Contract Management for Sales Teams

July 24, 2018 • Contract Management • 4 minutes

How can sales teams ensure they are following industry best practices to maximize deal revenue?

Every company, whether small business or enterprise, deals with contracts. Contracts are vital to the stability of every company. They provide the framework for business relationships, security against potential risks, and timelines for delivery agreements. Best-in-class companies with top-notch sales teams have thousands of active contracts at any given point in time.

Managing all these contracts effectively may seem challenging, but if done with the right technology and methodology is actually quite simple. According to an Aberdeen Group study, top-performing sales organizations are 116% more likely to build a streamlined process for managing their contracts.

How does this happen? Effective sales teams have efficient processes—from using Salesforce with a fully integrated contract management platform to knowing exactly who to involve at what point in the lifecycle, sales teams can increase productivity when generating, developing, and executing new contracts.

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Full integration

The first and usually most effective step when maximizing sales output is integrating a contract management platform with Salesforce or another CRM. By doing this, sales teams become more efficient with their time and accurate in their creation and lifecycle management. An integration simplifies the contract process by allowing teams to populate an agreement with just a few clicks. Salesforce fields can be populated from a centrally controlled set of contract templates and e-signatures execute the contracts all in the cloud.

If a contract management platform doesn’t integrate with the CRM being used, time is wasted and data lost. Teams can be more efficient when working with platforms that are united.

Pre-approved templates

Sales teams don’t want to sift through legal jargon as much as legal teams don’t want Sales editing their set terms and conditions. Pre-approved templates allow both sides to get the maximum benefit by letting Sales be independent in their contract creation while giving Legal the assurance that the proper wording is used. Ultimately, deals get closed faster the sooner a contract can be sent out after a verbal agreement. Streamlining this process with pre-approved templates sets Sales up to be more successful.

A single source of truth

A cloud-based storage shouldn’t just be a repository, but a secure database that allows companies to draft, negotiate, collaborate, sign, organize, and manage all their contracts. As the digital age continues to thrive, contracts are the last manual business process to be automated and streamlined into one single platform.

Many companies create contracts in one tool, sign them in another, and store them in yet another. This process isn’t easy and usually isn’t very effective. Putting the process in one location from beginning to end allows for a fluid workflow that enables teams to work more quickly and efficiently. Having a central, secure location in the cloud is critical to keep up in the modern business world.

APIs and other available technology

Similar to the way businesses are consolidating processes into one platform, these platforms should be able to communicate and work together coherently. Cloud technology enables users to do much more than just manage a contract. This decreases the amount of time that a sales team spends drafting contracts and proposals, sorting through documents, and working through legal terminology. Instead, they can be focused on procuring new contracts, making sales, and securing customer relations.

A digital audit trail

In the last step of streamlining the process for a sales team, ensuring a digital audit trail is implemented and visible is key to success. It’s easier to have a clear trail for legal reasons, but also for new account managers and seamless transitions across positions. With a contract lifecycle management platform, creating this transparent audit trail is virtually automatic because every action is recorded online, meaning anyone on the team can accurately trace customer and consumer relations, transactions, and contract lifecycles.

A whole company, but especially a sales team will benefit from using a contract lifecycle management platform. A platform not only streamlines the entire process but saves a sales organization significant time and money.

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Create, collaborate, negotiate, e-sign, manage, and analyze all agreements on one platform.

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