SalesQuoteBlog.com, from Quosal, Inc.

The real investment needed in your proposal processes

Business Process, Kent, Proposals, Quotes No Responses »

Sep 022010

Do you feel that you have a good understanding of the value of your quote and proposal processes to your company? Is it something you’ve really thought about?

I’m going to challenge those who might answer “yes.” The first challenge: You probably haven’t thought about it that much. The second challenge: You’ve probably dramatically underestimated that value.

The value of these processes is direct, daily and in some cases, virtually inestimable, as they enable and unblock the growth of an organization. They relate directly to the image of your organization — the customer perception of professionalism and quality. The accuracy of quotes and proposals leads to good, win/win business. Overall organizational productivity can be dramatically and positively improved.

All of this can be worth tens or hundreds of thousands to a company, yet some are unwilling to invest as little as the price of a laptop and a few hours of time, while others may purchase the lowest-priced solution to save a few hundred dollars.

What is the right investment?

There are three investments you should consider when improving the infrastructure of your organization in the area of quote and proposal automation.

1. The investment in your quoting platform and tools.
2. The investment of *your time* in full and proper implementation of that platform.
3. The investment in professional services that gets you all the way there, cost effectively. Being cost-effective also means an appropriate and effective use of your own time.

We work with many companies that really need (and would greatly benefit from) investment in all three areas, but invest in only one, or perhaps two. This will not lead to maximum ROI, and may not even lead to basic success.

Under-investment in your quote and proposal automation can negatively impact your business for years to come, since most of us tend to live with mistakes far longer than we should.

#Quosal -- This Week In Twitter

Twitter No Responses »

Aug 272010

Selected tweets by Quosal and our partners and friends …

#SaaS deployment of #Quosal quoting makes sense for multi-office, virtual co’s; Cloud data is secure, accessible www.quosal.com #ConnectWise
QuosalMan — Kent McNall
Aug 19

On holiday, London this week…that’s a long flight from SEA…drizzly English weather. London is a great city. Notoriously bad vacationer
QuosalMan — Kent McNall
Aug 22

Very excited to see ACCs interested in #Quosal. Their input is so valuable. One look at #OrderPorter and they’re hooked.
Quosal_Frank — Frank Rogan
Aug 25

Congratulations to Sage for going gold with ACT! 2011! Big success with many exciting features. #quosal #actbysage #sageact
Quosal_Frank — Frank Rogan
Aug 26

ConnectWise IT Nation 2010 Update! Lots of breakouts… we’re sold out but you can still get on the waitlist http://ow.ly/2vkiI #ITN2010
ConnectWise
Aug 26

ConnectWise Wins award at XChange Americas – XCellence in Partner Growth http://ow.ly/2vWCz
ConnectWise
Aug 27

Six Great Reasons to Be Excited About Sage ACT! 2011 Smart Tasks (Part II) – Guest Blog by Len Kamerman #SageACT http://ht.ly/18KKRs
ACTbySage
Aug 27

Effective Adoption of New Processes Drives Profits and Morale

Business Process, Kent No Responses »

Aug 232010

One aspect of our business here at Quosal that has been very gratifying is the high adoption rate of our solution. In this case “adoption rate” refers to the percentage of customers who implement, use, and receive the benefit of Quosal soon after they purchase it.

Having been in the enterprise software solution business for some time, I’ve certainly seen the opposite — companies that make a significant investment in software (and other infrastructure) that don’t actually implement the solution or are “turned back from the gates” of implementation. In some cases, writing the check for the software/services was the first, last and only action item taken toward implementation! In other cases, a sincere effort is made, but the company loses steam and the initiative falters.

The desire for change of business process is almost always sincere and founded in real need. How can a business “punch through the target” to ensure that ROI is received from such an investment?

Change is an act of management will. In a small business, management and ownership are generally synonymous. The mandate for change must always start at the top, just as the authorization for the investment usually does. Without this mandate and the driving desire for business process change, it often does not happen – especially if multiple departments are affected by the change.
Beyond this, there are practical “drivers” that will help ensure that change will occur in a beneficial, building manner.

Big Wins: The carrot of a significant win in the process can help pull change-averse staff and organizations through an implementation. Such wins come in many forms. I’ve seen what looks like surprisingly small “wins” from the outside drive huge changes.

Ease Their Pain: A corollary of the Big Win — reducing a pain point can help drive change.

