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Quotation and proposal follow-up · Sales

The quotation went out three weeks ago and nobody has called them since.

Our proposal development page covers writing the document, and lead response and follow-up covers the first reply to a new enquiry. This page starts the moment the quotation leaves your office.

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Scope, fee, reporting and term are agreed in writing after we have read your brief and spoken to you.

Editorial illustration for Quotation and proposal follow-up

In one paragraph

Quotation and proposal follow-up is the routine that runs after a quote is sent: who calls, on which day, what they ask, and when a quotation is declared dead. GullySales builds the register, the follow-up ladder and the closing question, then reports what value of quotations is sitting open.

Most small businesses can tell you what they quoted last month. Very few can tell you what value of quotations is open right now, how old the oldest one is, or who is supposed to call it today.

So the quote sits in a WhatsApp thread with a blue tick and no reply. Sir will check and revert. Six weeks later somebody says the market is slow.

Who it is for

This is written for you if these sound familiar.

  • Manufacturers and fabricators sending a dozen or more quotations a month against a drawing or a tender
  • Interior, modular kitchen and turnkey firms whose quote is revised three times before anyone decides
  • Service firms selling annual contracts, where the renewal quote and a new quote look identical in the file
  • Owners who personally chase the big quotations and have no idea what is happening to the rest
  • Teams where the rep says following up looks desperate and the quotations quietly age out

Not for

It is not the right fit if.

  • A counter or retail business with no quotation stage, where the price is on the board and the sale happens once
  • Firms sending four or five quotations a month, where a diary and a disciplined owner already do this
  • Anyone hoping automated reminder messages will replace the call, because a large quotation is closed by a person on the phone

The problem

Does this sound like your business?

What owners tell us on the first call, in their words.

  • “We do not know what is pending”

    Quotations live in sent items, in a WhatsApp thread and in a rep's notebook. Nobody can total the open value on a Monday morning, so nobody manages it.

  • “The customer said he will revert and never did”

    Nobody asked when he would decide. Without a date from the buyer, your follow-up has no reason to happen today rather than next week, so it happens never.

  • “We chase twice and then give up”

    Two unanswered calls feel like a no. The buyer is usually waiting on somebody inside his own company, and the order goes to whoever was still present when that person finally moved.

  • “We revise the price before finding out what the objection is”

    A discount is offered on the second follow-up to restart the conversation. The customer was actually waiting on a delivery date, so you have given away margin and answered the wrong question.

What we do

Everything that is included.

Each deliverable, and what it gets you. Nothing here is an extra.

  1. A quotation register

    Every quotation numbered, with value, date sent, buyer, the decision date they gave, the current stage and the next action date. It lives in your CRM if you have one and in a shared sheet if you do not.

  2. The decision date asked for at send

    One question added to the covering message: when do you expect to decide? An answer gives you a legitimate reason to call on a named day. A refusal to answer tells you something too.

  3. A follow-up ladder by value

    A two lakh quotation and a fifteen thousand rupee quotation do not get the same treatment. The ladder sets how many contacts, on which channel, over how many days, for each band.

  4. What to say on each rung

    The first call confirms the document was received and understood, and asks nothing about the order. Later contacts carry a reason: a validity date, a revised delivery slot, a question about their drawing.

  5. The revision rule

    Versions numbered, what changed noted, and a limit agreed. By the third revision the price is rarely the problem, and the conversation moves to whoever has not yet been spoken to.

  6. Close-out in three buckets

    Won, lost, or no decision, with the reason captured in the buyer's own words. No decision is usually the largest bucket and the one nobody measures.

  7. Owner escalation for the top quotations

    A short list where a call from you, not the rep, is worth making, and the point in the ladder where that call happens.

  8. The read

    Open quotation value, ageing, contacts made per quotation, and win rate by value band, in the report against the baseline taken before the work started.

How the result is measured

  • Value of quotations open, and the age of the oldest
  • Quotations with a decision date recorded
  • Contacts made per quotation against the ladder
  • Win rate by value band
  • Share closed as no decision rather than lost
  • Reasons recorded in the buyer's words

Recorded as a baseline before work starts, so every later report has an honest comparison.

How it works

How the work runs

The work itself, in order. How an engagement starts, from your brief to a written scope, is set out on our method page.

