Dealroom Automation: Revolutionizing Business Operations
Scattered Communication across tools eats into critical sales time of your sales rep. A report from Mckinsey says about a 3rd of all sales ops tasks can be automated and help managers generate 25-30% higher revenue per rep.
A deeper dive into the deal value chain shows a complex intertwining of tools that require painful manual work in each step of the chain -
| Deal Steps | Activities | % Potential Automation |
| Feasibility Assessment | Use Typeform to get customer requirements, collaborate with product to discuss deal feasibility | 50% |
| Technical Solutioning | Create a sales engineering task, followup with SE to get status updates, review demo, and reiterate the entire cycle Get customer feedback, and finalise the SoW | 30% |
| Financial Proposal | Use a CPQ tool to share the pricing with the product. Get finance and product to review the proposal. | 70% |
| RFP / RFQ process | Collaborating with Devops, Infosec, Product, Sales, Legal to fill out a webplatform or Excelsheet | 80% |
| Negotiation and Adjustment | Align with legal and Finance on contractual terms and negotiation boundaries. Use docusign to send the contract for signatures | 50% |
| Closing the Deal | Update the Deal status on Hubspot. Communicate the status update to Activation team, sales manager and update an activation doc with the customer’s requirement. | 70% |
Poor communication and collaboration is the primary cause of deals getting pushed out. Time delays are the single biggest cause for sales reps losing a deal through the entire funnel. Organising deals, communications, updates, and reminders in a dealroom is the key to success for a sales rep and their manager.
What is a deal room?
A Dealroom often refers to a digital platform or space designed to facilitate the management and closure of deals in a sales context.
It's an online environment (webpage, slack channel) where the sales rep, sales manager, sales engineers, and prospects can collaborate, communicate, and manage deal-related activities and documents.
What are the key features of a dealroom?
Enables Collaboration:
- Enables real-time collaboration between sales teams and prospects.
- Provides a platform for discussing requirements, planning next steps, sharing proposals, negotiating terms, and addressing queries.
Simplifies Deal Tracking:
- Monitors the progress of deals through various stages in the sales pipeline.
- Provides insights into deal status, potential roadblocks, and next steps.
Integrates Seamlessly:
- Can integrate with CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems to streamline deal management.
- May connect with e-signature platforms to facilitate digital signing of agreements.
Facilitates Communication:
- Facilitates communication between all parties involved in the deal.
- May include chat features, video conferencing, and notification systems
Analytics & Reminders:
- Provides reminders to stakeholders on task completions
- Provides data and analytics related to deal progress and performance.
- Helps in identifying patterns, forecasting, and optimizing the sales process.
How does not having a dealroom impact sales teams?
While Sales Representatives might face more operational and day-to-day challenges due to not using a dealroom, VPs of Sales might encounter strategic and oversight-related issues. Both roles, albeit in different ways, would experience inefficiencies, risks, and challenges in managing and closing deals effectively, ultimately impacting the organization's bottom line and customer relationships.
For VP of Sales:
- Inadequate Oversight:
- Disadvantage: Limited visibility into deal progress and sales rep activities.
- Impact: Difficulty in identifying bottlenecks and providing timely support.
- Imprecise Forecasting:
- Disadvantage: Lack of real-time data for accurate sales forecasting.
- Impact: Ineffective planning and resource allocation.
- Compliance and Legal Risks:
- Disadvantage: Potential non-compliance with data sharing and storage regulations.
- Impact: Legal repercussions and damage to the company’s reputation.
- Ineffective Strategy Implementation:
- Disadvantage: Limited data and insights to formulate and adapt sales strategies.
- Impact: Reduced effectiveness of sales strategies and potential loss of opportunities.
- Team Alignment Challenges:
- Disadvantage: Difficulty in ensuring alignment among sales reps and other departments.
- Impact: Inconsistent messaging and approach to prospects, affecting deal success.
- Customer Relationship Management:
- Disadvantage: Limited insights into customer interactions and history.
- Impact: Hindered ability to build and maintain strong relationships with key accounts.
For Sales Representatives:
- Disorganized Information Management:
- Disadvantage: Struggling with scattered information across various platforms (emails, files, etc.).
- Impact: Time-consuming retrieval of information and potential loss of critical data.
- Inefficient Collaboration:
- Disadvantage: Limited real-time collaboration with internal teams and prospects.
