In which stage of the sales process would you guess sales reps spend the most time?
Maybe… prospecting?
Nope.
Perhaps overcoming objections after the sales pitch?
Good try, but not that either.
Administration.
That’s right – on average, a salesperson spends almost one-third of their time on routine, administrative duties like managing paperwork and inputting data.
That’s more than the 27 per cent of time they spend actually selling to customers.
Implementing eSignature software in your sales operations workflow can empower salespeople to spend less time pushing paper and more time working an efficient and effective sales process. And there are plenty of big business benefits that go along with that.
The 5 big business benefits of eSignatures + sales ops
Quotes, discount approvals, sales contracts, renewal management, partner agreements, invoices... there are so many workflows that go into generating successful sales and nurturing healthy, ongoing business relationships. Empower your sales professionals, implement a sales eSignature solution and enable benefits ranging from robust revenue to reduced risk and beyond.
1. Close anywhere, anytime
Approximately 40 per cent of all employees in the US engage in work-related tasks outside of the office.
Mobile technology means your business is always open. Sales operations that can’t keep up with digital transformation will be left in the dust as competitors close deals during their bus ride to work or while binging on the latest true crime podcast over the weekend.
In order to ‘always be closing’, sales ops will want to implement a mobile-first eSignature solution so reps are prepared to close revenue no matter the location, the time or the device.
Dropbox Sign allows users to digitally create, send, sign and even store important sales documents on desktop as well as mobile. You can even collect signatures in person on a mobile device should the situation call for it! And yes, soon-to-be-clients can also easily access and sign documents via mobile devices as soon as they receive them.
And if you’re looking for a way to wrap up your entire sales process with one pretty, mobile-friendly bow, there’s always Dropbox Forms.
Dropbox Forms helps sales teams turn contracts into easy-to-complete, mobile-first workflows. Contracts are designed to be completed on mobile without missing out on any of the extras like advanced data validation and the ability to generate agreements by populating data from external systems. With Dropbox Forms, all that important info you just collected isn’t tied to a PDF, so it’s free to flow into your backend systems without any time-consuming data entry, which is great, because at this rate they’re going to be way too busy closing revenue to deal with repetitive, manual tasks!
2. Robust, reliable revenue
A sales workflow with defined steps isn’t only great for closing revenue quickly – it’s also great for empowering sales teams to do it over and over again with minimal manual effort.
By using eSignature software to automate a reliable and repeatable sales workflow, businesses can more readily rely on sales-generated revenue to support current stability and fuel future growth.
In addition to being more reliable, revenue becomes more robust when sales eSignatures are implemented. In fact, companies that integrate eSignatures have been shown to grow revenue by 8 per cent in the first year alone.
In a study on enterprises that integrated eSignatures into their existing technologies and processes, Ombud found that the average savings per document was $20, which could easily add up to millions in savings depending on your scale of sales! That, by the way, is yet another area that will benefit from eSignature implementation.
3. Scaled sales
The fact is, there will always be plenty of documentation when it comes to kicking off a successful working relationship – NDAs, service agreements, proposals, quotes, contracts and more.
But in the 21st century, there’s no excuse for any amount of paperwork stalling your sales or your ability to scale, not when you can take it all online with an eSignature sales solution.
Forrester Consulting found that a physical sales agreement typically has to be handled by four different people – and that’s just internally! According to their research, it usually takes two different administrators 30 minutes each and two executives 15 minutes each just to get sales paperwork out the door. However, after eSignature implementation, that handling time drops to just 9 minutes total – giving sales teams a nearly unimaginable amount of time to scale up their efforts!
How can eSignature software make such a drastic difference? For the most part, thanks to time-saving templates and integrations.
With Dropbox Sign, sales teams can create reusable templates so even the most complex contracts and documents can be turned around in minutes. And our easy-to-implement integrations with popular platforms like HubSpot, Salesforce and more automatically pull in all the right customer information so you can format, send and sign important sales documents in seconds.
Want to learn more about how to get your Sales team set up with eSignatures? Download our eBook!
4. More contracts with fewer errors
If we didn’t drive it home already, let us remind you – contracts are essential to sales. Why not make creating, sending and signing them effortless?
On average, it takes 3 extra days to collect signatures physically as opposed to digitally. Salespeople need to be able to see and control the contract process if they’re ever going to speed up turnaround. And with eSignatures, that’s exactly what they’re able to do.
With great eSignature software, users can carefully define and assign each field, dictate the order of events, gain visibility in the progress of the contract and even create reminders for signers who have yet to complete their part in the workflow. And with the help of smart automations and validations to round out the workflow, signers don’t have to slog through repetitive questions and salespeople are never stuck correcting or chasing down missing information.
5. Reduced legal risk and supercharged security
In the age of digital everything, it’s important that each sales operations organisation strikes a balance between empowering delightful sales experiences and providing strong legal and security measures to keep their company and its clients protected and above board.
When shopping for an eSignature software platform, sales ops must check for detailed audit trails that ensure every action on each electronic document is thoroughly tracked and time-stamped so it can never be modified or tampered with without their knowledge. In addition, thorough authentication should verify that a user is who they say they are before they’re allowed to execute a signature. Bank-level security ensures the data gathered from these audit trails and authentication methods is indeed trustworthy and legal while built-in compliance measures keep businesses up to date on standards like GDPR, HIPAA, SOC and more.
At Dropbox Sign, we’re committed to helping businesses large and small(er) find their own just-right balance between frictionless sales and extra-strength legal and security features.
How to roll out eSignatures to take advantage of these big business benefits
If you need to close more deals more quickly, there’s no better way than by implementing eSignatures into your sales operations workflow.
Want to sign a PDF without printing? It’s now easier than ever with Dropbox Forms.
Learn how to seamlessly roll out eSignatures to your team here or download our comprehensive eBook to learn all your options for deploying eSignatures to your Sales team (including CRM integrations), comparison of key competitors in the eSignature space and the key features to dig into when evaluating an eSignature solution.
