The Problem with Writing Proposals Manually

In highly competitive markets (like B2B Technology), it's essential to create custom, specific, and detailed proposals to win over prospects. In 2024, a generic proposal template that just looks pretty won't put you ahead of your competition.

But, crafting a great proposal can take hours, if not days, to:

1. Complete the research for

2. Understand and mirror prospect terminology

3. Integrate the context of your conversations to date

4. Articulate how your product meets their needs specifically

5. Connect existing customer case studies to their unique pain points

This all changed overnight with the release of ChatGPT, the first easily accessible Large Language Model with unimaginable capabilities and performance. If you're not already leveraging its capabilities in your day-to-day, you're already behind.

Skip the following two sections if you have used ChatGPT before.

What is ChatGPT?

ChatGPT is an App created mostly as a user interface for the advanced language models developed by OpenAI. It's designed to understand and generate human-like text, making it an invaluable tool for a wide range of applications, including content creation and proposal generation.

In a recent update, ChatGPT now “Beats 90% Of Lawyers Trying To Pass The Bar”. So it has extraordinary capabilities, including the ability to complete reasoning.

But, it is significantly better at some tasks than others. This article'll explore how you can effectively use ChatGPT for proposal generation.

How do I get Access to ChatGPT for Proposal Automation?

ChatGPT is Free and can be accessed at https://chat.openai.com/. It just takes 60 seconds or so to sign up, and you're ready to go.

How to use it better than the Competition:

It’s no secret that a lot of people are already using ChatGPT to assist in proposal generation. But there are some specific things you need to be doing to get better results. One of them is how your prompts can be engineered to provide better results. Prompts are the cornerstone of effective communication with AI language models, as they guide the model in generating the desired output.

Here are some basic tips for crafting effective prompts:

1. Be Specific - use industry terminology and provide metrics where applicable.

2. Provide Deep Context - feel free to dump even entire transcripts in to provide the ChatGPT with deep context.

3. Specify the Tone and Style - if the rest of your proposal uses a passive tone, instruct the ChatGPT to use it.

4. Use Examples - of your best content where available (provide examples via adding "Examples: """ """" " this will ChatGPT some idea of what you expect.

5. Use your Business/Product Names - it's likely that ChatGPT already knows about your business and products so use the names of them and it can use the additional context it's learned).

Pro Tip: also use the phrase "As a Bid Writer". This "As a" methodology will significantly improve the performance of the model in each domain. You can even go more specific, asking it to write something "As Seth Godin".

The structure of the prompt is also important:

1. Provide Context and then the Specific Instruction - it's imperative that context is provided to give the best results. ChatGPT has a bias for recency, so put your instructions after the context where possible.

2. Use delimiters like """ to tell ChatGPT where certain things begin and end. By effectively separating your context from your instructions it ensures the model doesn't get confused.

3. Using ":" to show ChatGPT that what you are providing is an instruction

Step-by-Step Guide to Automating a Proposal with ChatGPT

Step 1: Open a new ChatGPT thread.

You don’t want to mix it up with old data/chats. ChatGPT stores each chat message and can reduce the output's performance if you put many different contexts in the same thread.

Step 2: Provide Basic Business Context

Starting Prompt: You want to provide the model as much context as possible for it to work from. Remember, ChatGPT, when it starts, it doesn’t know who you are, what you're selling, or who you are selling it to.

The results without context are, at best, average. With the right context, you can boost the response to quality much higher than what is available "out-of-the-box" To provide this upfront to give it some context. For example, you can start by using the below template, replacing each [] with your relevant context:

I’m Jasper Cooper, the CEO of AutoRFP.ai, here’s some context on our business:
AutoRFP.ai Context: “””[Insert Company Overview]”””
AutoRFP.ai Key Features: “””[Insert Key Features]”””
We are currently writing a proposal for [Insert Prospect Company Name].
Here’s some notes from our discussions so far: “””[Insert Notes]”””
Given this context, [Insert Task Prompt]

^ For this last part, read below for some of the best Task Prompts when building a Winning Proposal.

Step 3: Task Prompts

One of the most common issues with proposals is the failure to address the specific pain points and desired outcomes of the customer. A generic proposal, lacking personalization and insight into the prospect's unique challenges and goals, can hinder your chances of success. Here are some specific examples of how you can create and improve your proposal, accounting for specific customer pain points, rather then templated assumptions.

Executive Summary Prompt

"Generate an Executive Summary for a business proposal targeting [Prospect Company] in the [Industry] sector. Their main pain points are [Pain Point 1], [Pain Point 2], and [Pain Point 3]. Our proposed solution includes [Feature 1], [Feature 2], and [Feature 3]."

Refine & Revise Prompt

"Revise the following paragraph to better highlight the benefits of our SaaS solution for [Prospect Company], who are struggling with [Pain Point 1] and [Pain Point 2]:
[Copy and paste the paragraph that needs revision]

Conclusion Prompt

"Craft a conclusion for a business proposal emphasizing our ongoing support and commitment to [Prospect Company]. Mention our dedicated customer success team, 24/7 technical support, and regular product updates to address their concerns of [Concern 1] and [Concern 2]."

Step 4: Follow-Up Prompts

The true beauty of this approach is that you can refine the response as it comes back. Asking it to change the tone, include a 4th feature, or any other iterations you can imagine.

In conclusion, ChatGPT is a powerful tool that can revolutionize the way you create B2B SaaS proposals. By following the tips and examples provided in this article, you can harness the power of AI to create custom, specific, and detailed proposals that will put you ahead of your competition.

How to automate ChatGPT for Proposals

To truly automate proposals, you can't really use ChatGPT itself, to do it Effectively, you'll need to use the underlying artificial intelligence, which is called a large language model or LLM.

Luckily for you you don't have to build the system yourself any more, AutoRFP.ai provides software as a service that uses the same underlying technology to outperform ChatGPT automatically using your context and previous proposals to automatically generate proposals that are at a much higher quality than what ChatGPT is able to create.

By using your content library and features from classical RFP management software along with real-time UI and natural language processing, proposal teams and sales teams can automate their future proposals while saving time and increasing win rates.

If you are looking for a faster, more effective way of leveraging AI for your RFP responses, then ChatGPT, you can learn more about RFP AI here.

Conclusion

Discover how ChatGPT can revolutionize your B2B SaaS proposal creation process by providing custom, specific, and detailed content tailored to your prospect's unique needs. With the right context, prompts, and refinements, ChatGPT can create compelling proposals that outshine your competition. Don't miss out on the opportunity to be at the forefront of generative AI in sales. Schedule a demo with AutoRFP.ai today, the leading platform for Generative AI in sales, and see what we are capable of.