Deal Desk Function in Complex Sales (Part 3)

Deal Desk Function in Complex Sales (Part 3)

This is the last in the 3-part series about deal desk in both transactional and complex sales models. Part 3 is focused on the do’s and don’ts when building or modifying your deal desk if you operate a complex sales model.

In part 1, we surveyed the landscape of transactional vs. complex sales models, and dug into the points of friction in the final stages of the sales process. Part 2 was completely focused on a transactional sales model. If your company has both (e.g. selling to SMB & enterprise), we recommend reading the whole series. If enterprise is your jam, this one’s for you. In this post we’re taking a deeper dive into what a high functioning, well implemented, deal desk should look like in a complex sales process.

Complex Sales Model 

If your sales model is more complex, you most likely live in the enterprise space. These deals tend to be higher dollar but lower volume and your sales cycle will most likely be longer. There are also more stakeholders, more complex deal structure, more terms, and more risk.

Enterprise sales is a marathon, from the top of the funnel where awareness is created all the way to implementation. The “last mile” or final stage of the sales process is critical--especially in enterprise. There are many activities that will slow down the sales process, which leads to delayed revenue or potentially a deal being killed. This includes all non-revenue generating activities that become bottlenecks like poorly created processes, lack of process, slow approvals, unknown thresholds, and any manual task that can be automated.

You’re also losing productivity because you have reps chasing approvals instead of working deals. Between emails, IMs, texts, and in-person conversations, information is scattered. Your current processes may not be very trackable, reportable, or auditable. Which comes with a side effect of an inability to make informed decisions because the right data isn’t collected. The list goes on...

At Streemly, we’ve worked with some of the most complex sales processes you can imagine. We’ve had the opportunity to interview hundreds of VPs of Sales, sales reps, deal desk, and sales operations leaders, and collect stories & data to write this content, and build great deal desk automation software.

Let’s dive in and discuss the do’s and don’ts when building and implementing a successful deal desk function in a complex sales model.

DO’s

Do begin tackling the issue from a process, people, and systems perspective. Map out the best possible process for what you’re trying to accomplish. Who are the people that need to be involved? Finally, ask yourself if your current systems work for your people & processes. It should never be the other way around.

Do establish clear rules on thresholds & policies around discounting & relevant terms. Establishing actual “gates” is the first step in enforcing.

Do identify your stakeholders. Every single one of them. Document who is involved at every level, when they need to get involved, and more importantly why they need to be a part of the process. Here is a simple breakdown to help you get started:

Do automate approvals that are tied back to the rules & thresholds you’ve already established above. A common time suck we see is when reps have to chase down stakeholders to push a deal forward.

Do create a way to give reps full autonomy within their lane. Don’t get additional stakeholders involved too early if they don’t need to be. At the end of the day, reps are the quarterbacks for their deals. Leadership & ops play critical and specialized support roles, but support roles nonetheless.

Do set up controls in your CRM & other tools to allow the right stakeholders to view relevant information. In enterprise sales, there are already a lot of "cooks", but you can still control who is in the kitchen.

Do make sure to have a process for exceptions baked into your master process. In enterprise sales there should be more room for creativity. Your process and systems should allow exceptions--these exceptions should be handled by the system, because when exceptions become manual your data will find itself living outside of your system. 

Do put a system in place to capture edits & history. Especially in a complex sales model, because your processes may change frequently.

Do give your implementation or customer success teams visibility into what’s going to cross the finish line. Some companies we’ve consulted even involve these groups early. The key is to give them visibility without adding a step: another example of where to automate. The implementation & CS handoff is something that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. A lack of visibility and poorly structured (and communicated) deals tend to hurt CS the most.

DON’TS

Don’t try and change behavior. If people live in Slack, they aren’t going to miraculously start using Salesforce’s Chatter. Allow communication & action (reviewing, approving, rejecting, commenting, etc.) to happen through your stakeholders’ preferred channel of communication (email, text, Slack, etc). Also, make sure these conversations are tied back to the opportunity in your CRM.

Don’t rely on a wiki alone. Although most companies begin building out processes by documenting them on a Google Doc or another “wiki” type doc, your processes should be baked into your systems. Rules are complex in this type of sale, make it easy for a rep to know rules and policies. 

Don’t solve problems by throwing bodies at it. You don’t necessarily need a deal desk team (people). You need a deal desk function. Sometimes that looks like additional people, but often the better route is giving the right people a good system.

Don’t take your reps outside of your CRM. Don’t introduce software or tools that take your reps away from your true system of record. If you’re going to add a tool, it should make your CRM better and your processes faster. 

Don’t let your reps create their own documents or send quotes to customers without the right approvals. This will often lead to redacting quotes down the road, and frustrated customers & reps. Lock them until they are fully approved.

Don’t “copy and paste” your data. In enterprise sales there are often multiple areas in your CRM that need to be updated. Imagine getting a system that could push every field to multiple locations with a click of a button. ?? Make human error a thing of the past.

Don’t have a bunch of DIY-esque tools. For example, don’t let any part of your process live in a Google Doc or Powerpoint. Your process should be 100% baked into your system. Don’t have a deal desk Slack channel--unless it pushes the right info into the matching opportunity in your CRM.

Don’t forget about auditability. Make sure you build with auditing in mind. This is a big “we wish we would have done it differently” moment with a lot of the enterprise companies we talk to. As deals get bigger, security gets tighter and audits are more frequent. You will save so much time & money by having a system in place that not only keeps a paper trail of deal activity, but also documents your processes.

To Recap

In a complex sales model, creativity is ok -- dare I say good? Sales reps should look to deal desk as deal consultants to advise them on the best way to structure a winning deal. This means higher margins for the company, great commission for the rep, and most importantly a happy (non-frustrated or confused) customer.

Complex sales models already have many pieces in motion, so don’t convolute it further by adding software that over-complicates or over-systemizes an already perplexing process.

If nothing else, please take away that a well implemented deal desk shortens sales cycles by 25-40% and increases rep productivity by 15-20%. If it's optimized, it removes the guess & stress out the sales close process. Deal desk should streamline & automate the sales close process including: approvals, quote creation, and rules management. We published a post that dives deeper into what deal desk is and why it matters. You can read that here. 

At Streemly, we see our role as consultants to our prospects & customers on how they can improve their processes. We’d love to learn about yours, and add value how we know best! Our platform takes into consideration all of the do’s and don’ts from above and is designed to give you an automated and streamlined deal desk.

See how Streemly can solve your pain for a complex sales model and request a demo here.