Let’s say there’s a new project in town. You get an invitation to bid on the opportunity from various contractors. Now, not only do you have to create an amazing proposal for each invitation, but you also have to track each of your sent proposals to see which one bears the best deal for you.
Doing this task on a substandard, spreadsheet-based system is an outdated way of handling the situation. The modern way is to leverage the power of Followup CRM to track opportunities and bids.
Here’s how it works.
1. Create a new project in Followup CRM when the opportunity arrives
The first step in the process is to enlist the new sale opportunity in your Followup CRM dashboard. This is the stage where you provide all the initial information about the project to your system.
To create a new opportunity in Followup CRM, go to your Followup CRM dashboard, open the Projects folder from the top menu bar, then hit “New Project”.
A new page appears where you have to enter all the nitty-gritty details about the project. The project name, company name, date, and every other related info are entered here. If the project is from an existing client company, you can select it from the drop-down menu. However, if the opportunity is from a new client company, you can quickly add a new one too.
After you have filled in all the necessary details, scroll back to the top and hit “Save”.
Now, your new opportunity has been successfully saved into your Followup CRM interface and you’re ready to start creating proposals for it.
2. Create and send proposals
.png)
With your opportunity created, it’s time to start creating proposals for it. To do that, open your Projects folder from Followup CRM’s top bar and select the opportunity you want to create the proposal for.
Make sure you have the Premium proposal add-on for Followup CRM in your account. You’re going to need that to generate proposals in the Followup CRM interface. Once you’ve confirmed that, click “Generate Proposal”, select the contact you want to create the proposal for, then hit Generate.
On the page that opens up, you can choose from more than a few predesigned templates. Just pick the one you like, then edit it according to your needs. Editing a template with Followup CRM is incredibly easy. You can add images, fields, and other items to your proposal and remove unwanted stuff from it.
When you’re done, you can download the document by clicking “Download Document”. If you’d like to preview it, just hit “Preview” and the document will open in a new tab so you can visualize it.
When you’re done, you can send the proposal to the contact by clicking “Send for Signing”.
At any point, you can go back and create a different proposal for the same opportunity. All of your proposals will be enlisted in the “Proposals” table in the interface.
3. Follow up with your proposals
Last but not least, you need to keep up with your proposals and manage your communication effectively. Luckily, Followup CRM has got that covered too.
In the “External Emails” section, you can track all the emails you sent and received under a specific opportunity. This feature makes following up with bids super easy.
The bottom line
Tracking your bids for an opportunity is a crucial step of the winning process. However, doing so in a traditional, spreadsheet-based way doesn’t work in 2022.
With Followup CRM and it's features, you can make the process of tracking opportunities, sending proposals, and following up with them, a breeze.
If you’d like to see how Followup CRM can help you out, click here to request a live demo.
