If you’re tired of endless email threads and version control nightmares every time your team needs to build a proposal, this guide’s for you. Maybe you’re in sales, pre-sales, or solutions engineering, and you want to spend less time herding cats and more time actually selling. Here’s how to use Valuecore to collaborate on proposals—live, with your team—without losing your mind.
Why Real-Time Collaboration Matters (and Where It Goes Wrong)
Let’s be blunt: most proposal tools are either a mess to use together or have “collaboration” that just means leaving comments nobody reads. Real-time collaboration, done right, means you and your team can actually work on the same proposal: tweaking numbers, fixing copy, and seeing updates instantly. No more “v3_final_final_REALFINAL” file names.
But here’s the catch: if you don’t set a few ground rules, real-time turns into real chaos. People overwrite each other, nobody’s sure who’s doing what, and you risk embarrassing mistakes in front of the client.
This guide breaks down how to get the most out of Valuecore’s collaboration features, avoid the mess, and get proposals out the door faster.
Step 1: Get Your Team Set Up the Right Way
Before you even open a proposal, make sure everyone on your team:
- Has a Valuecore account with the right access. Don’t wait until you’re halfway through a proposal to fix permissions.
- Knows where to find the proposal templates you’ll use as your starting point.
- Understands who should be editing what. More on this in a minute.
Pro Tip:
Spend ten minutes upfront creating a shared doc or Slack message with your team’s “rules of the road.” Decide things like who owns data, who writes copy, and who reviews before sending. It beats arguing about it later.
Step 2: Create (or Clone) the Proposal
Start a new proposal, or clone an existing one if you’ve got a solid template. Here’s what works in Valuecore:
- Templates save headaches. If your org doesn’t have good ones, make it your first project.
- Cloning saves time, but double-check for old data or pricing that might sneak through.
What to ignore:
Don’t waste time making the proposal look perfect at this stage. Focus on the content and numbers first—design tweaks come later.
Step 3: Invite Your Team—But Don’t Invite Everyone
In Valuecore, you can invite teammates to collaborate in real time. Here’s where people screw up: inviting everyone “just in case” leads to confusion and too many cooks in the kitchen.
- Only invite people who need to edit. Observers can get a read-only link.
- Assign clear roles: Who’s editing pricing? Who’s writing the summary? Who’s double-checking the details?
- Set deadlines for each section if you can. “By EOD” is better than “whenever.”
Honest take:
If you invite your whole team out of habit, you’ll end up with overlapping edits and more confusion than help.
Step 4: Collaborate in Real Time (Without Stepping on Toes)
Here’s where the magic (and the problems) happen. Valuecore lets you see live edits—think Google Docs, but for proposals.
What Works:
- Live editing: Multiple people can update sections at once—just watch for overlapping work.
- Commenting: Leave notes, tag teammates, and keep feedback in the doc instead of jumping to email.
- Change tracking: You can see who changed what, which is handy when someone breaks something.
What Doesn’t:
- No built-in chat: Keep a Slack or Teams channel open for quick questions. Commenting is not the same as a real conversation.
- Simultaneous edits on the same field: If two people edit the same section at once, someone’s work may get overwritten. Coordinate before jumping in.
How to avoid chaos:
- Assign sections or slides to specific people.
- Announce (in chat) when you’re starting work on a sensitive area.
- Don’t edit the “client-facing” summary live in front of the client—work as a team first, then present.
Step 5: Review, Polish, and Lock Down
Before you send anything out the door, take a beat.
- Assign one person as the final reviewer. This avoids the “I thought you checked it” problem.
- Use Valuecore’s version history to roll back if someone made a mistake.
- Double-check for placeholder text, outdated numbers, or internal notes that shouldn’t go to the client.
Pro Tip:
Create a pre-flight checklist. It doesn’t have to be fancy; a simple bullet list in Slack or Notion works. Things like “Are all prices updated?” and “Did we remove all comments?” can save your skin.
Step 6: Share With the Client (and Track What Happens)
Once you’re happy, it’s time to share. Valuecore lets you generate a secure proposal link for the client.
- Double-check permissions. You don’t want the client editing your proposal.
- Turn on tracking if available, so you know when they open it and which sections they spend time on.
- Be ready for last-minute changes—a real-time tool means you can tweak and update quickly, but don’t let this become an excuse for endless revisions.
What to skip:
Don’t bother exporting to PDF unless the client insists. You lose the interactivity and tracking.
Honest Tips for Teams New to Valuecore
- Start small. Try collaborating on a low-stakes proposal first, so you can mess up without consequences.
- Get buy-in. If half your team refuses to use the tool, you’re back to email hell.
- Don’t obsess over perfection. A “good enough” proposal that goes out on time beats a perfect one that’s late.
What to Watch Out For (and What to Ignore)
Worth Your Attention
- Training: Make sure everyone actually knows how to use Valuecore’s collaboration tools. Don’t assume “it’s just like Google Docs.”
- Version control: Use the built-in tools—don’t try to hack together your own system in parallel.
- Clear ownership: Someone should always be “on the hook” for the final draft.
Not Worth Your Time
- Endless formatting tweaks early on.
- Micromanaging every edit.
- Building dozens of templates—start with one, improve as you go.
Keep It Simple, Then Iterate
The best teams don’t wait around for the “perfect” process. Start with Valuecore’s real-time features, get your first proposal out, and then tweak your workflow as you learn what works (and what’s just noise). Collaboration doesn’t have to be complicated—just organized. Stick to these basics, and you’ll spend less time chasing down edits and more time closing deals.