Exploring the world of deal desks involves understanding their significance and transformative impact. Deal desks play a strategic role in sales, enhancing collaboration and refining deal dynamics, serving as powerful catalysts for revenue optimization.

Our exploration will also introduce DealRoom and its function in facilitating deal collaboration, streamlining deal-making complexities, and accelerating revenue.

The deal desk advantage

Deal desks have become increasingly popular in sales operations. They play a key role in aligning aspects of a sale, like pricing and contract terms, to ensure quotes comply with internal guidelines and regulatory requirements. Deal desks balance customization for clients with operational efficiency through standardization. Their adaptability to evolving sales challenges shows deal desks as transformative elements in sales and revenue operations. They help optimize revenue by managing deal approvals, executing pricing strategies, and enhancing sales productivity.

Managing deal approvals

Deal desks are essential for managing deal approvals and ensuring transactions are quick, secure, and compliant.

Accelerating approvals

The deal desk speeds up the deal approval process by serving as a central point for analyzing and approving deals. It helps streamline the process, allowing for faster proposal responses and decisions. Deal desks consolidate information and coordinate between departments, reducing bottlenecks and enabling quicker decision-making without compromising thoroughness.

Balancing speed and compliance

Simultaneously, deal desks maintain a careful equilibrium between speed and compliance. According to PwC, deal desks can reduce sales cycle times by 25–40 percent. This substantial decrease enhances sales productivity by 15–20 percent and boosts corporate profitability by 5–10 percent. They ensure that while approvals are accelerated, they do not bypass necessary compliance checks with internal policies and external regulations. This balancing act is necessary for mitigating risks and maintaining corporate integrity.

Deal desks often leverage automated tools to streamline the approval process. These tools expedite approvals while maintaining rigorous standards for quality and compliance, ensuring that every deal aligns with the company’s strategic goals and legal requirements.

Optimizing pricing

The deal desk effectively manages firm-wide pricing strategies and customer-specific requirements to ensure profitable and equitable deals that reflect market dynamics.

Data-driven pricing strategies

Deal desks employ data-driven approaches to develop robust pricing strategies. Consider this scenario: a sales team is negotiating a deal with a key client, but the client is requesting pricing below the usual range. Here, the deal desk steps in with a data-driven approach. By analyzing market trends and competitive intelligence, they assess the feasibility of the request. They can determine if a lower price could still be profitable, considering factors like potential volume or long-term value. They gain insights into market trends, competitor pricing, and customer preferences by harnessing data analytics. This empowers them to set prices that are competitive yet profitable. The data-driven methodology ensures that pricing decisions are grounded in reality, reflecting the actual value of the products or services.

Pricing governance

In another instance, the deal desk ensures pricing governance during a high-volume sales period. While there’s a rush to close deals, this governance is crucial, especially in preventing a race-to-the-bottom pricing strategy that could hurt long-term profitability. Establishing and enforcing pricing policies ensures consistency and fairness across all deals. This governance structure helps maintain standard pricing models while allowing exceptions based on specific deal circumstances. It ensures pricing decisions align with the company’s financial goals and market positioning.

Negotiation flexibility

While adhering to pricing governance, deal desks also recognize the need for flexibility in negotiations. Imagine a scenario where a client has unique requirements that standard pricing models don’t cover. The deal desk adjusts pricing within established guidelines to meet these specific needs. This flexibility is essential to cater to diverse client needs and unique negotiation scenarios. Adapting pricing within the framework of set guidelines allows for customization in deals and complex pricing models, enabling the company to be responsive to client demands while safeguarding its interests.

Enhancing sales productivity

The deal desk is integral to improving sales efficiency and effectiveness through approval workflows and deal collaboration.

Support and resources

Deal desks enhance sales productivity by providing support and resources to sales teams. They offer timely guidance in structuring deals, thereby reducing the administrative load on sales representatives. This support ranges from navigating complex pricing scenarios to tailoring contract terms, allowing sales teams to focus more on client engagement and less on operational details. By handling the intricacies of deal-making, deal desks enable the sales process to operate more efficiently and effectively.

For instance, consider a sales representative facing a complex multi-tiered pricing scenario. Traditionally, this would require extensive back-and-forth with different departments to finalize a quote. However, with a deal desk in place, they provide immediate assistance in structuring the deal. This reduces the time the sales team spends on administrative tasks, allowing them to focus more on client relationships and closing deals.

Collaboration cultivation

Furthermore, deal desks play a crucial role in cultivating a culture of collaboration. A concrete example of the deal desk’s role is seen in cross-departmental coordination scenarios. Say a deal requires legal review and financial analysis before finalization. The deal desk acts as a conduit, streamlining these interactions and reducing the time sales reps spend coordinating between departments. This collaboration leads to more coherent and strategically sound deals, as insights from finance, legal, and operations are integrated from the start. This approach ensures that deals are expediently managed and aligned with all aspects of the business, leading to more successful sales outcomes.

Turbocharge your deal desk with these strategies

Enhancing your deal desk’s effectiveness can be significantly boosted by employing targeted strategies, often facilitated by platforms like DealRoom.

Defining criteria

Enhancing deal desk effectiveness begins with establishing clear criteria and thresholds for deals, such as deal size, margin requirements, and strategic importance. Clear criteria enable faster decision-making and ensure consistency in deal evaluations, aligning every transaction with the company’s broader objectives.

Process implementation

Robust deal review processes are critical for a high-functioning deal desk. This includes creating standardized procedures for deal submission, evaluation, and approval. Implementing structured processes ensures that every deal is assessed thoroughly and efficiently. Ongoing training and support for deal desk team members are crucial to maintaining a high level of expertise and adapting to changing market conditions.

