Your quote and proposal process is by far your biggest sales asset.

When done correctly, it can shorten your sales cycle, close more deals,

and increase deal sizes. When done wrong, it can cost you BIG TIME.

That begs the question: How do you know what to avoid? It starts by

knowing what to look for. At Quosal, we’ve worked with companies

around the country to help empower their businesses and fine-tune

their quotes and proposals.

In the process, we’ve found the biggest quoting blunders

companies make—and worked alongside them to correct

those mistakes and drive revenue growth.

Take a look at our list of the 5 Most Common Quoting Mistakes (and How to Fix Them) to see if you’re committing any crimes of quoting and then apply our best practices to perk up your bottom line.

You never want to delay sending a quote off to a potential client—but far too often that’s exactly where the first mistake occurs.

The manual process of quote generation often leaves reps with a week or more of work before the quote ever gets out the door. That means your rep is left doing admin work instead of selling, and your prospect has more time to research other vendors for the same services. Either way, it’s bad news for your business.

Speed up your quote and proposal generation by investing in a solution that automates the process. In fact, according to the Aberdeen Group, best-in-class companies—those who most often deploy a quoting tool—are 13% more likely to both get their quote right the first time and speed up the sales process.

You’re Taking Too Long 1Quosal allows you to select a quote

template from an entire library

that automatically populates the

customer information stored in your

CRM. You can then insert products

and pricing with a mere click and

deliver your quote online to your

clients. And since they can e-sign

and send back in a flash, it makes it

even easier for them to say ‘yes!’

You Lost the Wow Factor2As great as your business and services might be, giving your prospects a dry, hard-to-read quote makes you easy to forget. They may confuse your quote with competitors or simply forget they had something to review in the first place.

Your quote should be the most important piece that you send clients. It’s the last mile in the marathon of your sale. Give your clients a quote that will wow them and make it impossible to forget by adding personal touches.

According to the Aberdeen Group, configure, price, and quote (CPQ) users are 161% stronger than non-CPQ users at providing reps with marketing tools to develop, send, and track responses to messaging. With feedback on messaging, you’ll learn what customers think of your quotes and where to improve.

Next time you put together a quote, try thinking outside the box—like incorporating photos and videos, extra product information, or fun facts about the product or your business.

Quosal lets you add in a photo of

your sales rep, product images, and

even a personalized video. Bring

the personal side back to selling and

make your quote memorable!

You’re Leaving Money on the Table3

Once you send a quote out, the services quoted may be the only thing the client sees. But your sale doesn’t have to end there—never underestimate the power of extras and add-ons.

Include options in your quote or proposal that let your clients see the additional products or services they can purchase. Even better, give them a good, better, or best scenario where they can see the different choices and opt to select the more ideal (or ‘best’) service that might better fit their business.

With Quosal, you can include selectable

products for clients to upsell themselves.

The totals update automatically, and you’re

notified when they add products and services,

so you can follow up.

When was the last time you used a fax machine? It’s time to step into the modern world.

As we progress with technology, items like the fax machine are becoming clunky and obsolete. Forcing your client to print and fax back a quote or proposal lengthens the sales cycle and puts up an unnecessary roadblock.

Start using e-signatures to make sure customers can accept your quote quickly and easily. According to the Aberdeen Group, 59% of reps achieve quota when using e-signatures and 74% of reps miss the mark without e-signatures. Leveraging e-signature tools makes accepting and receiving a signed quote a mere click of a button. And let’s be real—we could all use a little more simplicity in our lives.

You’re Not Leveraging the Latest Technology4

Quosal has e-signature functionality built right in to the product.

When a client receives an online quote, they can review and e-sign

without ever having to print or find a fax machine. Once they hit

accept, your CRM is automatically updated, so the purchase order

can be placed.

We’ve said it before, and we’re saying it again: Speed is the name of the game. Don’t waste precious time re-keying information into your CRM when you could be selling to another prospect.

Your business uses the data in your CRM for important decisions, so make sure it’s accurate and up-to-date without risking the extra time and accidently entering the wrong information. Configure, price, and quote (CPQ) tool users see a 4.9% reduction in proposal generation error rates compared to 1.9% for non-users, according to the Aberdeen Group.

Try leveraging a quoting solution that integrates to your CRM; that way, you never have to worry about double data entry and can start reducing your sales team’s error rate.

You’re Not Integrating Your CRM5

Quosal integrates to top CRMs, so once a quote is won, the opportunity

or quote record is automatically updated.

Quotes and proposals are a crucial part of winning a sale—so making sure your business is optimized for success is invaluable. Regardless of how many of these common quoting mistakes you’ve fallen prey to over the years, solving the problem is 10 times easier when you know what it is.

George Bernard Shaw once said, “Success does not consist in never making mistakes but in never making the same one a second time.”

And he is exactly right. Avoid making all-too-common quoting mistakes by leveraging automated tools that give you peace of mind to know your quotes will bring great success. Quosal is the quote and proposal automation solution that helps you save time, grow sales, and never worry about making these mistakes again.

Learn more ways Quosal can help streamline the quote and proposal process. Visit Quosal.com.