How To Close Deals Easier & Faster Through Contract Management

In the age of automation, predictive analytics, and AI, business-to-business sales teams require support on all fronts to make sure that high-quality yet low regret deals are closed in the smallest possible purchase cycle. 

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ToC

• Contract management in sales
• Features of a typical sales contract
• Benefits of sales contract management
• The art of closing deals easier and faster through contract management

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Contract management in sales

For any business, an efficient sales culture includes closing deals faster to up those revenue numbers. Over the years, the number of people involved in a B2B purchase process has also increased to 6-10 decision-makers and so has the number of problems for sales. Now, keeping this in mind, one can remove one of the pain points from the sales process by introducing contract management to the equation.

The odds of closing high-quality deals can be raised drastically by making sure there is a formal contract management process in place. This includes everything from contract creation, approval to automation of workflows, negotiation, and renewal reminders.

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Features of a typical sales contract

A sales contract is a common type of contract used in the business world. It is a legal agreement through which a company selling a set of products or services can transfer them to a buying party. Normally, the agreement includes the following:

• Description of the product/services 
• Terms of payment 
• Delivery method
• Warranties/guarantees 
• Obligations of the agreement and legal responsibilities of all parties involved i.e. buyer and seller 
• Use case specific clauses
  

For the SaaS industry, it is common to include additional terms related to auto-renewals, data rights, compliance, security, and maintenance. 

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Benefits of sales contract management

For small businesses, the sales contract is normally managed manually with a few deals per month. But for a scaling business, the number increases drastically and when the high volumes start rolling in, a contract management system is adapted. At this stage, the first workflow that most businesses opt for automation is the sales contract.

Sales contract management helps in the enablement of all the teams involved in the contract process instead of waiting on the legal team to help them out. With such a system legal teams no longer play the role of blockers and work is rolled out faster.

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The art of closing deals easier and faster through contract management

Now that we know what sales contract management is and why it is necessary for fast-growing businesses, let’s go through some of the best practices that allow sales teams to close deals easily and swiftly.

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1. Keep the contracts simple and clear 

Lawyers tend to make the agreement language exceptionally difficult due to their love for complexity but this tends to make a sales contract more complicated for the counterparties involved. 

A sales contract with a good layout that highlights important terms, gives prominence to clauses that are often the focus of negotiation, and has easy to understand language has the least time-to-signature. 

Leave that legal jargon out of your sales contracts and invest some time in making the clauses shorter with good readability to make sure information processing is easier for everyone involved. 

One way to go about this is to either utilize ready-made contract templates, if your use case is not that complicated, or generate your own customized and dynamic contract templates with tools like Contractbook.

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2. Document design and aesthetics matter 

Your contract should exude professionalism. Whether it is the presence of your branding in the form of the logo, font type, or alignment of the text, everything matters!

Make the information look organized and free from clutter by adding graphics or tables to enhance the overall look of the document. Document design should never be treated as an afterthought therefore spend a bit of time in creating templates that fit your company’s aesthetics.

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3. Introduce seamless collaboration

Sales contracts tend to get messy with back and forth during the negotiations. This is where one can understand the woes that PDFs come with but that is a topic for another day. 

With a sales contract management tool, you can work together with your team or invite external guests to review, comment, pro-actively renegotiate, and approve the agreement while being on the same platform. 

The ability to manage tasks throughout a contract’s lifecycle, keep access control in place, and have a thorough audit trail allow companies to speed up the contract approval process in an efficient and effective manner. 

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4. CRM integration 

Imagine a sales team that is moving forward with new customers instead of chasing leads in the pipeline with reminders or being stuck in copy-pasting data from your CRM to CLM and vice versa. Sounds amazing, right? 

Two-way integration with your CRM allows your sales team to maintain a single source of truth, moves data seamlessly between the systems leading to real-time tracking and notifications of the customers with communication tools of your choice. This integration not only frees up the sales team’s time but also allows them to swiftly respond to any edits, approvals, or changes.

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5. Automated workflows 

Once you are done with the above-mentioned points, then it is time to set up automation for your flawless contracts. Nothing makes a sales rep’s life easier than self-executing contracts that trigger new actions on auto for renewals, upsells, and pricing adjustments.

Automated sales workflows allow your teams to be free from the clutches of manual tasks and give them the time to focus on important tasks like nurturing their relationships with customers and hitting more gongs. 

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6. Digital signatures

By providing your customers with multiple signature options, you can ensure the last hurdle can be removed between you and the final signature on the sales agreement. Imagine how easy it can become for your sales reps and customers if they have the ability to sign an agreement using a single-click signature, two-factor signature, or even their Bank ID! 

By signing digitally, Contractbook’s customers save up to 45 minutes of work per contract. This helps in sparing their sales from unnecessary paperwork and gives the security that the contracts will be returned with a signature within a maximum time period of 24 hours after being sent.

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Takeaways

Sales contracts are never delayed when all parties involved are aligned in the same direction. Contract management tools can reduce the contract approval time from a month to a week which can make a huge difference to your sales cycle. 

Contractbook’s Sales Add-on allows your team to automate routine tasks, enable two-way integration with your CRM, ensure transparency, and allow signatures on the go. Leading to a well-performing sales team that closes deals faster with maximum efficiency.