Technology utilization

Leveraging technology is the final key to turbocharging your deal desk. Deal tracking and management tools streamline the entire deal lifecycle, from initial inquiry to final approval. Technologies like CRM, DealRoom, and CPQ with guided selling and automated approval workflows, and real-time analytics tools enable faster, data-driven decision-making. Technology facilitates effective communication channels, both internal and external, ensuring that all stakeholders are aligned and informed throughout the deal process.

As Sales Operations leaders prioritize strategies for optimizing their deal desks, an integrated solution becomes indispensable. DealRoom provides a platform that combines best practices with advanced technology, enhancing the deal desk’s capability.

DealRoom for better deal collaboration

DealRoom has been acknowledged as an effective tool for enhancing deal desk functions in sales operations, as demonstrated in the case study of Lumina Solar.

Lumina Solar has significantly sped up its sales proposal process by 80% thanks to integrating DealHub’s guided selling and DealRoom. Sales reps can now provide each customer with a branded DealRoom containing an accurate quote, the correct product specifications, and personalized sales and marketing assets—all within the first sales meeting. This efficiency is further enhanced by the inclusion of contract management and eSign technology within DealRoom, eliminating the need for multiple follow-up emails and documents, thus accelerating the sales cycle. Additionally, its DealRoom features a video testimonial tailored to the buyer’s location, adding a personalized touch to the experience.

DealRoom has proven its value by streamlining the deal-making process. It improves collaboration and deal efficiency by integrating seamlessly with current systems and offering real-time analytics. This is advantageous not only for deal desks but also for departments like finance and legal. As one of the latest innovations in sales tech, DealRoom is revolutionizing sales operations, enhancing efficiency and collaboration for improved outcomes and customer satisfaction.

Deal desk efficiency unleashed

An efficient deal desk is vital in transforming sales operations, streamlining deal approvals, and optimizing pricing strategies. DealRoom takes it up a notch by providing a centralized platform for effective deal collaboration. It supercharges sales cycles and accelerates revenue growth. It’s more than just a tool for simplifying deals; it’s a strategic asset that aligns sales with organizational goals and market trends.

The post The deal desk advantage in revenue optimization appeared first on DealHub.

Historically, sales processes were straightforward, often relying on face-to-face interactions and manual documentation. However, with the advent of digital transformation and the increasing complexity of deals, the need for sophisticated tools and platforms has become paramount. Today, platforms like DealRoom are not just luxuries but necessities that drive sales success.

Below, we explore how DealRoom elevates the efficacy of Deal Desks, ensuring every deal is harmonized. Key takeaways from our exploration include how the Deal Desk emerges as the central link between sales, operations, and finance, ensuring every deal is meticulously optimized. As we progress, we also talk about how, when combined, the expertise of the Deal Desk and the capabilities of DealRoom lead to faster approvals, clearer communication, and heightened deal success rates.

We’ll also explore case studies where DealRoom’s intervention has transformed the Deal Desk’s operations, leading to notable wins and elevated client satisfaction.

Let’s go!

Deal Desk: the pinnacle of deal efficiency

The Deal Desk’s expertise shines when navigating the complex terrain of negotiations in sales contracts, turning potential challenges into opportunities for boosting revenue. Through strategic pricing, deal structuring, and effective negotiation management, it stands as a cornerstone for revenue optimization, often utilizing data analytics and market insights for well-informed decision-making.

The central nexus

As a bridge between sales, operations, and finance, the Deal Desk is pivotal in refining deals for efficiency and maximum return. The harmonization of complex deal structures ensures that every deal aligns with the company’s strategic goals and guidelines. Ensuring deals are meticulously optimized for revenue potential is a core aspect of its function.

Harmonizing complex deals

Achieving a balance in the myriad of factors involved in each contract and deal is crucial. The Deal Desk brings its expertise to the table, ensuring every deal is structured perfectly and every stakeholder’s needs are met.

Maximizing revenue potential

Navigating the maze of sales contract negotiations is challenging. However, the Deal Desk’s expertise transforms potential pitfalls into revenue-boosting opportunities. It maximizes the revenue potential of contracts by strategically pricing and structuring deals to ensure they capture the highest possible value while meeting customer needs, and by effectively managing contract negotiations to minimize concessions and risks, ultimately optimizing revenue outcomes. Additionally, Deal Desks often leverage data analytics and market insights to make informed decisions that further enhance revenue potential.

DealRoom: setting new standards in deal collaboration

Modern sales teams grapple with challenges like scattered information, lack of real-time collaboration, and the absence of a unified platform for all deal-related activities. These challenges can lead to delays, miscommunication, and missed opportunities.

In B2B sales, collaboration and transparency are more than just buzzwords; they’re essential to a successful deal. Enter DealRoom, a digital sales room platform designed to revolutionize how deals are managed and executed. Here’s how it helps:

Streamlining deal processes

DealRoom is designed to simplify and centralize deal-making processes. From initial negotiations to final approvals, every step is optimized for efficiency, ensuring deals progress smoothly and swiftly.

Enhancing transparency

A key feature of DealRoom is its emphasis on transparency. With real-time updates and clear communication channels, all stakeholders remain informed at every stage. This transparency builds trust and ensures that any potential roadblocks are identified and addressed promptly.

Fostering collaboration

Collaboration is the lifeblood of successful deals, and DealRoom is built with this in mind. It provides an interactive deal hub where all parties can collaborate on contracts and move deals through approvals. This collaborative approach accelerates the B2B buying journey and ensures that deals are finalized faster and meet the needs and expectations of all involved parties.

A partnership for success

In deal-making, every step, every move counts. The synergy between a proficient Deal Desk and the advanced capabilities of DealRoom creates a partnership poised for success. Here’s how:

Faster approvals

Time is of the essence in sales. Approvals are expedited with the Deal Desk’s expertise in structuring deals and DealRoom’s advanced platform designed for efficient deal management. No longer are deals held up by bottlenecks or delays; they move seamlessly from one stage to the next.

