This article originally appeared in the March 2020 issue of Security Business magazine. When sharing, don’t forget to mention @SecBusinessMag!
Salespeople have a deep appreciation for the adage “time is money.” If they are not selling, they are not earning. That makes it all the more frustrating when study after study of salespeople reveals that they spend on average just 33 percent of their time actually selling, with administrative and other tasks taking up the majority of the time; in turn, managing a sales team becomes daunting.
Managing sales requires maintaining a winning formula. Organizations need a certain number of leads to become opportunities, and a certain percentage of those to become sales. Often, salespeople believe they have a higher close ratio than they really do, because they do a much better job at recording the wins than the leads and opportunities that fell off the radar.
Combining sales management software and financial software with a CRM (customer or contact relationship management) solution enables salespeople and management teams to visualize how many opportunities, leads, estimates and negotiations are happening at any given moment.
It provides metrics that are not subjective, including the number of proposals sent out, numbers of leads per person, the status or stage of each lead, outright sale dollar value and estimated margin on each sale. Additionally, organizations can see the number of sales, the average gross profit, the number of days to close, and the total expected average revenue.
By looking at average sales and recurring revenue for an extended period, companies can understand the total value of the contract. It also lets them pinpoint which employees need coaching or which kinds of sales are not being speedily completed. This can result in increased sales, productivity, and expenditure of resources.
Case in Point: Washington Alarm
Sales management software can help transform both salesperson and manager into a cohesive unit. Washington Alarm, a family-owned commercial and residential security and fire services business headquartered in Seattle, first sought a sales management software solution about five years ago, as the growing complexity of its parts catalog, combined with the challenges of accurately quoting labor and taxes, was stressing its salespeople. In addition, management lacked an efficient process to review and approve those quotes and tracking mechanisms to monitor how sales were progressing. The system changed the sales process in several key areas:
1. Quoting – The issues Washington Alarm faced in the area of quoting are all too common. Left to their own devices, salespeople were often disorganized in their approach to quoting, relying on product catalog spreadsheets that were not necessarily complete, pricing that was not necessarily current, and calculation tools that left plenty of room for error.
“If pricing was adjusted, the new amounts didn’t always make their way to salespeople right away – they might base a quote on pricing that was in a spreadsheet on their computer, and it would be wrong,” explains Stephanie Olson, Washington Alarm’s Manager of Special Operations. “If that got passed onto a customer, it could really cut into our margins. Now, when prices are changed within our system, our sales management software pulls the pricing straight from the ERP. If a salesperson drags a part over into a quote the day after pricing has been adjusted, those changes are already there.”
The software also helps ensure that correct parts are quoted and that nothing is overlooked. “Before, not everything was consistently included with every project, and certain miscellaneous items might be dropped,” Olson says. “Now, the system specifies everything that needs to be included in each proposal based on the type of customer. It is like an automated checklist for our sales team.”
Examples of always-specified items include recurring monthly revenue, licensing fees, shipping and handling charges, and service packages.
While not specifically mentioned by Washington Alarm, another common quoting hassle for most sales organizations is the proper handling of discounts. When used together, the sales management solution “translates” how a discount extended in a proposal should be digested and processed by the financial system. This enables salespeople to play with margins, line-by-line, to determine whether discounts should be applied against the cost of labor, parts, or a combination of both, in order to avoid sinking below a preset gross margin threshold.
2. Approvals – Before investing in sales management software, Washington Alarm’s salespeople often sent off quotes without a formal approval process. “We didn’t have a system in place to require it, and walking around the office looking for the right people to sign off wasn’t always practical,” Olson says.
Today, Washington Alarm automates the process, “making sure that anything that requires approvals is shared with the right person or people who are authorized to review and approve it,” Olson explains. “The documents literally can’t be sent until they are approved.”
The sales management software also enables Washington Alarm to customize the conditions that define when approvals are necessary and when they are not. As mentioned in the surveys and studies, too much administrative paperwork can take time away from selling – so too can unnecessary approval processes that prolong the time it takes to close a deal.
“On certain types of proposals that fit pre-established criteria, the salesperson can just run with it,” Olson explains. “For example, in our Bellingham office, both salespeople are very senior – they have been doing this a long time and rarely make mistakes. For them, as long as the sale is within their threshold, they can send out a quote on their own. If it goes over the threshold, one other person needs to sign off on it. At our Seattle office, by comparison, there are newer people, so for them, we have three different approval systems, and they have a much lower threshold.”
3. Proposals – Writing a proposal can be time-consuming and stressful for salespeople, especially if they feel uncertain about what, exactly, to include and what the proposal should look like. In the past, salespeople at Washington Alarm would write up a “Schedule of Protection” in a Word document, use a spreadsheet to calculate parts and labor, and an admin would have to put this information into Terms and Conditions, which were mailed or emailed to the customer. “There was really no consistency – the proposals were just all over the place,” Olson admits.
This approach is not unique to Washington Alarm. For many organizations, basic information, such as the customer’s name, physical address, billing address and main contact must be typed in up to 10 times, into multiple forms and into different software tools. There is often no standardization between individual salespeople as to what these documents look like.
With a sales management tool that includes proposal building functionality, the process of generating a professional looking, properly branded, comprehensive proposal is largely automated. In addition to price quotes, salespeople can easily pull together other proposal elements – such as a cover letter, executive summary, company background information, terms and conditions, site drawings and other documentation that presents the company in the most positive light.
As all proposal documents are generated from a shared, centralized database, key fields can be automatically populated, eliminating duplicate data entry and the risk of errors. Calculations and pricings are guaranteed to be accurate. Contracts can be sent and signed electronically. The end-result for salespeople is that proposal generation becomes a streamlined process, taking far less time while delivering a superior end-product.
Olson says that the difference in Washington Alarm’s proposals “has been night and day.” Salespeople feel comfortable knowing they will be able to get out a proposal in a reasonable amount of time, and management knows that it will be done thoroughly and accurately.
4. Organization – Washington Alarm’s salespeople appreciate how the overall system keeps them organized. “(Salespeople) can create customized project folders that show the types of systems used and all the devices underneath,” Olson says. “If they want a fire system, they go to the fire system folder and see what kinds of smoke detectors are available. Then they can drill down and see all the parts. It just makes it really easy for them. Even if they are not a naturally organized person, the software forces them to be one.”
Tracy Larson is the president and founder of security sales management software provider WeSuite. Request more info about the company at www.securityinfowatch.com/12330030.
