Using Specialized Software to Improve Productivity

A need for speed and efficiency drives many companies to evaluate tools enabling them to better serve their customers and also increase productivity from within their own organization.  Specialized software can shave off countless hours of time by automating the sales quote creation process.

It is important for users to be able to pull customer contact information into the quote or enter in the information on the fly from the most popular contact managers; this helps reduce errors and eliminates double entry of data. In addition to populating customer contact information, users also need to be able to create a linked document attachment for the quote in the CRM, as well as schedule follow up calls, create/ update sales opportunities, and log emails sent from the program into the CRM history.

Furthermore,  users should also look for software that has a product database that can store all products and pricing for one or multiple vendors and supports multiple pricing strategies for the products and/or services.  Users  may also want to link to any existing ODBC compliant database which can be updated from outside of QuoteWerks or be imported to a QuoteWerks native product database.  Creating product(s) on the fly for customers even if the product is not in the product database is also a main feature users will want to ensure is included.

QuoteWerks is one software that is flexible enough to handle all these requests, plus has some other features that are very useful as well and have a lot of experience in the industry as they have been around for over 15 years.

As always be sure there is a demo before evaluating software and that it functions as advertised.  Also, be leery of solutions from companies that promise everything yet have not proven anything and have  very limited experience.

MBT Magazine features article on QuoteWerks, Sugar integration

Another prominent magazine has featured QuoteWerks after the announcement of the SugarCRM integration.  This time it’s Manufacturing Business Technology Magazine.  They wrote an article describing how QuoteWerks has brought a more efficient sales quoting module to the Open Source and On-demand communities.

The article can be read here.

Additionally, the article also mentions some important features to look for when choosing a quoting solution to integrate with your CRM including:

• Ability to search for the contact information for a contact or account
• Being able to create a note for the account or record and saving it to the quote
• Creating or updating sales opportunities

There’s also a few more listed such as the ability to close the quote and also edit print layouts.  QuoteWerks also has a short blog about the article listed on their corporate blog.

QuoteWerks featured by PC Magazine

Looks like PC Magazine has an article featuring QuoteWerks on one of their blogs.  The  article can be found here.

The article summarizes some of the features of the program and also their new integration with Sugar and mentions some of the other CRM packages that integrate with QuoteWerks.

Attention Canadian companies: save on your business tax – buy QuoteWerks and write-off 100% of the purchase price

To help stimulate the economy, the Canadian Federal Government has accelerated the Capital Cost Allowance, commonly referred to as the CCA, on computer equipment and related software (anything covered by class 50, schedule 2).  This includes sales automation software including CRM and sales quoting solutions such as QuoteWerks.

The Canadian Federal Budget for 2009 was passed with supplemental legislation providing for a temporary 100% CCA write-off for eligible computers and software acquired after January 27, 2009 and before February 2011.  This 100% CCA rate will not be subject to the half-year rule, which generally allows half the CCA write-off otherwise available in the year the asset is first available for use by the taxpayer.  As a result of this measure, a business will be able to fully deduct the cost of an eligible computer and related software in the first year that CCA deductions are available.

Beware that if you use an operating lease, this provision will not apply, but it will for a capital lease, since that is interpreted as a purchase with debt financing and not a lease by the tax rules.  So you could take this entire tax write off in the first year, even if you are paying for it over three to five years.

This information is offered for information purposes only.  You should NOT rely on this information to make decisions that can affect your tax liabilities.  You are encouraged and directed to consult with your accountant or tax advisor before acting on this information.

Now is the Time to Improve Your Sales Quoting Process

Another article featuring QuoteWerks with an interesting point of view for this economy:

Enabling your sales force to spend more time selling and less time quoting will improve your bottom line.

If you are like me, you subscribe to a multitude of business journals.  Of late they all seem to be telling their readers that we should spend more marketing dollars on advertising as a way to weather the financial storm we find ourselves in today.  Some even go as far as to drop the names of large companies that are successful today because they increased their advertising during previous recessions, and yes, even the Great Depression.

As a marketing professional, I might be inclined to jump on the bandwagon and champion this cause within my own organization.  Perhaps now would be a good time to promote our software on a blimp!  On second thought, I think I would be better served (and remain employed) if I can find ways to cut our expenses and increase our company’s marketing and sales efficiencies.  Some might argue (at least those who suggest I should up my advertising spend), that my cost cutting and drive to increase efficiencies will further stagnate and already stalled economy and may be so short-sided that I will miss key opportunities for my employer.

