How Guided Selling and Proposal Automation Make It Easier for Sellers to Sell

“How Guided Selling and Proposal Automation Make It Easier for Sellers to Sell” “73222”

Blog Credit: Austin Caldwell, February 24, 2023 (How Guided Selling and Proposal Automation Make It Easier for Sellers to Sell | NetSuite)

B2B sales teams are constantly looking to optimize their selling process. The faster a rep can deliver an accurate quote or sales order, the better. But when organizations stock hundreds or thousands of items, finding the right combination quickly can be a challenge.

Whether the customer needs something as complex as a solar panel or as simple as a replacement part, one thing is true: To be successful, sales reps need technology that lets them propose the right products at the right time to fulfill every customer’s exact need.

However, antiquated sales processes and outdated tools leave salespeople unable to respond quickly. Problems include:  

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    Missed promotional, upsell, and cross-sell opportunities. Salespeople may skip recommending complimentary items because they’re focused on product lines they know best, and don’t want to overcomplicate the deal. They may not upsell premium products simply because they are out of sight, out of mind. Further, when salespeople are unaware of active promotions, they won’t leverage them during tough negotiations.

    Prolonged sales training. To find the right products for an estimate, salespeople must search paper or static digital catalogs. New reps need months to get their arms around a large product catalog, which impedes their efficiency. Experienced sales teams also go through a new learning curve each time products are introduced.   

    Confusing, lackluster sales proposals lose deals. To win business, sales proposals must stand out and be memorable. Sales reps often lack the time and skills to create high-quality, detailed proposals using word processors or presentations. Their proposals are flat and lack detail and branding, and may be inaccurate. Configurable, custom product attributes like dimensions, weight, color, material, and style must be part of each proposal. Getting highly technical product attributes wrong dooms a proposal. 

    Slow response times decrease conversion rates. Business buyers are accustomed to instant access to detailed information on everything they buy. They’ll get frustrated when forced to wait on hold while salespeople work through creating a complex quote. Even perfect proposals will fail if they don’t get to the buyer in time. And, the more time salespeople spend on proposals, the less time they have to prospect and build customer relationships.

    CPQ Software Lets Reps Quickly Build Perfect Proposals

    Configure, price, quote, or CPQ, has grown up from its origin in complex product manufacturing. Two giant steps in its evolution are guided selling engines and automated proposal generation.

    In its recent report, The Configure, Price, Quote Solutions Landscape, Q1 2023, Forrester Research observed, “CPQ solutions have evolved into a mature market that optimizes and simplifies configuration and pricing with guided selling.” Business leaders need their CPQ engines to include advanced guided selling capabilities so sales teams can find exactly the right products to sell in seconds. A guided selling tool uses a filter-driven user interface, making it far easier for salespeople to find items by selecting categories and attributes, just like if they were shopping on a consumer webstore.

    A CPQ solution that quickly produces accurate, visually appealing, personalized proposals helps close more opportunities. When a proposal generator is combined with ERP, CRM, inventory, and order management solutions, product attribute and customer data is automatically pulled from the quote and inserted into a branded proposal at the push of a button. When customers ask for options, sales reps can quickly tweak the estimate and generate a new proposal in minutes instead of hours.

    Sell Faster and Better with NetSuite CPQ Guided Selling and Proposal Generator

    NetSuite CPQ Guided Selling lets sales teams who sell thousands of products and items quickly find the right combinations for their customers. NetSuite CPQ helps configure, price, and quote complex products, and CPQ Guided Selling empowers reps to easily recommend complimentary items to maximize deal size and profitability.

    Once the right SKUs have been selected, NetSuite CPQ Proposal Generator gives sales reps a quick and easy way to provide customers with a proposal they can review and accept. With fully customizable templates, sales teams can automatically turn quotes or sales orders into polished proposals that outline your contract terms, item descriptions, and pricing.

    Register(opens in new tab) for the Suite Fundamentals product demo webinar to learn more about NetSuite CPQ Guided Selling and Proposal Generator.

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