How about we start with some numbers?

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• Bid teams spend up to 30 minutes just to look for documents that are needed to create business proposals.

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• 84% of managers admit to wasting more than an hour each day, to input data manually; they need to enter identical data into multiple programs. This includes creating proposals to a large extent.
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• Miscommunication costs businesses close to $37 million every year.

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• 75% of senior executives and decision-makers agree that investing in technology that can facilitate successful project management was a high priority in their organization - Project Management Institute.

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Responding well to RFPs can be a high-pressure task; successful proposal managers understand that the benefits of using a proposal software or a proposal builder tool are just too good to be ignored.

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What is a proposal?

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A proposal is a framework that outlines the buyer's requirements and informs the buyer about the seller’s abilities in fulfilling their needs. Proposals are decisive to business success. Without proposals, there is no new B2B sale, and without new sales, there is no revenue. A sensibly planned and well-written sales proposal is the best way for sales teams to win new businesses.

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Nevertheless, creating proposals without a proposal builder can be extremely time-consuming. Organizations have to hold every single person involved in the sales proposal process accountable for the proposal that’s created using traditional tools like MS word or Excel. Additionally, there is the added concern of keeping track of all the several proposals that are created, and where they are located in the company’s network. When using Word or Excel, different teams may choose different document styles, leading to errors in the documents.

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Businesses that handle large contracts and proposal documents choose proposal builders to create proposal templates for better consistency in branding. Proposal software enables different teams to collaborate better, reduce version control issues, allocate tasks and workflows, provides dashboards for reviewing, tracking and reporting, and much more. While these are factors that increase the efficiency and productivity of the bid teams, here are four ways in which a proposal builder or proposal software helps save time and increase sales.

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Real-time monitoring of the end-to-end proposal management process

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How do businesses know that their salespeople are making the best use of their time? A proposal builder helps monitor the entire sales process to ensure that every team member stays on task meticulously. Proposal builders help eliminate procrastination and ensures that no task, however small or big, slips through the cracks. With the right proposal builder, sales teams can focus more on selling with better drive and productivity.

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Generate proposals faster

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Proposals that are created using a proposal builder are more consistent, error-free, and up-to-date with all the latest information, including the pricing. With the right proposal builder, sales teams can save time with templates and pricing packages – they don’t have to start with a blank page each time they want to create a proposal. This impacts the duration of the end-to-end sales cycle. Creating proposals faster helps sales teams secure more meetings, send out proposals to a greater number of prospects, thereby increasing the probability of winning more new businesses for the company.

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A centralized location for data storage

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Often, sales executives who use traditional tools like Word or Excel, waste time trying to find the right templates; it can further get delayed when they can’t have quick access to other critical information like pricing that needs to be added in a new proposal. A proposal builder acts as a centralized location that can store all the required information, along with providing a wide range of in-built templates to choose from.

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Proposal builders also serve as a repository for all the proposals sent by an organization, with a way to categorize and organize the documents. This way, even if a sales executive wants to refer to or search for a proposal that was sent many years ago, he or she can do so quickly and easily. Having access to historical proposals also reduces the need for repetitive meetings and back-and-forth communication, saving enormous time for busy sales professionals.

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Integrations with other software

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When a sales executive uses a traditional documentation tool to create or edit a proposal template, the options for formatting are limited. With a proposal builder, sales teams can use a variety of integrations that are already embedded in their sales process. For instance, a proposal builder software can pull the latest pricing information in real-time from one system while the customer information can be obtained from a CRM tool. This makes the process of drafting a proposal faster and simpler. In case the proposal builder is integrated with project management software, a newly drafted proposal can be added to the sales pipeline to allow better tracking and management. Proposal builder tools can give an organization more control over its sales process, allowing teams to close deals more quickly and efficiently.

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The importance of choosing the right proposal builder

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These are just a few of the many reasons to consider using a good proposal builder to save time and increase sales. The right proposal builder software is one that acts as a smart collaboration tool to allow sales teams to create customized proposals easily. With plenty of software options available in the market, it is important to choose one that improves the day-to-day efficiency of a business. A proposal builder tool that has native integrations with the latest marketing automation software and CRM is bound to make your next sale much quicker and easier.

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Zomentum is a proposal builder that can help you create, optimize, and share mobile-friendly proposals in under 25 minutes. Just peruse the existing proposal template and send it on the go, enabling faster approvals. Zomentum helps set a clear approval workflow to automate the approval process.

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With a rich template library and robust features, Zomentum helps bid teams monitor their proposal performance, enabling sales executives to effectively address the prospect’s concerns and questions. Zomentum enables custom notifications – sales teams are notified when a prospect opens a document, the time spent on reading it, and when they actually sign the document.

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Zomentum, as a solution, is built to help you accelerate your sales cycle. Why don’t you schedule a product demo to know how we can help you save time and increase sales?