THE PROPOSAL & PRESENTINGBest Practice Module #5

• To ensure our customers receive the best possible

service when it comes to understanding their

business.

• Present a viable Media solution which highlights the

clients objections and helps to achieve the agreed

upon outcomes.

• To continue to showcase our values and expertise at

NZME as professional Media Specialists and advisors.

WHY

CONTENTS

• Your Presentation Proposal

• Proposal presentation

• Setting the Expectations

• Talking about Price

• Objections and dealing with them

• Writing the Proposal

• The Customers Journey

• Recap

• Post Analysis

"Nobody wants to buy computers; what they want is the ability to transfer information

more quickly and accurately so groups can work together better, so they can put products

out to market faster, so they can capture more market share. What does the client want

to achieve? When you ask that question, it changes everything.“

Bill Stinnett, author of Think Like Your Customer.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR PROPOSAL

So you have had a great discovery meeting with a new prospect and

walked away with all of their needs analysis questions asked and

answered. Now comes the time to sit down and work out how you will put this all together, all the while, working out what solution from our vast

array of products and offerings will suit them and their needs.

Never be afraid to ask an expert in their field internally or from another market to help you get the best suggestions and recommendations for

your presentation. Get words of wisdom from your SM about a campaign that will work for them.

Take your needs analysis to the creative department, brainstorm with a

few different people, more heads are better than one.

Keep your presentation short and to the point.

No more than 5-6 slides is enough in the body of the proposal, if you feel like you need to include more information or details surrounding reach,

figures or content, place this in the appendix at the back of the

document, for the prospect to refer back to if required.

WHAT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR PROPOSAL CONT.

Your proposal should be a journey for the prospect.

You need to lead them down the garden path, all the while holding their hand and walking them through your

thoughts and suggested solution for their needs. You need to make sure that they understand each element that you are presenting and the benefits to them for doing this.

If Objections arise during the presentation, stop, and address these. Hopefully, all questions should have been fleshed

out prior to the meeting, although we know that sometimes hairy questions can come out of the blue. If you do not

know the answer to an objection or a question, let them know “I’m sorry I can’t answer that right this moment, however let me check that data/ask a manager and I'll come back to you on email/phone straight after our meeting”.

During the presentation, its important to continue to ‘mini close’. It’s been proven that if a prospect says ‘Yes’ 3 or

more times through the presentation, the it becomes for them to say Yes to final asking question for the business. Try these simple mini closes;

- Is that what you had in mind?

- How does that sound?

- Does that make sense?

- Are you happy with how this section/idea/stage looks?

YOUR PRESENTATION/PROPOSAL

Remember along the way, to keep the presentation more about the client, and what WE can do for them. This is

sometimes the first opportunity to highlight and prove to the client how driven you are to be all about the Customer

360 experience, through your presentation!

1 Cover Page Create a title focused on the desired business result. Remember to list all the decision makers you are

presenting to and include your name, title, contact information, and the date.

2 Desired Business Result State clearly the desired business outcome and objective you and the prospect have agreed to focus on.

3 Measures of Success List the ways you and the prospect have agreed you will measure success - refer back to

the slide about Measuring success

YOUR PRESENTATION/PROPOSAL CONT.

4 Tailored Solution Present the solution in the context of how it will influence the consumer journey. Other

recommendations that are not included in your solution, but will benefit the customer, and increase the chances of

success are added here.

5 Commitment The sign-off page to ensure both parties are committed and that they feel the commitment of the other party. Use an expiration date to create urgency. Include language that communicates what it will be like

doing business with you.

6 Appendix If you include all the sections above and in our recommended order, you will present the right information in the right order, without getting in the weeds—making it easier for the perspective buyer to follow. That’s why you

want all the supporting details in the appendix. Brand profiles, research, insights, hard numbers like R&F, schedules

SETTING THE PROPOSAL MEETING

Before your Proposal meeting with the client you should ensure to take a professional approach about the business meeting

and again, set the Expectations for the Meeting ahead.

