Does Size Matter for Your Configure Price Quote (CPQ) Vendor?

As business is increasingly conducted in the cloud, a vendor’s size has taken a back seat to the quality of its product and customer service. Companies are turning their attention to how a vendor satisfies their evolving needs, and whether that vendor can help them accomplish their goals within a set budget. Smaller vendors such as SteelBrick excel at this.

SteelBrick doesn’t invest in ornamental lobby fountains. Instead, we pour our resources back into product development and customer satisfaction. And these values start all the way at the top:

Our CEO, Max Rudman, is so dedicated to making sure customers are happy that it is not unusual for him to take the occasional support call.

In other words, size doesn’t matter to us, but here’s what does:

How Much Time Do You Waste on Sales Quote Approvals Each Week?

Best-in-class sales reps send an average of 26+ quotes a week to potential customers, according to Aberdeen. With that impressive number, you’d expect them to be killing it when it comes to closing deals quickly. But companies that still rely on a manual process to get from proposal creation to approval can find closing deals to be very slow going.

Of course, getting a sales quote approved for send-off to a prospect doesn’t necessarily mean a closed deal, but the quicker it gets there, the more likely the prospect is to buy. And the less vulnerable you are to being outsold by a competitor. And just think about the message you’re sending with each day that passes without your quote in your prospect’s hands: “Hi, our company is unprofessional. And we don’t care.”

In order to close deals quickly, reps first need an efficient system to quickly get sales quotes created and approved.

Nix the Waiting Game Before It Starts

Consider the following hypothetical — but completely plausible — scenario at a company that hasn’t yet adopted CPQ (configure/price/quote) tools:

Scott, a fearless sales rep, has spent 10 hours carefully gathering numbers and support data to include in his manual proposal for a crucial potential client. Quote at the ready, he goes in search of Dave, his VP of Sales, to get approval.

Salespeople: 5 Ways to Become Exponentially More Effective with CPQ Tools

Brace yourself for this earth-shattering revelation: Successful sales reps close deals because they are persuasive, passionate people-persons with a natural talent for selling, not because they thrive on paperwork. But preparing pricing proposals for prospects is obviously a crucial part of any sales rep’s job. In fact, it’s a main factor that influences the close of a sale.

Still, the average sales rep squanders 45 percent of his or her time on inefficient tasks, according to Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo. But you can boost revenue straight away when you give your sales reps tools that minimize inefficiency. CPQ (configure/price/quote) tools, for example, streamline proposal generation, and when sales reps don’t have to spend valuable time laboriously plugging numbers into a spreadsheet, they can capitalize on more face-to-face client interactions.

Reps at companies using CPQ tools create 80 percent more proposals per rep per month with far less time spent in front of the computer, according to Aberdeen.

CPQ tools don’t just increase rep efficiency; they actually refine the quoting process by helping reps create more exact and persuasive quotes. Here are some of the ways in which you can streamline and boost your  proposal generation process, and make your sales team more efficient and effective with CPQ automation software:

1. Automate time-consuming tasks
   You have a CRM for a reason: everything your sales team needs to generate proposals is already in the customer account profiles and product descriptions. QuoteQuickly, SteelBrick’s most popular CPQ product, integrates with Salesforce.com to pull information into proposals automatically, saving your reps the trouble of manually entering numbers and other data. And because your reps are already accustomed to operating within Salesforce.com, giving them a CPQ tool that integrates with the CRM eliminates a time-consuming learning curve. CPQ tools can compress the amount of time you need to create a quote from days to about an hour.

2. Minimize the margin of error
   When you automate your proposal-generating process with CPQ software, your quotes are more consistent and accurate, minimizing human error and the potentially adverse judgment calls often made as a result. Your reps can generate potent and persuasive proposals with less effort.

3. Apply relevant discounts automatically
   Free your reps from looking up numbers and rules for discounts. When your volume pricing discounts or pro-rated subscriptions come into play, CPQ tools will automatically apply price breaks to the proposal. If you have partner or channel pricing structures, you can also to build them in automatically with CPQ tools.