However, living in Florida for over a decade now, I have learned that one should be prepared to ride out a storm with sustainable provisions.  This way, if the storm is worse then expected or hangs around longer then expected (remember hurricanes Charley, Frances, and Jeanne from a few years ago?), then I can comfortably ride it out and emerge in a better position when the storm passes.

Few would argue with my logic when it comes to riding our hurricanes or what ever Mother Nature throws their way, but we tend to forget this simple concept when it comes to our businesses during periods of economic tumult.

So, where am I going with this?  I am suggesting that you take the money you would spend on increasing your marketing and invest in the business tools needed to support long term cost reductions and increased efficiencies for your employees.  One area worth looking at sooner rather then later is your sales organization and its quoting (or estimating) process.  It stands to reason that if your sales department is charged with generating your revenue, you might want to improve their efficiencies first.

All too often, companies today are utilizing an inefficient quoting process that not only costs more in overhead expenses than needed, but can also account for a significant percentage of lost sales, instances of underselling the opportunity, and a host of customer service issues that may or may not be apparent to the firm at first glance.

Consider the company that uses a manual quoting process including word processing and spreadsheet software.  The key phrase here being “manual quoting process.”  This approach to quoting, while saving the company money on software, requires the sales rep to spend more time than needed on creating the quote document for the customer.  They need to research the product and draft a description, pull in photos if possible, price the quoted items, calculate tax, shipping, and other relevant fees.  What happens if and when they miscalculate the costs quoted to the customer?  Does it come from the firm’s margin?  Is the customer expected to pay it?  Throughout this process, did the sales rep also remember to add those required items?  The customer needs the quote ASAP, did the rep have time to discuss and quote optional items that might optimize the customer’s purchase and use of the products or services, while adding valuable dollars to the company’s bottom line?

Yet other companies have attempted automation by running their sales quoting process through the firm’s accounting software, only to adopt another set of problems.  The “cost of software” pendulum has just swung from no expense to unnecessary expenses.  Since most accounting applications require seat based licenses, the company may be required to buy costly accounting licenses for each member of its sales team, regardless of how frequently or infrequently they are accessing the accounting system.  Let’s also not forget the fact that when quoting through an accounting system, the firm exposes its financial system to the clutter of prospective customers and outdated quotes that were never converted to orders.  This can cause significant challenges for the accounting department when it comes to preparing timely, accurate reports, reconciliations, invoices, and filings.  Does the marginal improvement for sales outweigh the burdens now incurred by accounting?

This is where a sales quoting application can be the right choice for your company.  Quality applications will streamline and automate the quoting process so your sales team can quickly prepare accurate, professional looking quotes that can be emailed to your customers within minutes.  These applications will also interface with your existing CRM and accounting applications ensuring complete transparency and portability of your critical sales data from your generated quotes, orders, and invoices.  While some quoting applications are costly, you should seek out those applications offering low total cost of ownership price points and rapid ROI payback periods.  You should also look for solutions that have a concurrent user licensing model as you can reduce your overall license count and save even more money.  Doing so may let you keep enough of your hard earned money so you can still take out a few more ads if you subscribe to the current school of thought on increasing your marketing spend.

Personally, I will stick with improving my sales team efficiencies.  This way, they can spend less time quoting and more time selling!  That’s a sure way to weather the current economic downturn.

Sales Quoting Software Tips

Here’s a few sales quoting software tips from the QuoteWerks 411 blog.  Seem very useful.

Sales Quoting Software Can Help in a Tough Market

When business is good, many important internal projects are left undone as management and staff is too busy with the day to day business and can’t find the time to upgrade or implement new systems. A slower business environment presents the ideal opportunity to revitalize your existing software solutions.

Here are five ways a good quote system can help when markets get tough.

1.         Improve service: Quick quote turnaround gives you an edge over the competition. In many industries a quote delivered within hours increases the likelihood of a sale. The longer the quote takes to get to the customer the probability of getting the business drops significantly. By simplifying the sales quoting process, and getting the quote in front of the customer in a timely fashion, the sales rep gets a “jump start” to closing the sale.

