Why can’t we all get along?
Anyone in Sales knows, the sales process is usually a long and winding road. Even in the best of times, there seem to be a million and one things waiting to kill the deal.
Does my prospect have the budget? Do they have the authority to make this decision? What is their timeline to purchase? How did the demo go? Have I proven that my product will solve their problem? Do we need an ROI assessment? Have I appropriately represented my company and its product? Have I built the proper rapport with my prospect?
On top of all this, let’s fold in the current economic climate—where interest rates are up, the stock market can be described as volatile at best, and buyers are skittish.
And, yet, despite these challenges, we’re closing deals every day. So, when my prospect finally gives me the go-ahead and says that they’re ready to buy, what I don’t need are any hiccups in my contracting process.
Unfortunately, I’ve been here before.
As we get into the finer details of our sales dialogue, we need to put a nondisclosure agreement in place. First, I request the NDA. Then I need to shepherd it through to signature so that I can provide a formal proposal. Ideally, the prospect will agree to my NDA. If not, I have to submit their NDA for review…and cross my fingers that no one needs to make any changes. Once it’s done, signed, and filed, we move onto the formal proposal and Sales Agreement.
But wait. I’m the seller and my company’s corporate policy mandates the use of my Sales Agreement. (Even so, some buyers—especially bigger companies—will often try to impress the use of their agreement…but, so far, so good.) I’ve requested the agreement from our Legal Department and now, I’m just waiting.
Given that it is a standard Sales Agreement, turnaround time is pretty quick. That is, until I realize that someone has confused the name of my buyer, and I need to send it back to be corrected. Once that’s dealt with, it’s off to my buyer. So, I am waiting, again, for feedback and what I can only hope is a limited amount of redlines.
Next, I forward it over to Legal where my sales process promptly grinds to a halt.
Enter the sales prevention team.
Three days have passed and…nothing. My VP of Sales is all over us to hit our numbers, but I can’t close without this agreement.
Where is Legal? Where is my contract? Can we schedule a call? Can I talk to anyone? How do I move this forward? What the ?!?!?
You know what I really need?
What I really need is an easy way to request a Sales Agreement and get it over to my prospect, fast. Some sort of integration between my CRM system (like Microsoft Dynamics or Salesforce) and the contracting process so there are no errors during contract creation or confusion in names or terms.
I need an expeditious review cycle. And an easy way to see where my contract is, who is reviewing it, and what the expected turnaround time is so that I can set appropriate expectations with my buyer.
When it’s fully negotiated, I need a friendly way to get the agreements signed and filed in the appropriate location so I can find it again when it’s time to renew or if someone, somewhere needs to manage the obligations associated with it.
And a huge bonus would be to do all of this in the place where I, as a Sales Rep, spend all my time—in my Salesforce or Dynamics 365 dashboard.
What I need is my Legal team to be on my side. They need to be my Sales Enablement Team. And they need to meet me where I am—running as fast as I can down that long, winding road called the Sales Process.
Sound familiar?
We know. We really, really know. That’s why (and how) we built Contracts 365®. To automate the process with pre-approved language and standardized forms and instant routing AND so that it would integrate seamlessly with Salesforce and Dynamics 365. All to make Sales’ life easier…and Legal’s life too. (Because, the reason they’re taking so long, is that the rest of the company is waiting for Legal to review their contracts, too. But that’s a different road altogether.)
If you’d like to learn more about Contracts 365, the leading contract management software for Microsoft 365 customers, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us, or even better, request a demo, and we can show you how it works real-time. And, when we need to put a confidentiality agreement or NDA in place, we promise the experience will be a good one!