4. Create more sophisticated and compelling sales quotes
   To win sales, reps need to offer convincing reasoning why your product or service will fulfill a prospect’s needs best and in the most cost-efficient way. With CPQ software, you can automatically build relevant details — data sheets, case studies, and other critical content — into quotes to better persuade prospects. You can also bundle extra options into quotes with very little effort. CPQ software allows you to automatically pull all relevant data content and present it in a way that’s easy for your potential customer to understand.

5. Present sales quotes as professional PDFs with just one click
   Before handing the quote off to the client, use the CPQ tool to generate an uneditable PDF with just one click, so that your sales reps always deliver consistent, professional, and well-formatted proposals.

Sales reps appreciate anything that helps them lighten their administrative load, and clients appreciate well-constructed proposals that present information clearly. By plugging a CPQ tool into your CRM, you greatly increase the amount of proposals per rep per month, while at the same time getting your reps away from the computer and in front of prospects. The volume of proposals your reps submit increases the odds of sales closing, and the quality of proposals generated with CPQ tools means that getting clients to sign on the dotted line is much easier and more rewarding for everyone.

For more in this topic, read how global test engineering solutions company Averna streamlined its quoting process and increased efficiency: How Averna Reduced Complex Quoting from Days to One Hour.

Why Word and Excel Donʼt Cut It For Sales Quotes

If your sales team currently relies on a manual process of configuring price quotes using Excel spreadsheets or Microsoft Word documents, you might be basing your sales quotes on inaccurate data — and you’re definitely wasting your sales team’s time and compromising security.

We’re not saying that a manual process isn’t workable, or that Excel and Word aren’t great applications in their own right. Rather, these applications have shortcomings when it comes to creating sales quotes that close. And using the wrong program doesn’t pay off in terms of accuracy, efficiency and revenue. Here are some reasons:

• You must start with a blank page and/or create a template
• In Excel, you have to create one or more formulas
• You have to gather information from your price book (uh oh, are you sure it’s accurate and up-to-date?) and then type it into your documents

Why put your sales team through this if they don’t have to? Each of these drawbacks are surmountable, but they feed two more critical issues surrounding manual quoting — the lack of both control and security.

Control Through Automation
An automated application not only gives you the control you require, but if it’s a native Salesforce app, it also utilizes features that are already familiar to your sales team.

Without a CPQ tool, sales managers have little or no visibility into the history of quotes their reps or channel partners send to prospects. Each time they make a change manually to a quote in Excel or Word, the possibility of human error exists, threatening accuracy.

The chances of accidentally attaching the wrong quote number to a Word document, transposing dollar figures, or mistyping a formula in Excel are great, even for the most diligent members of the team. These mistakes result in calculation errors that are not only hard to locate further down the process road, but that could also negatively affect your bottom line.

And we can’t have that.

Security Builds Reputation
Security issues that present themselves when using Word and Excel can spell disaster for your sales team and even your organization as a whole. Manual price quoting means that your reps, channel partners and resellers are sending numerous (and virus-susceptible) documents to prospects after the original quote. The back-and-forth is, of course, a result of revisions made throughout the process. Now, consider the effect on your reputation if you deliver sloppy quotes and/or accidentally give prospects a peek into your process.

Every quote your sales team creates influences how prospects perceive your brand. CPQ tools allow you to control the process and standardize quote appearance, so your reps make a great impression every time. Word offers no piece of mind in this area, because there exists very little security control over document creation or editing.

Automate for Peace of Mind and Accuracy
An automated CPQ presents an excellent solution to these risks and pain points by offering a customizable template, automatically populating your quote with account details sourced from Salesforce, and listing the products available that are associated with the opportunity. The product list eliminates the need to cut and paste, and can be filtered by product code, product type, product family, or bundle. Discounts, too, are calculated automatically!

After you configure your automated quote, you can get a handy, summarized view of your quote and then generate a customer-facing, un-editable pdf with just one click. Unlike a Word document, a pdf ensures that your sales quotes are standardized, accurate and secure. One more click generates an email that’s conveniently attached to the main record, providing you with a SOX compliant audit trail.