2.         Know where you stand: Customers become even more demanding believing it’s a buyer’s market. A good quote solution will tell you where you stand (margin and dollars) on any given job. You have the flexibility to adjust prices if desired while still maintaining a respectable margin. Equally important, is knowing when a potential sale is no longer profitable and knowing when to walk away from the opportunity.

3.         Be more proactive: A single source of quote data is another benefit of an automated sales quoting solution. With all your quotes in one place it’s easy to review past history to look for opportunities that may have gone inactive and may well be redeemable with some proactive selling.

4.         Sharpen your focus: The quote database is full of market intelligence that you can use to evaluate reasons for won and lost business by region, sales rep, product family, customer and much more. This type of analysis is almost impossible to do if your quote data is spread out in multiple Excel and Word documents.

5.         Leverage efforts: A quote system leads to standardized procedures and best practices that ensure everyone in the sales process is generating consistent and accurate quotes. Follow-up is centralized and any changes in pricing are immediately available to all sales and customer service staff. What’s more, new staff is more productive, faster and if someone is away, all their quotes are readily available for others to keep the sales moving forward.

Every boom cycle eventually comes to an end. It’s during these slower periods that progressive businesses get ready for the next market upturn with internal projects to improve business processes. Now is the time to implement projects that you put off when you were busy earlier in the year.

To learn more about how QuoteWerks can help benefit your business

call 407-248-1481 or email sales@quotewerks.com

To download a free, fully functional demo of QuoteWerks, please visit:

www.quotewerks.com/reqdemo.asp

Using Technology to Improve Sales

Every day companies all over the world lose millions of dollars wasting time.  Companies need to be more efficient.  Technology is a great way to gain a competitive advantage against another business in your industry.  One of the first places you can start is with a quoting solution that allows your company to quickly and efficiently create and send professional looking sales quotes to your customers.

QuoteWerks is a pretty good one for this.  You can email the quote to your customers directly from the program itself.  Furthermore, if you are utilizing a contact manager QuoteWerks can save the quote to that contact manager and also create an item in the history showing when you emailed the customer their quote.

Specialized software used to help your business operate more efficently is a small step that can save your busines thousands of dollars every year.   Use technology to get ahead of your competition.

CRM Magazine Article Featuring QuoteWerks

IS YOUR SALES QUOTING TOOL THE RIGHT SOLUTION FOR TODAY’S ECONOMY?

As the current recession lingers, companies in all sectors are under increasing pressure to execute consistently and efficiently across their sales, procurement, and back office operations. Yet many businesses fail to consider the negative effects that their ineffective sales quoting system has on the firm’s bottom line.

Understanding the anatomy of your sales quoting process and how your existing quoting method supports the process can reveal critical areas of underperformance which should be addressed through the adoption of more advanced quoting solutions. When diagnosing the health of your quoting process and tool, consider the following five components of an effective quoting system:

Identification of the customer: Does your current quoting solution integrate with your in-house CRM system, allowing you to automatically pull information (including terms, customer tax rate, and customer profile) into your quote? Can your quoting tool support separate contact details for multiple parties including the purchaser, their billing contact, and the party who will receive the products?

Accessing product data: When it comes to selecting the appropriate products and services for your customer, you need to have access to accurate product data. Are you quoting from your current/live product list, or from a copy that has to be updated frequently? For companies who purchase from multiple manufacturers or distributors, can you quickly and easily access real-time price and availability data without having to call your account executive?

CRM integration: Once a quote is created for the customer, the data should be reflected in your CRM system so that appropriate sales follow-up calls can be scheduled and executed, thus improving your sales closure rate. Does your quoting solution automatically create or update the sales opportunity within your CRM application; close opportunities and create completed sales records; establish a link to the quote from the customer’s record for quick quote recall?

Solution oriented: Unless you are using a quoting solution specifically developed for you, chances are your tool does not deliver all the functionality you require “out of the box.” Does your quoting application allow you to extend its functionality and reach into your business systems through an API?

Ease of use: Are you experiencing issues with sales reps who refuse to use your quoting tool, resulting in them creating their own ad hoc quotes outside the system? Your sales quoting application should be intuitive and provide ample user support and training to ensure that your entire sales team will adopt it. Without their acceptance, the implementation will linger, exposing your business to the same inefficiencies and errors you are seeking to avoid.

QuoteWerks delivers unmatched value for companies whose current quoting solution underperforms in any of the above areas. Instead of accessing multiple applications, Web sites, and documents, sales reps have a single work environment for all steps in the sales process: researching products, creating quotes, sourcing, pricing, determining availability, and confirming orders.