Clearer communication

Miscommunication can derail even the most promising deals. The synergy of the Deal Desk’s approach with DealRoom’s platform ensures unified communication among stakeholders. This clarity in communication is evident in how DealRoom has been integrated with HubSpot CRM, ensuring that buyers and sellers are aligned in their objectives and expectations.

Heightened deal success rates

Closed deals measure success in sales. The partnership between the Deal Desk and DealRoom doesn’t just increase the number of closed deals; it enhances the quality of those deals. This partnership streamlines deal management by ensuring that every deal is optimized and managed efficiently, leading to higher success rates and more satisfied customers.

Real-world resonance

In sales, the true test of any tool or strategy is its tangible impact in real-world scenarios. DealRoom’s influence on Deal Desks extends beyond theory; it’s validated by real-world successes. DealRoom’s intervention has been pivotal in transforming the operations of many Deal Desks. By streamlining processes, enhancing collaboration, and providing tools for clearer communication, DealRoom has redefined how deals are managed and executed. Let us illustrate with a couple of these success stories:

Radar Healthcare: optimizing deal processes for health and social care

Radar Healthcare, a software provider that monitors quality and compliance in health and social care, faced challenges streamlining its sales process. With DealHub’s CPQ solution and DealRoom, they experienced accelerated sales cycles, real-time collaboration, and a tailored buyer experience. The result? Shorter deal cycles, increased revenue, and a more confident sales team, leading to enhanced customer perception.

ClickDimensions: Adapting to Dynamic Sales Offerings

ClickDimensions, an Account-Based Marketing application native to Microsoft Dynamics CRM, needed a flexible solution to adapt to new sales offerings and pricing. With DealHub’s CPQ and DealRoom, they independently configure new bundles, share relevant content at the right sales cycle stage, and cross-sell with marketing materials. The outcome was a more flexible and efficient sales process, as highlighted by Amy Kraieski, Program Manager at ClickDimensions.

The essence of DealRoom

DealRoom is not just another sales enablement product; it’s a comprehensive platform that combines everything buyers and sellers need to close deals efficiently. From generating a personalized DealRoom filled with relevant content to facilitating brand professionalism throughout the sales cycle, DealRoom offers a myriad of benefits:

• Close deals faster: Everything required, from quotes to contracts, is housed in one digital place, speeding up sales velocity.
• Boost productivity: With guided selling, there’s no need for separate repositories. Everything from the right quote to the appropriate marketing content is readily available.
• Better collaboration: Approval workflows are tailored for all parties involved, ensuring smooth transitions and clear communication.
• Gain buyer intent insights: Real-time notifications allow sellers to identify key stakeholders and determine the optimal follow-up times.
• Execute deals with eSign: Whether using native eSign capabilities or integrating with DocuSign, closing deals becomes a seamless process.

In essence, DealRoom is revolutionizing the sales process, replacing traditional methods with dynamic, hyper-personalized, and efficient strategies. It’s not just about saying goodbye to PDFs; it’s about ushering in a new era of sales success.

Looking to the future

Sales is not static; it’s a dynamic field that continually evolves, adapting to new challenges and leveraging emerging technologies. As we gaze into the horizon, the future of Deal Desks looks promising and transformative, especially when paired with platforms like DealRoom.

Deal Desks have always been the linchpin of successful sales operations, ensuring that deals are optimized and stakeholders’ needs are met. As sales processes become more intricate, the role of the Deal Desk is set to expand. They’ll be tasked with navigating more complex deal structures, managing larger teams, and ensuring that the ever-growing demands of clients are met.

Today’s B2B customers expect personalized buying experiences, and platforms like DealRoom are indispensable in delivering customized deal assets and a personalized sales platform. By providing tools that streamline processes, enhance transparency and foster collaboration, DealRoom will empower Deal Desks to manage the increasing complexity of deals. The platform’s continuous innovation ensures that it remains at the forefront, always ready to address the emerging challenges of the sales world.

Emerging trends like AI-driven sales predictions, virtual reality sales rooms, and blockchain-secured deal contracts are on the horizon. Platforms like DealRoom are poised to integrate these innovations, ensuring that sales teams are equipped with cutting-edge tools to navigate the future of sales.

As we look ahead, the synergy between Deal Desks’ expertise and DealRoom’s innovative capabilities promises a future where deals aren’t merely concluded but are crafted for unparalleled value. As the sales world continues its journey of innovation and refinement, this partnership will be at its vanguard, setting new standards and redefining success.

The post Deal Desks and DealRoom: the symphony of sales success appeared first on DealHub.

Today, we’re breaking down the benefits of having a Deal Desk for subscription-based businesses and getting into strategies for managing recurring revenue, subscription pricing, and customer retention within Deal Desk processes (plus, we’ll discuss DealRoom – a game-changing platform that optimizes Deal Desks in your organization). Let’s go!

Benefits of a Deal Desk for subscription-based businesses

Before we break down typical challenges associated with managing subscriptions, let’s break down the tangible benefits of nurturing a Deal Desk for SaaS and B2B subscriptions.

Help close high-value deals

Deal Desks are instrumental in closing high-value deals in subscription-based businesses. However, deals often involve complex pricing structures, contract negotiations, redlining, and customization options. Deal Desk teams can navigate these complexities by leveraging their expertise to ensure that both parties reach a mutually beneficial agreement. Deal Desks, therefore, contribute to continued revenue growth and customer satisfaction by streamlining the deal closure process.

Shorten the sales cycle

When it comes to B2B subscription-based business models, speed is of the essence. Customers expect a seamless, transparent, efficient buying experience with quick turnaround times. Deal Desks are pivotal in shortening the sales cycle by eliminating bottlenecks and ensuring smooth transitions between sales stages. The ability to swiftly handle pricing, contract revisions, and approvals can expedite the buying process, which increases the chances of converting prospects into loyal customers.

