Sales Proposal and Quoting Software: Can You Compete Without it?

Price Quote

My wife and I have spent the past few weeks meeting with home improvement contractors and Home Depot. We may — or may not — remodel our aging kitchen. We’re still weighing the potential project “components” and costs. Call me crazy, but the process reminds me of a potential sales engagement in the managed services market.

Consider these three scenarios:

1. Contractor one is well-spoken and comes with numerous references. His work for some of our neighbors is stellar and he has incredible vision for how our kitchen could be remodeled. But we’ve met this contractor twice and we’ve asked him — multiple times — for a project estimate. He originally told us the sales quote would arrive in two weeks. It has been a month. We’ve yet to see an estimate from him.

2. Contractor two has a well-regarded team — rip-and-replace specialists, plumbers, electricians. We suspect he could handle the entire job. He’s a project manager of sorts and extremely personable, spending considerable time on-site making sure home renovations meet customer expectations. Here again, we’ve asked multiple times for a job quote but we’ve yet to receive one.

3. Contractor three is a tag-team involving Home Depot and a local contractor that is part of Home Depot’s outsourced “service provider” network (no joke). Here’s where things get really interesting:

Also of note: We don’t have any “personal’ experience or “personal” references yet from Home Depot and the contractor, but we’re impressed by what we’ve seen so far. If we work with Home Depot and the associated contractor, all of the cabinet installation would be guaranteed for 25 years. And, the Home Depot service provider network leverages some sort of customer survey — making sure contractors have at least a 90-plus percent approval rating to stay in the service provider network.

Information Technology Projects and Managed Services

Now, apply our home improvement example to the managed services market. As Big Box retailers (Best Buy, Staples, etc.) continue to push into managed services, you can imagine the Home Depot price quoting model taking hold.

First, Best Buy can offer some basic hardware quoting services to small businesses — generating on-the-fly cost estimates for a 25-node small business network running email, for instance. Next, perhaps mindSHIFT — Best Buy’s managed services arm — could further customize the quote to blend in managed services and cloud services.

Get Moving

Where does that hypothetical scenario leave independent MSPs, VARs and IT resellers? The short answer: To compete with the big guys and with entrenched MSP rivals, you’ve got to generate accurate, comprehensive price quotes far more rapidly. It’s not enough to sit down with a customer, offer sound advice and great customer references. You need to follow-up rapidly and seal the deal with a compelling proposal.

That’s where sales proposal and price quoting software enter the picture. Two of the best-known options are Quosal and QuoteWerks. I’ve also heard some buzz about BigMachines, CIS QuoteBuilder, CNet ChannelOnline, QwikQuote and VARStreet (which Autotask recently sold back to VARStreet’s employees).

I wonder: How many incomplete sales proposals are sitting on your desk? And how many of your customers are choosing alternative IT service providers simply because they received a timely price quote?