Are we sending proposals that never get answered?
You spent hours writing that proposal. Then silence. If this keeps happening, you have a proposal problem. Here's how to find it in your data.
The short answer
Filter your CRM for deals in “Proposal Sent” with no activity in 7+ days. Then calculate your proposal-to-close conversion rate: how many proposals you send vs. how many result in a win. If you're sending 10 proposals a month and closing 2, that's 8 proposals worth of wasted effort.
Unanswered proposals are the most expensive waste in sales
A proposal takes time to write. Custom pricing, scope documents, slide decks. If 60-70% of your proposals go unanswered, you're spending 60-70% of your proposal time producing documents that nobody reads.
The fix starts with visibility. Most teams don't track proposal response rates. They know their overall close rate but not the specific conversion from “Proposal Sent” to “Closed Won.” That one metric tells you whether the problem is in your proposals, your qualifying, or your follow-up.
Proposal metrics that reveal the problem
- Deals sitting in “Proposal Sent” with no activity. How many proposals are out there with no response? How long have they been sitting?
- Proposal-to-close conversion rate.Of all deals that reached “Proposal Sent,” what percentage moved to Closed Won? This is your proposal effectiveness metric.
- Average time from proposal to decision. How long do prospects typically take to respond? If the average is 8 days but some proposals have been out for 25 days, those are likely dead.
- Proposal value sitting unanswered.What is the total dollar amount of proposals with no response? This is revenue you're counting on that probably won't materialize.
How to find unanswered proposals in HubSpot
- 1Go to Sales → Deals, filter by stage
Switch to List view. Click Advanced filters. Set “Deal stage is Proposal Sent” (or whatever you call your proposal stage). Add a filter for “Last activity date is more than 7 days ago.” This shows proposals with no recent engagement.
- 2Run the Deal Stage Funnel report
Go to Reports → Create report. Search for “Deal stage funnel.” This shows the conversion rate from Proposal Sent to the next stage and ultimately to Closed Won. If the drop-off at Proposal Sent is 50%+, you have a proposal problem.
- 3Check time in Proposal Sent stage
In Reports → Analytics Tools → Sales Analytics, select Time in deal stage. See how long deals sit in your proposal stage on average. If it's more than double your other stages, proposals are where momentum dies.
Total time: 10-15 minutes. The filters are quick. The funnel report requires Sales Hub Professional.
How to find unanswered proposals in Salesforce
- 1Filter Pipeline Inspection for your proposal stage
Navigate to Opportunities → Pipeline Inspection. Filter by Stage = “Proposal/Price Quote” (or your equivalent). Sort by “Days in Stage” descending. Check the “Last Activity” column to see which proposals have gone cold.
- 2Build a proposal conversion report
Go to Reports → New Report → Opportunity History. Filter for opportunities that entered your proposal stage in the last 6 months. Count how many advanced to Closed Won vs. how many stalled or were lost. That's your proposal-to-close conversion rate.
- 3Check average proposal stage duration
In the Opportunity History report, filter for the proposal stage and summarize Stage Duration as Average. Compare to your other stages. If proposals sit 2-3x longer, your follow-up process needs attention.
Total time: 15-20 minutes. Pipeline Inspection gives the quick view. The conversion report requires building a custom report.
Match proposals to invoices in your accounting software
A useful cross-check: compare the dollar value of proposals sent last quarter to the revenue that actually showed up in QuickBooks or Xero. If you sent $350K in proposals and only invoiced $95K, your proposal-to-revenue conversion is 27%. That puts a real dollar figure on the waste and tells you how much proposal improvement is actually worth to the business.
Monthly effort to track proposal effectiveness
About 15 minutes per month to run the filters and check the funnel report. The bigger effort is behavioral: following up on proposals within 48-72 hours, setting clear next steps before sending, and closing stale proposals as lost instead of letting them linger.
Or get unanswered proposals flagged in your monthly report
Bottomline connects to your CRM and flags every proposal with no response. Your monthly report shows:
No filtering, no funnel reports, no manual counting. One section of your monthly report tells you how many proposals are out there, how much money they represent, and whether your proposal conversion rate is getting better or worse.