A Manufacturing Company Accelerates Growth with Sales Cloud

The Challenges

Before working with Kelley Austin, our client in the Manufacturing Industry was having difficulties tracking their sales from start to finish. As a manufacturer of products used by the U.S. Department of Defense as well as various governments internationally, our client was in need of a CRM equipped to handle their complex sales process.

Our client was using a CRM with little functionality and integration options as well as relying on outdated paper methods for tracking sales. Our client’s sales team is small and has a unique sales process that differs from many companies in the Manufacturing Industry. Sales reps are not simply quoting out a module with the customer replying back with ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to purchase the product. Sales reps are required to go through intermediary partners or government buyers before a purchase can be made. In other words, sales reps must provide quotes to a middleman for bidding. These deals are often multi-year, which further complicates the sales cycle. Sometimes funding is only approved for a certain amount of time, which means products that couldn’t be purchased go back into the opportunity stage until funding is eventually approved.

Tracking different quotes for products was another large challenge for our client. Before working with our team, our client was using spreadsheets to keep track of products and quotes. This process was tedious for sales reps and was ultimately costing our client time and money. 

The Solution

Our team implemented Sales Cloud for our client so they could reap the benefits of a robust CRM and track opportunities using Opportunity Management. We also set up Accounts & Contact Management, which provides our client’s sales team with a holistic view of customers, including activity history, key contacts, customer communications, and internal account discussions.

“It was really nice working with fellow veterans that shared a similar background to myself. It also didn’t hurt that I’d used their product in the past when I was overseas. Since I had some inside knowledge and interest, it made the project even more interesting to work on. Overall, I learned a lot about what it’s like working with government contractors and how multi-year quoting and government bidding works. I most definitely look forward to working with this client again.” — Alex Lenox, Manager • Salesforce Core

To improve the quoting process, we built out a quoting system with custom functionality so that when partial quotes are won during bidding, our client can still track the products that aren’t won by third parties during the bidding stage. We streamlined the quoting process for sales reps by standardizing everything in Sales Cloud, which included adding fields, page layouts, and record types. 

Customer Impact

_Before implementing Salesforce, our client was using a CRM that offered very few options in terms of customization and functionality. Sales Cloud allows our client to organize contacts, schedule tasks, and manage deals more efficiently. With Sales Cloud, our client can also forecast revenue, which was not something they were able to do without a powerful CRM in place.

The custom quoting tool built by our team has also greatly improved the complex sales cycle for our client, which involves working with intermediary partners who place bids on their products. Sales reps can work more efficiently and close more deals without having to reference multiple spreadsheets and worry if information is accurate.