After a doozy of an economic year in 2022, business leaders are setting new goals. The last few years have shown that when companies balance being practical with having an exciting vision, they are well-positioned to withstand challenging circumstances. Going into this new year, strategic units across the business are starting strong by improving deal acceleration.
Cross-functional collaboration is an absolute must to close deals quickly. Legal needs to work with both sales and customer success (CS) to encourage renewals, upsell and cross-sell, and close deals faster. Together, your teams should align on customer needs, make the right promises, and fulfill them.
The year's first quarter is crucial, so get some early wins and set the tone for the rest of the year. Here are some ways you can get your teams on the same page to improve deal acceleration.
Plan Ahead for 2023 Renewals
New year, new renewals. Even if customers seem set to renew their contract, you never know what circumstances they might find themselves in. Don’t let churn sneak up on you — be proactive in figuring out your customer’s intentions and make a plan of attack from there.
Use your contract lifecycle management (CLM) repository to filter through contracts with upcoming renewals. Then work with CS to learn whether the customer plans to renew, why or why not, and what changes to the existing agreement legal might need to prepare for to make the renewal process go more quickly.
Prioritize Accounts Together to Improve Deal Acceleration
A warm deal closes faster. This goes for new business as well as existing customers. When a person is more familiar with your brand and product and the ways you can solve their current problems, half the work is already done. Combine that with sales’s knowledge of the market and CS’s knowledge of the customer base and you have the critical pieces needed for a targeted strategy to close deals faster.
Together they can determine whether the customer’s needs are being met and prepare for a renewal or an upsell. They can also establish whether customers are unhappy and make a plan to address the problems or recognize a bad fit when you see one and cut ties.
Knowing what customers your company sees the most success with helps sales prioritize the accounts to pursue. This helps to cut down sales’ time working the deal and legal’s time preparing the contract.
Use CLM Data to Make Decisions
Your CLM is a rich repository of business data that can guide your team in making informed decisions. As your teams reach consensus about your ideal customer profile (ICP), CLM data can add further insights that help you grease the wheels of a deal.
CLM provides historical data that cross-functional teams can use to calculate success rates of certain agreement types and customers. You can also deduce net revenue retention from your CLM, and alongside sales and CS, solidify a strategy to close upsells and new deals faster.
Takeaways
Cross-functional collaboration among sales, customer success, and legal helps improve deal acceleration. Together, your teams can come up with more effective strategies for closing deals quickly and seamlessly. See how LinkSquares CLM can help you make it happen. Request a demo today.