For a peek into how CPQ tools like QuoteQuickly help improve sales rep productivity and solve control and security issues, read How MC+A creates sales quotes faster than their competition.

Why Being Native to Salesforce.com Is the Lifeblood of Configure / Price / Quote (CPQ) Tools

Back in December, we shared The 11 Questions You Must Ask When Buying a CPQ (Configure, Price, Quote) Solution. One question addressed the importance of CPQ tools that don’t just integrate with your CRM, but are native to it. Why? Well, for starters, CPQ tools assure compatibility with your CRM right out of the gate, and practically guarantee fast implementation and a very shallow learning curve. Because businesses need software applications that cooperate fully with broad internal processes, it’s become a trend for native solutions to replace software products that are engineered as standalone applications. So, when it comes to CPQ tools, seamless integration with a CRM platform is good, but no integration is much better and far more efficient.

Native: The No Integration Solution
Native applications — those developed and built directly on (not integrated with) particular platforms — are indistinguishable from the platforms themselves. Designed for optimal usability, flexibility and value, native applications are the organic platform extensions that drive proficiency and accuracy through painless customization and administration. Plus, with a look and feel that’s familiar to a specific CRM platform, a native app is extremely user-friendly and, as a result, can cut administration costs and increase profitability. (Source: Aberdeen)

It’s All About Delivery
A native quoting solution that’s built on the Salesforce CRM platform, delivers complete, accurate, and customized sales quotes without a learning curve and free of the headaches manual configuration can cause. Conducive to rapid user adoption, it allows sales teams to provide detailed quotes fast and from a platform they already know and understand. Tasks such as setting volume discounts, bundling products, offering subscriptions and renewals, and even getting approval are all simplified, completed through a series of clicks that take minutes, not hours.

And, as all sales manager know, time is everything.

According to more research from the Aberdeen Group, companies using CPQ solutions see a year-over-year improvement in numerous metrics:

• A 91% customer retention rate versus the industry average of 78%
• A 6% annual increase in the net client value of customers, compared to 2% and 9% decrease for other maturity classes
• An 8.4% reduction in sales cycle length, compared to increases of 1.3% that represent the industry average

Customer Example: Averna
Global test engineering solutions company Averna used QuoteQuickly to streamline its quoting process and increase efficiency. With a sales rep based in Asia and a team of specialists manually configuring quotes in North America, calculating a simple quote used to take up to an hour to draft, while more complex quotes took several days. With QuoteQuickly, Averna accelerated their quoting process to:

• Improve international business through automation
• Complete quotes in the field
• Configure quotes in less time, despite time zone differences

The Top Five Native App User Benefits
In a nutshell, compared to applications that offer Salesforce CRM integration only, the QuoteQuickly native solution offers a smarter experience and a very different set of user benefits:

1. No Learning Curve — The familiar Salesforce platform is leveraged for customization and administration.
2. Rapid and Seamless User Adoption — Usage is so seamless, in fact, reps can’t tell where the Salesforce platform ends and QuoteQuickly starts.
3. Faster, More Accurate Quoting — While your competitors are busy manually checking prices and bundling products, cutting and pasting names, and getting approvals, you’ve already configured your quotes through a series of clicks.
4. Spike in Profitability — Companies using native apps not only slash their admin costs, but also often see a spike in profitability (Aberdeen estimates 15%).
5. More Time to Sell — When less time is spent configuring quotes, more time is left to close deals.

To most efficiently and accurately manage multiple quotes and close business quickly, think native with QuoteQuickly.

Avoid the Sales Forecast Slump by Stepping Out of the Past and Into the Present

Product or service sales are the backbone of your business. From covering salaries and operating expenses to purchasing inventory, your sales are what make your organization successful. So it only stands to reason that accurate sales forecasting is vital to your company’s success. When your sales people create and manage multiple quotes manually within a CRM platform, a legion of complications can arise, including forecasting errors. By not leveraging the right quoting tools, you run the risk of inaccurately predicting future performance and suffering major losses because you’ve anticipated revenues that never come.