1) Send an email or a calendar invite to all decision makers, 5-7 days out from the date of the proposal meeting make sure you determine who should attend the meeting and who will attend the meeting from NZME too.

2) Reconfirm the purpose of the meeting

3) Discuss the desired outcomes of the meeting and what you hope for their involvement to be

SUBJECT LINE: XYZ Business and NZME Proposal meeting

TIME: 10:30AM-11:30AM

LOCATION: NZME Tauranga , 405 Cameron Road, Tauranga

INVITE CONTENT: Hi [insert name],

Looking forward to presenting a tailored solution for “XYZ your business” .

I have extended the invitation to [insert name] from Marketing as well as my Sales Manager [insert

name].

I have blocked out an hour which should give us more than enough time to cover all aspects of our

proposal for Little Cars. At the meeting it would be great to get an indication on your interest of

the proposal.

See you at our offices then,

Cheers

CUSTOMERS JOURNEY TO BUY…

When you are piecing together your proposal, it is also important to think about and focus on the journey for the

consumers the prospect are targeting, and not what you are selling. As you discuss the typical consumer journey,

think about ways to:

Attract the attention of the target consumer,

Engage those consumers with the prospects business

Convert those customers into the types of fans who will…

Advocate for the business or tell their friends all about it “I had such a great experience with….”

Strangers Visitors Customers Fans

Attract Engage Convert Advocate

CUSTOMERS JOURNEY CONT.

When it comes time to present your solution and ideas that you have crafted for the prospect/client, you want to make

sure to do that in the context of the Consumer Journey.

If you present your ideas by the products we sell, you make it easy for the prospect to cherry pick from your solution. This is when you often hear your prospect saying, “Well how about we just remove the Breakfast

spots/sponsorship/digital/ station etc to make it more affordable?”

When the prospect is resisting some part of the solution, you can often overcome that objection by talking about the

importance of each element that it has in influencing the consumers journey.

It’s also ok to include in your proposal, other recommendations to help their business. Even if that means offerings that we do not or cannot actually help them out with. Remember you are the Media Specialist, these additional

ideas will add value to your proposal over and above your competitors. If you can provide these other suggestions, they will thank you and trust you even moreso.

Other recommendations might mean ;

Direct email from the clients side

Facebook posts to existing followers

A new front facing signage to further encourage foot traffic

New logo update, brand change, colour

Educate and upskill internal staff with the product they are selling

WORDING AND WRITING

Make sure your proposal also uses the correct wording, terminology, and

includes the facts followed by benefits to the client.

e.g The campaign will deliver your business 60 commercials per month plus access to bonus commercials, [fact] This means your brand will be

heard enough times on the radio to help with recall, and the bonus

commercials will be able to give it that last extra push [benefit]

Notice the difference between Strategy and Tactics and use these points to help you craft your solution. It's a great idea to incorporate

some of these questions you asked yourself back to the meeting and share them with the client, to help them understand how you got to your

solution for their business.

If the solution for the client leans itself towards our NZME Pro or Starter

campaigns, you should still tailor the proposal to the client. However try to shorten the slides even further and include all relevant Pro and Starter

information in the appendix area of the presentation for the client and yourself to flick back to, if required.

Strategy

Creates the Possibility of

a sale

Answers the question

"Why Buy?"

Used BEFORE

The Grand Plan

Tactic

Creates the sale

Answers the Question

"Why Now?"

Used AFTER

The Immediate Maneuver

Why Buy ?

Why Buy NOW?

MARKETING MESSAGE

Put this mantra in to your head. This is Branding vs Call to action. Great to use when thinking about the Customers Journey and what will make them buy, and the reason that they will buy NOW.

SETTING THE EXPECTATIONS

Prior going into your presentation meeting, one thing to note is that it’s important to have open and upfront

conversations about how the prospect measures success and managing their expectations on the performance of

your campaign. The client can quickly rush to assumptions, believing that the first time his advert is seen or heard, hundreds of customers will buy from him, the role of the Media Specialist is to set the clients level of

expectations. The earlier we can have this discussion about what kind performance they hope the campaign will deliver, the better. As this will determine how the prospect perceives the outcome of your solution after it is all

said and done. What we need to determine is a couple of key bullet points that the prospect will measure with

your suggested campaign.

