Contract lifecycle management (CLM), which “automates and streamlines Contract processes during key stages” of the contract process, is complicated. Manual Contract Lifecycle Management adds further complication; it is a long, inefficient process.
Manual CLM processes waste time and risk many errors. And in a world where customers expect a streamlined, fast consumer experience, anything that wastes time and includes errors also creates a very poor customer experience.
Using DealHub’s proposal software together with the contract negotiation, and signing process eliminates the inefficiencies creates maximum revenue impact.
How Does Sales Proposal Software Improve on Manual Processes?
You can manually manage your contracts throughout their lifecycle. But manual methods introduce many problems that Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software eliminates.
This is the worst year for businesses to risk the revenue-damaging problems of manual CLM like these:
Slow
Creating the documents necessary for each contract requires the same administrative work each time just to create contracts with basically the same situational language. Sales contacts your legal staff, who then generate all the necessary documents for every single deal. But most of the time, these are functionally the same document.
Complicated
Contract management requires many steps, and getting just one step wrong can undermine the entire deal.
An average workflow might look something like this: Every relevant stakeholder at the prospect’s organization must receive both the quote and legal text to examine during the negotiation process. Any changes must be shared to all relevant stakeholders, a process made more complex if departments are siloed and communication gaps must be bridged. Your sales representative must then reconcile all the disparate versions of the contract from all stakeholders into a single, authoritative document. All this even before signing, which requires multiple emails between sales and prospects, not to mention sharing versions to multiple stakeholders within both organizations.
Anything that can make this highly complicated process simpler, more streamlined, and more reliable will benefit your business significantly.
Error-prone
There are too many opportunities for human error to enter the contract lifecycle when you manage the process manually.
In a manual process, sales reps must transfer information from the quote document into a new document for sharing. Then legal must ensure they attach all relevant boilerplate language, accounting for any variations, different jurisdictions, subscription billing variances, and so forth. All the proposed changes must be carefully tracked during the negotiation process, and all relevant internal stakeholders must sign off on dependencies. All of this without mentioning keeping track of all the signatures and filing them properly.
Human employees are essential resources to all businesses. But software can do something humans often cannot: avoid human error.
Time-consuming
Consider how much time your sales staff would have wasted just in the problem-areas identified above. Automating routine, repeatable processes not only reduces revenue-killing errors but also gets your sales representatives back to what they do best (and what benefits your business most): selling.
All of these problems with manual contract lifecycle management cause revenue leakage. Stem the leak. Create maximum revenue impact by using next-generation sales software to automatically generate sales contracts.
How Proposal Software Closes Deals Faster
Simplified Contract Creation
Unlike manual processes, which require an employee to create each contract by hand, proposal software can automatically generate contracts based on the characteristics of a deal.
What does this mean?
- Time saved: Sales reps don’t need to go back and forth with legal to create a contract
- Repeated tasks automated: Legal doesn’t need to worry about creating the same contract repeatedly
- Safety net: Legal can avoid inaccuracies or oversights by setting the software to include certain provisions to match the deal (such as product liability, jurisdiction, etc.) automatically each time
Easy Redlining and Version Control
Unlike the error-prone process of merging multiple documents with different edits from stakeholders, DealHub proposal software can be easily combined with contract lifecycle management redlining, or collaborative editing, to occur in a centralized, master document.
What does this mean?
- Visibility: All stakeholders can see all the proposed changes. There is no risk of contradictory or unknown changes, because all changes are in one place and update in real time.
- Centralization: All changes are in one place, so the ‘source of truth’ is that single document. The software performs version control, freeing your sales reps from this tedious task.
Streamlined Negotiations, Approvals, and E-signature
Although you may spend just minutes waiting for a colleague or prospect to return documents by email, these minutes add up into a lot of wasted time and lost leads. DealHub’s proposal software + contract lifecycle management solution also performs automatic notifications and includes integrated e-signature to expedite the collaboration process.
What does this mean?
- Time saved: All stakeholders (in the rep’s org, and the prospect’s) are automatically notified of changes during the redlining process, so nothing falls through the cracks and everyone is instantly aware of what is changed. The final document accurately reflects what each party wants, taking into account the full contract terms.
- Centralization: By using a single ‘source of truth’ document, the most up-to-date, accurate contract is in one place. Management can give final approvals easily and with confidence.
- Nearly instantaneous, secure signatures: When prospects are ready to sign, they can instantly sign just one time. Instead of emailing versions back-and-forth and risking a loss of interest, proposal software captures intent to sign the instant prospects feel it. Additionally, all stakeholders receive the finalized, signed copy of the contract in seconds.
Contact Integration with CRM
Unlike manual processes where a team member must associate contracts and contacts by hand, DealHub’s guided selling playbooks let you integrate with your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool for a more seamless customer experience.
What does this mean?
- Personalization: Contracts can be customized to individual contacts from the first interaction with zero additional work from your staff.
- Time saved: DealHub automates the workflow of generating the proposal by pulling data directly from your CRM. This empowers sales reps to spend their time selling instead of on paperwork.
Additional Integrations
In addition to all these improvements your business gains from CLM software, DealHub offers many additional integrations to help you do your work better:
- Integrating with Salesforce allows DealHub to auto-sync contact activities, customize your decision-making workflows, and take advantage of interactive content sharing.
- Integrating DealHub with DocuSign lets you use a single workflow for each deal, automatically sync documents with CRM, and gather needed signatures electronically.
- Integrating with Freshworks lets DealHub’s powerful CPQ function entirely through the Freshworks CRM and provides prospect engagement readings in real-time.
- Integrating DealHub with Microsoft Dynamics CRM reduces time wasted on manual actions, carefully controls all versions, and uses interactive playbooks to guide sales staff through accurate and efficient sales.
Close Deals Faster with DealHub
DealHub’s sales proposal software enables sales teams to create customized proposals faster than ever before. Together with our digital DealRoom, it empowers visionary leaders to deliver customized content, integrate with eSign, and create a single sales motion and achieves maximum revenue impact.
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