What to say when they say “send me a proposal”

It sounds like a win. The meeting went well, they seemed engaged, and at the end they said the words: "Send me a proposal and I'll take it internally."

Then nothing happens for three weeks, and your follow-ups get shorter replies each time.

Why this sentence is dangerous

"Send me a proposal" does three things simultaneously, and only one of them is good for you.

• It ends the meeting on a positive note without anyone having to say no. In Indian business culture particularly, a direct refusal to someone who has just spent an hour of their time is socially expensive. This sentence is the graceful alternative.
• It transfers all the work to you and none of the commitment to them.
• It moves your argument into a room you are not in, to be presented by someone who is not you, to people whose objections you have never heard.

Sometimes it is a genuine request from someone with a real internal process. The problem is that both versions sound identical.

The question that separates them

"Happy to. So I build the right one — who else will read it, and what will they be looking for that you and I haven't discussed?"

Watch what comes back.

A specific answer — names, roles, a concern you have not covered — means it is real. You now have a multi-threading path and a list of objections to pre-empt in the document.

A vague answer — "just the usual approvals", "I'll circulate it" — means the internal process does not exist yet, or they are not the person who will drive it. Neither is fatal, but sending a proposal will not fix either.

The second question, if the first goes vague

"Got it. Before I put it together — is this something you'd want to happen this quarter, or is it more of a next-year thing? Either answer is fine, it just changes what I send."

Giving explicit permission for the deprioritising answer is what makes it possible to receive an honest one. Most sellers never ask because they do not want to hear it — and so they spend the quarter following up on a deal that was never live.

What to send instead of a proposal

If it is real, do not send a document and wait. Send a one-page summary and book the walkthrough in the same message. Fifteen minutes, with you in the room, to take the other stakeholders through it.

The reason is straightforward: a proposal read without you is a price list. A proposal walked through with you is a conversation where objections surface while you can still answer them.

The uncomfortable part

This will kill some deals faster. That is the point.

A pipeline full of proposals that were never going anywhere is not a pipeline; it is a filing system. The cost of finding out in the meeting is one awkward question. The cost of finding out in month three is a quarter.