Stage - Proposal

Definition The proposal stage is entered into once you have received “Product Yes” or “Vendor of Choice” designation by the key decision makers.

At this stage the prospect is fully bought in on working with Gradient Metrics, has a full understanding of the project scope, methodology, support structure, deliverables, timelines, and intended impact.

The Proposal stage is where you formalize our offering in pursuit of getting commercial sign-off from the budget owner / economic buyer. The primary objective is to present a tailored, compelling proposal that recaps the prospect’ challenge, needs, scope, deliverables, intended impact along with the associated investment needed to formalize a partnership.

• Discuss pricing and proposal details internally and ensure exec sign-off before scheduling a proposal review call with your prospect. Include leadership as and when needed to support the conversation.
• Send a pre-wire email confirming the meeting, highlighting the agenda and soliciting feedback.
• Ensure you have the relevant stakeholders needed to review the proposal, start the budgeting process, green light commercials. This can sometimes include legal and or procurement. Note: Ideally the initial proposal review is with your main POCs to help set the expectation(s) around pricing, commercial model and other deal terms that are important to the business and might be non starters (this goes both ways).
• Have a detailed understanding of the scope and proposed engagement this includes a clear understanding of the prospect’s needs, pain points, preferences, expectation on scope, deliverables, timelines, etc.
• Have a plan and intentional strategy to drive to the next step - this might include threading up to senior stakeholders, executive team or across to finance, legal and procurement teams to kick off the budgeting and contracting process.
• Research any new attendees on LinkedIn (who are they, how long have the worked at the company, what is their role, what mutual connections do you have, what persona would they tend to have in the buying cycle at this stage, etc.)
• Ensure you are using the most up to date proposal template.

• We want to observe the prospect’s reaction to the proposal. In an ideal case if the deal has been sold in and all relevant stakeholders are bough in - we walk away with

  • Proposed Engagement: confirmation the project, scope, deliverables, support plan, intended impact are exactly what the customer is looking for.
  • Commercial Terms: positive reaction to pricing and commercial terms “this looks good, send me the MSA”

• On the discovery front, you should have most if not all elements of the BANT discovery framework covered in detail. There can be times where additional information is needed to get an understanding of the “path to partnership” process and what is needed to get there.

  • This includes things like:
    • Contracting Process: important to get an understanding of the commercialization process in detail to better “control” the deal by knowing what your prospect is trying to manage to next and helping them navigate internally. This can include getting an understanding of:
    • Who is / needs to be involved in the contracting, procurement and legal process?
    • What is each department looking for and managing to at this stage?
    • What can we do to help socialize and support the conversation to make it easy?
    • Are there any red flags / non-starters re commercials we should be aware of?
    • What does the approval process generally look like?
    • If budgets have not been earmarked, what does the process look like to unlock resources internally?
    • What are the milestones and timelines for the contracting process?

  Note: Strong executive relationship at this stage are important to help protect the commercial / pricing integrity of your business model (i.e. influence procurement in your direction) as well as help accelerate the contracting process.

• Prospect is happy with scope and commercial model and has detailed out next steps, key stakeholders, and associated timelines for contracting and path to signature.

EXAMPLE PROPOSAL THAT’S WELL DONE