Get it Right the First Time Around... The Deal is in the Details
Having great products is awesome, but companies need to have a sales experience to match. Especially when it comes to big ticket deals that are more complex to close.
Is there anything worse than taking friends out to a restaurant that you have really talked up, and the service isn’t that great? You told your friends the service is impeccable, the food is unbelievable, and the drinks are amazing. For whatever reason things are off on this dinner outing. None of those things hits the expected mark. You apologize profusely and tell your friends it is an off night. This is the equivalent of having a great product line to sell and being a sales professional who is talking with companies about these products. Having great products is awesome, but companies need to have a sales experience to match. Especially when it comes to big ticket deals that are more complex to close.
No company wants to have to go back and tell a client that the initial quote provided by a sales rep is going to be higher than the actual bottom line should have been however, this happens all too often. Companies have large product portfolios, product lines, and each product typically has complex specifications. Going back to the restaurant scenario, there were issues with the food order because the waiter was not taking notes as orders were placed. The waiter said he had a good memory and would remember all the requests. That ended up not being the case. The waiter had to come back to the table multiple times to get things straight. This happens in almost every sales interaction when it comes to deals that need several hands involved. Sales reps are expected to remember requests from emails or phone calls that are days old. Sometimes things get lost in translation, or simply lost altogether. The wrong product is assigned, or the wrong discount is applied to the contract. Any number of things can go wrong when a company’s process is mostly manual.
A deal desk solution like Mercero can take control of your product catalog and will allow reps to have proper insight immediately to specific product details, such as, specifications, pricing, and why this product is right for the client. This takes the onus off the shoulders of sales reps and allows them to focus on closing deals more effectively. Clients in today’s market are looking for information in an instant and expect that accurate information has been passed along to them. Especially, when dealing in E-Commerce. Large transactions are being processed more regularly online and through E-Commerce markets. Your company needs a Deal Desk to better handle this process from initial sales conversations to contract signing, and the biggest pain point a Deal Desk helps with, would be providing clarity in initial sales conversations.
If the waiter in the restaurant scenario had the proper tools and insights, it would have made for a much better dinner experience. Having the proper tools and notes would have allowed for a seamless dining experience. The same holds true for sales teams that implement deal desks into their process. Sales teams have struggled to standardize processes, and this has led to a lack of clarity on quotes and approvals. For years now these interactions have been handled typically via phone and email and have relied heavily on manual processes. These complex business to business deals can take anywhere from weeks to months to complete. There are significant amounts of communication taking place during the timeline of these deals. This means that reps must remember large amounts of quantitative data. With so much conversation and data to track, there is typically something that will be left out. The best way to negate these lapses in efficiency is the implementation of an effective deal desk model.
Mercero is helping sales teams with consistency and efficiency when closing complex deals. Paying attention to the details in complex deals is important. Deal desks allow for use of cloud documentation and conversation, so that important items are easily accessible to all parties involved. Nothing is more favorable than meeting a customer’s expectations the first time around.
