Big deals don't get approved by one person. They get approved by a B2B buying committee, a group from finance, operations, IT, legal and leadership, each reading your proposal for something different. Most proposals are written for the one person who asked for it. Our read is that's why so many good proposals stall after a great meeting.
Who's on the committee
The makeup changes with the deal, but the same roles keep showing up. Someone who owns the budget. Someone who owns the problem. Someone who'll use or run what you're selling. Someone who owns risk, often legal, security or procurement. And someone senior who signs.
Each of them opens your proposal with a different question. Finance wants to know what it costs and when. Operations wants to know what changes on Monday. Legal wants to know what could go wrong. The signer wants to know why this, why now and why you.
Most of the decision happens without you
Gartner research found B2B buyers spend just 17 percent of their buying time meeting with suppliers, and that time gets split across every vendor in the running. Our read is that most committee members form their view from your proposal alone, with your champion as the only person in the room who's met you.
So the proposal has to speak for you to people who'll never hear you speak.
Give each reader a section
The most useful change we'd make to most proposals is a short section for each reader. A page for finance with the cost, the payment timing and the return. A page for operations with the rollout plan and who does what. A page for legal and security with the risks and how you'll handle them. In a web proposal, these can be chapters a reader jumps straight to. In the PDF, they're clearly labeled sections.
This is the core of our Signature build, a chapter for each person who has to sign off.
Write a summary the champion can repeat
Your champion will be asked to explain your proposal in meetings you're not part of. Give them the words. A one-page executive summary that states the problem, the plan, the price and the next step in plain language. See how to write a proposal executive summary.
Answer the objections before they come up
Every committee has a skeptic. Ask your champion who it is and what worries them. Then answer that worry directly, in the section that person will read. An objection answered in writing travels further than one answered on a call the skeptic didn't join.
Make it easy to pass around
Committees forward proposals. A live link that opens cleanly on a phone, with a PDF for anyone who wants to print or file it, makes that easy. A huge attachment that bounces off a mail filter makes it hard.
What a committee-ready proposal looks like
Here's a made-up example. A software company is selling a scheduling platform to a hospital network. The champion is the director of nursing. The committee also includes the CFO, the CIO, a compliance officer and the COO, who signs.
A proposal written only for the champion would spend most of its pages on how nurses build schedules. The committee version keeps that and adds a chapter for each of the others. The CFO's chapter shows the contract cost by year and where the overtime savings come from, using the hospital's own figures from discovery. The CIO's chapter covers the connection to the existing HR system and who does the work. The compliance chapter covers data handling and audit trails. The COO gets the executive summary and a one-page rollout plan by site.
Each chapter is short. Together, they mean nobody has to wait for the champion to explain the part they care about.
How to find out who's on the buying committee
Ask. Your champion usually knows who else will weigh in, and most will tell you if the question sounds like you're trying to help them. "Who else will need to be comfortable with this before it's approved?" works well. Follow it with "What will each of them want to see?"
If the champion doesn't know, ask how the last similar purchase got approved. The same people tend to show up again.
Where deals stall with a committee
Committee deals tend to stall at the same points. Finance asks for the number in a different shape than the one you sent, like a cost per year when you gave a total. Legal sends redlines and nobody on their side owns the reply. A new person joins late, sees the proposal for the first time and starts over with questions the champion already answered.
Each of these is easier to handle when the proposal already has a section for that reader. Finance's chapter shows the cost the way they budget. The risk chapter answers the usual legal questions before redlines start. And the late joiner gets a summary and a clear path to their part, instead of a long email thread to dig through.
Questions we hear about B2B buying committees
How many people are on a typical buying committee?
It varies a lot with company size and deal size. A small deal might involve two or three people. A large enterprise deal can involve many more across several departments. Ask your champion instead of guessing.
Should you send different proposals to different people?
Send one proposal with a section for each reader. Separate versions get forwarded and compared, and any difference between them raises questions. One document with clear chapters keeps everyone reading the same thing. If you're unsure what to cut to make room, start with the sales proposal mistakes we see most.
The short version
Write for every person who has to say yes, including the ones you'll never meet. Give each of them a section, give your champion a summary they can repeat and answer the objections you know are coming.
If you're working a deal with a committee behind it, see the Signature build or start a proposal.