  1. 1

    Pull six months of quotations

    We count them, total them and find out what happened to each. Most owners discover here that a third were never followed up at all.

  2. 2

    Find where they die

    Usually one stage does most of the damage: no first confirmation call, or no contact after the first revision. We fix that rung before building the rest.

  3. 3

    Design the ladder and the wording

    Value bands, contact counts, channels and days, with the actual words for each step written in your team's language rather than a script they will not read aloud.

  4. 4

    Set up the register and the reminders

    In your CRM where one exists, in a sheet where it does not, with the next action date on every open quotation and an owner's name against it.

  5. 5

    Run one cycle with the team

    We sit through real follow-ups, listen to the calls and correct the questions. This is where a good ladder survives contact with a busy rep.

  6. 6

    Report and tune

    Win rate and no-decision share are read against the baseline, and the ladder changes where the numbers say it should.

Before you hire anyone

Do this first yourself.

Quotations that go out and are never chased are the cheapest sales to recover.

  1. List every quotation you sent in the last quarter and mark which ones nobody has followed up.
  2. Call three of them yourself and ask what stopped the decision.
  3. Check whether your quotation states what is included, what is not, and how long the price holds.
  4. Ask your team who is supposed to chase a quotation and how they remember to.

Judge any provider

What to ask any provider of this service.

Useful whoever you choose, including us.

  • Who will contact my customers about their quotations, and in whose name?
  • How will you know a customer has opened or read the quotation?
  • What will you say when a customer says the price is too high?
  • Will you record each reply so I can read it later?
  • Do you push discounts to close, and will you need my approval before offering one?

Where this fits

Three pieces of sales work, in this order.

This work sits inside sales process design, at stage 4, presentation and proposal. The audit comes before it, and sales management keeps it running.

  1. Step 1

    Sales audit

    Find where deals are being lost and what to fix first.

    Start here if you cannot say where orders are lost.

  2. Step 2 · you are here

    Sales process design

    One written way to sell, from first enquiry to repeat order.

    Start here if every salesperson sells differently.

  3. Step 3

    Sales management

    A target, a review routine and someone who owns the number.

    Start here if the team has targets and no routine.

Tell us what you need Your brief is read before we call. Scope, fee and term in writing.

FAQ

Questions owners ask before they call.

Not here? More answers, or ask on WhatsApp.

Tell us what you need
How many times should we follow up before stopping?
More than twice, which is where most teams stop, and the number depends on the value. For a large industrial quotation a contact every week or ten days until a yes or a no is normal and expected. Stop when the buyer says no, not when you feel awkward.
Does following up this much annoy customers?
Chasing does. Calling with a reason does not, and the reason is the point of the ladder. A buyer who has your quotation in a comparison file is usually glad of the call that saves him reading it again.
Should this be done on WhatsApp or by phone?
The confirmation and the closing conversation are phone calls. WhatsApp carries the document, the revised delivery date and the reminder, because it gets read. Anything that needs a reason from the buyer needs a voice.
Our win rate is low. Will follow-up fix it?
Partly, and it will also tell you what is really wrong. If quotations die at the same stage with the same reason, the problem is the price, the scope or who you are quoting to. Follow-up makes that visible instead of leaving it as a feeling.
Do we need a CRM for this?
No. A shared sheet with the quotation number, value, decision date and next action runs this perfectly well for a team of three. A CRM earns its place when several people quote and nobody can see each other's pending list.
What does this cost?
There is no published price. Building the register and the ladder is one piece of work. Sitting with your team through a live fortnight of calls is another. The scope is settled after we have read your brief and spoken to you, and the fee is put in writing.
How long is the contract?
The term is agreed in writing after we have spoken, along with the fee and the reporting. It is never a default twelve months, and renewal is decided on the numbers against the baseline recorded at the start.
How soon will we see results?
Fixes to reply time and follow-up are the quickest to show, because the enquiries already exist. Process, CRM and training changes show as the team uses them. Each one is tracked against the baseline.
Who will actually do the work?
The person you speak to before anything starts. We work from one office in Nagarbhavi, Bengaluru, with no account managers in between.
What do you need from us?
To start, last month's enquiries in any format and time with whoever handles them. After that, access to the accounts the work touches, such as the website, Google Business Profile or CRM.

By industry

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The teaching pages behind this work. Read them to judge the work, or to do the parts you want to do yourself.

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