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Avaya, NEC, Toshiba Proposal Content Added to SalesDoc Architect

January 12th, 2010 by Brian Cors

We’ve just made it even easier for clients to implement and maintain the SalesDoc Architect document library by making proposal content for Avaya, NEC and Toshiba solutions available to our clients (see our news release). Rather than having clients manually add that proposal content to their document library – document section by document section – we are able to provide that content to them en masse, and maintain it for them on an ongoing basis.

The question that we’re asked most frequently by prospective clients is: how long does it take to implement SalesDoc Architect? My answer is: not very long, especially if you’re willing to start out with a good but less-than-perfect solution. It’s still a big improvement over what’s been done in the past, and the initial solution can be perfected and improved over time. Unlike other enterprise software solutions that require a huge project to “get everything right” for the initial implementation, with SalesDoc Architect you can start small and grow from there.

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Unlimited DocTypes Increase Document Automation Capabilities

November 16th, 2009 by Brian Cors

Last month, with the renaming of our document automation software from PriceQuote to SalesDoc Architect (SDA), one of the great features that we added was the ability to create an unlimited number of document types (or “DocTypes”) that you can use to categorize document sections in the document library. When document outputs are generated, SDA uses the DocType you’ve selected for the particular output to filter the document sections that are included in the final output Word document.

Let’s say you want to generate a proposal. By choosing to output only doc sections with DocType = “Proposal”, SDA will filter the output to include only those doc sections in the final output document. This makes it very easy to create new types of outputs simply by creating a new DocType, then tagging the doc sections you want to include in the new output with the new DocType.

Unlimited DocTypes become even more helpful when they are used in combination with other means of configuring the document sections that will appear on the outputs. For example, let’s assume that you have associated part numbers with doc sections in the SalesDoc Architect database as follows… Read the rest of this entry »

PriceQuote Renamed as SalesDoc Architect

October 20th, 2009 by Brian Cors

We have important news! We are proud to announce the renaming of our flagship product (PriceQuote) to SalesDoc Architect! We’ve also re-launched our website to enhance its value and usability for our clients and prospects.

Why the new name? Over the last several years, PriceQuote has evolved based on client feedback to become more than what PriceQuote had initially provided, which was a pricing and quotation solution. Today, our solution goes above and beyond that by enabling businesses to easily create winning sales proposals, statements of work and other sales documents with just a few mouse clicks, as well as to automatically configure and price complex solutions.

Why SalesDoc Architect? We believe this name better reflects the value that our software solution provides to our clients as sales document automation software. Pricing capabilities – although still important – are just a small part of the overall solution, so the name “PriceQuote” was just too limiting. More importantly, our software helps users to automatically configure complex solutions and build sales documents like proposals and statements of work.

Like an architect, our software enables our clients to put the blueprint in place so that they can generate professional, deal-winning sales documents (like proposals) that are each fully customized for their company, specifically-proposed solution and particular prospect. Unlike an architect, however, SalesDoc Architect configures the solution and builds the outputs within seconds!

Why the new website? In addition to the new product name, we have also re-launched our website at www.corspro.com to provide more value and create more community with our clients, prospects and colleagues. On our new website you can read more about SalesDoc Architect, view a video about the solution, check out what our clients are saying about us, and read several case studies that demonstrate how SalesDoc Architect can positively impact a company’s bottom line.

Please note that, to minimize confusion with new visitors, we’ve updated the old materials on our website to mention “SalesDoc Architect” rather than PriceQuote.

Please feel free to contact us if you would like to learn more about SalesDoc Architect or have any questions. And please, let us know how we can make SalesDoc Architect and our new website even more useful to you.

Creating Opportunity in an Economic Downturn

September 12th, 2009 by Brian Cors

Relative to a year ago, business is slower for our clients, as many of their prospects are delaying purchase decisions or eliminating projects altogether due to the economic downturn.

Despite the downturn, however, many of our clients are not just surviving this downturn, they are taking advantage of the situation to advance their businesses ahead of the competition. They’ve continued to invest in sales, marketing and automation so that they can help their companies to 1) sell more relative to the competition, 2) do more with less through automation, and 3) position themselves to capture a lion’s share of business when the economy recovers (and we know that it eventually will recover).

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‘Schedule of Supported Parts’ Functionality Added

September 5th, 2009 by Brian Cors

SalesDoc Architect has always been a great tool for handling configuration, pricing and document generation for service and support solutions. Whether you base service and support pricing on the new solution equipment that you sell, or you create separate “support part numbers” for the items you support – which works especially great for sites with existing equipment – SalesDoc Architect handles it well.