Desire to Be the Best: Many organizations are motivated by the simple desire for improvement – taking another step toward excellence.

We Don’t Fail: The corollary to the above, a successful implementation is the obvious alternative to a failed implementation, which is an undesired black eye for many.

Many executives and owners feel that the simple mandate of “it’s your job” will win the day, but looking a little further into the heart of successful change management can smooth the road, and speed the path to ROI.

Don’t Be Ugly By Accident!

Proposals, Quotes No Responses »

Aug 122010

What does a dating site like OKCupid have to do with quotes and proposals? Plenty.

OKTrends is the official blog of OKCupid, and they must have a fantastic team of statisticians. Its fascinating stuff for stats geeks like me, who play fantasy football and eagerly debate whether Chipper Jones will make it into the Hall of Fame. He’s a lock. But I digress.

Don’t Be Ugly By Accident! was OKTrends recent blog post sharing its findings on the snap judgments based on a person’s photograph, and then compared the “yes/no” snap judgment against several variables — the time of day each picture was taken, shutter speed, depth of field, etc., which can be cribbed from EXIF data included in the digital files taken by most modern cameras.

What’d they learn?

If you want more dates, take better pictures of yourself. Don’t use a camera phone. Using a flash adds seven years to your perceived age. Make sure you’re the center of attention. Take pictures with good lighting.

In other words, don’t be ugly by accident. The little details pay big dividends.

“Technique can make or break your photograph, and the right decisions can get you more dates.”

So, again, what does that have to do with quotes and proposals? Just as technique can make or break your photograph, your technique with quotes and proposals can make or break your sale.

Etilize allows you to include product photos and specifications. People like to buy things they can see. If they can visualize your product, they can visualize how it will fit into their lives and their businesses, and they’ll be more likely to make a purchase.

Order Porter allows you to include video-based content. It could be a video of your product in action. Or a video of yourself going over the proposal in detail, or even simply thanking the customer for the opportunity to win their business. People buy from people.

Quosal and Microsoft Word can be used together to create true, repeatable, multi-section proposals.

Don’t be ugly by accident. Deliver attractive, accurate, and high-quality on purpose.

No More Web Site Envy – For Now

Kent, Technology, Web No Responses »

Aug 062010

I’m sure I’m not the only business owner in the world that suffers from “Web site envy.”

Like other forms of covetousness, such as cell phone envy and tech-generation envy (you have the iPhone 4, while I’m still stick on the 3GS), it always seems that the next guy’s Web site has a little better graphics, content and technology.

We’ve just released our third iteration of the Quosal Web site, and at least for today I’m suspending all Web site envy. Our team has worked hard on it, and our summer interns have made terrific contributions across the board.

When one considers all of the factors that make up today’s Web presence for a business, and all of the traditional business elements affected by that presence, it is easy to understand why your Web site needs constant attention. Marketing, sales, operations, support service and public relations are all impacted. The technology, content and attractiveness/gestalt of your site all create an impression on potential customers and existing customers.

Our own product, Quosal, has become an even more important part of our own Web site with this new revision, as we are using Order Porter’s capability to actually process sales transactions for our new product, Quosal for ACT! Our customers can build their own quote (shopping cart) online, and complete the purchase and digital distribution automatically. More and more, all of the software products we use, and our Cloud-based applications and data, must be able to interact with our Web presence.

It’s nice to give “Web site envy” a break at least for a day. I’m sure I’ll be back to the envy salt mines next week.

Fitting Right into the 101 Ways to Make More Sales

Competitive Advantage, Knowledge Transfer, Proposals, Quotes, Sales No Responses »

Aug 032010

Former journalists, like me, gravitate toward Copyblogger, a fantastic blog about all things words, and specifically, copywriting tips for marketing success. Quotes and proposals are by definition things with words, so there’s a lot that can be gleaned from Copyblogger.

Former journalists, like me, are also suckers for lists. Say “top 10” anything, and we’ll read it. You can see why Copyblogger’s “101 Ways to Make More Sales Online,” caught my eye. In fact, “put a number in the headline” is one of the 101 Ways.

But what really made me sit up and take notice was how Quosal fit into those 101 suggestions.

Let prospects know they’re buying from a human being.

