Example: a print shop from Curitiba talks to the marketing manager of a pharmacy chain during an online business round. The manager says the store flyers arrive late every month, both mark interest and contact details are exchanged. At the end, she says: "send me a proposal". The next day, the salesperson sends a price list with every product the print shop makes. No reply comes. What was missing was the path between the conversation and the document: finding out whether there was a real purchase at stake, agreeing on the next step and understanding the problem before putting a price on it. When it is time to write, the Sales Proposal Generator builds the text in a few minutes. This guide covers what comes before.
If you have not yet replied to the person after the conversation, start with the guide on follow-up after a business meeting. Here, the subject is the following step: how to turn contacts into clients without skipping stages, from the first conversation to a proposal the other company reads carefully.
Understand why contacts go cold
A new contact is an open door, not a sale. The person agreed to talk more, and that is all. When you treat that opening as a purchase order and send a price right away, you skip three questions they have not answered yet: whether they have a problem worth solving now, whether they are the one who decides, and whether your company is the best answer for that case.
Without those answers, the proposal arrives generic. The person compares numbers with their current supplier, sees no difference and puts it off. The opposite happens too: you spend hours preparing a detailed quote for someone who was only curious. In both cases, the problem is not the document. It is the lack of a path between the conversation and the document.
That path has three stages: qualifying the contact, agreeing on a concrete next step and holding a discovery meeting. Not every contact goes through all three, and that is fine. The goal is to reach the proposal stage with people who have a reason to read it.
Qualify before you invest time
Qualifying means finding out, with a few questions, whether it is worth moving forward now. It is not an interrogation: it is a natural part of the conversation. Four points are enough:
- Problem: is there something concrete the person wants to solve, described in their own words?
- Timing: is there a deadline, a date or a pain point that calls for a solution in the coming months?
- Decision: who approves the purchase? Does the person decide, influence the decision or are they just researching?
- Fit: is what they need something your company does well, and not something you would take on just to avoid losing the sale?
You do not need every answer in the first conversation. But you do need to know which ones are missing, because they define the next step. The table below helps you read the most common signals:
| What you heard | What it usually means | Next step |
|---|---|---|
| A concrete problem, with a deadline | Real interest and some urgency | Propose a discovery meeting on a set date |
| "Send me a catalog", with no context | Curiosity or politeness | Ask what they want to solve before sending anything |
| "I need to check with my partner" | The person influences but does not decide alone | Suggest that the decision maker joins the next conversation |
| "We are well served right now" | No urgency, for the time being | Keep in touch and come back when there is a new reason |
A contact who does not qualify now is not a lost contact. They go onto your relationship list and become a topic again when their situation changes: a supplier switch, a new store, a contract that is about to expire.
Agree on the next step before you hang up
The simplest stage is also the one most often forgotten. Before the conversation ends, propose a small action with a date. In an online round, each conversation has a fixed length and the room switches on its own at the end, so save the last minute for this. Something like: "From what you told me, it makes sense for us to talk calmly about volumes and deadlines. How about half an hour on Tuesday or Thursday?"
What makes a good next step
It is concrete (a meeting, a visit, sending a sample), it has a date and it takes little effort from the other side. "Let's keep in touch" and "I'm at your disposal" are not next steps: they leave the initiative hanging and, in practice, nobody picks the subject up again.
When the person asks for a proposal on the spot
Thank them and answer with a question: "Of course. So I don't send you something generic, can I ask three or four questions in a quick call first?" People with real interest usually accept, because they do not want a quote that does not fit either. Those who decline were often just being polite, and you save the time of preparing a proposal nobody would read.
This attention to what the other person needs, before what you want to sell, is the core of business networking that turns into deals: the conversation moves forward when the other side feels they gain something from every contact, not only when they buy.
Hold a discovery meeting
The discovery meeting is the conversation in which you understand the problem in depth before proposing any solution. Half an hour is usually enough, and it has one rule: you talk little and ask a lot. It can happen by video call, by phone or at the client's company, if a visit helps you see the problem.
Before
Reread your notes from the first conversation. Research the company: its website, its social media, what it sells and to whom. Write down the questions left unanswered during qualification and the ones that will show how big the problem is. If someone else will join, find out their role and what they usually expect from a supplier.
During
Ask how the situation is handled today, what it costs in time or money, what they have already tried, what a good result would look like and how the decision will be made. A ready-made list, organized by stage of the conversation, is in the guide on questions to ask in a business meeting. Write down the client's sentences the way they said them: those sentences will open your proposal.
At the end
Summarize out loud what you understood and ask the person to correct you. Then agree on two things: the date the proposal will arrive and a short call to present it. If, halfway through the discovery meeting, you realize your company is not the right one for that problem, say so. Recommending another supplier costs little and leaves a good impression for next time.
Write the proposal in the client's words
After the discovery meeting, the proposal almost writes itself. The context is the problem the client described, the solution answers what they said a good result would be, and the timeline takes into account the date that matters to them. How to structure each block, show the price and end with a single action is explained in the guide on how to write a sales proposal.
Two precautions apply when you come from a discovery meeting. First, avoid sending the proposal on its own by email if you can present it in a short call: you answer questions on the spot and reduce the chance of it being compared on price alone. Second, send it on the agreed day. Delaying a proposal you promised yourself undoes the trust the discovery meeting built.
Track each contact all the way to the proposal
When contacts come from many conversations, it is easy to lose track of who is at which stage. A simple setup solves it, with one column for each moment: new contact, qualified, discovery meeting booked and proposal sent. Every contact always has a next step and a date.
The Follow-up Planner does this in your browser, with contacts in columns and the date of each action. If you prefer a spreadsheet, the guide on how to organize business contacts without a CRM shows which fields to use. Review the list once a week and move each contact forward, onto the relationship list or off the list altogether.
Where to start
Take the contacts from your last round, trade fair or meeting and mark each one with the stage it is in. For those who asked for a proposal without a discovery meeting, send a message proposing a short call first. For those who still have no next step, agree on one with a date. If your list is empty, the starting point is having conversations with people looking for what you offer. In an online round, pairs are formed live, so bring your qualifying questions ready and use the card that appears as each conversation opens, with what the company does and is looking for, to choose which one to start with.
Your company's first online business round is on us: all you need is an active Brazilian CNPJ (the Brazilian company registration number), once per CNPJ, and contact details are only shared when both sides mark interest. See the upcoming business rounds and use the last minute of each conversation to agree on the next step.