In today's fast-paced sales landscape, manual quoting errors and slow sales cycles are no longer an option. Welcome to CPQ Talk, the podcast dedicated to helping you streamline your sales process. This episode dives into the fundamental shift in the B2B buying journey, where a staggering 80-90% of buyers have already formed a shortlist of preferred brands before ever engaging with a vendor. We'll explore why traditional quoting methods often fall short and how to transform your quotes from static documents into dynamic, collaborative, and indispensable tools that build trust and drive decisions.

• Key Takeaways:

  • The Modern Buyer's Reality: Learn about the self-educated buyer who prefers a digital-first, self-service approach for gathering information and making initial purchase decisions. Research shows that 94% of buyers conduct thorough online research before contacting a vendor.

  • Common Quoting Pitfalls: Understand the issues that make quotes miss the mark, including inefficiency, a lack of transparency, and generic offers that fail to capture the complexity of modern products.

  • What Buyers Really Want: Discover the core expectations of today's buyers: clarity, transparency, trust, and a focus on value and outcomes. A striking 57% of B2B software buyers expect ROI within just three months of purchase.

  • Transforming the Quote: Get actionable insights on how to create interactive and collaborative quotes that allow buyers to configure products and see pricing in real time. Frame your quotes in terms of business outcomes and ROI, rather than just a list of costs.

  • The New Standard: The episode emphasizes that the true power of a quote lies in its ability to contribute to the buyer's overall journey, fostering clarity, collaboration, and confidence every step of the way. This transforms a mere transaction into a lasting relationship.

Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen directly at https://cpqtalk.com/.

Picture this: your sales team works hard to close a big deal. The quote is delivered, the customer is excited, but then… everything slows down. Approvals take days, contracts bounce back and forth, and Finance struggles to align the invoice with the original quote. Suddenly, what should have been a quick win drags on for weeks—and cash that should already be in the bank is stuck in limbo.

This is the reality of a broken Quote-to-Cash process, and it’s costing companies more than they realize. In this episode of CPQ Talk, we demystify the entire journey, breaking down each step from configuration and quoting, through approvals and contracting, all the way to invoicing and collections. Along the way, we highlight the common pitfalls that derail deals—like discount creep, unclear ownership, and messy handoffs between departments.

You’ll also discover practical ways to fix them. We cover how to streamline approvals without losing control, enforce pricing discipline, and keep Sales, Finance, and Operations working in sync. We also explore the key metrics you should be tracking to forecast cash flow and accelerate revenue recognition.

If you’ve ever felt the frustration of “closed-won” deals that don’t actually translate to cash, this episode will give you the clarity and tactics you need to close the loop.

Listen now and subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen directly on the podcast website: https://cpqtalk.com/

Welcome back to CPQ Talk! In this episode, we're putting two powerful quoting platforms in the ring for a head-to-head review: DealHub and Proposify.

Are you a sales professional looking for a solution to streamline your proposals and close deals faster? This episode is for you. We break down the key features, pros, and cons of both platforms to help you make an informed decision.

Tune in as we compare their strengths in areas like proposal automation, e-signatures, and CRM integration, and find out which one is the right fit for your business.

Subscribe to CPQ Talk for more expert reviews and discussions on all things Configure, Price, Quote!