Honestly, this is the very reason behind Order Porter’s personal video feature. People tend to buy things from people. You are not a vending machine, so your quote or proposal document should not act like one. Adding a personal video to your quote – even just to say “thanks” — and delivering it through Order Porter is a great way to make one more memorable impression on your customer.

Tell a story about how you solved this problem for yourself before you started selling the solution to others.

Quosal CEO Kent McNall loves telling the story about how Quosal got started when, in one of Kent’s past businesses, a lack of a good quoting tool led directly to a salesman’s six-figure mistake. Knowledge Transfer is a key problem Quosal solves.

Make sure you’ve described your product or service in enough detail. If it’s physical, give the dimensions and some great photos. … Don’t assume your prospects already know any details — spell everything out.

Include a photograph of what you’re selling, if you can.

It’s for this very reason that Quosal works with Etilize, allowing you to smoothly include product details and product photographs into your quotes and proposals. Quosal + Etilize is a powerful, powerful combination.

Put your photo on your sales page. Human beings are hard-wired to connect to faces. If prospects can see you, it’s easier for them to trust you.

Not only does Quosal recognize this as a fundamental truth, we built this feature right into the application – an optional space for a personal photo is built right in, ready to go.

Does the prospect know everything he needs to know in order to make this purchase? What questions might still be on his mind? How can you educate him to make him more confident about his decision to buy?

You probably already have product brochures, descriptions of your services and various sales sheets. Quosal’s PDF Merge Manager feature makes it easy to include these materials with your quote and proposal documents. No more cobbling together documents – they can be merged into one, smooth-looking professional package.

Can you provide a demonstration of the product or service?

As a matter of fact, we can.

Putting Your Data in the Cloud Has Many Advantages

Cloud, Kent, Productivity, Proposals, Quotes 1 Response »

Jul 282010

Our Quosal quote and proposal automation application delivers many advantages to our users. One of them is extremely flexible deployment, including the ability to host your data “in the cloud,” securely and reliably, for as many users as you need. This capability has been in the application since its release in 2008 – initially with our own servers, and later with the added option of hosting through Microsoft’s SQL-Azure cloud infrastructure.

Quosal is a Windows application and is always installed on a PC or virtual PC environment (Citrix, Terminal Server, etc.), so the ability to seamlessly host the data for the application in the Cloud is unusual – but it offers many advantages and benefits. We have always hosted our own use of Quosal in the cloud, at first as a way of “eating our own dog food,” but I wouldn’t change how we use our own product in this respect – it really offers significant benefits.

First, it’s great to be able to access my central quote and proposal database no matter where I am, without reliance on a corporate VPN or other infrastructure. Several times, I’ve simply downloaded the client application on a new PC, activated with our internal key, and been up and running with my central database in a matter of minutes, without the need to install VPN and other infrastructure that would be needed even for an RDP session. It’s great to not be “tethered.” Whether at home, at the cabin or on the road, I’m always able to access my cloud-based data.

Second, my remote employees around the country have instant and excellent access to the shared quoting database with excellent performance – which is unfortunately not true when they’re on the corporate VPN. With the way our PSA works, a remote employee has full-speed, full-function access to our two most important applications just with an Internet connection.

Third, the “zero administration” of our cloud database is a great benefit even for our own product. While Quosal’s administrative requirements are low even for an internal database, you can’t get away from the fact that any database server has an administrative load that almost disappears when your data is in the Cloud.

For our customers, a Cloud-based deployment provides an excellent and elegant solution in many situations:

Multiple offices that all need access to shared central data for quotes and proposals.
Many remote users and road warriors that require the same, especially from high-latency connections.
Companies that are virtualizing and don’t want to set up a physical database server.
Companies without a dba or internal database resources that want the hassle-free setup and management of a shared database.

We’ve found that the deployment model that a customer wishes to choose should be separate from the billing model (Licensed or SaaS) that a customer might wish to choose – so we have many customers that have licensed the product, but still run their data in the Cloud as a deployment option. Far from being just a “pay as you go” alternative, Cloud-based data deployment is a highly advantageous way to go for customers large and small.

Both as a Cloud developer and as a user of an advanced desktop application that can store its data in the Cloud, I’m a big fan.

Revisiting Your Decisions Can Bring Affirmation and Evolution

Kent, Technology No Responses »

Jul 232010

When we set out almost five years ago to create the best quote and proposal software on the market, we did so with a few fundamental, philosophical choices and directions — one of which was to revisit those choices and not be dogmatic in our approach. Changing times and technologies call for flexibility in approach, and any business must adapt to customer and market needs.