- Impact: Delays in decision-making and potential miscommunications.
- Security Concerns:
- Disadvantage: Lack of secure environments to share sensitive documents.
- Impact: Risk of data breaches and loss of trust from prospects.
- Limited Tracking:
- Disadvantage: Difficulty in tracking deal progress and customer interactions.
- Impact: Loss of visibility into deal status and next steps.
- Impaired Customer Experience:
- Disadvantage: Inability to provide swift and transparent interactions to customers.
- Impact: Potential loss of deals and damaged customer relationships.
What are the benefits of using a dealroom?
- Efficiency: Streamlines the deal closure process by providing a centralized platform for all deal-related activities.
- Security: Ensures that sensitive documents and communications are securely managed and accessed.
- Transparency: Offers visibility into deal progress for all relevant stakeholders.
- Accessibility: Allows access to deal-related information anytime, anywhere, facilitating remote and global collaborations.
- Scalability: Can adapt to handle varying deal sizes and complexities.
Why do sales reps not use Dealrooms?
| No. | Issue | Description | Why it's a Concern |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Resistance to Change | Sales reps might be accustomed to their existing workflows and tools. | Changing to a new platform can be perceived as disruptive and require adaptation. |
| 2 | Learning Curve | Concerns about mastering a new tool and its features. | The time and effort required to learn a new system might be seen as a hindrance. |
| 3 | Perceived Complexity | Belief that dealrooms are complex and cumbersome. | If the platform is not user-friendly, sales reps might find it tedious to navigate and manage. |
| 4 | Data Migration Concerns | Worries about transferring existing data and information into a new system. | The process of migrating data might be perceived as time-consuming and risky. |
| 5 | Lack of Perceived Value | Not seeing a clear benefit in using a dealroom. | If the advantages are not clearly communicated, sales reps might not understand how it can aid their work. |
| 6 | Concerns About Customer Adaptation | Worry that customers might find it challenging to use a dealroom. | Introducing customers to a new platform might be seen as an additional hurdle in the sales process. |
| 7 | Lack of Integration | The dealroom might not integrate well with existing tools and CRM systems. | Managing data across multiple platforms can be inefficient and frustrating. |
| 8 | Privacy and Security Concerns | Apprehensions about the security of data within a dealroom. | Sales reps might be concerned about the confidentiality of sensitive information. |
| 9 | Technological Issues | Experiencing technical glitches or limitations. | Technical issues can disrupt the sales process and create additional challenges. |
| 10 | Organizational Support | Lack of support and training from the organization. | Without proper training and continuous support, sales reps might find it challenging to utilize the dealroom effectively. |
What are some useful deal room automations that can help drive adoption?
1. Automated Deal Room Creation:
- Description: Automatically create a deal room when a deal reaches a specific stage in the CRM or another triggering event.
- Benefits: Reduces manual setup and ensures timely deal room creation.
2. Document Automation:
- Description: Auto-populate deal rooms with relevant documents based on deal type, stage, or other criteria.
- Benefits: Ensures all necessary documents are readily available and reduces manual document management.
3. Automated Invitations and Access Management:
- Description: Send automated invitations to stakeholders and manage access levels based on predefined rules.
- Benefits: Streamlines stakeholder involvement and ensures secure and appropriate access.
4. Task and Milestone Automation:
- Description: Automatically assign tasks and milestones to relevant stakeholders based on deal type and stage.
- Benefits: Ensures accountability and keeps deal progress on track.
5. Notification Automation:
- Description: Send automated notifications for task updates, document uploads, or other relevant activities within the deal room.
- Benefits: Keeps stakeholders informed and engaged in real-time.
6. Reporting Automation:
- Description: Generate and send automated reports on deal progress, activities, and performance metrics.
- Benefits: Provides stakeholders with regular insights and updates without manual reporting efforts.
7. E-Signature Automation:
- Description: Integrate e-signature solutions to facilitate automated document signing workflows.
- Benefits: Streamlines the approval process and enhances the efficiency of deal closure.
8. Integration Automation:
- Description: Automatically sync data between the deal room and other tools/platforms (like CRM, ERP, etc.) through API integrations.
- Benefits: Ensures data consistency and availability across platforms.
To discuss more about dealroom automation, you can set up a call with our salesops experts.
