Sales Proposal Software
Sales Force Automation that Pays Dividends
by Dave Seibert

When salespeople and sales managers talk about sales force automation, most of us think of customer relationship management, or CRM. This is partly because CRM is the most obvious kind of sales force automation tool, and partly because CRM has received so much press coverage and attention over the last decade. 

As much potential as CRM holds for sales organizations, though, implementing a CRM system is not easy. Indeed, the high number of CRM implementations that have failed to satisfy buyer expectations should stand as testament that CRM projects require unusually special care and attention.  To be successful, it’s not enough to plunk down the typically sizeable investment in time and money to implement a CRM system, a company has to seriously commit to and prepare for the CRM project.

The problem is that preparing for a CRM implementation can be very difficult if you don’t have experience automating sales forces or sales processes. Being adequately prepared for a CRM implementation necessarily requires that the organization understand the organizational or process changes that will be imposed by the system. It also requires that the entire organization have reasonable expectations about the kind of outcome they will receive once the CRM system has been implemented. It can be difficult for the key leaders to realize the importance of these two points if they’ve had no previous experience in sales force automation. Put bluntly, implementing CRM is not easy, and it’s even harder if you’ve never done it—or anything like it—before.

This isn’t to say that CRM isn’t worth implementing; to the contrary, most sales organizations would benefit greatly from what CRM automation has to offer.  It’s just that when a sales organization looks to sales force automation as a way to improve productivity or efficiency, CRM isn’t necessarily the best place to start. 

Initially, at least, most sales organizations would be much better served by automating a particular sales function rather than the whole customer relationship process.  By automating a particular sales function, the project is going to be smaller and more defined.  This makes it easier to implement which increases the likelihood of success. And a successful implementation gives the organization a chance to experience the positive impact that sales force automation can have. 

Perhaps most important, though, automating a sales function can give managers in an organization valuable sales force automation experience.  Student pilots don’t learn how to fly in a 747 jumbo jet, they start out in something smaller and more manageable, then work their way up.  The same approach should apply to sales force automation; start with something smaller and more manageable, then work your way up. 

Two of the best places to start automating your sales processes are sales proposal automation and RFP response automation.  

Sales Proposal Automation

Sales proposal automation is one kind of sales force automation that has been overlooked in the shadow of CRM.

When salespeople write sales proposals, they tend to spend hours or even days in front of their PCs.  It’s bad enough when one salesperson spends an afternoon hunting and pecking across the keyboard, but across an entire organization, the impact to productivity can be significant. 

Just as bad as the time it takes to produce these proposals is the quality of the proposals that are produced.  Salespeople may be professional communicators, but most struggle to be as articulate in writing as they are in person.  As a result, the quality of the proposals they produce is inconsistent across the organization.

Sales proposal automation software solves all of these problems by automating the proposal production process.  Sales proposal automation software is like a complex assembly tool.  It takes various sections and paragraphs, customizes them for a particular client, then assembles them into a structured proposal.  

Because proposal automation eliminates the need for writing skills, salespeople can typically generate a sales proposal in minutes rather than hours.  And because the text is created by a professional writer and entered into the system ahead of time, proposals are always well-written—without the mistakes, errors, or omissions that can otherwise be so common.

It’s important to realize, though, that proposal assembly software doesn’t just produce the “same old” proposals faster, it typically produces better proposals.  For example, ProposalMaster from The Sant Corporation is built on a persuasive methodology created by Dr. Tom Sant, founder of the company.  So unlike most sales proposals that are typically very focused on the seller, the seller’s company, the seller’s products, etc, proposals that are produced by ProposalMaster are structured to be persuasive.  A persuasively structured proposal increases your chances of winning the sale.

RFP Response Automation

RFP automation software manages the RFP response process. Every RFP question that you answer is recorded and stored in an RFP database, then recycled to answer new questions. 

RFP stands for request for proposal, but as most salespeople will tell you, most RFPs aren’t really a request for a proposal.  Rather, most RFPs are a structured request for information and pricing about your products or services.  They are a series of questions that you have to answer, and they are typically used at the beginning of a project when a buyer is trying to determine which products will address their needs. 

From a sales organization’s perspective, responding to RFPs is a tedious and time consuming process. In fact, responding to RFPs takes so much time that many organizations routinely choose not to respond to many of the RFPs they receive. 

There’s another problem.  Salespeople who respond to RFPs will typically save time by copying sections of RFP responses they’ve previously written.  This is a reasonable thing to do, of course; after all, why write something from scratch when it’s already been written somewhere else?  The problem is that when you copy text from one proposal for use in another, the likelihood increases that you will accidentally include a reference to another company in the text that you borrow.  It’s like writing a love letter to Suzy by borrowing text from a love letter you previously wrote to Darlene, then accidentally leaving Darlene’s name in the letter.  Oops! 

RFP automation tools put structure and organization to what is otherwise an unwieldy process. With RFP automation, responding to RFPs is still time consuming, but not nearly as time consuming as responding manually. Because it is automated, though, RFP tools eliminate the occasional accidental reference to other companies. 

The idea behind RFP automation is that once you answer a question one time, you should never have to answer that same question again.  By storing the answer in a database, and by having systems in place that allow you to retrieve that answer in response to a specific question, the process of responding to RFPs becomes both faster and more efficient.

Though more complex than sales proposal automation tools, RFP automation tools still offer many advantages without all the challenges and tribulations associated with a full-blown CRM implementation.

Sophisticated RFP automation systems give you the ability to read electronic RFP’s into the system, use keywords to match RFP questions with previously answered questions, and track your progress as you answer each RFP question.  RFP automation systems also provide a way to assign technical questions to specific people in the organization. All questions related to contracts, for example, would be approved by your corporate attorney. 

Walk Before You Run
Sales proposal automation and RFP response automation both represent an ideal starting point for an organization interested in using sales force automation to improve sales productivity.

1.   Neither tool requires significant organizational or process change, so there won’t be the kind of resistance that is sometimes seen in larger CRM projects. 

2.   From a technical perspective, neither proposal automation nor RFP response automation tools are nearly as complex as a typical CRM system.  Indeed, in many smaller- to medium-sized implementations, the tech group doesn’t have to be involved very much or at all. 

3.   Neither proposal automation nor RFP response automation requires anywhere near the kind of financial commitment that is common for larger CRM projects. 

4.   Proposal and RFP automation can both offer large gains in productivity and efficiency.  And because the gains are relatively easy to track, it’s not very difficult to forecast a quick ROI.    

Perhaps the biggest benefit of taking on a proposal automation or RFP response automation project, though, is the experience you gain by automating part of the sales process. Implementing a CRM system is a big project. Having automated a part of the sales process—even on a smaller scale—is invaluable experience when it comes time to implement a larger CRM system.

If you have questions about this article, or would like to discuss your project, please contact Dave Seibert at dseibert@persuasionselling.com.