Efficiently manage approvals

The Deal Desk is the hub for approvals within a subscription-based business, centralizing processes to simplify workflows. Deal Desks collaborate with multiple stakeholders to ensure a seamless approval process from pricing adjustments to contract terms. By establishing streamlined workflows, centralizing processes, and leveraging technology, Deal Desk teams are able to efficiently manage approvals. This, in turn, reduces delays and improves the overall operational efficiency.

Collaboration with stakeholders

The effective collaboration between Deal Desk teams and various stakeholders is vital for success. Deal Desks act as the bridge between sales, finance, legal, and customer success teams. Their ability to gather insights from all parties and align stakeholders’ objectives ensures focused messaging, internal collaboration, and more predictable revenue growth. Deal Desks, in short, ensure everyone is on the same page, resulting in better customer experiences and increased revenue potential.

Overcoming the challenges in managing subscriptions

As mentioned, while subscription-based models offer significant benefits, the management process can be challenging. There are solutions that, when implemented, reduce complexity and lessen the strain of tedious administrative tasks. So, let’s get into some key challenges and strategies that Deal Desk teams can employ to overcome roadblocks.

Challenge #1: Managing recurring revenue

One of the fundamental challenges in managing subscriptions is maintaining a steady stream of recurring revenue. Companies rely on predictive revenue sources to ensure the proper internal resources are in place and to plan for future growth. Recurring revenue makes it possible to predict cash flows, so finding ways to maintain a steady subscription stream is crucial. 

Strategies for Deal Desk teams

To address challenges related to maintaining a predictable level of recurring revenue, Deal Desk teams must focus on optimizing the subscription lifecycle. Teams need to implement proactive renewal strategies and adopt solutions such as: 

• timely reminders
• customer success reviews
• renewal incentives
• personalized offers
• upselling opportunities

That way, Deal Desks can maximize customer retention and revenue growth. It’s also an ideal way to meaningfully engage with clients, build relationships, and personalize interactions.

Challenge #2: Managing subscription pricing

Setting the right pricing strategy is crucial in the subscription economy. Customers are price-sensitive and will abandon their subscriptions if they no longer see value in the service. Therefore, pricing must be flexible and dynamic while still addressing customer expectations.

Strategies for Deal Desk teams

Deal Desk teams need to strike a balance between profitability and competitiveness. To overcome this challenge, they can: 

• leverage data-driven insights to determine optimal pricing structures
• offer flexible plans
• create value-added bundles
• maintain pricing transparency to build client trust

By continuously monitoring market trends and competitor pricing while offering flexibility and value to their offering, Deal Desks can ensure their subscription pricing remains competitive and attractive to customers.

Challenge #3: Customer retention

Customer retention is the cornerstone of success in the subscription economy. If customers are unhappy, see competitors’ pricing as more flexible or affordable, or feel undervalued, they likely will start considering other options. Deal Desk and Customer Success teams must collaborate to retain customers and drive revenue. In order to do that, they must seek out value-added options to entice customers to renew subscriptions.

Strategies for Deal Desk teams

There are a variety of ways Deal Desks and Customer Success teams can source unique opportunities to secure a renewal. For example, by:

• analyzing customer usage patterns
• gathering customer insights and opinions
• monitoring customer success metrics 
• identifying upselling and cross-selling opportunities
• providing personalized recommendations
• ensuring proactive issue resolution

Deal Desks can enhance the customer experience and provide Customer Success teams with approaches that will ultimately drive revenue growth.

Driving revenue with Deal Desk – Customer Success (CS) collaboration

To achieve long-term revenue growth, fostering collaboration between the Deal Desk and Customer Success teams is crucial. Together, these teams can effectively manage contract renewals, upselling, and cross-selling opportunities. For example, here are two key areas where effective collaboration will drive revenue:

Increasing contract renewal rate

Deal Desks can source and implement proactive strategies to increase contract renewal rates in collaboration with Customer Success teams. By leveraging data and analytics, Deal Desks can identify potential churn risks, and Customer Success teams can engage with customers before renewal dates to promptly address any concerns or challenges. This collaborative approach of engaging proactively ensures Customer Success teams can reach out to customers strategically to reinforce the value of continuing subscriptions, leading to lower churn, higher renewal rates, and sustained revenue growth.

Expanding deals with upselling and cross-selling

The Deal Desk and Customer Success teams can work hand in hand to identify upselling and cross-selling opportunities. By analyzing customer usage data, understanding their evolving needs, and providing tailored recommendations that Customer Success teams can leverage, Deal Desks contribute to driving the expansion of recurring revenue. When continuously seeking proactive up and cross-selling, Deal Desk teams can provide Customer Success teams with information regarding the additional value customers can gain by upgrading their subscriptions or availing of complementary products or services. This way, Customer Success teams can continuously nurture relationships to build customer trust while increasing revenue.

DealRoom: empowering Deal Desk subscription management for revenue growth

To unlock the full revenue potential of a subscription-based business, DealHub’s DealRoom offers a comprehensive solution that facilitates ongoing success for Deal Desk teams. DealRoom provides a centralized platform so that Deal Desks can manage every aspect, including managing subscriptions, streamlining approvals, collaborating with stakeholders, and gaining actionable insights. With an intuitive interface and its robust list of features, DealRoom empowers Deal Desk teams to optimize their subscription management processes, close deals faster, drive revenue growth, and deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Final Thoughts

Deal Desk plays a vital role in subscription-based businesses by unlocking revenue potential and overcoming unique challenges. By efficiently managing high-value deals, shortening the sales cycle, streamlining approvals, and collaborating with stakeholders, Deal Desk teams contribute to revenue growth and customer success. Through collaboration with Customer Success teams and leveraging technologies like DealHub’s DealRoom, Deal Desks can effectively manage contract renewals, upselling, and cross-selling opportunities while engaging with stakeholders and increasing transparency. This powerful centralized approach to managing Deal Desks will ultimately lead to sustained revenue growth in the subscription economy.