To most efficiently and accurately manage multiple quotes and close business, the process must be automated. While some businesses have recognized the potential of automation and the ways in which it leverages all the necessary information from their CRM platforms quickly and efficiently, many have not yet realized the value.

To illustrate the ways in which automation can streamline your quoting process and lead to much more accurate forecasts, I’ve listed the top three benefits of using a powerful automation tool, and, to drive home my points, I’ve also compared the outdated manual method to the faster and more innovative automated approach.

1. Speed: Your Quoting Process Should Not Take Forever

Then: For some organizations, the quoting process can take days — sometimes weeks — to complete. As a result, the sales managers responsible for the delays look unprofessional and unreliable to prospective clients. More important to the bottom line, though, is that the longer a prospect is forced to wait for a quote, the more time he has to reach out to your more innovative competitors.

Now: A tool that automatically leverages all the necessary information from a CRM platform is fast, extremely efficient and user friendly. With just one click, reps log into the tool to create customized quotes themselves, without having to wait for guidance from a sales manager. Automation allows them to create quotes when they need them, not a few hours or days later, when a warm lead has turned cold.

2. Simplicity: Your Quoting Process Should Not Be Cumbersome

Then: When a prospect requests a quote, he often asks that it be built around various scenarios and/or product bundles, so that he can make a well-informed decision based on his current and future needs. This request can be a complicated one if the process is managed manually. The rep charged with replying must research the price book, copy and paste the prices for different bundles and products into a spreadsheet, and then remember and record the scenarios that qualify the prospect for a discount.

This process is not only cumbersome, but it’s also very likely based on a limited understanding of the CRM platform and an error-riddled collection of data and analysis from Excel. As a result, the quote, in all its forms, will be inaccurate.

Now: By adding product and pricing information to the CRM, where it lives in real-time and is accessible to anyone, the chance of forming a quote with inaccurate information is eliminated. Plus, by looking at tools that filter and auto-populate product and pricing details, as well as product bundle details, multiple quotes for multiple opportunities (including their appropriate discounts) can be created without difficulty. And the best part is, quotes formed through automation are accurate 100% of the time.

3. Piece of Mind: Your Quoting Process Shouldn’t Frustrate You

Then: Bad quotes cost money. When an inaccurate quote is sent to a lead, and the lead accepts, there’s no adjusting the price. The quote must be honored. When forecasts are based on inaccurate numbers, there’s a snowball effect, because those wrong numbers are then used to calculate a quote.

If you can’t gauge what’s in your pipeline, you can’t tell if your sales team is going to make their numbers. Manual and cumbersome pricing makes it hard for sales management to see where they are based on quota and raises the risk of error in the quote creation process.

Now: An automated tool that eliminates steps, removes any chance of human error, and provides everyone on a sales team with the same accurate information can save money.

To sum up, organizations that want to efficiently and accurately manage multiple quotes need a quoting tool that will:

• Increase data visibility and communication between management and sales teams
• Automatically leverage accurate-up-to-the-minute pricing rules and product bundling information
• Eliminate human error and avoid the repercussions of inaccurate forecast results

The manual quoting process was good enough for yesterday’s reps, but today’s technologically advanced and data-driven sales forces need more. With quoting automation that leverages their information assets and speaks to their drive, you can streamline their continued success.

The 5 Ways You Didn’t Know That You’re Hurting Revenue

We’re into the second week of the new year, and while folks have (finally) stopped asking you what your resolution is every 5 seconds, everyone in your office can agree: You want better, more efficient ways to solve last year’s revenue pains. Ouch, even the memory hurts.

This time around, you’re not going to get blindsided. Here are 5 familiar challenges that all sales orgs face . . . and the one solution they all have in common.

1. Loss of momentum and productivity. Some days your sales team is on fire, selling products left and right. Other days, things slow them down—like, for example, when prospects expect quotes for each product package and scenario. Your reps lose momentum when they have to create separate proposals for every configuration.

