It takes more than just your time to create any proposal or bid. You’d have to be ready to commit lots of mental energy and strength. If you aren’t careful enough, you might strain your brain, which would even result in migraines, fatigue, and all.
Even though you intend to handle a proposal for a small scale business, you would still have to commit at the very least 2 – 4 hours per page to ensure that you get everything right.
Furthermore, let’s say you have a sizable number of colleagues at your disposal helping out; you’d also be faced with the challenge of making sure that everyone is putting in their best. These things are sometimes easier said than done.
Nevertheless, adopting a certain level of automation can help you to quickly and accurately reduce the work and cost of getting to the completed article and to streamline time-consuming procedures. What this spells for you is that even before the deadline, you can get your sales document or bid out to your client.
Proposal automation grants you the opportunity to work smarter and possess a unified appearance to your documents that will also help to improve your win rate.
The key things to note:
- You would require more automation if your proposal is complex.
- It can take a salesperson anywhere from up to 40% of his time to conduct proper research and findings, and this is valuable time that could be spent elsewhere.
- Finding the right content has been the issue for a whopping 83% of proposal writers.
- Growth and increased sales are a result of a more efficient proposal management tool.
- Timeliness, buyer intelligence, and clarity are the three most important factors that high performers identify with.
- Adopting the culture of using an automated proposal service would mean that your sales rep would spend 26% less time on the sales cycle and producing a 49% higher proposal release rate.
- The modern sales funnel is 22% more complex than it was half a decade ago. Proposal automation will make the real difference if businesses want to make the most of their time.
Here are ways Proposal automation can save time and increase sales:
Create Proposal in Quick Turnaround Time
It’s a no brainer that proposal automation would get the job of creating proposals for you at a faster rate. Moreso, the completed proposal would contain the latest pricing and be consistent.
With proposal automation, you get to save yourself from a lot of stress because you are provided with lots of pricing plans and templates. Thus you don’t get to begin with a blank proposal every time.
One benefit you’re sure to enjoy is that you would be able to secure more meetings and increase the rate of prospects that receive your proposal, and this would increase the chances of win rates for your proposed business.
Real-Time Monitoring of the Entire Process
Ensuring that everyone stays on track, keeping real-time tags with the entire sale process, and ensuring that your salespeople are making the most of their time, is what the proposal automation can help you to achieve.
When in full operation, will completely blot out procrastination and make sure that nothing falls through the cracks. Your sales team will steam up their concentration level with the right proposal automation software, and this will, in turn, result in your overall development.
Use Integrations
Sales reps may be faced with limited options when they have to open a traditional document to create a proposal. Your Sales stem can receive several types of integrations that are already embedded in the sales system with the right proposal automation.
For instance, proposal automation can pull up current pricing in real-time from one system while your customer data can be pulled up from a CRM.
This can make the filling of a proposal template swifter and more uncomplicated. Thus the integration works to position your proposal right into your sales funnel the moment it is created and enables better Monitoring by team leaders. Moreso, that proposal can be integrated with tools like the project management software once payment has been completed.
Your business can create better and faster proposals and have complete control of the sales process with a proposal automation tool.
Faster Payment
It is very common for businesses to have up to 90 days of unpaid invoices. Nevertheless, with proposal automation, you receive the option of getting paid immediately.
However, much project management software offers customers the option of accepting quick payment without leaving your proposal. You can accept a wider variety of payment options as an added benefit, as a way of providing flexibility to your customers. Hence, it reduces friction and makes payment run smoothly.
Data Is Stored in a Centralized Location
Whenever your sales reps use standard software like Word or Excel, they waste valuable time trying to develop the ideal templates, pricing plan, and other details they require to produce a sound proposal.
Instead, you should put all the details in one unified location to have the new prices and templates at their disposal for quick and convenient access.
This way, anytime they need to look for a proposal or a related historic proposal, they can use their proposal management tools to find relevant information quickly and conveniently.
Having unhindered access to historic proposals will reduce unnecessary meeting sessions since what the team requires can be found in the archives.
Getting the Most Out of Your Proposal Automation
There are several things to put into consideration when considering any Request for Proposal (RFP) management system. The right proposal automation service works with sales and bid managers in a wide range of sectors and industries, such as financial services, construction, and healthcare.
It aims not only to streamline the whole proposal making process but also have dynamic quality, which means that it is responsive to individual needs.
Responsiveness
Business owners need something that can effectively accelerate their bid drafting processes without losing the credibility of the document. This ensures that every proposal automation provider has to have a means of storing the material library and producing documentation when and when you need them.
For salespeople, these can be almost every day for several potential clients; for construction equipment, it could be as little as once a month that you are bidding for a specific project. Whatever your needs, the system needs to be responsive, intuitive, and, above all, very usable.
It Has To Work
You wouldn’t want a proposal automation system that would only deliver the proposal document, you need, and you definitely would like it to provide high-quality work. Proposal automation systems worth paying for should be able to assist you in improving your delivery and land more bids. It’s akin to an ecosystem that develops with you rather than remains static.
Cost
Undoubtedly, the pricing of a service is crucial; thus transparent charges with no hidden fees imply that you can budget adequately for the future, this is very crucial if you operate a large sales team and churn out quite an amount of proposals.
With some services, you can get charged up to $15 per set, and you have the option of appointing administrators that ensures the proposal portal is tailored to your needs.
Service
Most vendors would assure you of a good support line and customer service. Unfortunately, this isn’t always the case. Hence before signing up with a proposal automation service, you should do your due diligence in checking out their customer service to ensure that it’s as effective as they claim to be.
Conclusion
Once you have calculated the expense that goes into churning out a proposal using proposal automation and how profitable your business can be; saving time, increasing sales et al. We bet you now have a better understanding of how integrating proposal automation can rev up your overall business performance.
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