3. Commercial offer

Subject title Commercial offer

Purpose of the activity To provide participants with information on the basic rules of commercial offer development, relevant to both commercial, individual and social activities.

Duration 2–3 hours.

Location and tools Paper, writing tools, projector, computers, presentation creation programs (PowerPoint, Photoshop, Illustrator, Canva).

Number of participants 10–20 participants.

Acquaintance/ team building methods Each participant is invited to choose one item he/she has with him/her that he/she considers to be vital and to think about how to present that item in such a way that all listeners would like to acquire it. A few minutes are given to reflections.

Then each participant introduces himself/herself and presents the chosen item to the whole group in 2–3 minutes.

Practical tasks Participants are divided into groups of 3–4 people. The task can also be performed by one person independently. Each group is asked to create a commercial offer that represents the specified service or goods. The groups can choose services or goods independently, or the session leader can invite them to draw lots by picking slips of papers with pre-prepared described services or goods and presentation tasks. 1 hour is given for preparation of the commercial offer (content and graphic design). At the end of the preparation period, all groups present their commercial offers, and all other groups, together with the leader, provide feedback: identify strengths, areas for improvement and give advice for the future.

End of session reflection methods At the end of the session, each participant shares what they received in person from this session and what will come in handy in the future.

Notes to the leader During the presentation of the theoretical part, it is worth showing and presenting several different variants of commercial offers and to devote time and space to discussions about the strengths and weaknesses of the presented examples.

THEORETICAL INFORMATION

A commercial offer is a document that presents goods or services in a way that encourages a potential client to purchase them. This document can contain both a simple list with a range and specific prices, as well as a more detailed, more creative description of the forms, where specific prices are not indicated.

“Cold” commercial offer is a commercial offer that is sent in bulk to the contacts specified in the database of potential customers. Often these types of emails are called spam. “Hot” commercial offer is a commercial offer that is prepared and sent to a specific potential client whose needs are clearer. This is often the second commercial offer (in the second stage of negotiations), which is sent to the potential client after he/she has read the basic commercial offer and expressed his/her unique needs.

CONTENT OF THE COMMERCIAL OFFER

The question often arises as to how a commercial offer differs from a regular presentation. The purpose of the presentation is to introduce to the organization, its activities, team and the benefits of possible cooperation. The commercial offer is directly aimed at obtaining a financial benefit, i.e. its main purpose is to huckster and sell a good or service. In this way, a commercial offer becomes one of the most important elements in ensuring the formation of the customer base of a legal or natural person and the resulting financial well-being.

The content of a commercial offer has a certain etiquette that everyone who creates it is invited to follow:

1. An action which a potential client is invited to perform should be as open as possible. In other words, it could be considered as an incompleteness of a commercial offer. If the commercial offer that is being sent will be completely closed, i.e. after getting acquainted with it, the client will know exactly the prices and frames of the offered services, goods or services will be purchased only by a small percentage of clients who are certain about their needs. Meanwhile, by providing the opportunity to ask questions, to ask for clarification and to express specific needs, the client will be able to ask questions, express his/her needs and establish contact with service staff.

2. Initial address. A commercial offer should not be about instructing or inducing to take a certain action, but rather about an issue that a potential customer would think about. One of the biggest mistakes sellers make is trying to fit the entire offer into the beginning of the commercial offer letter (or into the subject of the letter), including the price of the product or service, the discount offered, etc. In this case, the customer has no other choice but to decide immediately whether to buy or not. In the case where the subject of the letter and the beginning of the letter contain an abstract thought or topic (for example, “How to save 30% of your day time?”, “Have you already taken care of cooling your home during the summer season?”, “5 facts you still didn’t know about changed Facebook algorithms”) the client receives an impulse to open the letter and take a detailed look at the useful information it contains and to think about the raised problem in the context of his/her life.

3. Unique approach. An abstract commercial offer for all potential customers at once is not as effective as a commercial offer for at least somewhat segmented target groups. In this case, the subject of the letter could be: “An urgent message for all business leaders” or “Every future mommy must know.” When opening a letter, a potential customer should see a problematic issue raised in one sentence and clearly identified, for example: “40% of their working time employees spend browsing social networks”. In this way, a relevant topic and a problem is raised, which sells the commercial offer itself and the interest in getting to know it thoroughly.

4. Clearly structured text and attractive graphic design. A commercial offer can be delivered in various formats: presentation format, e-mail format, video format, website format. Whatever format is chosen, the information and text in it should not be long, monotonous or reminiscent of a scientific article. The offer should be presented in an attractive, structured way, highlighting multiple images, visual material, and not taking more than 3–5 minutes for in-depth acquaintance.

5. Trust. The commercial offer should include information that would motivate the client to trust the company or personality and the services or goods provided by this legal or natural person. Confidence is built by providing information about acquired education, list of already available clients, reviews, achievements, accomplishments, nominations, statistics, specific numbers indicating the number of completed deals.

6. Guarantees. One of the most important parts of the offer is to clearly describe what benefits the client will receive after purchasing the product or service. This section describes factors such as: time saved, improvement in quality of life or health, overcoming a challenge, finances saved, and other important factors.

7. Contacts and active action buttons are specified. This is probably the most important part of a commercial offer, which is often not given enough attention. Since the main purpose of the letter is to gain new customers, it is worth doing your best to make it as easy and secure as possible for the client to contact you, to pay for services, and the like. It has been calculated that a person makes a decision to purchase a product or service within three seconds. During these three seconds, the physiological parameters of the user rise drastically, an explosion of adrenaline occurs in the blood, which lasts for a few more seconds, and then the indicators return to their initial states. So it is important to integrate all the necessary tools into the commercial offer to help the client complete the purchasing process quickly and easily.

COMMERCIAL OFFER PRICING

Special attention should be paid to bids in the commercial offer. When sending “cold” commercial offers, most experts recommend not providing information on specific prices, but rather encouraging potential clients to fill in a registration form, based on which the responsible employee would contact the client and provide all the necessary information. However, in some cases, already in the first or second sales step, potential clients are introduced to a specific commercial offer, in which specific prices for goods or services are already indicated. In any case, it is recommended to create as flexible conditions as possible for customers to purchase goods or services on favourable terms.

The flexibility aspect of a commercial proposal is usually taken into account by introducing a strategy of three options. This means that the client is provided with three service packages which contain three different volume packages and the prices assigned to those packages. Structurally, it looks something like this: Package no. 2 Price: EUR 399

Package no. 3 Price: EUR 699 This includes:

Service 1

Service 2

Service 3

Service 4

This includes:

Service 1

Service 2

Service 3

Service 4

Service 5

Service 6

In this way, the client can self-assess his/her financial capabilities and psychologically it will be easier for him/ her to make a decision on purchasing a service package that suits him/her, without being limited to just one specific amount.

Package no. 1 Price: EUR 199 This includes:

Service 1

Service 2

Service 3