2. Decreased team motivation. Errors and hard-to-access information frazzles everyone and prevents productive collaboration. When sales quotes are inaccurate or slow to produce, there’s a sense that the team is wasting time, or that what they’re doing won’t produce the results they desire… like walking backwards on a conveyor belt. *Cringe.*

3. Complicated process. Sales reps are used to juggling various inefficiencies: copy-pasting information, sending emails, waiting for a response, walking down halls, waiting for approvals.Traditionally, when reps create quotes, they have to OK it with their sales managers, who may or may not be in their office (and may or may not respond to an email asking for approval). They can avoid this messy process altogether, if they had a tool that can automatically configure a quote with the click of a button.

4. Loss in revenue. When a sales manager isn’t readily available, it slows down business and by extension, revenue. The longer it takes you to do something, the less nimble your company is in reacting faster than your competitors. Sometimes it can take up to 3 days to configure. If that’s the case, then your competitor who has an automation tool and takes 30 minutes wins the deal. In a race to submit proposals, the more nimble rep always wins.

5. High impact errors. Sales leaders frequently deal with un-optimized margins and incorrect discounts when they oversee and support a team of sales reps. It’s embarrassing and downright bad for business when companies are forced to eat the cost of incorrect quotes. When you’re legally bound to honor a signed PO and the quote is the wrong price, that impacts company margin.

So what’s the one solution for all of these challenges? It’s a little something we like to call Configure / Price / Quote … CPQ. You can solve these headaches with just 3 letters.

… It’s a solution that automatically creates multiple scenarios and quotes, so your sales team won’t have to spend time creating different proposals. Another upside is that sales managers won’t have to waste time on approvals or (inevitable) errors.

… It’s a solution that increases collaboration and knowledge sharing. Which is critical, especially at the beginning of a new quarter. After all, you want to get started on the right foot.. right? That means that growing organizations can’t afford to use tools anymore that don’t motivate team collaboration, yield faster results, and cultivate a greater sense of community.

But don’t take our word for it. There’s research to back us up: CPQ tools increase productivity, streamline the sales process, and virtually remove high impact errors and inefficiencies. Seems too good to be true, right?

Wrong. The smartest and most flexible way to streamline your quoting process is the real deal. And it’s waiting for you inside a little platform called Salesforce. (Ever heard of it?)

See what QuoteQuickly can do for you in 2013.

The 11 Questions You Must Ask When Buying a CPQ Solution

Chances are, you’re budgeting for 2013. And like a lot of sales organizations, you’re probably looking into Configure Price Quote tools to shorten your sales cycles and close more deals. So we thought we’d help out by giving you some questions to ask as you consider vendors.

1. Is it scalable? Your CPQ tools should be able to grow along with you. Later, you might eventually be forced to choose between limited performance or switching to an entirely new CPQ. Either way, you’ll have a major headache that could have been avoided.

2. How much notice do you need to give to increase usage? In many cases, it makes sense to start small with a CPQ and then increase your number of users and features when the growth of your business dictates the need for greater capacity. This helps keeps costs in line with actual needs. But when the time does come to expand, you’ll likely need it quickly. You don’t want to face licensing limitations or costly delays. So make sure increasing your usage will be as simple as sending an email request. If the provider you are evaluating can’t do it that easily, go in a different direction.

3. How easy is it to use? If your team has become accustomed to a particular CRM system, take that into account. If you can find a CPQ that the same interface as your CRM, it’s a nice win—for adoption and ROI. Your team will embrace the change more readily and you’ll reap the benefits quicker.

4. Is the solution multi-tenant? No questions asked, you definitely need to find a CPQ partner that offers truly multi-tenant software architecture. If they aren’t multi-tenant, they are using different servers for different customers. This is a red flag. Customer service can be a nightmare, and upgrades don’t necessarily happen automatically — as they should.

5. How does the CPQ integrate with your CRM? Repeat after us: seamless integration is good, but no integration is better. In other words, a solution that is native to your CRM means integration doesn’t even enter into the equation because it is organic to the overall system. Always ask if the CPQ is native to the CRM you already use.