For those who base service and support pricing on the list or sell price of the new equipment that you sell, SalesDoc Architect now offers the ability to automatically create a schedule of supported parts that shows your customer or prospect the precise list of parts that are covered under your support plan.

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Why SalesDoc Architect is a Great Complement to CRM

August 23rd, 2009 by Brian Cors

Quite often, folks who are not very familiar with SalesDoc Architect tell us that their CRM (customer relationship management) software solution can generate proposals. If by “proposals” you mean the ability to generate a pricing schedule (perhaps with a fancy header) based on a list of products and services that you manually select then yes, many CRM solutions can “generate” proposals.

But if you are looking to auto-configure solutions (rather than picking products and services manually, one-by-one), or auto-generate descriptive, illustrative proposals that win more deals, or even create statements of work that set customer expectations and prevent “scope creep”, then CRM alone is not the answer.

As our clients can attest, SalesDoc Architect is a great complement to CRM. Both solutions are required for companies seeking best-in-class performance. That’s why we’ve created integrations between SalesDoc Architect and CRM solutions (especially Tigerpaw’s CRM+ solution, the leading end-to-end CRM solution for the telephony and IT reseller markets) to make it easier for both solutions to work together.

Why is SalesDoc Architect such a great complement to CRM solutions? Because it provides capabilities not available in CRM, owing mostly to three distinguishing features of SalesDoc Architect:

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Get Up and Running Quickly with SalesDoc Architect

August 10th, 2009 by Brian Cors

One of the misconceptions about SalesDoc Architect is that it takes hours and hours to implement it to the point of actually being able to use the software to configure solutions and generate proposals, statements of work and other output documents. A few months ago, a newer client (while they were still considering SalesDoc Architect) asked us: “Won’t it take hundreds of hours to implement what you’re showing me today?”

We’re happy to report that it took a small fraction of that time to get the client up and running. Typically, it takes 5-15 hours to get a new client to the point where they can productively generate differentiated proposals and statements of work and immediately start saving time because of automation. For most of our projects, SalesDoc Architect saves the time expended on initially setting it up within the first month of use.

The thing that scares people most about proceeding ahead with new enterprise-wide software – even more than the cost of the software itself – is the time and associated disruption to implement it. That’s why over the past several years we have continuously introduced new features and functions that make it easier and easier to set up and maintain SalesDoc Architect.

First, we make it easy to “start small” (and quickly), then grow your level of automation and functionality over time. Relative to other software solutions where you have to fully map out the work flows to make sure that you are fundamentally implementing the solution the right way, with SalesDoc Architect you can start by automating solution configuration and proposal generation, then overlay other processes, outputs and features over time.

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How to Update Existing Quotes

July 28th, 2009 by Brian Cors

One of our most frequently asked questions is how to update existing SalesDoc Architect quotes with the latest pricing, configuration rules, etc.

First of all, updating old quotes is optional. If you wish to maintain the solution configuration and pricing as is, simply do nothing.

If you wish to update the pricing and all of the pricing is maintained in the SalesDoc Architect database (in the Parts Master), updating pricing in the old quote is as easy as clicking the “Update tab(s)” button, then “Update ALL tabs.”

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Automating the Output of Doc Sections Based on Part Numbers

July 15th, 2009 by Brian Cors

One of the things that differentiates SalesDoc Architect from other document generators is that you can automate the selection of document sections for inclusion in an output document such as a proposal or statement of work. Most document generators require users to manually select each doc section that they’d like to include.

SalesDoc Architect can automate doc section selection in several ways. One of these ways is to use part numbers to automatically drive the doc sections to include in output documents. In other words, specific doc sections will be automatically included in an output document based on the part numbers that a user has selected and/or configured (this automation also works for parts that have been imported from vendor configurators).

You can create this automation by associating doc sections with part numbers in SalesDoc Architect Manager. When parts are selected/configured by a user, SalesDoc Architect will automatically output the doc sections that are associated with the selected part numbers.

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Showing Solution Options

July 2nd, 2009 by Brian Cors

SalesDoc Architect’s new options functionality enables users to easily handle the pricing and presentation of one or more options to prospects and customers. SalesDoc Architect handles at least three types of options:

Options “packages” that can be added on to a core solution.
A la carte options that are presented as a series of line-item pricing (such as a price list)
A series of core solutions from which the prospect or customer can select, such as when you might propose solutions from multiple vendors and the prospect can select only one of the core solutions.

SalesDoc Architect’s new Options button handles the first two types of optioning (the third type of optioning is best handled by creating a new quote for each core solution, then using SalesDoc Architect’s multi-quote consolidation feature to present the options in a combined proposal). With just a few clicks, SalesDoc Architect users can associate items with up to five options “packages.” When schedules of equipment and services are generated, the options will appear after the core solution as separately priced options packages.

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