QuoteWerks’ out-of-the-box compatibility with such leading CRM applications as ACT!, GoldMine, Maximizer, MS Dynamics CRM, Outlook, salesforce.com, and SalesLogix ensures that organizations can quickly deploy QuoteWerks, adding it into their CRM environment, leveraging their existing CRM investment.

With over 50,000 users in 101 countries, QuoteWerks delivers immediate benefits for its users in several main areas including:

• Reduced quote creation time ensuring sales teams can focus the majority of their time on active selling efforts and not on paperwork.
• Improved product support through the ability to create bundles and a product configuration tool that is standard within QuoteWerks.
• Improved margins resulting from better access to pricing histories and comparative prices amongst suppliers.
• Reduced return and error handling costs related to quoting discontinued or out of stock products. QuoteWerks provides sales reps with complete and current product information ensuring quotes are accurate.
• Risk mitigation for exposure to the company and the customer from erroneous pricing and other material errors associated with manual quoting processes.
• Rapid ROI payback through our concurrent user licensing model, volume discounts beginning with two licenses, non-recurring licensing fees, and free support minutes included with each initial purchase.
• Free online training resources.

Given today’s volatile business landscape, organizations must now address the challenges with their ineffective quoting systems and for many including 3M, Canon Medical Systems, Dell, GE Healthcare, Instron, Mettler-Toledo, and Sony, QuoteWerks has proven to be the quoting solution of choice. To learn more or to access our guide to selecting sales quoting software, visit www.quotewerks.com.

QuoteWerks has integration with SugarCRM

A QuoteWerks development partner has just released an integration between QuoteWerks and SugarCRM.

The QuoteWerks development partner, Wildcat Development, has developed the new integration link between Sugar CRM and QuoteWerks called WildSugar.

WildSugar increases the functionality of QuoteWerks by integrating directly with SugarCRM, a leading contact management software.  By utilizing WildSugar, users can access their SugarCRM contacts from within QuoteWerks, effectively creating a more efficient quoting process.  WildSugar saves users considerable time by eliminating the replication of data entry for contacts.

Features and benefits of WildSugar include:

• Seamless integration between SugarCRM and QuoteWerks
• Easy installation
• Immediate access to all SugarCRM contacts
• Ability to auto populate SugarCRM contact information in quotes  generated by QuoteWerks
• Custom searches that allow users to quickly and easily locate a particular SugarCRM contact

The WildSugar link is a third party add on to the QuoteWerks program.  It was developed for QuoteWerks users on version 4.0 and using Sugar version 5.0 and higher.  Since the link is a third party add on, QuoteWerks users will need to contact Wildcat Development for any support issues relating to the link.

Visit the official WildSugar website for ordering and general information for the link.

Information regarding QuoteWerks can be found on their site www.quotewerks.com.

QuoteWerks is looking for beta testers for an enhanced Outlook integration

QuoteWerks has released an interim build for beta testing containing advanced integration features between QuoteWerks and Microsoft Outlook. Current QuoteWerks users are invited to trial the advanced integration for free.  This new integration allows users to do the following:

• Search for contacts in subfolders within the specified Outlook contact folder
• Create/Update linked documents (as Outlook Journal entries) in Outlook
• Create/Update follow up calls (as an Outlook Appointment) in Outlook
• Use QuoteWerks’ DataLink feature with Outlook which enables users to retrieve information like Terms and shipping method from the Outlook contact in the quote
• Retrieve data from Outlook and include it in the printed output

Additionally, they are researching whether to add support for Outlook Business Contact Manager (BCM).  If you are using BCM, and specifically if you are using the Opportunities features, let them know so they may gain an understanding of how it is being utilized by QuoteWerks users and how it may be advantageous to you.

This advanced preview has a couple of benefits for QuoteWerks users.  First, users can try the new features and see if it works in their environment before the production version is released.  Also, if one of the features needs improvement there is a greater chance those changes will be made during this phase of design.

A list of revisions in the most recent interim can be found here: http://www.quotewerks.com/download/interim/interim.txt.

All current QuoteWerks users who are using Outlook are invited to test out the new integration.   To try this integration, send an email to Sales@QuoteWerks.com or give QuoteWerks a call at (407) 248-1481 (option 2 for sales).