Not about the software but about the way you use it. On CRM.

The rise of CRM software – “ready-to-send” quote generation

Don’t get us wrong: CRM is great to keep track of the marketing and sales process. The end of such a process ideally is a sale. In order to reach that, one needs to send out an offer and a quotation. With the rise of CRM Software this task has been automated to the fullest. CRM tools often integrate a functionality to generate a “ready-to-send” quote.

The “issue” with those documents is that they are often very hard to understand and do not show the relationship that was built during the entire process.

The real innovation: not in software but in behavior?

It’s not about the technology nor the software but about the way you use it. We’d prefer to use the CRM as to manage the long sales process. However, we would not recommend to deploy the quote generation functionality.

Instead we suggest to make it personal: add details and information from the sales process. Things that remind them about the relationship you have built during the past weeks, months. You could already do this easily by e.g. integrating a meeting date and place into your proposition.

Make it easy to understand for human beings

Make sure there is no confusion about the content in your offer. Auto generated quotes tend to be very hard to understand. Additionally, make use of strong copy as you’re still trying to convince someone to favor your offering. If you’re good at “sales talk” but not a writer, don’t hesitate to collaborate with a copy writer to help you write the proposal.

Specs for which we believe the above “theory” applies.

• B2B markets
• Complex products
• Long sales cycles
• Telco industry might match (?)
• Strategy might be beneficial for SME facing big guns (?)