Last week, we went all-in on Shakespeare. This week, it’s Jonathan Swift, whose classic satire, “A modest proposal,” presented an unexpected solution to poverty in 18th century Ireland. We won’t delve into the details, but suffice to say that “devour” figures in considerably.
At iQuoteXpress, our modest proposal is that sales reps in every market — big ones such as technology, manufacturing, and energy, to more niche markets such as modular housing, recreational vehicle sales, and chicken incubation — upgrade their quoting systems from DIY to CPQ, from do-it-yourself to configure, price, quote.
The DIY sales quoting system
Once was a time when a simple handshake sealed the deal. Then came reading and writing. Then came Excel and Word, which held steady for decades.
Even as CRM systems became the standard for managing customer relationships, and ERP systems the standard for managing “the numbers,” sales quotes were — and in far too many companies, still are — created in an old-fashioned way: Word; Excel.
Yes, these quotes had, and have, the bare bones of a proposal: products, a price, and line to sign on. But they lack pizazz. Where are the infographics? Where’s the branding? Why do they look like they were done in Word (other than because they were)?
Perhaps more importantly, as they’re created manually by people whose job is closing sales quickly, they’re prone to error. No big deal if we’re talking about a grammatical error, but a VERY big deal if we’re talking about an inaccurate price or a discontinued product.
But you can still DIY and not create a quote that looks like a POS. And it’s as easy as C-P-Q.
The CPQ sales quoting system
With CPQ — especially with CPQ integrated with CRM — we welcome sales quoting into the modern era. In just a few minutes and with just a few clicks, a sales rep can create an error-free sales quote that stands apart from the crowd..
(And if you’re selling in any of the vertical markets we listed above, chances are you’re part of a crowd of companies sending sales quotes to any given RFP, competing for the business… maybe not so much in chicken incubation, but manufacturing? Crowded!)
How does CPQ reduce errors?
In addition to creating a templated approach to every proposal (meaning there’s less manual entry of text and images required), CPQ enables centralized administration of every product and price.
Whereas DIY quote systems typically mean each rep is working off a pricing sheet or other “hard copy” (which can mean they’re working off pricing that may be less-than-current), CPQ ensures reps can only view and quote your latest products and your best pricing.
How does CPQ optimize the closing process?
With granular tracking of every quote in your system, CPQ enables you to quickly address challenges (such as bottlenecks in the pipeline) and create repeatable processes that may be improved upon over time — a.k.a., optimization.
Example: rep A sends a follow-up on day 1, 2 and 3; rep B on days 1, 3, and 5; rep B, perhaps by giving prospects just a little bit more room to breathe, has a closing rate that’s 15% higher. You can essentially “hard code” rep B’s process into the system, and have all other reps follow that winning formula.
How does CPQ help devour the competition?
Yes, our modest proposal includes “devouring.” It’s simple: with CPQ instead of DIY, your quote looks better, gets there quicker, and has follow-up built-in. Companies moving to CPQ see closing rates increase by as much as 25%, and see the costs and time they spend making quotes drop by nearly 70%. Companies that don’t use CPQ? They get devoured. Nom-nom-nom.
