Richard Kask
Director of Growth at Nucleus Networks
Nucleus Networks, a leading Managed IT Services provider, is all about helping clients elevate their business by supercharging their technology investment. So, when they realized their system for sending deal documents was far from innovative, they knew it was time to get their closing process on the digital transformation train.
“We are a tech support company so If we are not using technology for our own processes then we are not practicing what we preach.”
With four locations across Canada (Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, & Toronto), the Nucleus Networks sales team consists of Outside Sales, Client Success, and Project Services that all have multi-level document types going out to prospects and clients. From NDAs to formal proposals, they needed a solution that could support each team and each unique workflow.
Nucleus set the goals for increased automation and elevated client experience in 2020, so it was important to find a solution that would support these initiatives. That meant a better way to draft, approve, and send their deal documents that streamlined their process, highlighted their professionalism, bridged the gap between a growing team, and let clients feel confident and supported through the close.
As a small agile team, Richard Kask, Director of Growth says that using Word documents was working for a while but meant extensive QA reviews, and being overly cautious and attentive when it came to finalizing and approving their deal documents to ensure they were going out accurate and error-free. They also had their team drafting and sending estimates through emails which simply wasn’t the best use of their time.
As the team started to scale and they had no formal process for tracking and managing documents, Richard was highly motivated to find a better solution.
“The driver to find a solution was our growth. We were focused on a cross Canada presence so needed to ensure standardization and provide autonomy to get deals out that were consistent, accurate, and on-brand.”
After researching several solutions and narrowing it down to just a couple, Richard landed on Proposify. He quickly realized through the trial, demo, and working with the Proposify team, that it was a tool he could easily adopt and roll out to the rest of their users. More importantly, Proposify could help with more than just proposals.
“The big push was the automation and centralization – enhancing the client experience and making our team more efficient. From sending a nice welcome package to getting a quick sign-off on NDAs, it was for more than just proposals. Proposify provided us with a platform to leverage all external-facing documents that have the Nucleus brand on it.”
Once Proposify was chosen, Richard took the reins on becoming the product champion and ensuring it was rolled out properly. He worked with the Proposify customer success team to ensure he was using best practices and setting the groundwork for the rest of the team. He set up group onboarding sessions and offered personal training to anyone that needed it and it wasn’t long before the entire team was embracing the new tool.
“Once we implemented Proposify we were able to remove bottlenecks and get deals to clients and prospects faster with increased internal collaboration and working more cross-functionally as a team. Everyone is becoming power-users and feels more confident in the process.”
Streamlining and automation is providing major value across Nucleus Networks. One major impact has been with the Project Services team. Their Solutions Architects used to spend a lot of time drafting estimates and the sales team would deliver them through email. Now estimates are set up as pre-approved templates that not only make the team look more professional but allows the Project Services team to focus more on scoping projects instead of pulling together pricing and budget estimate proposals.
“Proposify helped remove a massive QA process which has sped things up exponentially. Even if reps could get a quote out in 15 minutes previously, now some proposals only take 5 minutes! It really adds up when you are sending so many in the run of a week!”
There are a lot more automated features that Nucleus set up to tighten their entire closing process. Setting up automation within the document, like having pricing tables take care of the calculations and populate service descriptions and fees, has been another major win for their team and helps in meeting strict compliance measures.
“It sounds like a really small thing but when you're going from an environment of basically doing everything manually, those little wins add up to a significant amount of time.”
Richard says Proposify has allowed the team to be more efficient and provided standardization across their sales process. There are formal templates that 10 to 15 people can go in and easily access and update. They can set up their deal documents without having to talk to the leadership or marketing team. This means the team is able to confidently and accurately create their own proposals.
“The team can now take a document to 75% completion before asking for a review. It has allowed us cross-functionally as a team to work more efficiently together. It gives the team the autonomy they need to get the deal to the finish line faster and with confidence.”
Even with all the internal efficiencies and collaboration, Richard says the real value of Proposify is for their prospects and clients. There are a lot of documents and negotiations that go into closing a deal for the Nucleus team. But with Proposify, once a client is ready it's a much easier and more enjoyable experience, plus the speed to get deals approved, signed and sent back has increased tenfold.
“At our core, we are here to support our clients. Proposify makes it easier for them to view, collaborate, and sign-off. Even if they still like the old-fashioned PDF, we can support that. It’s flexible, slick, and makes us look more professional.”
Historically the client journey was cumbersome and looked like this:
Nucleus Networks now has a cohesive and consistent client experience across regions and deal documents. With a strong cross-Canada presence, Richard says they feel confident that what a team member gives to somebody in Calgary, Toronto, or Vancouver is the exact same experience, with that added personal touch.
While clients are enjoying the added support and ability to collaborate and quickly sign off on documents, the Nucleus sales team is loving the insights and metrics that Proposify delivers. Previously, it was difficult to track the overall number of proposals being delivered and what stage each proposal was at.
“Proposify provides us with great metrics to track the overall proposal pipeline; the number of proposals in creation, how many have been delivered, signed, etc. It gives us good insight, based on where these proposals are at, to use these metrics to plan new-client onboarding and project timelines.”
Nucleus Networks is continuing to find ways to use Proposify to add value and lockdown efficiencies. Overall, Richard feels they have just scratched the surface but there is no denying that they have more transparency, more collaboration, less admin work, and far fewer bottlenecks since they started using Proposify.
“If we want to continue to grow, to be a healthy company and to be an industry leader, we need to use tools like Proposify.”
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