Want to know why Ron Popeil (RonCo!) sold so many Showtime Rotisseries? His pitch: “set it & forget it.” Simplicity defined. A resonant message for every single person in the world… because who doesn’t want to enjoy spectacular results by simply setting and forgetting?
When it comes to proposals in your pipeline, your CPQ system delivers practically the exact same benefit: automated replies, reminders, and more enable you to keep more proposals moving with less effort. You set them up in the system and can forget about them until “pinged.”
You never need to check-in and see how proposal X, Y, or Z is doing as your configure, price, quote solution automates this critical stage of the sale. Following are a few additional benefits you may not have realized a CPQ system delivers.
“CRM lite”
While CPQ/CRM integration is a must-have for enterprises and most SMBs using CRMs like Zoho, Salesforce, Dynamics, and Oracle — all of which integrate easily with IQX, either through a custom integration (like we have done for Zoho), or through our API — some smaller organizations with only a few reps may not be using a CRM solution.
@@For smaller sales departments, a robust CPQ can serve as “CRM lite.”@@ E.g., IQX allows you to store and manage contacts, just like a CRM. And while it may not have the sales analytics capabilities of a fully fledged CRM (which allows you visibility into the entire pipeline: leads, campaigns, opportunities, etc.) it does allow visibility into what’s easily the most critical part of that pipeline: quote › customer.
Un-silo-ing
Salespeople are competitive — Bob want to outsell Terry, Terry wants to outsell Bob, George wants to outsell Bob and Terry put together — and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
But as a business owner or sales manager, you want everyone selling as much as possible, which, for example, means sharing best practices when it comes to products and pricing.
After a while, of course, what makes George successful will trickle down to Bob and Terry. “What’s your secret, George?” “Well, I started bundling widget X with widget Y, and raised my average order value by 30%. You should try it next quarter.”
But with a CPQ system, information sharing about winning products/pricing configurations is a core feature. The configuration tools in the solution enable you to ensure all reps are always selling the most effective combination of products, upsells, and upgrades.
And as it’s centrally administered, it gives you complete control over pricing. No more emailing an updated list of products and pricing: simply make the updates in your CPQ solution, and the best you have to offer is the only thing that’s available across the enterprise.
Simplicity and speed
In the end, while your CPQ system and RonCo’s Showtime Rotisserie have entirely different purposes, they deliver a similar set of benefits. A better, more consistent product that requires less manual labor and gets the job done faster.
If you'd like to learn more about this topic or see IQX for yourself with a free demo, contact us.