The post Deal Desk: unlocking the revenue potential of subscriptions appeared first on DealHub.

As a solution expert, Ariela’s main goal is to accompany clients through their onboarding and implementation. She also assists with the strategy and configuration of the DealHub environment. As a tech lead, Ariela also supports Solution Experts and provides advice on leveraging DealHub’s capabilities. She’s seen it all and understands approval workflows from top to bottom, making her the perfect person to break down approval workflow best practices.

Today, we’ll dive into the common challenges faced by deal desk managers when seeking approval for deals (including the CPQ approval process) and explore the do’s and don’ts that can significantly enhance your approval workflow efficiency while sharing Ariela’s expertise and insights. By the end, you’ll have a better understanding of workflows and how DealHub can be leveraged to streamline your processes.

Common deal approval challenges

Approval workflows can often become bottlenecks, causing delays and frustration for deal desk managers. Several hurdles need to be addressed, from complex approval chains to missing approvals and ambiguous workflows. But fear not! Leveraging automation, consultation, and information will streamline processes. There are also specific pitfalls to avoid – and we’ll lay some out for you. 

Deal Desk best practices to expedite approvals

Ariela’s best practices focus into leaning into efficiency. “I’ve always believed in the power of efficiency, especially in a business setting, and Dealhub is truly a technological manifestation of efficiency,” she says. Here are a few ways you can manifest efficiency with DealHub:

Do’s 

Automate approval workflows

Ariela: “Take advantage of all the capabilities Dealhub has to offer to automate your approval workflow requirements, including deal desk, financial, discount, margin, and legal approvals!”

DealHub has simple, flexible functionalities designed to automate your approval workflows. Whether it’s the deal desk, financial, discount, margin, or legal approvals, DealHub offers user-friendly features that expedite the approval process. By leveraging these automation features, you can significantly reduce manual effort and save valuable time.

Consult solution team on complex approvals

Ariela: “Dealhub Customer Success Team has lots of experience with almost every type of approval workflow scenario. Allow them to help guide you on the best path for your needs.”

Facing an intricate approval workflow process? Seek guidance from DealHub’s Customer Success Managers (CSMs) and Solution Expert team. Gaining expert insights enable you to save time and get workflows up and running faster. These experts also have a wealth of experience and have encountered nearly every workflow for approval process scenario. Use their knowledge to unlock the best path to success that aligns with your organization’s unique requirements. 

Leverage the solution’s knowledge base

Ariela: “Take advantage of Dealhub’s Knowledge Base Center for more articles on approval workflow configuration.”

DealHub offers a vast Knowledge Base Center of informative articles on approval workflow configuration. This constantly expanding resource provides a treasure trove of information to guide you through DealHub functionalities and configurations. Use these insights to deepen your understanding of the platform and configure approval workflows more effectively.

Don’ts

Don’t forget to close the loop

Ariela: “The Number 1 mistake that most make when configuring a general workflow is that they forget to include a final approver to the bottom of the table in a general workflow.”

One common mistake of workflow configuration is forgetting to include a final approver at the bottom of the table in a general workflow. It’s essential to add one last row with a person who doesn’t have an approver above them. This ensures that the workflow for approval process functions properly and avoids potential hiccups.

Don’t use the wrong workflow for the use case

Ariela: “Don’t forget that there are multiple workflow capabilities available to you, such as: general, rule-based, and even validations! Remember to use the right one for your workflow to work best.”

Choosing the right workflow type that aligns with your specific use case is essential. Using the right one allows you to achieve what you want faster. Each capability is designed to cater to different scenarios, so selecting the appropriate one is critical to achieving optimal workflow performance. Still trying to decide which to choose? A quick call with the team at DealHub can put you on the right track.

Don’t be afraid to experiment

Ariela: “Don’t be scared to experiment! Dealhub offers such wide flexibility that you may even discover a new and better way to configure something!”

DealHub is incredibly agile, enabling you to explore various configuration possibilities. Be curious and experiment with different settings and approaches, especially when creating a new draft version. Experimenting reveals novel ways to enhance deal desk process flows and find more efficient configurations.

How DealHub boosts approval workflow efficiency

As Ariela points out, “Approval workflow configuration can seem, at times, complex.” However, DealHub is designed to streamline workflows. After all, with its user-friendly interface, easy-to-teach nature, and remarkable flexibility, DealHub stands out as a platform that maximizes efficiency. The platform empowers deal desk managers to standardize and automate their approval workflows and achieve faster deal approvals. And, with the its ability to constantly grow and evolve, deal desk experts always have something new to learn and explore.

DealHub can optimize and streamline sales approval workflows and the CPQ approval process through its Configure Price Quote (CPQ) solution. By automating deal Desk process flows, DealHub enables salespeople  to efficiently close deals promptly. Automated/digital approval workflows offer users:

• Improved cross-team collaboration: Automated approval workflows make the sales process more streamlined and efficient. DealHub CPQ clearly outlines the required approvals, eliminating the need for salespeople to chase down employees. This improves cross-team collaboration and communication, so sales professionals can focus more on selling.
• Speed and efficiency for sales teams: Automated approval workflows provide sales teams with an efficient way to obtain the necessary sign-offs quickly. Once approval workflow standards and conditional logic are set within DealHub CPQ, sales teams can easily navigate the sales process, resulting in faster deal closures.
• Enhanced organizational transparency: By reducing confusion and improving communication among departments, digital workflows increase productivity, efficiency, and trust. The workload in the Operations department is also lightened, freeing up personnel and diverting attention to more critical tasks.
• Consistent processes: Consistency is achieved via automated approval workflows that guarantee a standardized and streamlined sales process, reducing errors and bottlenecks. It also facilitates the onboarding and training of new sales professionals, resulting in higher transparency, trust, and control.
• A better customer experience: Modern clients have high expectations, and maintaining an exceptional customer experience can be challenging. Automated approval workflows foster these relationships by removing non-value-adding manual tasks. Sales teams are empowered to spend more time nurturing prospects and delivering a more personalized and professional sales experience.

