February 22nd, 2009 by Brian Cors
One of the nice things about SalesDoc Architect is that you can “start small” with basic automation that requires a relatively small up-front investment of time and money – but pays big immediate dividends for your company – then gradually add more automation over time.
Create a basic proposal generator
A great place to start is to set up SalesDoc Architect as a basic proposal generator that blends schedules of pricing for the specific solutions you are offering with proposal content that describes your company and its products and services (with a few good graphics thrown in for illustration).
Start by identifying 20-25 document sections that you’d like to include in your initial proposal library. You might want to include a section that provides an overview of your company and its key competencies, along with sections describing and illustrating your key product lines. You should also include a document section with legal terms and conditions, as well as a place for the customer to sign.
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February 9th, 2009 by Brian Cors
In our article on Basic Automation, we talked about setting up a basic proposal generator that incorporates solution pricing, and includes the peripheral products and implementation labor that are required in turnkey solutions.
In this article, we are looking to take the next step up in level of automation for the purpose of reducing the number of inputs required by users to configure, price and create proposals for turnkey solutions. By reducing the number of inputs, this not only increases ease of use and saves time for users, but it also better ensures that complete solutions are being configured so that required products and services are not missed or forgotten. This results in fewer mistakes and reduces project margin erosion.
Use Excel’s formulas to automate configuration
One way to increase the level of automation is to take advantage of Excel’s built-in formulas and functions to help you configure your solutions, instead of requiring users to manually select the items that should be configured. You can do this by first creating drop-down boxes and input cells that users can use to select systems and input high-level item quantities.
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