In today’s business world, the sales process is more complex than ever. There are more steps involved and more stakeholders to keep track of. Sales teams are always looking for new ways to increase their close rate and win more business. Having proposal software is one way to give your team a leg up on the competition. 

Proposal software helps sales teams create and track proposals, ensuring that all the information necessary to make a sale is organized and accessible. Additionally, proposal software can help you manage your client relationships, keeping track of communications and progress towards a sale.

What are typical counter-productive activities in the proposal creation process that have an impact on sales? 

Sales representatives are the driving force behind any company. They are the ones who bring in new business and keep the wheels of the company turning. They are often tasked with creating proposals for potential customers. However, proposal creation can be a time-consuming and counter-productive process if not done correctly. There are several activities that can impact sales negatively. These include:

1. Pre-Sale Meetings

Although pre-sales meetings with the internal sales team or the customer provide you the opportunity to address all the main elements, these meetings come with the major drawback of destroying sales productivity leaving your sales team with very little time to accomplish the necessary tasks.

2. Scattered Sales Documents

Nothing is more crucial than having quick access to important sales or marketing materials.

In most sales organizations, when a potential customer requests a sales proposal, you immediately begin searching through a tonne of files. When it comes to increasing sales productivity, a situation with such a disorderly document management system is not recommended.

3. No Collaboration Platform for Teams or Clients

If your sales team is struggling with issues like misleading file-sharing or long email trails then the collaboration platform is a thing you need. Because collecting feedback/reviews over an email or spreadsheet are the add-ups to a big loss of time and productivity.

4. Physical Sign-off

Physical signatures have their own challenges in terms of sending the document from one side to another. These documents must be printed, signed on two copies, and sent to clients. After the customer (or other parties) has signed both documents, they send you one copy by courier. It may take many weeks or months to complete this procedure and get the document properly signed. The new method for electronically signing papers is called eSignature. Documents signed with an electronic signature are not only a quick and rewarding experience, but they are also legally valid and acceptable in court.

5 ways a proposal software will help your sales team save time, increase productivity and boost sales

Here are four ways a proposal software can help your sales team save time, increase productivity and boost sales.

1. It’ll make writing a lot quicker

Believe it or not but every successful deal requires an effective sales proposal and drafting such proposals every time while pitching your product or service is a total waste of your valuable time.

This is where templates come in handy. Proposal software provides templates that offer a pre-build structure using which you can create customizable proposals in just a few minutes. These templates can be very helpful in minimizing the time it takes to draft a proposal.

2. You won’t even have to worry about design 

Aside from writing, another quality that most salespeople usually lack is design. What colors work well with the white background, where to put a company logo to make the proposal visually appealing, 

Ufff!!! Too overwhelming.

Proposal software solves this problem and takes care of your proposal design by providing visual templates. All you need to do is edit the written content. In addition to the overall appeal, you can customize the font colors, size, headers, and much more.

Why is design important? You only get one chance to make a first impression and the design of your proposal is your only chance. A well-designed business proposal not only sells your business but also helps you win more deals.

3.  Everything is made easier with integrations

A sophisticated proposal software has a variety of integrations that just makes the entire process of proposal creation and management a lot easier. 

For example, you can pull data from your CRM into the proposal software making it easy to fill in all the details in your proposal template. Or for the process of proposal creation, you can integrate it with any task management tool and work with your team collaboratively.

4. It Provides a Sales Intelligence

When you send sales proposals as an attachment via email, you can’t really know whether a client has opened a proposal or not. And just to get no response, you keep throwing darts in the dark and by that, we mean you keep sending too many follow-up emails.

Proposal software provides precise intelligence to help you track how the client is interacting with your proposal. You will know exactly when your client has opened the proposal or which section s/he has spent more time on. These intelligent inputs will put your sales team in a lot better position to communicate with the client.

5. Quick Acceptance with Online Signature

With digital signatures, your prospect can sign the contracts online using mobile, tablets, or similar devices. This helps you eliminate emailing, printing, scanning, shipping, or faxing the proposals to each stakeholder. Proposal software allows you to get the contracts signed remotely by several participants and seal the deal faster.

In conclusion, proposal management software is a critical tool for sales teams. It allows teams to manage the entire sales process from start to finish, including creating and tracking proposals. This software can help sales teams close more deals and increase their win rate.