Ah, April 15th, when we give a percentage of our hard-earned money to the hard-working individuals and institutions that keep our glorious democracy afloat. 😉
And though our country may politically be a democracy, economically, it’s capitalist, and that means a focus on individual success and profit.
For salespeople, every commission earned is evidence of capitalism in action: you landed the prospect, you worked the deal, you got the commission. And the more deals you close, the more money you make, which means you always want to be closing as many deals as possible, and as quickly as possible.
Sales enablement is your best bet to booking more business. With the right tools, technology, and tactics automating (or at least abetting) much of your sales process, you can focus on building relationships, generating leads (fill that funnel!), and closing deals.
But what’s the right tech? CRM? Of course. Marketing automation like Pardot? Absolutely. But in our experience, the sales enablement tech that helps you actually close more deals is proposal generation software.
Because while it takes a human touch to make that first connection (turning a stranger into a lead) and to get that final signature, many of the steps in your sales proposal process can be automated.
A hands-off process that feels hands-on
Manually building, sending, and tracking every proposal is taxing, both on your staff and your customers. Not only does it create opportunities for error internally, but — because each proposal is built manually each time — it’s bound to slow down your customer’s experience as well.
And isn’t that ironic? By handling each quote manually (doing actual hands-on work for each quote) the end-result is a dissatisfied customer who (because of delays and errors) feels like you took a hands-off approach.
With proposal generation software, your quotes arrive faster and cleaner, as do your replies and check-ins/nudges during the proposal review and signature process.
Making your data actionable
A key piece of any sales enablement program is data collection and analysis. While your CRM system does a more than capable job of collecting your top-level data (numbers of prospects, numbers of customers, campaigns, etc.), it typically doesn’t come equipped with the sales analytics tools to take a deep dive into your proposals.
And isn’t that ironic, too? Because without a signed quote, there’s no customer (the C in your CRM). The best sales proposal automation software systems not only help you generate your quotes, but track every step and interaction along the way, and help you respond as needed.
Because while business data is critical to overall sales enablement, most businesses gather and analyze data after the fact, trying to figure out “how to do things better next time.”
Sales proposal generation software lets you know in real-time what’s happening with your quotes — where they’re moving quickly, and where they may have stalled and need a little push from a manager or administrator. (Data you’re not acting on may as well not even exist.)
The “risk” of signed quotes
When is a signed quote bad news for a business? Usually, never. That said, as it’s tax time, we’ll note that there is a risk for reps: the more business you close, the more money you make, the higher tax rate you pay… but let’s save those worries for next year. This year let’s close as much business as possible and rely on sales enablement best practices and the associated tools that fuel them.