6. Are you maximizing ROI? Here is a simple principle that holds true across the board: the more complex a solution is, the more money it will cost you. The most sensible application of this principle is to only pay for as much complexity as you need. Look closely at your CPQ options and ask who is offering a solution that matches your actual needs. Every dollar you spend for complexity you don’t need reduces your ROI.

7. How long will implementation take? Implementation can take around 9 to 12 months.

8. Will they give you a trial or test drive? The first reason is obvious – you should be able to see exactly what you are getting before making an investment of this size. The second reason is that if they can’t give you a trial, it might just be because it hasn’t been built yet. That’s what we’d call taking a completely unnecessarily expensive risk. A true SaaS solution will be readily available for a test drive before you implement the tool. If it’ll cost you six figures or more, you need to start asking questions. First, are they building software specifically for you? If they are, that means it is not a true Software as a Service (SaaS) solution. A great SaaS solution can be implemented in as little as two weeks for under $50,000.

9. Who uses this CPQ already? If you ask for references from your potential CPQ partner, you need to sift and analyze the information you get carefully. Is the company using the same version you’ll be using? Be sure to ask for references in your industry, and look particularly for companies who are similar in terms of complexity and processes. CPQ providers have ‘sweet spots’ — companies that are particularly well matched to their solution. Are you in your potential partner’s ‘sweet spot?’

10. How easy is it to get upgrades, and how much will they cost? The answers here should be very simple and straightforward. Upgrades should be automatic and should not cost anything. If the answers you hear are different, run.

11. What are the ongoing maintenance costs? Again, this should be a very direct answer: no additional costs for maintenance. Maintenance should be an expectation, not an extra.

Interested in learning more about Steel Brick’s CPQ solution, QuoteQuickly? Give it test drive.

Automate for Accuracy: 3 Steps to Assess & Improve Your Sales Quote Process

Do you have a sales quote process that depends heavily on the experience and knowledge of salespeople? Do they primarily rely on a manual process of consulting Excel spreadsheets or similar data sorting documents?

We’re not saying these types of processes aren’t ever workable, but they do have shortcomings that push some companies toward an automated sales quote process. Automation can be a boon for accuracy, efficiency, and revenue.

How do you know if automating quotes is right for your business? Here’s a concise, step-by-step guide to analyzing your current sales quote process and deciding if adding automation will improve your bottom line.

Step One: Understand What You Do Now

You likely can come up with an overview description of your current sales quote process. But have you ever dug deep and pinpointed specific bottlenecks and ways to address them? A closer look often reaps significant benefits.

First, ask these three questions:

1. Conduct a detailed audit of your quotes. What percentage are 100% accurate? Do certain mistakes recur frequently? For example, do your salespeople properly calculate volume discounts every time?
2. How much time do sales managers spend tracking down and reconciling errors?
3. Is your sales staff consistently suggesting appropriate add-ons for up-sell and cross-sell opportunities? If you discover mistakes in this area, calculate how much revenue you’re missing.

The final part of your audit should focus on the time spent creating a sales quote. Do not overlook this. Every minute wasted on creating quotes is time away from selling. Interview your salespeople to determine how much time it takes to create a quote. This is also a great opportunity to listen for common challenges and discern patterns that demand solutions.

Step Two: Analyze Solutions

If you want to improve your sales quote process, your choices fall into one of two categories:

1. Incremental change to existing methods, or
2. An automated solution using better technology.

Incremental change could include an emphasis on better training or creating checklists. Certainly there is nothing wrong with these approaches. But without the support of automating technology, some companies have found real change to be difficult to implement.

An automated option can be the difference maker for effective change that sticks. Why? Because the hard work and calculation necessary for an accurate quote is done automatically, based on the rules you customize.

You are not relying on the tribal knowledge locked in the head of specific team members, or cumbersome spreadsheets. Instead your business rules are automated to ensure every sales quote is accurate.