A couple of questions to help you uncover more on how they determine “success” off the back of your suggested plan for their business.

• How will you know if this plan/suggested campaign is working?

• How has your existing advertising been performing lately? Tell me about the response you get in a typical

week.

• What is it you want your potential customer to do? How do you consumers engage with you now?

• If we were to go forward with this plan, what do you think the results would be?

• How much interest do you think you will get through the various channels ; web/social media/phone calls?

• Would that be a profitable venture for you?

SETTING THE EXPECTATIONS CONT.

Refresher – Remember all the questions you asked during the uncovering with your Needs Analysis in the very first meeting, this may be important to ask a few of these questions again if you have not already:

• How would you describe the ultimate measure of success here?

• What return on investment are you looking for?

SETTING THE EXPECTATIONS CONT.

Don’t settle for just one level of expectation of your campaign, dig deep:

It’s a mistake to get just one single way they are going to measure the success of your campaign. Go deeper until you

have at least a couple of ways that you both agree to use to measure success.

Plus knowing this info, helps to create a better solution and proposal if you have more than one way to measure success.

From the clients side, you will also increase the chances of receiving credit for success.

For example, if a Car dealer told you they needed to sell 20 more Station Wagons a month, you could ask further and

add additional measure of success like:

• Generate an additional 5-10% increase of foot traffic at the dealership

• Increase of Enquiry forms filled out requesting Station Wagons

• More time spent on certain inventory web pages

• Increase YOY stats with visitors engaging in chats on the website about the Station Wagon

Try to be as broadly specific if you can. But not making any firm guarantees either.

SETTING THE TIMELINE EXPECTATIONS

Its also important to note, setting the prospects expectations when it comes to the final sign off process and then

what the plan is following; which includes the timeline of events. This highlights to the client your level of

professionalism, giving them a thorough indication on the steps that you will take following your meeting, and also create urgency for the client.

"Just to confirm, lets run through the steps that I will take when I leave this meeting"

Outline, the timeline on sign off, credit application documentation and how that plays out, ensure you set the

expectation when it comes to how long this process can take. Share with the prospect the creative turn around time, from the diagnostic, to scripting then to creating audio or artwork.

Date Timeline Expectation

Monday 17 August Discovery and Needs Analysis 1st meeting with KPL Distribution. Follow up email and phone calls for suggested ideas off the back of the meeting.

Monday 24 August 1 Hour Presentation to KPL Distribution regarding NZME suggested solutions, including research, insights, and Sales Manager in attendance. Hosted at NZME meeting room

Tuesday 25 August Additional day for any further tweaks / amendments to the contract and proposal for KPL Distribution.

Wednesday 26 August Final Sign off on of the proposal. Paper work required. Credit Application sent from NZME to KPL Distribution.

Thursday 27 August KPL Distribution Meeting NZME Creative team regarding a full diagnostic for the advert/artwork. Paper work and credit application follow up.

Tuesday 1 September First script/content or brief sent through to KPL Distribution marketing manager for approval

Thursday 3 Sptember Feedback and tweaks acknowledged, 2nd draft sent through for client feedback and approval

Monday 7 September Audio and artwork sent through to KPL Distribution for final approval. Little cars to fulfil any requirements from their end.

Thursday 10 September KPL Distribution Campaign to go live

Friday 9 October Coffee catch up meeting with KPL Distribution to work through current campaign, monitor the measures of success

Tuesday 8 January 3 months post start date – to run through how business is tracking, the existing audio/design, look to add another message, change/tactic or call to action .

LET’S TALK ABOUT PRICE

When you’re first talking to a prospect about their business and NZME, try to discover what their budget is, the cold hard truth is that they have no budget for you and they don’t really want to spend anything. However if the right opportunity comes their way and trust your proposal, suggestion and ultimately you as their Media Specialist, then they will find that budget for you.

