Feb 08, 2018
CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales Olympics

CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales Olympics

Why CPQ-enabled sales reps have an advantage



What do the Olympics and Sales have in common?

Both are the culmination of years of dedicated training and hard work for many athletes and sales reps who have the grit, determination, and willpower to persevere over their competitors and become top performers who win. Athletes and sales reps push themselves further than they thought possible as they seek seemingly impossible goals. Sales rep's skills are measured under the same scrutiny as an Olympian athlete and many of the principles that make an elite athlete hold true for turning sales reps into top performers. Top performing sales reps, just like elite athletes are always searching for ways to be better and outperform their competition.

What is CPQ?

Configure Price Quote (CPQ) is a powerful sales tool that enables companies to produce accurate and highly configured sales quotes for customers. CPQ improves customer relationship management by making all sales components easily available. It allows sales to not only sell more, but sell faster as it speeds up and automates the sales cycle. Sales reps who discovered CPQ are ahead of the selling game.


Here we examine how two sales teams, CPQ - enabled team, and Old School Team would perform if they were to compete against each other in the Sales Olympics.



CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales Olympics


If the Sales Olympics were a real event where sales reps would compete in multiple disciplines like deal closure, quote delivery, and lead conversion, the sales team who has CPQ would prevail in all the disciplines. CPQ-powered sales reps have the upper hand and will for sure win all the medals, while old-school sales reps will have a disadvantage and will fall short in all disciplines.



Why CPQ Team wins in Sales Effectiveness


CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales Olympics

CPQ Team wins the Quote Speed Competition


Faster quotes: CPQ software allows sales reps to build and deliver accurate sales quotes and do so quickly. They can configure products, price orders and generate quotes while reducing errors and boosting productivity. Sales reps can quickly select products and services pertinent to specific customers and easily identify cross-sell and upsell opportunities. Instead of taking weeks to get a quote to a customer, CPQ allows them to generate simple, customer-friendly quotes quickly and accurately in a matter of minutes as well as accelerate the approval process for quick quote completion. According to the Aberdeen's study, CPQ-enabled sales reps take 27 % less time (3.6hours) to produce a typical quote or proposal than those not using CPQ (4.9 hours).


Shorter Sales Cycles: An automated sales cycle combined with visibility and access for sales reps at all phases of the sales process shorten sales cycle times.



CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales Olympics

CPQ Team wins the Quote Speed Competition


Using CPQ for accurate quote generation, enables sales reps to provide valuable deals for customers combined with setting prices of configured goods, which results in a 28% shorter sales cycle (3.4 months vs. 4.7 months).


83% of sales professionals are using a form of CPQ system today
-Accenture


Better Lead Conversion: CPQ turns more leads into sales by simplifying and accelerating complex product configurations and price calculations. These features help sales reps to create custom product configurations options and quotes quickly.


CPQ-enabled sales resp have 17% higher lead conversion rate (35% vs. 30%)- SuperOffice



CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales
							Olympics

CPQ Team wins the Lead Conversion Competition


Potential customers can compare different versions of offerings and determine the right order price fitting to their budget. By configuring products correctly, providing accurate pricing, effortless quote creation, and with errors eliminated, sales reps convert more leads and increase their chance of winning prospective customers.


Greater Time Savings: Constellation's report on CPQ found that organizations had an average time savings of 300% by using CPQ solutions compared to manual quoting processes. All the time-saving tools CPQ software offers has sales reps closing deals faster than ever. These tools eliminate time-consuming manual work because of guided selling with pre-approved product configurations, automated pricing, and ready to use document templates.



CPQ Team Won all the medals at the Sales Olympics

CPQ Team wins the Time Savings Competition


Automation means eliminating the manual process so that quotes for orders are generated quickly and accurately, changes to quotes are quickly updated, the workflow is improved, and visibility into buying patterns and selling practices is increased.


Better Contract Handling: Contracts can be delivered to clients quickly and easily and always look professional with the help of CPQ customizable templates. Also, when dealing with legal contracts, CPQ allows you to view modified versions of a contract, compare and merge contracts into a new document, and approve or reject changes made by a customer or legal department. With CPQ software, sales reps are always ensured that contracts meet legal standards and friction between sales and legal teams are eliminated.


The end result of our Sales Olympics simulation

CPQ team crushed their competition and set new records in quoting speed, price accuracy, lead conversion and contract handling. The losing teams were left very far behind and had no chance of keeping up with their CPQ powered competition. CPQ-enabled sales reps produced faster quotes, had shorter sales cycles and converted more leads than the old school sales reps. Also, the CPQ team pricing strategies were finely tuned to the specific decision-making styles of customers when they are most likely to buy, and that is how CPQ gives them a competitive edge. There's a series of revolutionary developments occurring in CPQ today, and this blog provides a glimpse into why sales reps who don't use CPQ will always lose to their CPQ- enabled competition. Just like elite athletes, top performing sales reps are always on the lookout for the next big thing to be bigger and better than ever before, so for those left behind its time to up your selling game with a CPQ solution.


Read next: Investing in CPQ may be your next best business decision


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This post was written by Srikesh Menon — Senior Technical Architect and CPQ Practice Director at SoftClouds has 12+ years of experience with technical solution design and end to end implementations. Srikesh is also certified on Oracle BigMachines and Siebel. He specializes in developing CPQ processes, complex Configuration of Product Catalogs, Pricing, Tracking & Approvals, Order Management, Service Management, Partner Management and Loyalty Management modules.