WillSell4Commish

VP of Deez

Opinionated

Contributor

Good Citizen

Sales Team Contracting Difficulties?

Title says it all, what are some difficulties pertaining to contracts you run into in your role?

During generating, negotiating, approval from other teams (what teams?), etc

Do you generate your own contracts for customers? If so, what internal hurdles do you come across?

*Full disclosure* I'm trying to widen the use case of our contract management solution to include sales teams. I am not trying to sell anyone that comments, simply understanding a variety of situations as best as I can.

☁️ Software Tech

14 comments

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Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

There's always something. I get an SOE from my customers once I'm the preferred vendor, and part of that is outlining the steps to close, including all the approvals and steps to getting the contract executed. If you can have them tell you exactly how a contract is closed at their company, you can eliminate many last minute nasty surprises. I also validate this with procurement, as often my champion/the PM may not know all the details of a close at their own company, and there are often extra steps.

Even with all of this, there are sometimes curveballs, but I try to get ahead of most issues up front.

WillSell4Commish

Opinionated

VP of Deez

Sounds like most of your deals happen on the buyer's paper not your own? Do you generate in adherence to what they tell you or do you use their contract from the start?

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

They all happen on our paper. I like to understand as much of their process as possible so I can forecast accurately and with as few surprises as possible.

WillSell4Commish

Opinionated

VP of Deez

Makes sense. Internally do you coordinate with legal or other teams to generate the contracts? Or is your template usually dead on and you fill in blanks?

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

I have internal legal, and we operate off a standard template that we deliver to the customer with the items they're ordering, and an underlying MSA. We allow redlines and discussion. We won't accept all redlines, but our paper is fairly boilerplate and straightforward.

WillSell4Commish

Opinionated

VP of Deez

Are your templates word docs with a fill in the blank type process?
As for redlining, is that an edit-email-wait cycle or do you have a platform to collaborate in live time?

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

So, no, in my case, I request the document from our in-house legal person, based on what the customer is buying. I don't fill anything in.

Redlining is done via email.

WillSell4Commish

Opinionated

VP of Deez

I appreciate the info. how long does legal take to draft and get that back to you?

Sunbunny31

Arsonist

Sr Sales Executive 🐰

Depends on how busy they are. Usually within a few hours, but sometimes a day.

Since it sounds like you're looking more for best practices than objection/contract handling, more info: Last place I worked, we'd grown into an automated system that was triggered via Salesforce, so that the customer info and the order were all captured in the CRM and the work order flowed through SFDC. Questions and approvals all went through the system.

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

Approval for me because most of my customers have to get a nod from the top stakeholders even though they love the product and become the champions as well.

WillSell4Commish

Opinionated

VP of Deez

Is that usually due to lack of communication between your customer and their top stakeholder prior to signing?

Diablo

Politicker

Sr. AE

I wouldn't know that for sure but I know that they are also evaluating other platforms that definitely has pros and cons, and they need to present it to the top SH. Delay could be due to busy schedule, more platform evaluation, extended trial and delay in go to live that

countingmyinterest

Politicker

Account Executive

I have a quotes experience (qx) team that handles all of that. Makes my life easier as a salesperson.
My director basically gives me a threshold of discounts that I can grant

CuriousFox

WR Officer

🦊

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