The solution to automation is a Configure-Price-Quote (CPQ) tool. For example, you can:

• Automatically enforce up-to-the-minute pricing rules and product bundling information
• Easily compare sales for similar customers to identify opportunities for increased revenue
• Increase collaboration and knowledge sharing

Step Three: Implement and Measure

Whatever changes you decide to implement, create a list of expected benefits. The more time-bound and measurable these benefits, the better.

If you choose to automate, here are a few ideas to get you started on a tangible benefits list:

1. Optimize your margins.
2. Save your team time. Track both sales staff and managers. How much less time does your team spend creating quotes? How much time do sales managers gain because they don’t have to follow-up on quoting errors?
3. Standardize accountability. Automation serves as a built-in accountability function. Sloppy errors and complicated calculations are reduced or eliminated. Salespeople configure a quote and with a click of a button it is sent to ERP for processing.
4. Increase add-on sales. When you automatically set business rules, it means appropriate add-ons are integrated into every quote. This is another area that makes for a simple before and after calculation.

Understand. Analyze. Implement and Measure. CPQ tools provide one of the simplest ways for a sales team to improve quickly and permanently. We offer our own CPQ solution – QuoteQuickly – which is built on the Salesforce CRM.

Read more about QuoteQuickly here.

CPQ Tools and the Future of Sales Quoting, a Dreamforce Recap

Come see us at Cloudforce NYC this week, Booth 147!

Well, we’re back from Dreamforce. It is well-named. It is a true force for new ideas and products—so much so, in fact, that Dreamforce can also induce the semi-disorientation of a dream.

It is hard to believe how big Dreamforce has become. This year attendance hit 90,000. (Did anybody else have trouble making all their meetings?!).

All in all, it makes us very glad we were sponsors this year. With that much happening, it can be a challenge to practically implement what was learned. Here are the three key ideas we gathered at Dreamforce—and how you can put them into action.

Idea 1: Orgs that master social enterprise collaboration will win. Forget about trying to control a top down message. Instead, create a culture of transparency and an attitude of collaboration. Search for technological tools that complement these objectives. At the core of this vision is the imperative to master your data. Many companies struggle with how to draw profit from insight into their data’s trends . For example, do your salespeople have immediate and consistent access to the right information when they need it?

Idea 2: …So will those who sidestep app fragmentation. It really is an energizing time to be in business. The sheer amount of available solutions becomes obvious at an event like Dreamforce. But it also means the conversation shifts to questions like “is there a solution I don’t even know about?” and “how do I pick the right one?”

Idea 3: Invest in technology that integrates and scales. It is no longer enough to ask if something is a good solution, you also need to ask how it fits with everything you use now—and will in the future. Is it scalable? Are other companies similar to yours adopting it? These are signals you have found a winner that will grow with your company. In short, there’s a solution for almost everything out there. Information overload has become solution overload.

B2B sellers experience a similar problem, particularly when their product solution set has a lot of options, pricing dependencies, like discounts and bundles. How can they make sure they provide a quote that’s not only accurate—but makes all possible suggestions to maximize a potential and existing accounts, in the most compelling way possible?

Of course, this leads us to Configure-Price-Quote tools—a technology that you may have heard about. While needs vary by company, here are the three things every CPQ tool needs to have to meet the future laid out at Dreamforce:

1. Go native. Select a CPQ that doesn’t just integrate with your CRM system, but is native to it. It means less headaches and more time spent actually selling. (Side note: QuoteQuickly is built to work specifically with Salesforce.)

2. Mimic winners in your industry.  If the fastest growing companies in your industry are adopting a particular CPQ, it is probably worth a close look. For example, rapidly growing software companies have found QuoteQuickly to be an indispensible weapon in their sales arsenal.

3. Embrace complexity and scalability. For example, a CPQ not only needs to suggest all companion products and services instantly, but also to flawlessly calculate volume discounts and product bundling. QuoteQuickly’s strength is its ability to make sure the entire sales department can consistently deliver a quote based on the right mix of products and services with completely accurate pricing, all supporting PDFs, and consistent branding. (Plus, the pay-as-you-go model lets you scale up or down as many times as you want.)

Okay, ready, set, dream!