For many of us, in this tumultuous era, we’re learning to work remotely for the first time: setting up home offices, doing virtual meetings, and so on. For many sales professionals, however, working remotely is how it has always been done. Which makes sales managers ideal examples for how to effectively manage a distributed, remote workforce.
One means of management that’s becoming more and more effective for sales leaders (remotely and on-site) is “managing by proposal,” essentially tracking sales quotes as a means of tracking productivity. And it’s the robust tracking features at the individual quote level that separate the best quoting software from the rest of quoting software.
What managing by proposal can tell you
In most sales organizations, especially those using a CRM system — and especially, especially those using CRM integrated with CPQ (configure price quote) — a manager is attempting to manage by funnel.
They usually know how many leads are in any given rep’s pipeline; they almost always know how many opportunities are in any given rep’s pipeline; and they absolutely must know how many quotes are in the pipeline.
If you’re a sales manager who has time to burn, you can do this: manage from the top of the funnel to the end of it by tracking reps’ response time to leads, their follow-up during the nurture process, etc.
If you DON’T have time to burn and want to track the most critical steps of the sales process (the closing steps), managing your team by proposal is a smart choice.
Why? Simply because there’s no better way to truly measure performance than by deals closed, and tracking proposals in circulation is critical. When you use quoting software as a best practice in managing by proposal, you quickly see how many quotes are out there, who sent them (a #1 performance metric), and where they are in the signing process.
It’s this last part that led us to say “especially, especially” above: because while CRM systems offer robust tracking tools for lead nurturing and relationship management, they typically don’t offer tracking for each step of the signing process. But CPQ does. It gives you...
“Light at the end of funnel”
We’ll be clear: for tracking the initial stages of any given deal in the pipeline, a CRM system is essential. But for greater insight at closing time, it’s all about CPQ.
But how does knowing the deep details at the end help you better manage your team overall? What does managing by proposal offer to the distributed workforce that CRM doesn’t? It’s all about simplicity.
Consider all the data available to you when you’re managing a sales team. How much of it can you absorb and act-on? If you’re managing a team of more than a few reps, chances are “just a little.” When you manage by proposal, however, the data you’re absorbing and acting on is the right “just a little” because it’s the data that’s most likely to drive revenue.
Think about what matters most: it’s not whether rep A has 20 leads compared to rep B’s 40 leads. Because when it comes to revenue, leads are never the best indicator. You’re not really going to manage by leads.
Managing your reps by the amount of quotes they have in circulation, and helping them move quotes across the finish line, is what matters most. And this is exactly what the best quoting software helps you do easily and completely.
