What a sales department can automate today
Searching, filtering and preparing is done by an agent. Choosing who to write to and what to sign, by your team.
In short
In sales, the work that comes before the sale can be automated today: reading the tenders every day, spotting companies that fit, building the quote from your rates and producing the contract from your templates.
The relationship with the client is not automated. Who you write to, what you bid for and what gets signed is decided by a person, and no email goes out without their approval.
What can be automated today
Four processes an agent already runs in our own company, each with its own page.
Public tenders: the tenders that fit your company, cross-checked with your CRM and with the campaign to public bodies prepared.
Prospecting: the companies using what you know how to improve, detected and logged in your CRM without duplicates.
Quotes: quotes built from your rates and your pricing model, with the minimum version alongside and ready to review.
Contracts: contracts and annexes on your templates, with no gaps or pending marks, ready to review.
In our own company nobody logs into the procurement platform to search any more: the tenders that fit arrive every morning.
What is better left alone, and why
What you gain in hours you can lose in reputation. We leave four things out.
First contact. The prospecting agent contacts no one: it sends no emails and fills in no forms. A mass message that reads as machine-written closes more doors than it opens.
Deciding which tender to bid for. The filter saves the reading; bidding commits your team for weeks, and whoever leads it should weigh that.
Adjusting a price. The agent does not shave hours to hit a figure: if something has to give, scope is cut and it shows in the table.
Drafting new clauses. The agent works with your templates and does not replace your legal advisers. If you ask for a type of document that is not in your catalogue, it says so and stops.
What a person still decides
Who you write to and what gets signed. No email goes out without your approval.
New contacts and everything written to the CRM go through a person first. The quote is reviewed and sent by a person, and the contract is reviewed, sent and signed by whoever has to sign it.
Where to start
It depends on who you sell to. If you work with the public sector, start with public tenders: they are published every day, nobody reads them all and finding out late means missing the deadline.
If you sell to companies, start with quotes. Having every quote come from the same pricing model shows from the first one and paves the way for contracts, which use the same data.
What it takes
Your rates, your pricing model and your contract templates, which are yours and which you change. Access to your CRM, to cross-check and log without duplicating companies.
And a clear description of what you do and what you do not, which is what each tender and each detected company is filtered against.
Frequently asked questions
Does the agent email potential clients?
No. What it prepares stays in drafts and you send it. In prospecting it does not even prepare messages: it detects companies and logs them in your CRM once you approve.
Does the agent bid for tenders?
No. It searches every day, filters by what you do and prepares the campaign. Which one you bid for is your decision.
Can it draft a contract from scratch?
No. It works on your templates. It does not draft new clauses or replace your legal advisers.
Other guides
Finance department
Gathering, checking and preparing is done by an agent. Approving, paying and signing, by a person.
Human resources
Paperwork, deadlines and checks are handled by an agent. Decisions about people are not.
Marketing
Reviewing every week and preparing the changes is done by an agent. Publishing and spending is approved by a person.
Customer service
Logging, searching and drafting is done by an agent. What a client is told is approved by a person.
Legal and compliance
Watching dates, gathering evidence and preparing documents is done by an agent. Processing, signing and accepting a risk, by a person.
The next step
Tell us how you work today and we will tell you where to start.