doing it at the proposal stage saves everyone time and effort in the long run, and buyers appreciate that

Images bring a proposal to life

It’s standard practice now to use images in your proposals. Often lots of images. 

Not only is a picture often worth a thousand words, but it also helps break up the visual monotony of text. Today’s winning proposals are slickly designed to match the company’s brand.

In addition to creating brand identity, images in proposals typically include:

• Team headshots
• Product examples
• Portfolio work

Video use in proposals is a missed opportunity

One advantage of the digital proposal is the ability to include interactive elements such as videos. According to Vidyard, over 50% of those who used videos in their sales cycles last year saw improved close rates, but we found them to be under-utilized in proposals.

Using videos in your proposals is a terrific opportunity to stand out from the competition, especially since so few businesses are doing it. 

• A personalized message from your CEO
• A demo reel
• An explainer video
• A customer testimonial or case study

We were able to identify several insights on how to write that can boost your close rates:

• Be succinct
• Show your prospect you’ve listened to them
• Be professional
• Use clear language

Your proposal doesn’t have to be a novel

Deal size has an impact on the relationship between word count and close rate: 

• As the size of the deal grows, word count makes less and less of a difference
• In the largest deals, the number of words in the proposal has less impact

Make your proposals personal

We’ve talked about how proposal templates make it fast and easy to plug in boilerplate copy, but that doesn’t mean your proposals should all be exactly the same. 

Strategic use of personalization can boost close rates. The executive summary is one area where some personalization can yield big results.

• Cite the prospect’s specific pain points to show you understand the issues your solution needs to solve
• Include auto-fill fields in your templates to personalize the prospect’s name (and to make sure you're not leaving that last prospect's name in by mistake)

Personalization by industry

Certain industries seem to have a sweet spot for the amount of customization. 

• Branding, Advertising & Marketing businesses can see nearly 100% close rates when half of the executive summary is customized content

Personalization by deal size

With larger deals, more personalization improves close rates

• When the deal size is under $2100, the biggest bang is achieved at around 30% personalization
• Greater personalization has an even greater impact when the dollar amount of the deal rises

Keep your proposal tone professional (duh)

Using machine learning algorithms, we scanned the text of winning proposals looking for tone and sentiment. Not surprisingly, we found next to no negative sentiment in winning proposals.

• A professional tone doesn’t mean boring or jargony, it means the overwhelming sentiment was neither positive nor negative, but neutral 
• In industries where emotion plays a bigger role in the decision-making process such as Consumer Services and Real Estate & Property Management, a positive tone yields better results

Make it easy for buyers to read your proposal’s legal bits

We mentioned earlier that buyers spend a lot more time reading sections like the contract than they do on something like the cover letter — over 3X as long. Clearly, having legal information is important, and this is especially true in larger deals.

When we analyzed the text in legal sections of proposals, we found a clear relationship between readability and close rates. 

• Smaller words and shorter sentences lead to higher close rates

The more you can follow this checklist of things to include in your proposals, the closer you can get to record-smashing close rates.

  Use a template to save time, reduce errors, and create a consistent sales process

  Add images and videos to your proposal to stand out from the competition

 Accelerate the deal by sending the proposal within minutes of promising

 Include the 7 essential sections for a solid proposal backbone

 Gather important details with a client intake form

 Add e-signatures and sign your proposal before you send it

 Set up automated reminders to move your buyer through the sales process

 Track proposal activity so you can monitor the health of your deal and respond accordingly

 Be open to negotiations and revisions

 Price your deal under the buyer’s authorization limit

 Multi-thread and send your proposal to multiple stakeholders

 Keep your word count and page count to a minimum

 Add some personalization but don’t go overboard

 Keep your language clear, persuasive, and professional

 Slash the legalese and make terms easy to read and understand

 Include short testimonials to reinforce your value proposition

 Add interactive elements to your pricing tables

 Automate your sales process by integrating specialized proposal software with your sales tech stack tools like Gong, Salesforce, HubSpot, and Stripe

We take privacy seriously

Data was collected from the Proposify database, which contains metadata from the sales documents sent through our software. The data we used for this report is entirely anonymous. All personal and competitive information and all other identifiable information was removed from the dataset before it was analyzed for this report.