A CPQ (Configure Price Quote) tool can help your sales team close big deals, shorten sales cycles, and make your business model more ROI-friendly. You can’t just add an answer and hope it works, though. It would help if you made your CPQ more efficient to get the most out of this valuable sales tool.
The platform you use has to be used by the whole team. It’s not going to be easy, especially at first. There will be salespeople who like to do things their way, and you know how hard it is to break bad habits.
Of course, some people will think that a new answer will slow things down in the short term and complicate things in the long term.
Before your team realizes that CPQ makes life and sales easier, you must ensure the answer is in place.
Your sales team will get stronger and get around problems quickly. To get the most out of this cutting-edge technology, every team member must fully accept it.
How to Make Your CPQ Solution Run Smoother
Here are three ways to make CPQ easier and a regular part of your business so you can get the most out of the tool.
1. Come up with a winning plan
World-class sales teams know how important it is to develop and stick to a winning plan. 88% of sales reps interviewed by HubSpot with great sales enablement programs said they were very strategic, while only 5% said they were more operational.
Because it gives you access to past and present (real-time) sales data, CPQ can help you make good sales plans. But I’ll get to that soon.
First, you must plan how the CPQ tool will be fully used. Everyone on the team should be taught the basics and more advanced ways to use it.
The whole team should be able to use the CPQ platform without any problems, whether they’re giving quotes to prospects, making contracts for customers, or just keeping the information up to date in real-time. This can only happen with a simple plan to put into action and keep up to date.
2. Make use of smart guided selling
Once you have a well-thought-out sales plan, it’s time to get your sales reps to follow it. You don’t have to print a 50-page sales plan and put it on everyone’s desk.
Instead, use your CPQ to help you plan and define your sales approach. With smart guided selling, you can show your salespeople the right way to make a sale. It’s good for them that this lets them make quotes and offers quickly. It also ensures that those quotes are made using your models and that they fit your plan.
3. Use CPQ along with other tech solutions
Getting a CPQ solution and trying to improve it doesn’t mean you should eliminate your other software. CPQ works well with CRM and other tech tools. The CRM helps keep customers organized and happy from the pitch to the close and beyond. The CPQ gives your team the sales materials they need.
Once linked, your sales reps can use the CPQ tools and see their benefits while still in their CRM. This makes it a lot easier to use the new tool in the way you already do business.
Even though your sales team might be worried, learning how to adopt and take the necessary steps to improve your CPQ doesn’t take long. Your team will be amazed at how they got things done before the sales enablement plan was implemented, and everything ran like a well-oiled machine.
