Has this ever happened to you? You craft a superb proposal. You absolutely nail the presentation. Your customer lavishes you with praise and appreciation for the great work you did.

They assure you that they will review your proposal with their manager and give you the go-ahead shortly…they never do.

I have some solid advice to help you motivate your customers to act quickly on your proposals.

But before I get to that, I want to share a quick story with you:

While driving to visit a customer a few months ago, I passed through the town of Enterprise, Alabama. In the heart of the town’s business district, at a spot of prominence, stands a statue.

Most statues are erected as a monument to a town’s founders or leaders. Not so in Enterprise. Oddly, their statue is fashioned in the image of a boll weevil.

The boll weevil of course, is a small beetle that feeds primarily on the flowers and leaves of cotton plants.

Why would the people of Enterprise erect a shrine to honor an agricultural pest?

In the 1890s, Enterprise was a thriving town with a vigorous economy underpinned by the growing, harvesting and sale of cotton.

Much of the cotton grown in the area was used in the manufacture of clothing. Demand for cotton was strong. Prices were high. Life was good.

Then the boll weevil descended and within a short time, wiped out the entire US cotton industry. The economy of Enterprise, Alabama collapsed.

In the midst of the chaos, one local farmer marshaled the courage to make a change. Instead of planting cotton, he planted peanuts. Other farmers in the area soon followed.

Two years later, the community made more money from a single harvest of peanuts than they had in their best three years growing cotton.

The boll weevil had cleared the way for a better idea.

On December 11, 1919, the town of Enterprise dedicated the boll weevil statue as a tribute to how problems, difficulties and challenges can motivate people to make positive changes.

Like the town of Enterprise, your customer faces critical business issues.

Critical business issues MUST be tackled and tackling them almost always involves change. These issues are your customer’s boll weevils.

The performance of executive-level managers in your customer’s business is measured by their ability to identify critical business issues and move quickly to address them.

Airlines have to be nimble to keep airplane seats full. Trucking companies have to have loads to haul. Manufacturers have to keep their plants busy.

That’s how companies accomplish their business strategy and how they keep their organizations healthy and growing.

Now here is my advice: As a sales professional your job is to be a catalyst. You need to help your customer address their critical business issues and accelerate their business results.

What would it have been worth to the people of Enterprise if they had converted from cotton to peanuts one, two or five years earlier?

What would it be worth to your customer to bring a new product to market six months earlier or to expand into a new market one year earlier?

Let me be clear: You don’t need to sway, influence or motivate your customer to make business changes.

They are already motivated to make changes by the critical business issues they must confront.

Your proposal should clearly spell out how your customer can use your products and services to address their critical business issues FASTER OR MORE EFFICIENTLY.

That’s the value of your proposal. That’s the value your customer can realize through a partnership with you. And that’s the value customers are willing to pay for.

Here is an important point: Proposals get stuck with lower level managers because lower level managers are not authorized to form the kind of partnership you need.

It is high-level executives who have the motivation and authority to make vital business changes, not lower level managers.

That’s why you must make your proposal to an executive.

Many sales training companies teach a slew of different closing techniques.

I don’t teach any closing techniques because I don’t use them in my own business. I don’t need to. You don’t either.

Show an executive how your proposal can help them address a critical business issue and accelerate their business results and they will be eager to discuss the next step.

(This article may not be reprinted or copied without written permission from Howard Wallin.)