One decision we had made was to do a new release every quarter – meaning, on average, four new releases per year, one per calendar quarter — to be released when ready as opposed to a fixed date. We’ve recently revisited this decision and practice, both to evaluate how it has worked and see if changes are merited.

Overall, we’ve been very happy with this practice in many ways:

• It has allowed us to move forward at an aggressive, but not maniacal, rate on our roadmap.
• It has allowed us to be responsive to changes in partner integrations.
• It has allowed us to respond to customer requests and provided needed fixes on a reasonable schedule

It has not created an onerous “release cycle overhead,” which can be a killer for software developers. If you spend half of your time just in preparing for product release, you have a big problem! This has certainly been helped by our automated development and updating systems.

Another thing we’ve been very happy about is the acceptance of our customers. We’ve never received a complaint either way about the frequency of our product releases. We had an early concern that throwing changes at customers every three months could be challenging for our customers, but the automated update process, combined with the fact that we’ve made the majority of our changes optional and transparent, have minimized this issue.

Overall, we (and our customers) are happy with our quarterly release cycle and we’ll be sticking with it – until the next time we revisit the decision.

Watching the Computer Generation Work

Hiring, Kent No Responses »

Jul 202010

Our summer interns have been working with us here at Quosal over the past few weeks, in various capacities ranging from graphics art to entry-level development and design. They are all great to work with, a very gratifying experience as an employer.

I have long anticipated the generational shift that I now see happening before my eyes as the educated workforce that has never known a time without computers in every aspects of their lives comes to the fore. It’s amazing to watch the differences in how systems are approached.

For them, “learning” new aspects of the PC is so smooth and natural that it’s almost transparent. They don’t get hung up — period. If they need information, searching the Internet is a fast and effective way to keep moving forward. Their base level of understanding, their innate sense of how things work in a PC, is already an asset to their vocation.

What this means on a practical level for an employer is that these young people are amazingly productive immediately, making wonderful contributions, certainly beyond expectations. This bodes well for our future productivity in the information age — provided that we find the way to harness this almost unexpected capability!

Having worked with interns for many years, it’s a normal business practice (at least for me) to naturally utilize them in entry-level roles and functions. This innate capability of our next generation calls for a different approach — certainly not to turn the reins over to your summer help, but also to not limit their contributions and miss out on something great.

Working with our next generation fills me with hope and optimism for our future, in every way.

Quotes and Proposals Are Information about Information

Competitive Advantage, Proposals, Quotes No Responses »

Jul 192010

Seth Godin gives us another jumping off point to discuss quoting and proposal management.

It wasn’t the bags of chips that led Frito Lay to domination of the snack business, he says. It wasn’t the Slurpees that made 7-Eleven a success. And it wasn’t the clothes that Zara one of the best known brands in Europe (coming to an American mega-mall near you).

No, the competitive edge for those companies was their management of information about information.

At the time of its 1965 merger with PepsiCo, Frito Lay had 46 manufacturing plants and 150 distribution centers.
7-Eleven has more locations in Japan than anywhere else. Mastery of their supply chain is key.
Zara needs just two weeks to develop a new product and get it to stores, compared with a six-month industry average. It launches around 10,000 new designs each year.

These are plain-jane businesses. They make stuff to eat, to wear, and own stores where stuff is sold. But they’re backed with tight, tight management of their information.

For example, instead of adopting a strategy of branding and advertisement, like Abercrombie & Fitch, Zara focuses on radical product iteration. If a design doesn’t show sales traction within a week, it’s canceled, and no design lives longer than four weeks in stores, encouraging repeat business. Up until recently, Zara didn’t even advertise.

They pull down about $10 billion a year.

Why is an information management strategy so valuable? Seth Godin:

Because it compounds. A tiny head start in access to this information gives you a huge advantage … Think about how much needs to be sorted, compared, updated and presented to people who want to choose or learn or trade on it. The race to deliver this essential scalable asset isn’t over, it’s just beginning.

Quotes and proposals are information about information — what was the content, how was it presented, what options were available to the customer, how was it received, how was it tracked, how did it connect to everything else in your CRM and inventory systems?

How are you managing this flow of information about information?

Older Entries