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I hear you loud and clear.

Every single day, you’re swamped with the task of creating quotes and proposals.

Drafting, revising, and customizing.

Doing everything that all the experts (myself included) recommend.

But still, you’re not getting the results you want.

Here’s the thing:

If all you’re doing is manually creating quotes and proposals…

You could be waiting forever to see the rewards of your hard work.

Manual creation is time-consuming and inefficient.

And you’re short on time, aren’t you?

You can’t just sit around and wait.

You need to take the initiative.

How?

Technology.

No, not just any technology.

AI technology, tailored for proposal generation.

If you find yourself overwhelmed with creating proposals or if you’re just starting out…

This 7-step process can help you automate the creation of quotes and proposals, saving you hours of valuable time.

Let’s dive in:

1. Gather examples of your best past quotes and proposals

AI needs examples of well-written proposals to learn from.

Collect 5-10 of your best past quotes/proposals as reference documents.

Make sure they represent the range of services you offer.

Remove any confidential client info.

These examples teach the AI:

• how you describe your services
• create cost breakdowns
• format proposals, etc.

The more quality examples the better.

2. Clean and structure your examples

Make sure each document follows a similar structure so the AI can recognize sections like:

• Introduction
• Pricing Table
• Service Descriptions
• Terms, etc.

Break content into clear paragraphs. Remove any formatting inconsistencies.

A consistent structure means higher quality AI output.

Spend time cleaning your example documents.

3. Upload examples into your chosen AI tool

Select an AI proposal generation tool like Jasper or Lex that allows you to upload sample documents.

Create an account and connect your CRM if possible.

Upload 5-10 of your cleaned and structured example proposals into the tool.

Tag or label each example document so the AI can identify each one.

Configure any fields or custom inputs that will allow future proposals to be dynamically customized.

Double-check that all of your examples have been successfully uploaded.

Test generating a basic proposal and review the initial output quality before moving to the next step.

4. Test and refine the AI model

Start testing the AI by giving it prompts to generate proposals using your uploaded examples, like “Please generate a proposal for a new social media management client”.

Review each draft proposal in-depth and take notes on areas that need improvement.

Look for gaps like certain services not being fully explained or pricing sections missing details.

Upload improved examples that better demonstrate weaker sections.

You may need to create some additional examples if gaps exist.

Repeatedly test and tweak the AI model until the proposals match the level you would create manually.

5. Integrate the AI into your CRM and sales process

Once satisfied with the AI quality, it’s time to integrate it into your tech stack and sales workflow.

Use an integration tool like Zapier to automatically trigger proposals from new leads in your CRM.

Build a simple trigger like “When new lead is created, generate proposal”.

You can also embed the AI on your website to allow visitors to instantly request quotes.

Document the new automated process for your sales team including how to review, customize and send the AI proposals.

6. Review and customize each draft proposal

Even though the AI will create quality initial drafts, your team should still review each proposal before sending it out.

Have sales reps quickly check for any improvements needed and customize specifics like pricing.

Look to shorten or enhance any unclear sections.

You can highlight parts needing rewrite and the AI will improve over time.

The more you use the AI, the less revisions are needed before sending proposals.

The goal is to review and send customized quotes in under 5 minutes.

7. Continuously improve the AI

As you manually tweak any proposals before sending them out, save those revisions back into the AI tool as new examples.

This will continuously train the AI to improve the quality and personalization of future proposal drafts.

Over time, you’ll spend less and less time needing to adjust proposals.

Schedule reminders to review past generated proposals and add any significantly customized ones as new training data.

Aim to continually feed the AI 20-30 quality example proposals from your real business.

Final thoughts:

Leveraging AI proposal generators can transform your sales process.

After initial setup, you can go from lead to customized proposal within minutes, blowing away prospects with your speed and service.

Spend your freed-up time actually selling and talking to clients instead of creating quotes.

Until next time,

Ed.

357 W 30th S, New York City, NY 10001
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