DealHub CPQ has the power to automate various processes, including:

1. The discount approval workflow automates the process of approving discounts so representatives can generate quotes with consistent and accurate pricing that aligns with discount guidelines. 
2. The billing approval workflow validates and pays invoices, ensuring correct and efficient bill processing. By facilitating transparency and timely payment cycles, it minimizes discrepancies caused by manual errors.
3. The legal or compliance approval workflow focuses on contract management, simplifying and expediting the approval of contract requests. 

Final thoughts

“Don’t be intimidated by approval workflows. With DealHub and the collaborative efforts of our clients, we can achieve remarkable results. Efficiency is within reach!” say’s Ariela. 

DealHub’s CPQ solution for Sales is a game-changer for approval workflow efficiency. By automating approval processes, organizations can streamline their sales operations, reduce errors, and enhance collaboration among departments. With improved speed and efficiency, enhanced transparency, consistent control over processes, and a better customer experience, DealHub empowers teams to close deals faster and more effectively. 

Boost your approval workflow efficiency with DealHub and witness the positive impact it can have on your deal desk operations. Get started today and experience the power of streamlined approvals like never before!

The post Close the loop: best practices to boost approval workflow appeared first on DealHub.

DealHub customers know and love digital DealRooms, which have transformed the buyer experience, bringing sellers and customers together in real-time and providing a hub for important documents, from product and pricing to agreements and approvals. 

And now, there’s more! With the newly released DealBox, DealRoom users now have the ability, and the place, to securely store deal-related information, content, and other supporting materials, DealBox supports all file types like PDF, JPeg, PPTX, MP4 etc., except exe files, which aren’t supported within DealRoom. 

Built to save and share, DealBox enables full control of creating, editing, and presenting materials. Only relevant content will be viewable to users, depending on the level of permissions granted.

The DealBox widget provides the following functions:

• Build DealBox templates: Define rule-based templates and set default files per DealRoom.
• Protected files: Admins can set a file or folder to be “protected”, meaning that the file cannot be removed from the DealBox in live mode.
• Enable uploads and downloads: Authenticated users (permission based) can create new files and folders.
• Add comments to files: Using the button on the upper toolbar, permitted users can comment on single or multiple files.
• Action notifications: DealRoom members can be notified of any actions within DealBox.
• DealStream activities : DealBox will log all box-related actions such as file addition, deletion, or download, comments to files, and newly created or deleted directories.

DealHub’s DealRooms already provide real-time interactive content sharing and deal-management for all stakeholders involved. They’re also a single source of truth for any deal documents, like agreements, legal documents, etc. 

DealBox now facilitates storing and sharing other supporting documents, files, and materials associated with the deal, and enables various parties involved to view, comment on, and share materials. DealBox was designed to be dynamic and evolve as the market progresses.  

Using DealRoom, you’ve said goodbye to tracing emails, repeating discussions, and having to frequently update stakeholders. You’re accustomed to sharing and tracing legal and contractual documents on DealRoom, moving deals forward faster and easier. 

DealBox now opens a new venue for all supporting materials and content that is of interest to DealRoom members. Thanks to DealBox, DealRooms are now bigger and better, and provide a holistic digital customer experience, meeting both buyers and sellers’ needs.

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Unfortunately, the world of B2B sales doesn’t move nearly as quickly. According to one survey, around 75% of new B2B sales take at least four months to close, and nearly half take upwards of seven months. 

There are several impediments to the B2B sales process. For starters, deals are big – often ranging in the thousands to tens of thousands of dollars. Although this makes for greater revenue potential, it also means more stakeholders need to chip in before the sale is completed.

In addition, more research must be carried out for a decision to be made. B2B sales, far from being spur-of-the-moment purchases, may involve complex products that must be properly understood – in terms of both functionality and potential ROI – in order to decide whether they support business goals. A large amount of information is required to make an educated decision.

But while due diligence is a good thing for both buyer and seller, unnecessary delays are not. Part of the reason deals often take so long to close is because of inefficient sales processes. Whether it’s disjointed email threads, time-consuming admin tasks, issues related to negotiations, or delays around approvals, there are a number of things that can stall a deal from getting done. For sales reps, these are common sources of frustration. And the cost of deals being dragged out ranges from missed sales targets, to lengthier time to revenue, to increased likelihood of losing out to the competition.

At DealHub, our DealRoom puts all the relevant information and tools in one place, so buyers and sellers can close deals more quickly and with greater transparency. It removes friction from the sales process while empowering customers to make faster and better-informed decisions.

How a DealRoom helps you close deals faster

Using a DealRoom is the equivalent of walking into a digital sales showroom, complete with company branding and all the information needed to secure a deal. This includes things like pricing and product summaries, sales and marketing collateral, legal contracts, billing information, and whatever else is needed to take customers from quote to close. And it’s put front and center for all relevant stakeholders to see, ensuring everyone is informed and aligned from Day One.

A DealRoom contains all the elements necessary to close a deal, such as customer information, pricing and product summaries, terms and conditions, and e-signatures – all synced to your CRM.

A DealRoom, also known as a digital sales room, also contains important deal-closing tools. To streamline the contract-signing process, buyers and sellers can revise and make suggestions to contracts right inside the DealRoom. With everyone operating from a single source of truth, this means an end to endless email chains, back-and-forth communications, and poorly managed Word documents and PDFs.

