As any craftsman can tell you, the key to good work is using the right tool for the job. Using a hammer in a bakery or a blender in a woodshop leads to a worse product--if you get any product at all. The same is true for businesses that send out many proposals to prospects—quoting tools have become the best and most efficient tool for the job.
Here are five reasons a quoting tool is the right tool for your business.
1. A quoting tool creates a consistent look for your brand
Quoting tools make it easy to design a personalized and consistent look for all your proposals. A well-designed proposal extends your brand and helps introduce your business to the prospect: the better your proposals look, the more confidence the prospect will have in your business.
2. A quoting tool is easy for the whole business to use
Quoting tools are intuitive. Once the software is set up with your business's template, anyone in the company can create new proposals with minimal time and effort. This not only means employees can spend less time drawing up proposals, it means that the proposals each employee sends out will be consistent. The more your salespeople are on the same page, the more sales your business will book.
3. A quoting tool means faster proposals
With the old tools, making a new proposal took a long time, which could lead to unnecessarily prolonged negotiations with a prospect. Not so with quoting tools—quoting tools make it possible to generate new proposals with just a few simple inputs. This makes it easy for your sales team to make revisions that are responsive to the needs of a prospect. And the less time your sales team spends drawing up new proposals, the faster they can close business.
4. A quoting tool is more precise than the old tools
If you're using the old tools to make proposals, there is a lot of room for human error. A new member of the sales team, for instance, might be less familiar with your business and write proposals that don't best represent your business. And even the most experienced people will always make an occasional mistake. Once it is set up, a quoting tool can reduce those human errors from your sales process.
5. A quoting tool puts all your sales information in one place
Without a quoting tool, it's all too common for a business to have important information spread across many locations. This can make an accurate assessment of where there's room for improvement in your proposals difficult to make. A quoting tool, however, can help your business find new directions to grow.
So if you’re in the business of making proposals, make sure you’re not actually using a blender to make them. Quoting tools--the right tool for your business proposals.
