Introduction to Vidyard Prospector
Connect with more high-quality leads and save time doing it. Vidyard Prospector uses AI to generate hyper-personalized prospecting messages and automate email delivery to save you time while building more …
Todd Caponi is a best-selling author and sales coach who leans into behaviors science, history, and humor to help salespeople sell better. A big proponent of the power of video, Todd believes using video messaging in the sales process is a gift that scales our ability to be human again.
Todd had the idea of using video for sales proposals almost accidentally. He came from the school that you should never send a proposal unless you’ve got the live call booked to go through it. After struggling repeatably to get time on the calendar with his prospective customer to walk through the proposal live, he decided to send a video walkthrough instead.
And the results were remarkable. He woke up the following day and saw that the video had been viewed over 50 times. He connected with the client that day, who told him the video saved countless internal meetings to review the proposal with various stakeholders. He was beyond thrilled with the experience.
Needless to say, video proposal introductions are now a part of every deal, and win rates have skyrocketed—over 90% win rate when a video proposal is sent at this stage of the deal. The sales cycle is also cut because everyone gets to the outcome much faster than booking a bunch of live meetings to review the proposal.
Consensus buying and selling are hard. If you make it to this deal stage, your buyer receives a proposal, has to read it, synthesize it, and essentially put together their own internal sales pitch to sell other stakeholders within the organization on what you’re offering.
With a video proposal, you cut all of that out and make the process so much easier for your champion. The video proposal is like the CliffsNotes version of your written proposal. You’re pulling in and highlighting the key points that you want your buyer to walk away with. You can provide the context they can then easily share in building consensus and saving multiple meetings in the process.
The video proposal is longer than your traditional prospecting videos; you’re going much deeper than those initial outreach messages. Aim to keep it 3-4 minutes in length. Enough time to hit the main points of your proposal but not so long that you lose your viewer.
You can do a screen share video going through your proposal, but a cam + screen recording with both the proposal and yourself on screen works best to show your face and connect with others in the organization that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to.
Since the video proposal tends to be a bit longer, consider adding video chapters to highlight the different parts you cover in the video. It will make it easier to navigate, plus parts that are pertinent to certain stakeholders will be clear where they need to focus.
The video proposal is used late-stage when you’re nearing the end of your sales cycle when you typically send over a written proposal for review. This is likely one of your last chances to deliver why your product solution is the best fit for your prospective client.
Call out that you’d like to save your buyer a ton of live meetings to review the proposal live by including the video but that you’re always available to answer any questions and obviously happy to get on a live call if needed. Encourage your champion to share both the video and the proposal with relevant stakeholders within the org.
Intro: Hey [prospect’s name], so great catching up with you, and thanks for considering me to be a resource for you and the team at your upcoming [project, initiative, or program].
Value: As promised, I’ve put together this linked proposal of what I’m recommending based on our discussion and the outcomes you’re trying to achieve organizationally. Here’s how it looks based on what we’ve discussed; [provide an overview of the program/product/offer and the value they offer]
Purpose:[mention details of the specific components of the program/product/offer plus an overview of pricing and overall return on investment].
Hopefully that gives you what you need and aligns well with the outcomes that you are trying to achieve.
Call to Action: Be sure to share with [call out other relevant departments or individuals who should be involved], and let me know if you have questions. And even if it doesn’t work out, we would love to hear that be a resource for you anyway. I know many people in this space who would love to make recommendations and point you in the right way.
Thank You: Thanks again, and looking forward to talking to you again soon.
Subject Line: [prospect’s name], I have the proposal ready for review
Relevant Introduction: Hi [prospect’s name],
Desired Outcome: I thought I’d save us all some live meetings and made you this [insert video length] video to explain key details of the proposal [linked or attached].
[Insert or copy your video thumbnail and link and add to the email]
Call to Action: Please let me know if you have any questions, and I look forward to hearing from you.