Our DealRoom also makes it easy for sales reps to track buyer engagement. With real-time DealStream notifications, they can see who has accessed a DealRoom after it has been sent. This allows them to identify the key stakeholders they need to be focusing on, and decide how and when to follow up. Or, if they see that the DealRoom hasn’t been accessed or is being held up by a particular stakeholder, they can take appropriate action to seal the deal.

As the sales proposal process comes to a conclusion, eSign capability allows all stakeholders to sign off on the deal right inside the DealRoom – with no need for an additional external tool.

And since each DealRoom is plugged into the seller’s CRM (like Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics 365), sales reps can save valuable time that would normally be spent entering and updating information. Instead, they can dedicate that time towards improving and personalizing the actual buyer experience – in other words, selling.

Digital sales rooms are the future of B2B sales

A famous saying is variably attributed to U.S. retail magnate John Wanamaker and UK industrialist Lord Leverhulme: “Half my advertising spend is wasted. The trouble is, I don’t know which half.”

Following this same line of thought, most sales reps waste lots of time and energy in a slow-moving process that can feel neverending. They may well understand how the process works, but can’t quite grasp where much of their time is being wasted. It takes the introduction of a DealRoom to understand all of the inefficiencies that can easily be cut out – this is the benefit of digital transformation of sales.

By centralizing sales processes within a cross-party collaborative environment like a DealRoom, you can bring together sales teams and customers and close deals faster. Buyers get the benefit of having everything they need in one place so they can make a quick and informed decision. Meanwhile, sales reps can drive deals forward using real-time buyer engagement insights, while sharing all relevant information in one go. It’s a game-changer when it comes to keeping deals on track and closing them as rapidly as possible.

Based on our own analysis of 193,000 deals conducted via the DealHub platform, sales win rates increase by up to 3x when a DealRoom is used, as opposed to traditional formats like email, PDFs and Word files. What was previously a pain point in the sales process is now a means of driving sales efficiently.

Welcome to the future of B2B sales. Once you’ve digitized your buyer/seller interactions, you won’t be going back to the way things were.

Want to see a DealRoom in action? Request a demo

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As the B2B world faces a digital transformation of its own, companies have a similar opportunity to scale their output and reach new levels of revenue potential.

This is certainly the case among sales teams, which typically deal with laborious and manual processes that limit their productivity and steer them away from their primary goal of selling.

The Problem With Traditional Sales Proposals

Manual sales proposal processes may be manageable up to a point, but all the time spent on administrative tasks and ineffective communications prevents your company from scaling up and reaching your revenue goals.

Tedious manual processes

Manual processes are an inefficient use of salespeople’s time. Sales reps typically spend several hours preparing proposals, contracts and legal documents for each client, even while following sales operations best practices. For example, 64% of enterprises that don’t use a CPQ need more than 30 minutes to prepare and send a quote, plus more than an hour to prepare and send a sales proposal.

These manual processes are also subject to human error, meaning updates might not happen on time and you’ll have small numerical discrepancies across the sales process. When it comes to large or complex price quotes or orders, you can imagine the potential revenue impact of a relatively small numerical error.

Difficulty maintaining price books

Pricing and packaging are not static and may change frequently. Some SaaS companies, for example, adjust their pricing every 6 months. In spite of that – or possibly as a result –  41% of surveyed professionals report that plan changes are their number one challenge.

Managing updates by manually hard-coding changes in the back end creates additional overhead and puts the burden on other teams to keep up. Worst case, it leads to sales reps using old and incorrect price lists they’ve downloaded in the past, resulting in lost revenue.

Unprofessional-looking documents

Good presentation demonstrates credibility and professionalism. But when all your sales outputs are created manually, reps end up using different proposal templates, formats and document types. This leads to inconsistency and often ends up looking unprofessional to customers. Automation allows you to set brand standards for your business proposals and standardize best practices across your team.

Ineffective communication among stakeholders

B2B sales often require buy-in from multiple parties within an organization, producing message threads and email chains that are lengthy and difficult to follow. This type of communication leads to frustration, inefficiency and miscommunication, and makes it difficult to secure approvals in a timely manner – often a determining factor in whether a deal gets done.

How Sales Proposal Automation Software Drives Results

By using online proposal software and injecting automation into your sales proposal creation process, your sales rep can generate accurate and professional-looking price quotes, no matter how large or complex, with minimal time and effort.

Here are five ways that sales proposal automation drives better processes, and ultimately, accelerates revenue.

1. Keeps your CRM up to date

Your CRM is filled with data that is used again and again throughout the sales process. Keeping that data synced between all relevant assets reduces errors and streamlines the sales process. CRM document generation is a key function of sales proposal automation software, in that it allows reps to instantly create sales documents by pulling updated data right from your CRM – saving them valuable time, preventing errors, and putting proposals in front of customers more quickly.

2. Streamlines communication via workflows

Centralizing cross-party collaboration is a key step to improving your sales process. DealHub’s solution to this is our proprietary DealRoom, which brings sales teams and customers together in real-time so you can collaborate, engage key decision-makers, and close deals faster.

Now let’s say a quote needs to be approved by Tina, who is in accounting, and Bill, VP of Sales. Tina logs into the digital DealRoom to provide her approval. But afterwards, John makes some changes of his own. In this case, a workflow can be triggered to automatically resend the quote to Tina for approval.

3. Sets guardrails for discounts

Reps want to make as many sales as possible, and discounts help them get there more quickly. Unfortunately, when not managed properly, this has a negative impact on the need to protect profit margins and obtain managerial approval.

By utilizing automation to standardize your sales proposal process, you can build dynamic guardrails on discounting into your CPQ. This means that any discount over a set threshold will trigger an approval workflow, resulting in a clear and automated process around approvals. Your company will no longer be leaving money on the table with inappropriate discounts that eat into your profit margins.

