Reduce time from proposal to close

Define the gap as the days between the proposal being sent and the signature. You need two dates per deal. Most CRMs, including HubSpot and Pipedrive, can give you the date a deal entered each stage.

Take your last 20 won deals. Work out the median and the slowest quarter. A result like "median 12 days, slowest ones 30 or more" tells you where to look. Do the same for the deals that went quiet and were never signed.

Split the gap into steps: sent, opened, discussed, internal approval, legal or procurement, signed. For each of your last 20 deals, write down the date of each step. The longest wait is your bottleneck. It is rarely the same one as you expect.

Typical culprits are a proposal nobody opened, an approver you never met, a pricing question left unanswered, a contract that needs legal edits and a signing process that needs printing. Proposal tools such as PandaDoc, Proposify and Qwilr show when a document was opened, which helps with the first of these.

Before the proposal goes out, ask the buyer on a call: "What has to happen on your side between now and a signature?" Write the answers down as a short close plan:

• Who reads the proposal and by which date.
• Who approves the spend.
• Whether legal, security or procurement need to review it.
• The date they want the work to start.
• The date of the next call, booked now.

Put this plan on the last page as "Next steps" with real dates. Keep the work before sending in Shorten proposal turnaround time.

The person who loves your proposal is often not the person who signs. Ask for the approver's name and offer to help. Send your champion a one-paragraph summary they can forward, with the problem, the outcome, the price and the start date. Offer to join the approval meeting for ten minutes.

Legal and procurement delays are often just waiting for documents. Keep one folder with your standard terms, data processing terms, insurance certificate and a completed security questionnaire. Send it with the proposal, not after the buyer asks. If your terms rarely change in negotiation, say so on the call.

Send the contract for e-signature with all details prefilled and one clear signing path. See Set up e-signatures and contracts for the set-up. Agree the main terms on the call so the document holds no surprises.

If you have a real constraint, say so. "I have one slot starting on 3 November" is useful. An invented deadline is not, and buyers notice.

• Sending the proposal with no next call booked.
• Chasing the champion when the real delay is with the approver.
• Waiting until the buyer asks for your terms and documents.
• Treating a slow signature as a sign of low interest.
• Discounting to speed things up, which teaches buyers to wait.

Follow-up cadence is covered in Improve follow-up after sending, so keep this chapter's focus on the plan and the blockers.

The median number of days from sent to signed falls by about a quarter within two months. Every open proposal has a next call booked. Fewer deals are older than twice the median. And your win rate does not drop. If it does, you pushed instead of removing friction.

On Monday morning, pull the last 20 won deals and find the longest wait.