It’s risky to save the conversation about price until the day you present your proposal. Objections raised after you have submitted the proposal can ruin your chances of them saying no.

So the best way is to make sure to meet their Expectations and remove the Surprises about price.

Talking about the price along the way is a great way to align these expectations and ultimately stops the objections of“So what’s this going to cost?” . When it comes time to present your solution, you will find that prospects whose expectations are not aligned with yours tend to delay making the decision.

Working out when to discuss price is tricky, you don’t want to discuss it too soon or too late. As a general rule, you want to talk about price at just this moment:

Their key objectives, for what they want and need for the business have clearly been defined and agreed upon.

There is significant interest with a solution being discussed.

LET’S TALK ABOUT PRICE CONT.

How to Engage in the Price Chat

There are a number of ways to start the conversation. Three we’ve found effective are:

1. Quantify Desired Business Results

Once you’ve identified what the business needs, you’ll want to quantify the desired results/outcome. Quantifying results

can move easily to a return-on-investment conversation, which can lead naturally to talking about price.

Three useful ROI formulas that lead to total return on their investment:

The answer in the 1st box for “New Customers” becomes the first term in the 2nd box. That answer for “Revenue”

becomes the first term in the 3rd box.

Leads

X Closing Ratio

New Customers

New Customers

X Average Ticket

Revenue

(for the first purchase)

Revenue

X Lifetime Value (Purchases)

Total Return

(for lifetime purchase)

LET’S TALK ABOUT PRICE CONT.

2. Use the Agreed upon Key Objective to Discuss the Price

“Are you going to allocate 100% of your budget to help solve this problem / achieve this goal?”

If the prospect says no. You would follow up by asking “What percent will you allocate”

You could then reply, “Great. Are you willing to consider a proposal from me for 75% of your budget?”

If the prospect says yes, you can then ask what that dollar amount is, so that you can build that out for them.

If you use this route, you will still need to have the return-on-investment conversation at some point. You’ll need

to decide if that is now or during your next conversation.

LET’S TALK ABOUT PRICE CONT.

3. Offer an Investment Range

We find a lot that prospects tend to gun straight towards the “what's its going to cost” even when its very early in

the sales process. So giving the prospect an investment range is a great way to shield the expectation.

You don’t want to just throw out a number you think the prospect wants to hear. Keep your figures in a range that

is “sufficient” to address their business goals and in line with your knowledge on current campaigns and our market pricing available too.

“NZME work with hundreds of advertisers, and we have a vast array of media platforms to help them achieve their

objectives. Our approach is to understand your key objectives and then use our experience in motivating listeners/readers and our followers to respond to that message. The result is to bring you the right customers to

grow your business.”

“Now every client situation is unique. Similar clients to you who I work with, who are seeing great results typically, invest between $X and $Y a week/month. Let’s discuss the type of ROI you’ll need to make that type of

investment work for you.”

OBJECTIONS

True fact; most objections can actually be eliminated before you present the solution to your prospect. The best way to eliminate them is running through these series of questions, about your proposal. Every element that you include in the presentation, that the client is not familiar with, increases the chance for an objection. So it’s important to bring the prospect up to speed too.

While putting the proposal together ask yourself these questions:

• Are you familiar with the business internal decision making process – are you confident you have involved all the best contacts to make the final decision or those who will influence the outcome?

• Does the prospect, agree on the main Need, that you uncovered from your meeting, that is important enough for them to invest their budget on?

• Is there a clear solution being offered with this proposal?

• Have you already discussed the solution in detail with the Key Decision Maker, to see if they would be interested in it?

• Does the content have a clear strategy (Why Buy) and a compelling Tactic (Why now)?

• Have you discussed, how much your proposal will cost, and have they already agreed on the budget?

• Have you discussed how its all going to work ;the logistics dates, requirements, timeframe it will take to execute, the creativeideas?

• Have you discussed the ways they will measure the success of the campaign and met their expectations on this?

