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How proposal generation software generates ROI

Every sales proposal you send has investments attached. You invested time in creating it, or you invested funds in the sales rep creating it, and you invested expertise and experience in the products and services it presents.

Which makes it 1) important to quantify each quote, knowing exactly what it costs you to build and send it, so you can 2) estimate the ROI of each quote.

Proposal generation software plays a critical role in both driving ROI and providing the business analytics to determine ROI.

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A faster, smarter, better sales driver

In an earlier post, we posited that sales enablement — an ROI-centric approach to selling — is a people thing, a practice thing, and a platform thing. We stand by that, but clarify that we have yet to see any sales enablement process that does not have business technology as its platform.

For most SMBs, for example, sales enablement and ROI are about one thing: getting more from their often limited resources, and this means smart investments in practical tech like proposal software.

Because SMBs are typically in growth mode, which means driving new revenue at any opportunity, which means replying to every relevant RFP, which means being able to create and send quotes faster and smarter.

Everyone gets faster as a sales enablement practice, but smarter can often be open to interpretation. With proposal generation software, smarter means a massive reduction in manual labor that concurrently delivers a better, more accurate, and more targeted sales quote, no matter which rep sends it.

And that’s another way the ROI is often generated. The right business tech can turn even a lackluster rep into a professional sales proposal builder, making each rep faster and smarter (or at least appearing to be so in the proposals sent to your customers).

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Determining ROI in proposals and people

ROI isn’t something we guess at — it’s something we measure. The reporting tools built-in to proposal generation software give you specific data points on closing rates, turnaround times, and other key metrics that can help drive efficiencies.

This kind of data helps a business drive ROI in the present (e.g., you can see when, where, and how a quote may have stalled and jump in to help move it across the finish line), and forecast ROI as well.

For example, you will be able to see closing rates for specific product and pricing configurations (in specific verticals, using a specific template, sent by a specific rep, etc.). Forecasting returns is a far easier undertaking when you know your average closing rates, and quoting software gives you that knowledge in real-time.

Want to get more from the investments you make in each quote you send? Lean on your quoting solution for both the methods and metrics: you’ll improve both how you send, and how you understand, every single sales proposal you send out into the world, and naturally fuel ROI in the process.