4. Provides buyer engagement data

Through digital transformation of your sales process, you can collect buyer intent data that was previously unattainable. For example: with our DealRoom solution, you can get real-time notifications that reveal where your buyers stand in the process, which stakeholders are involved, and where things are at a standstill. Then you can use those insights to sell more strategically – for example, by timing your follow-up, or by having senior figures step in and help overcome obstacles in the process.

5. Helps onboard sales reps faster

A sales playbook within your CPQ gives sales reps the tools and guidance they need to onboard faster and sell more strategically and efficiently. It takes them step-by-step through a series of predefined questions and fields to help them deliver fast and accurate quotes to buyers, and generate error-free quotes in any branded format. By enabling them to select the right configurations for each unique customer, you can facilitate pricing consistency, error-free quoting, and faster approvals.

Summing it all up

Underestimating the importance of sales proposal automation is a risk your company can’t afford to take. With B2B sales processes being so complex, revenue leakage can easily occur as a result of legacy tools and manual processes. Implementing automated workflows and processes will allow you to save time, effort and money.

DealHub’s #1-rated CPQ and contract management solution, powered by a guided selling playbook, simplifies and streamlines the selling process and enables sales teams to enforce sales operations best practices. Want to gain more insights into the impact of sales proposal automation on revenue and sales productivity?

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But online sales are a completely different animal. The top closers in a virtual environment are those who can read “digital” body language. Remote sales teams don’t have a bevvy of physical signals at their disposal, from eye contact to handshakes to raised eyebrows. Instead, buyer intent data is embedded in prospects’ online activity, and interpreting them requires a different set of tools. Is your team prepared for that?

Modern online sales are a complex process

The days of dealing with a sole proprietor with budgetary authority are long gone. Online sales involve multiple influencers and decision-makers, and this is increasingly the case as deal size grows. The initial buyer is rarely the “top of the food chain,” and it can take time, patience and hard work to reach that stakeholder who will provide final sign-off.

This alters the way that sales communication is conducted and extends the duration of the sales cycle. Unfortunately, this also makes it more difficult to track buyer engagement, especially if you’re strictly relying on email communication. As sales proposals move from party to party within the buyer-side organization, the sales rep loses sight of the relevant stakeholders.

Imagine this from a closer’s perspective. Transparency is critical for knowing how to follow up and with whom, what supporting materials to provide, and when to move in for the final close. Sending an email and hoping it gets forwarded to the appropriate party doesn’t provide these insights.

Some salespeople believe that the solution is to insist on speaking only to final decision makers, but today’s workplace doesn’t work like that. Several layers of research, due diligence and approvals may be necessary before purchasing becomes relevant. There are compliance teams, legal teams, mid-level managers, and administrators who may all need to be involved in the process.

To enable sales reps to sell more strategically and increase their win rates, sales operations leaders need to embrace a digital transformation that goes beyond traditional communication channels. They must implement tools that capture and communicate buyer intent data.

Improving buyer intent data with a digital sales room

Our CRM can track email opens and may reveal when an email is forwarded to another party, provided you’re CC’d. If not, and beyond that, the salesperson loses track of buyer-side communication, putting them at the mercy of the original contact. Following up becomes an exercise best described as “pestering” the initial buyer for updates and answers.

At the same time, sales managers don’t like guesswork when asking for pipeline updates, and revenue operations leaders can’t make projections without having accurate data. Unfortunately, not being able to see where a proposal stands affects both. This is what happens when teams rely solely on email for communications.

Digital deal rooms (a.k.a digital sales rooms) solve this problem. Once sales proposals are generated within this virtual room, additional parties can be invited as individual users. All activity can then be tracked, all the way from the initial share right down to the final e-signature. That’s how innovative sales teams operate.

At DealHub, our DealRoom is a collaborative sales engagement platform that brings B2B buyers and sellers together into a single digital location. Since it natively integrates into CRMs like Salesforce and Freshworks and Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can still benefit from email tracking, but buyer behavior-tracking takes place within the digital deal room environment. That’s a powerful benefit, especially for salespeople contending with a number of stakeholders and a complex or lengthy sales process.

How does a DealRoom work?

Once an opportunity has been opened, the sales rep can invite all relevant buyers to the deal room. From that point onward, all communications can be handled inside that digital environment – including the invitation of other parties into the conversation. This way, the seller can monitor all activity and not just their interactions with the initial contact.

Remember that digital body language we mentioned earlier? Buyer intent data is how your sales team can see and recognize buyer engagement signals and move deals forward. A best-in-class deal room will provide buyer engagement data that’s not available in CRM systems. Among other benefits, having this intelligence helps sales reps identify who the relevant stakeholders are, what assets and information they’re engaging with, and any potential buyer objections they need to be prepared for.

As the deal works its way towards closure, sales reps can track contract redlining and e-signatures. Imagine a tool where redline issues are addressed collaboratively in one place, instead of going up and down a chain of command within an email thread. The fastest way to work through legal and compliance issues is to address them head-on and in parallel.

You can do all this in a DealRoom. And once your sales team has adopted it as a primary mode of communication, sales cycles will shorten, close rates will go up, and buyer-seller relationships will improve with a better understanding of the needs and wants of all parties involved. That is a recipe for success in modern online sales.

“Digital Sales Room” is now a recognized tech category

G2, the leading business software and services review company, now recognizes “Digital Sales Room” as a tech stack category. And our enterprise-grade DealRoom has been recognized as a leader in this developing area.

Our interactive DealRoom helps reps drive deals forward with real-time insights into buyer behavior. This added sales intelligence helps sales teams know who to contact, how to follow up, and whether the other party is fully engaged. It also provides automated reminders, notifications and workflows to keep deals on track and close deals quickly.

Does your tech stack do all that?

Recognizing and acting on digital body language is key to supporting your revenue goals. And without a digital deal room, you’re simply not gaining the sales intelligence you need to do that.

Want to learn how to overcome sales obstacles and create one fluid sales motion? Check out our latest video to learn how teams are using DealHub to close more deals faster.

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