Brace yourself for this earth-shattering revelation: Successful sales reps close deals because they are persuasive, passionate people-persons with a natural talent for selling, not because they thrive on paperwork. But preparing pricing proposals for prospects is obviously a crucial part of any sales rep’s job. In fact, it’s the main factor that influences the close of a sale.

Still, the average sales rep squanders 45 percent of his or her time on inefficient tasks, according to Jon Miller, VP of Marketing at Marketo. But you can boost revenue straight away when you give your sales reps tools that minimize inefficiency. CPQ (configure/price/quote) tools, for example, streamline proposal generation, and when sales reps don’t have to spend valuable time laboriously plugging numbers into a spreadsheet, they can capitalize on more face-to-face client interactions.

Reps at companies using CPQ tools create 80 percent more proposals per rep per month with far less time spent in front of the computer, according to Aberdeen.

CPQ tools don’t just increase rep efficiency; they actually refine the quoting process by helping reps create more exact and persuasive quotes. Here are some of the ways in which you can streamline and boost your  proposal generation process, and make your sales team more efficient and effective with CPQ automation software:

1. Automate time-consuming tasks
   You have a CRM for a reason: everything your sales team needs to generate proposals is already in the customer account profiles and product descriptions. QuoteQuickly, SteelBrick’s most popular CPQ product, integrates with Salesforce.com to pull information into proposals automatically, saving your reps the trouble of manually entering numbers and other data. And because your reps are already accustomed to operating within Salesforce.com, giving them a CPQ tool that integrates with the CRM eliminates a time-consuming learning curve. CPQ tools can compress the amount of time you need to create a quote from days to about an hour.

2. Minimize the margin of error
   When you automate your proposal-generating process with CPQ software, your quotes are more consistent and accurate, minimizing human error and the potentially adverse judgment calls often made as a result. Your reps can generate potent and persuasive proposals with less effort.

3. Apply relevant discounts automatically
   Free your reps from looking up numbers and rules for discounts. When your volume pricing discounts or pro-rated subscriptions come into play, CPQ tools will automatically apply price breaks to the proposal. If you have partner or channel pricing structures, you can also to build them in automatically with CPQ tools.

4. Create more sophisticated and compelling sales quotes
   To win sales, reps need to offer convincing reasoning why your product or service will fulfill a prospect’s needs best and in the most cost-efficient way. With CPQ software, you can automatically build relevant details — data sheets, case studies, and other critical content — into quotes to better persuade prospects. You can also bundle extra options into quotes with very little effort. CPQ software allows you to automatically pull all relevant data content and present it in a way that’s easy for your potential customer to understand.

5. Present sales quotes as professional PDFs with just one click
   Before handing the quote off to the client, use the CPQ tool to generate an uneditable PDF with just one click, so that your sales reps always deliver consistent, professional, and well-formatted proposals.

Sales reps appreciate anything that helps them lighten their administrative load, and clients appreciate well-constructed proposals that present information clearly. By plugging a CPQ tool into your CRM, you greatly increase the amount of proposals per rep per month, while at the same time getting your reps away from the computer and in front of prospects. The volume of proposals your reps submit increases the odds of sales closing, and the quality of proposals generated with CPQ tools means that getting clients to sign on the dotted line is much easier and more rewarding for everyone.