• Does the prospect understand what their responsibilities will be with the implementation of this proposal to derive ROI from it?

• Does your proposal clearly ask for a decision on the campaign/plan?

• Have you checked for spelling errors and sure you have not left anything out?

OBJECTIONS CONT.

Before you present the proposal you must ask yourself these questions, if you do not answer yes to most of these, then the proposal needs work, or you need uncover more with your prospect. This will mean making a phone call, video or

running through some of the questions you did not have time to uncover in your needs analysis meeting.

Get your prospect to basically to say yes to the proposal BEFORE actually present it.

It becomes a “No-surprise” kind of proposal to the client.

OBJECTIONS – COVID19

“When a recession comes, don’t stop advertising”

The impacts of COVID-19 are being felt all over the world, and we at NZME are feeling it too. We know that many

Media Specialists are dealing with several challenges and objections as a result. With that in mind, we have developed the below points to help you deal with these challenges and objections with your existing client list and

prospects.

COVID-19 Objections to Overcome:

1. “We want to cancel our current advertising schedule”.

Lead with empathy. Make sure to acknowledge the current environment and the impacts on their business. Slow down the conversation. Find out why they want to cancel. Get answers to questions like:

• “What is the current situation for your business?"

• "Are there parts of the business that are still operating well?" Look for a new focus or opportunity to

take advantage of the current situation.

• "What is the message that your existing and future customers need to know about you during this time? How do you plan on communicating that message?

OBJECTIONS – COVID19 CONT.

Give Examples. Share experiences of some of our other advertisers in the market who are choosing to stay active.

Share the ways they are staying in front of consumers and the changes they have implemented in their message

to respond to the current environment.

New and relevant insights with their category in this current climate can be helpful right now. Show them that you

are offering help

• Do some homework on how consumer needs are changing right now

• Provide insights into similar businesses and how they are creating new streams of revenue.

• Send them relevant research and articles that highlight the importance of having a consistent outreach during hard economic times

OBJECTION – COVID19 CONT.

2. “I need to hold off on spending until I can determine the financial impact on my business.”

This is likely a defensive move to reduce expenses, but it likely comes from someone who knows or understands

that they should not simply disappear.

Ask about the most important thing their marketing needs to do during this time of uncertainty. Discuss research and news articles, focusing on the importance of not cutting advertising during a recession or potential recession

as that can help there as well.

Continue to look for and ask more questions to seek new opportunities in the business, created by the current

needs of their target consumers.

3. “I'm not sure now is the right time to advertise”

“I can certainly understand why you might feel that way and you are not the only business I have spoken with right now that has that concern”

"People need to understand how they can do business with you right now. Online retailers, will steal sales from local businesses because consumers know who they are, how to use their services, and have confidence they will receive the products they buy."

OBJECTION – COVID19 CONT.

Look for new ways that they are already or can service customers such as pick-up, delivery, virtual quotes, online

purchases, gift certificate, etc. and help them get that message out to the public.

Are there ways they are servicing or giving to the community in this time of need that potential consumers should

know about?

"Right now is the time to keep your name in front of consumers. History has shown that businesses that continue to advertise in a recession or hard economic times recover faster than those who do not. It is critical to remain in front of consumers now so that you are top of mind when they are ready to begin purchasing again."

4. “We have been offered a better quote from Mediaworks/Stuff/another provider and are offering me lower rates”

Push the value of you, the Media Specialist in this circumstance, and share with them what you are currently providing to your customers to avoid the race to the lowest possible rate.

Instead of focusing on your products, discuss how your bespoke and tailored solution will drive their desired business results, even right now. Reinforce how you drive results for your customers.

OBJECTION – COVID19 CONT.

Take Action!

As you focus on securing your Key accounts and finding new business, consider putting these recommendations into action! Now is the time to provide value to your biggest accounts and look for opportunities that will help you close the gap created by cancellations.

• Lead each conversation with empathy, “I can understand what you’re going through….”

• Contact all of your Key accounts to check-in on them and their business. Provide value and ask if there are ways that you can help.

