Background
The Center for Management & Organization Effectiveness (CMOE) is a learning and development consulting group that works with individuals, teams, and organizations to provide customized workshops, offsites, speaking engagements, and consultative research. Providing solutions to organizations like Northern Trust, JB Hunt, Siemens Energy, Zendesk, Amazon, and Shape Technologies, CMOE relies on DocSend to securely share documents and presentations with prospective clients during the sales process.
The Challenge
Prior to DocSend, Mark Parkinson, Vice President of Sales Enablement at CMOE, would send out sales presentations and proposals to prospective clients as email attachments. With an impressive library of growing presentations, Mark and his sales team wanted to find a more organized sharing solution that would provide them with more control over the sales process.
The Solution:
The team turned to DocSend’s secure document sharing solution to manage all documents shared during the sales cycle.
Seamlessly sharing sales proposals and presentations
Managing a pipeline of prospective Fortune 500 companies requires meticulous attention to detail and focus. It is critical to know exactly when proposals were sent out and what materials prospective clients can access. For Mark, email attachments were outdated and did not represent his organization in the best light in front of major companies. It simply wasn’t professional to include multiple attachments on an email, which could also get stuck in spam filters or never reach prospects.
When Mark first explored DocSend, he was excited by how he could more securely organize client-facing documents in a way that was more intuitive for clients to access. CMOE has an impressive library of content as part of their consulting packages and Mark often shares previews of presentations with prospective clients, so they can get a taste of CMOE’s learning and development offerings. These presentations contain intellectual property that Mark did not want to get into the wrong hands. With DocSend’s secure sharing capabilities, Mark can easily add an email verification or passcode, so that only approved prospective clients can access the materials. Additionally, Mark can set expiration dates, so that prospects can only access the content during an allotted period, like during an active sales cycle. “DocSend gives us more control over our documents, which is crucial in a fast-paced sales environment,” Mark shared.
To ensure that prospective clients know exactly where to find all CMOE presentations relevant to their needs, Mark created over two-hundred individualized content portals to house client information using DocSend Deal Rooms. While hundreds of individualized client folders might sound like a lot of time to create, with DocSend, Mark can easily duplicate a deal room template in less than a minute. “I’ve templatized four different deal rooms based on our four different product offerings. When a client shows interest in one product offering, for example, Applied Strategic Thinking, I can duplicate that deal room and include a customized sales quote. Creating a personalized, visual representation of content helps us provide the best possible customer experience,” Mark shared. In addition to presentations that address the prospective client’s primary area of interest, Mark also includes statements of work and individualized pricing proposals in each personalized deal room. Whereas email attachments could come off as an informal or tedious experience, a clean, customized deal room with CMOE’s logo and banner gives prospective clients reassurance that CMOE is an organization they could trust.
I would never build a sales technology stack in the future without DocSend. This genre of tool is huge. Salespeople have never before had visibility into their prospects’ actions outside of a tool like DocSend.
Uncovering decision makers with document analytics
Among one of the many challenges sales organizations face is determining who is the right decision maker to sign off on a deal. Before using DocSend, Mark had a tough time figuring out the right person to speak with in order to seal the deal. “Nine times out of ten we were talking to someone who is talking to other consulting organizations and presenting findings to a decision maker,” Mark shared.
Mark now has more visibility into where his documents are going with DocSend’s analytics and can use those insights to his advantage. “The beautiful thing about DocSend is I can now see who gatekeepers might be forwarding pricing proposals to, which lets me get a better idea of who the final decision maker is, and be able to connect with the right person at the right time,” Mark shared. By identifying the final decision maker earlier on in the sales process, Mark can get the right information in front of the right person and ensure that CMOE is top-of-mind for prospective clients.
Whereas our competitors might be sending many bulky attachments over email, we are relying on DocSend as an amazing presentation tool to show-off our offerings. The way you can click into a file and view it in a browser is incredible. I’ve had prospective clients tell me they went to a meeting with their vice president and showed them our DocSend link and they were instantly sold on going with us because of how professional and organized it looked.
Framing a conversation with a data-driven approach
Before DocSend, Mark had little visibility into whether prospects were consuming the content he shared with them. While Mark did have insights into whether an email was opened, he had no idea whether a client was looking through their proposals. The only information Mark could rely on was the initial prospective meetings, which left him in the dark most of the time.
Now, Mark can see how prospective clients are engaging with the materials he sends. “After sending out presentation decks and sale proposals, I can see, for example, if prospects are looking at the pricing page and for how long. This can tell me if they might be concerned about pricing, so I can address that in our next call,” Mark shared. Using data to his advantage, Mark can approach conversations with prospects, anticipating any questions or concerns they might have. Mark adds, “Before a call, I’ll jump into DocSend and search a person’s name and see their content consumption data. Seeing everything they’ve looked at helps me frame a conversation.” The key to consultative selling is to predict your prospective client’s needs and provide them with as much information as possible to make an informed decision. Mark can more accurately forecast potential deals each quarter and gauge their interest using DocSend analytics.
It’s great knowing whether a prospect has opened a document and how long they have spent on our pricing page. Having this level of visibility in the sales process is something that I have never had before using DocSend. It provides predictability as to whether a prospective client is interested.
Looking forward to the future: customizing prospective client portals
As Mark continues to utilize DocSend as a sales tool within his organization, he is hoping to try out more customization options in DocSend Deal Rooms. “I’m excited to customize banners and add prospective client logos to their deal rooms to give them even more of a personalized feel,” Mark shared. Providing that individualized touch can go a long way when forming relationships with new clients. DocSend makes it simple for sales professionals like Mark to go the extra mile when creating proposals remotely.
Additionally, Mark is eager to test out the new deal room update notification when adding new materials into content portals. “Having the ability within DocSend to notify prospective clients when I add information to their portal is excellent. It will help me continue to provide value to a prospect and remind them about an earlier conversation we had with helpful information, which might grab their attention, or even reengage a stale lead,” Mark shared. Mark now has more control over his relationships with prospective clients, allowing him to bring all that CMOE has to offer to even more organizations.