Conversions are the bottom line of business – the end goal.
Granted, there are no shortcuts. You have to produce well-structured quotes and tenders that provide compelling reasons to choose your company, and you have to do it consistently over the long haul.
But no matter how well prepared your quotes and tenders are, they never hit the mark 100% of the time, so there’s always room for improvement. There’s also the issue of prospects taking their time to sign on the dotted line and make your proposal less than a pressing priority.
So, how do you strike the right balance, and increase the conversion of quotes into sales? Here are five tips to boost your trustworthiness and your conversions.
1. USE CRM
A good knowledge of your prospects enables you to develop quotes that target their specific need, but where do you get, store and sort information about your contacts? A customer relationship management system can be a powerful tool in your quote-to-sale armoury.
MYOB EXO CRM Module and other similar solutions can offer you complete visibility and let you record your prospect’s quote likes and dislikes, their location, their spending patterns, age and gender, tastes, needs and buying habits. This will give you a detailed picture of their spending power, giving you the opportunity to modify your quotes and devise them according to their liking.
2. LEVERAGE CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS TO ADDRESS LEADS EARLY
An article published in The Harvard Business Review pointed out that leads addressed within the first sixty minutes are seven times more likely to develop into meaningful conversions. Prospects may have questions about quotes, product features, the stock available, etc. These need to be addressed quickly if you want to see an uptick in conversions.
Doing all this requires a unique customer management solution, such as the one found in EXO finance. Companies can use it to manage all the customer contact details to manage quotes, invoices, orders, stock, inventory and more, along with sales and marketing activities. Such solutions can help you comprehensively understand your customers and manage your companies and quote contracts; the sales staff will love the real-time stock updates as it will enable efficient addressing of prospect queries.
3. IMPROVE QUOTES BY USING OLD PROJECT JOBS AS A TEMPLATE
You can manage the profitability of your projects and jobs in real time by providing direct visibility of all your process, input and time costs, including labour hours, materials, equipment hours and consulting hours.
This is possible through job and project costing solutions that enable you to identify any variances and make appropriate quotes. And by reviewing previous jobs in areas like job resources, cost types, cost groups, job types, job resources and, most importantly, quote terms, you can save time on complex projects.
4. INTEGRATE SALES MESSAGES
Integrate marketing and sales messages into your proposal. Since quotes are a part of the sales process, you need to reinforce the reasons to choose your company versus one of the competitors.
If you don’t provide them a reason to choose you, you could end up being a textbook example of a poorly handled sales proposition. So ensure that your prospects don’t simply base their decision on the quoted price.
5. INVOLVE THE KEY DECISION MAKERS
Once you identify who key decision makers are, talk to them and involve them in the sales process in order to expedite the quote for the prospect. This also lets you handle any avenues for buying objection with the prospect involved.
Once there is an agreement, send the quote document promptly in a professional manner. Talk it through with the person who is responsible for the ultimate decision. While it’s not always possible to do this, it doesn’t hurt to try getting input of key decision makers.
As a business grows, so does its complexity. Connecting the varied processes and operations to it can be a challenge.
Understanding your business processes and having your business management system built around them can transform your entire operational approach – and deliver real, quantifiable business benefits.
Like having easy access to the information you need to make critical decisions, gaining a deeper understanding of the efficiencies that drive your business and that all-important big-picture view – along with the ability to drill down to the details when it matters.
MYOB Enterprise Solutions offer a suite of enterprise systems covering finances (ERP), business operations, inventory control and client management (CRM), employer services (payroll and HR)– giving you the ability to make smarter connections across all aspects of your business with a fully integrated management solution built around your individual operational approach.
See the full article MYOB Enterprise Stay Connected
Technology is changing the way everyone does business. MYOB has invested $75m towards a vision that doesn’t just give clients the solutions, services, and support to achieve their goals – but also a way of working that they can define on their own terms.
Technology is changing the way everyone does business. MYOB has invested $75m towards a vision thatdoesn’t just give clients the solutions, services, and support to achieve their goals – but also a way ofworking that they can define on their own terms.
For larger, more complex businesses, the MYOB Enterprise Solutions suite provides the tools, processes, and infrastructure necessary to build a successful organisation. The suite comprises of optional modules – including remote access technology such as Microsoft Terminal Services, Citrix, or the EXO Anywhere Module – which allow for greater scalability and growth via a fully integrated ERP business management system.
So what does this mean for a General Manager?
A general manager of a business has broad, overall responsibility for the organisation. While each department manager may be responsible for one functional area, the general manager is responsible for all areas. They are the big picture people. They have to know how the company is faring; which department is excelling and which is lagging behind; what products are selling; and which customers need a little nurturing because the competition is trying to steal them away.
Doctor Benjamin Esty – Chair of the General Management Program at Harvard Business School – says that a successful GM gets ahead “[…] by knowing more and more about less and less”. Critical to a general manager’s success is their ability to have a broader view of the network of internal and external factors that affect their business; having direct access to the information needed to make critical business decisions. With a deeper view of the performance of individual line processes, they will have a deeper understanding of the efficiencies that are driving the business – and when to act. If all of this can be brought together into a unified management view of the business, they will finally have that all-important big picture view.
To read the full article you can click on CONNECTING GENERAL MANAGERS
We would love to hear your thoughts so please consider contacting me!
Regards,
Michael Pendred, Managing Director – Horizon Business Systems
Horizon Business Systems is a business accounting software solution provider, based in Perth Western Australia, dealing exclusively with the MYOB EXO Business and MYOB Advanced ERP systems.
As a MYOB Enterprise Platinum Partner, winner of the MYOB Excellence in Marketing award for 2012 and achieving the title of “MYOB Enterprise Partner of the Year (Australia/New Zealand)” in 2010, 2008 and 2007, we have a proven track record of success in effectively managing the complex, and often daunting, process of system implementation.
Horizon Business Systems understands that every business is unique. As experts in financial management software, change management and business process design, we provide a flexible approach to system implementation ensuring a smooth transition to your new software solution. Meet our team and read more about us here.
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