Lumina Solar Reduces Time to Reconcile Commissions
Andrea Chávez
Key Challenges
Lack of visibility for sales and finance teams
While sales reps are primarily focused on closing deals fast, sales and finance leadership need to ensure that quotes are accurate, budgets are sound, and revenue projections are credible. But when sales reps have to manually choose the correct product and pricing package from a product catalog, they can make mistakes. This causes the management to spend time verifying those deals during and even after the sales process. Every potential pricing error slows down the sales cycle and requires finance teams to spend extra resources to reconcile commissions after the sale. Lumina Solars’ finance team, for example, had no visibility on why sales reps gave steep discounts or sold products outside of the pricing book forcing them to confirm each deal that was an anomaly directly with the sales leaders. Their finance team used to spend 8 hours a month reconciling commissions.
'With Nextshore, we’re able to deliver value to customers 2-3 times faster than before'
While sales reps are primarily focused on closing deals fast, sales and finance leadership need to ensure that quotes are accurate, budgets are sound, and revenue projections are credible. But when sales reps have to manually choose the correct product and pricing package from a product catalog, they can make mistakes. This causes the management to spend time verifying those deals during and even after the sales process. Every potential pricing error slows down the sales cycle and requires finance teams to spend extra resources to reconcile commissions after the sale. Lumina Solars’ finance team, for example, had no visibility on why sales reps gave steep discounts or sold products outside of the pricing book forcing them to confirm each deal that was an anomaly directly with the sales leaders. Their finance team used to spend 8 hours a month reconciling commissions.
Inaccurate forecasting of inventory and materials
Rather than storing all of their inventory at once, many companies order materials and maintain inventory as needed. Such is this case with Lumina Solar. For example, they had a general sense of how many quotes their sales team were sending out, and for what types of panels, but didn’t know the exact details such as what deals were likely to close, and when. This made it extremely difficult for them to forecast inventory accurately.
'Rather than storing all of their inventory at once, many companies order materials and maintain inventory as needed. Such is this case with Lumina Solar.'
For example, they had a general sense of how many quotes their sales team were sending out, and for what types of panels, but didn’t know the exact details such as what deals were likely to close, and when. This made it extremely difficult for them to forecast inventory accurately.
Rather than storing all of their inventory at once, many companies order materials and maintain inventory as needed. Such is this case with Lumina Solar. For example, they had a general sense of how many quotes their sales team were sending out, and for what types of panels, but didn’t know the exact details such as what deals were likely to close, and when. This made it extremely difficult for them to forecast inventory accurately.
Rather than storing all of their inventory at once, many companies order materials and maintain inventory as needed. Such is this case with Lumina Solar. For example, they had a general sense of how many quotes their sales team were sending out, and for what types of panels, but didn’t know the exact details such as what deals were likely to close, and when. This made it extremely difficult for them to forecast inventory accurately.
Rather than storing all of their inventory at once, many companies order materials and maintain inventory as needed. Such is this case with Lumina Solar. For example, they had a general sense of how many quotes their sales team were sending out, and for what types of panels, but didn’t know the exact details such as what deals were likely to close, and when. This made it extremely difficult for them to forecast inventory accurately.
Impact by the numbers
94%
reduction in time to reconcile commissions
80%
less time to send sales proposals
3
fewer tools required to send and sign sales proposals
Choosing Nextshore
For an extended period, Lumina Solar avoided implementing a CPQ as the project seemed daunting and would take too much time. When Lumina Solar discovered DealHub, they were excited for the opportunity to get work with an in-house customer success person that guides on best practices and has a lot of experience implementing CPQ.
DealHub Revenue Amplification platform unified multiple solutions like eSign.
Furthermore, the DealHub Revenue Amplification platform unified multiple solutions like eSign, sales proposals, contract management, and CPQ making the implementation process a one time project instead of multiple projects over a longer period of time.
Key Successes
Reconciling commissions 94% faster
By using DealHub’s guided selling methodology and technology, sales reps are guided to ask the relevant questions during a sales call to create the appropriate quote and sales proposal in real-time. Sales and finance leaders are confident that sales representatives create accurate quotes during the first iteration based on the answers the reps put into DealHub’s system. They were no longer dependent on reps to choose the right pricing and packaging after gathering information.
'Finance leaders now have visibility in Salesforce CRM on approved discounts and approved custom built packages that are not found in the price book. With visibility and more confidence they can approve commissions in 30 minutes, or 94% faster, than they used to. '
Accurately forecasting inventory and materials
With DealHub, data is synced to Salesforce CRM so everyone can see how many quotes were sent, which products were being sold, the location of the customers and more. This enables the finance teams to build up-to-date reports, forecast sales and inventory needs. This way they can secure new materials and reduce time to go from close to installation.
Sending sales proposals 80% faster
Now, Lumina Solar sales reps are able to send a branded DealRoom to each customer. Including an accurate quote and the right product specs, along with personalized sales and marketing assets. And they’re able to do so during their first sales meeting, instead of sending the sales proposal 20 minutes afterwards – or whenever they find time to get around to it. Their DealRoom includes contract management and eSign technology that saves sales reps from slowing the sales cycle by having to send additional documents in multiple emails. Furthermore, their DealRoom included a video testimonial that is automatically matched to the buyers location making each DealRoom look personalized.
"DealHub Revenue Amplification platform unified multiple solutions like eSign"
Now, Lumina Solar sales reps are able to send a branded DealRoom to each customer. Including an accurate quote and the right product specs, along with personalized sales and marketing assets. And they’re able to do so during their first sales meeting, instead of sending the sales proposal 20 minutes afterwards – or whenever they find time to get around to it. Their DealRoom includes contract management and eSign technology that saves sales reps from slowing the sales cycle by having to send additional documents in multiple emails. Furthermore, their DealRoom included a video testimonial that is automatically matched to the buyers location making each DealRoom look personalized.
Now, Lumina Solar sales reps are able to send a branded DealRoom to each customer. Including an accurate quote and the right product specs, along with personalized sales and marketing assets. And they’re able to do so during their first sales meeting, instead of sending the sales proposal 20 minutes afterwards – or whenever they find time to get around to it. Their DealRoom includes contract management and eSign technology that saves sales reps from slowing the sales cycle by having to send additional documents in multiple emails. Furthermore, their DealRoom included a video testimonial that is automatically matched to the buyers location making each DealRoom look personalized.
Now, Lumina Solar sales reps are able to send a branded DealRoom to each customer. Including an accurate quote and the right product specs, along with personalized sales and marketing assets. And they’re able to do so during their first sales meeting, instead of sending the sales proposal 20 minutes afterwards – or whenever they find time to get around to it. Their DealRoom includes contract management and eSign technology that saves sales reps from slowing the sales cycle by having to send additional documents in multiple emails. Furthermore, their DealRoom included a video testimonial that is automatically matched to the buyers location making each DealRoom look personalized.
Impact by the numbers
27%
reduction in time to reconcile commissions
120
sales proposals sent
3%
tools required to send and sign sales proposals
