In every business, there is a concept of a deal life cycle. What exactly is a deal life cycle and why is it so important for your business – or rather, for any business? Let us find out real quick before we get into the nitty gritties of a deal management software and why you need on.
The Deal Life Cycle
From the time you mine data points to run through your automated systems, you can be sure that there is a clock that starts to tick. Now, time is of the essence. You would need to use these data points and information in your lead generation campaigns and email marketing efforts as well as other tools so that the data remains relevant. Imagine using this information when it is already few months over and not relevant any longer?
This would pretty much defeat the purpose of deal management at its very core. Because from the time you deploy a campaign, you have limited time to get leads so that you land in the inbox of the potential clients and then get them to engage further so that a conversion may happen. By this time, you are already looking at a whole new set of data analytics and insights. This would need to be fashioned into relevant campaigns all over again. Now, this is where the deal management software comes in.
For example, if we are to look at a scenario, we can look at the festive season. By the time you are done with your summer months campaigns, it is time to start looking at Fall and Thanksgiving as well as Black Friday before you dive right into the Christmas and gifting season. This would require to chalk out the trends, tools and resources on time so that you line the pipeline in your marketing and sales automation accordingly.
With limited time to spare for all of the above, you would need to seamlessly integrate all this into your CRM software or platform. The best way to do this is to power the CRM with a deal management software.
The Deal Management Software
So, what exactly does this kind of software do for you and your business? Here’s a quick list of features:
- Power Your Pipelines: When we are running a business, we are also using CRM systems to organize and handle information which can be used across a number of functions. This is called CRM. Within the CRM system or platform, you would have functions for sales and some for marketing too. This is usually called your sales pipeline and your marketing pipeline. Now, when you need to keep better track of the deals at the various stages and phases, especially when they drop down from the marketing funnel into the sales pipeline, it would be worthwhile to remember that you have to automate this system too. This is due to the fact that manually keeping track of all this and then also finding the right information to use while nurturing each deal would mean employing a large team. This is where the deal management software comes into play.
- Better Team Management: When it comes to managing deals that could be coming in from any part of the globe at varied times, it would be worthwhile to remember that you have to equip your teams with the best tools so that they are able to concentrate on getting the right information at the right time in order to make the conversions. There is also the question of doing all this within the deal life cycle. Therefore, a good way to handle this and to help the teams focus in a better manner, it would be worthwhile to bring an automated system like the deal management software. Also, this would tell the various team members exactly what has to be done and at what point. These kinds of notifications would remove any chaos within the team since the previous task completion would send out a notification for the next. This would also avoid any kind of duplication of the tasks.
- Data Driven: When you are nurturing a potential customer or client, you want to be able to have all the information about them and the last conversation they had with your team members at your fingertips in a very organized and straightforward manner. This can be done with the help of deal management software, which is by and large data driven. The steps and the process is very much driven by the data that has been gathered through the various calls for action and thus a notification goes out to the right team member so that they can act on the same and take the pipeline movement forward towards a conversion.
- Process Driven: Apart from being driven by data, the deal management software is also driven by processes that you can structure and set into the framework so that your deal closing method becomes that much more seamless. This would also keep your team on their toes so that they are able to find their exact place in the process that they are accountable for. Flags, tasks, reminders and notifications would come in with insights and analytics so that you are able to organize your team and the information in a far better manner.
- Solution Driven: The most important thing to remember is that the deal management software is the solution side of the CRM system that you would apply. This is due to the fact that your team would be involved in actually using the data and the processes in order to create those solutions on the go. This is important since each and every customer is unique and different. Hence, these kind of solutions within automation would be required to push deals forward. This could include escalating matters, creating additional documents, factoring in new questions and far more so that there would be definite movement towards getting that precious conversion for each and every deal.