• Create a prospect list from categories who are being minimally impacted or seeing an increase in business due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Take time to build your plan to approach new prospects. Research business insights, changes in consumer behavior due to COVID-19, and spend time crafting new Valid Business Reasons to get in touch with.

• As you reach out to Target accounts, take the time to understand if they are ready to move forward now or if they are a future opportunity.

"Most of the businesses that I have spoken to recently are either being ultra-conservative and cutting all non-essential expenses, and others that are being more aggressive and taking advantage of the opportunities in the chaos. Where do you see yourself right now?”

If they are being conservative, plant the seed for what others are doing right now. If they see the opportunity, continue to move them through the sales process.

DURING THE CAMPAIGN – A RECAP

You will be familiar with the NZME customer Journey Card, and as part of your commitment to the client and their advertising contract doing a recap of the campaign, 8 months into your relationship with your new or existing Key Account is a strong way to ensure both you and the client are accountable for the campaign. It stops any issues arising and addresses any potential wobbles that the campaign might have. By the 8 month mark of your annual commitment, is a pretty solid time frame to run through how the campaign has been performing and allows any tweaks, amendments to take place.

Keep it simple and to the point, this isn't a full post analysis of the campaign, but it is a great chance to run through thenumbers, results and expectations from the clients side.

Use your existing Proposal and slightly change out the slides to reflect the following :

1. Campaign Overview (what we set out to achieve with the proposal)

2. Executive Summary (what is happening so far)

• 3 to 4 bullet points that give an overview of results.

• What is on track and being delivered.

3. Campaign Performance (results and analytics insights)

• If applicable, present the results in the context of the consumer journey (attract, engage, convert, advocate). You want to cover all the basic campaign components and analytics, and provide them as a story

4. Creative Execution (sample creative in context of the campaign)

• Screenshots / Banner Ads / Promotional audio

5. Summary

Are there things to change, amend, update? What could we do better, what could the client do better. What's the plan

from here until the end of the commitment?

POST CAMPAIGN – RESULTS CHECKLIST

We know it is important to run through the whole campaign, as part of our commitment to the new client, ideally a sit down meeting, back at the NZME offices if possible to run through the campaign and the performance. Prior to your meeting, make sure you outline the expectations for the meeting, what you would like your client to bring along, numbers, facts, access to data or documentation. So you can both get a thorough and fair indication of exactly how the strategy has worked for them and their business. The below is a checklist of slides to include with your Post Campaign follow up meeting.

Desired Business Results - What did you agree to focus on? Did the campaign do , what it said it was going to do.

Tailored Solution - What are the key components of the solution and how were they tied back to the desired business result? “We said we would attract, engage, convert, advocate this way……”

Marketing (Why Buy/Why Now) - Re-examine the marketing. Is the message designed to convince consumers why to buy from this advertiser and why to buy now?

Creative Execution - Look at the creative with fresh eyes—does it do a good job of communicating the why buy and why now?

Scheduling and Placement - Based on initial results, does the scheduling and placement seem to be right on or should changes be considered for next time?

Response Path What does the campaign ask the consumer to do? Is that path they are expected to take clear and will it be a good experience if they take it?

Measuring the Expectations What 2-4 measures are most important to to determine return on investment? How is the campaign performing against those metrics so far? What data needs to be pulled to show that for both the client and yourself.

“And, after all, winning business is what writing proposals is all about.”

― Tom Sant, Persuasive Business Proposals: Writing to Win More Customers, Clients, and Contracts

RESOURCES ON CONNECTME

• Connectme for Partner Programme Elite presentations

• Customer Journey Card

• A client Proposal Example

• NZME Proposal Template

Further reading:

When a Recession Comes, Don't Stop Advertising. - https://www.forbes.com/sites/bradadgate/2019/09/05/when-a-recession-comes-dont-stop-advertising/#51f50db24608

Share Tony Alexander’s views about the New Zealand economy and his current surveyed predictions. http://www.tonyalexander.nz/