SalesTechStar Interview with Ray Meiring, CEO and Co-founder of QorusDocs

Ray Meiring, CEO and Co-founder of QorusDocs chats about the benefits of proposal management software and how it can ease up processes for sales people:

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Welcome to this SalesTechStar chat Ray, tell us about your B2B Technology journey so far and more about QorusDocs and your time as CEO at QorusDocs…

It’s been exhilarating to be part of the B2B technology space. I’ve been working in the industry for more than two decades, and I’ve seen B2B tech grow and develop significantly during that time. We’ve really seen B2B technology evolve as cloud and AI technology have developed and become more robust—making B2B tools more powerful as a result.  

For example, proposal management software was once considered a nice-to-have tool for businesses. It made sense for some organizations, but otherwise, it wasn’t essential. Now, with the software’s ease and scalability it offers to fast-paced sales teams, it has become mission-critical, especially as companies look to win more businesses as they recover from the pandemic. I’m excited for proposal management software to gain even more momentum in the months and years ahead.

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How are you seeing proposal management tools become more popular for sales teams today and can you highlight the ways in which these features save the time of salespeople, a crucial aspect in today’s market?

Like much of our workforce, today’s sales teams are operating remotely. This fundamentally shifts how companies land new business. For instance, remote teams cannot rely on a business lunch to close the sale. That means they need to focus on delivering visually compelling proposals as their primary communication medium. And, without being able to use in-person cues to learn what their prospective customer or client cares about most, sales teams need access to data and insights to make sure they’re using the best content. 

In addition, teams need to be able to automate their proposal development process so that each document they create can be completed as quickly and accurately as possible. Proposal management software equips sales teams to accomplish all of these things. Modern proposal management tools allow users to gain insights on proposals and enable various automation tools to keep the process speedy. Proposal software can also give sales teams insights on the best content to use in a proposal.

Proposal management software can be a huge asset for sales teams—remote or otherwise—especially as procurement processes have become bogged down with more barriers. There are more RFPs and RFIs to respond to, along with other required documents like new vendor questionnaires and security reviews that can be time-consuming.

Instead of letting these documents become bottlenecks, proposal management software can help teams harness automation to get the best answers and content into the document as quickly as possible. Ultimately, sales teams will be able to become more productive and more efficient with the help of proposal management tools. For B2B companies who have fine-tuned their proposal and RFP response process into a competitive advantage, we believe the sky’s the limit moving forward.

Why in your view should tools like proposal management platforms be part of a typical salestech stack: can you also highlight a few cases in which brands have enabled better end-user CX because of it?

Delivering a compelling, accurate proposal or presentation is crucial to convincing the customers to go with your offering. Simply cutting and pasting content from old proposals or other materials won’t work. Proposals should be customized and tailored to speak to the needs of each potential customer. And, to stand out, proposals should be visually pleasing and well-designed. These have become the new non-negotiables in our increasingly digital world, and companies risk losing new business if they don’t stand out.

Proposal management software comes in handy for more than just the proposal. Every mid-size to enterprise-level deal will require an RFP response or a security questionnaire. Without software to support proposal development or responses to questionnaires, teams will likely hit a bottleneck in the sales process. As a result, customer acquisition costs will rise, deals will slow down, valuable salespeople will leave, among other repercussions. 

Long View, an IT solutions and services company, significantly improved their sales process using our proposal management software, QorusDocs. They were looking to respond to more RFPs more efficiently and knew that their presentations and proposals had to be tailored to the best content. With our platform, Long View upgraded its end-to-end sales process, including producing high-quality proposals with a quick turnaround and integrating rich reporting features that provide essential insights into the proposals produced and the content used.

With its volume of RFPs increasing steadily, ManpowerGroup, a leader in innovative workforce solutions, implemented QorusDocs’ new integration with Highspot after its volume of RFPs steadily increased. The organization needed a solution to automate and accelerate the RFP process and support its sales team without relying on the bid team to create proposals for smaller deals. With QorusDocs, ManpowerGroup can fast-track proposal creation, leveraging templates and a controlled, consistent content environment. As a result, the company’s sales team can create and pitch a personalized proposal to a client in less than five minutes.

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For salespeople who are looking at these kinds of capabilities for the first time, what basic best practices would you share with them?

When shopping for a proposal management vendor, there are a few things to look for. First, the software should allow your team to build a shared database so that content can be housed and organized in a way that’s accessible and manageable for the team. It’s also important to consider what other tech resources the company needs to integrate, such as Salesforce, Highspot, or Microsoft Office, and whether the proposal software is compatible with their preferred tools. Integrations are vital in getting teams to adopt and use the new software to its fullest capacity, so it’s essential to consider how your systems will work together.

The software should also allow for maximum usage of signals from CRM systems to build the best proposals. These systems directly provide valuable and targeted insights that help build smarter proposals and RFP responses that feel timely and personal. 

Finally, companies evaluating proposal management software will notice that there’s a lot of talk about artificial intelligence. This is a good sign, but it’s important to find out more details about the level of accuracy that their software offers. It’s important to pay attention to the accuracy of the responses to questions from AI in the research process. This will give you a clue to the time savings you can expect to achieve. 

Why do you feel customized RFPs are crucial to enabling better closures at the end of sales deals today? 

Simply put, customized proposals are the way to win new business. In fact, industry experts predict that one of the biggest B2B trends for this year is focusing on the customer—speaking to their unique needs and showing that your solution can solve their pain points. Potential customers can pick up on cut-and-paste proposals as they read through the document. Proposals that reflect a higher level of customization will become more memorable and show a deeper level of commitment and care from the vendor.

RFPs by nature are customized, they are built to meet the format of the request itself. As a vendor providing RFP responses, you need to be sure to answer the questions thoroughly and accurately. And this is where you can see big gains from proposal management software and a strong content database.

Some last thoughts, takeaways, digital sales/customer communication tips and best practices before we wrap up!

AI has become somewhat of a buzzword, but I believe it really is the future. B2B tools that use AI will truly transform work today and in the future, since it drives automation and enables faster, more efficient processes. When it comes to proposals, AI allows teams to find the best piece of content for a particular sales scenario or critical sales document without searching through all their files. And when they need to complete something like a security questionnaire, the software can help them answer hundreds of in-depth questions rapidly. 

AI can also improve your outcomes over time—helping teams find what they need to make more accurate suggestions with every new proposal. With AI, the software can track what helps you win deals and will get smarter and smarter over time. Sales teams can be more confident in the quality of their work while also creating effective proposals more efficiently, leading to new opportunities that can significantly boost business. There’s a bright future for proposal development tools, and I’m thrilled to be part of the journey.

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