Electronic Signature Technology Creates Customers

One of the hardest things to do in business is to convert more leads into sales.  You’ve spent all that money on sales and marketing programs and you’ve got lots of leads flowing into the sales funnel.  But how many of those leads really turn into actual paying customers?  What is your sales close rate? Certainly not 75-100 percent. Most likely it is closer to 5 percent or 20-30 percent if you’re doing really, really well.

So, in an effort to close more deals, many companies bring in a sales guru.  Just the name alone, sales guru, should be a tip off that this may not be a good thing. A guru implies some sort of black art, secret pearls of wisdom that will magically transform your sales team in President’s Club performers across the board.

It just doesn’t work that way.  Very rarely does all that money spent on gurus amount to long-term sustainable increases in sales. Sales people have to eat and are generally pretty motivated.  More likely, there are sales close problems that enable your competitors to grab the customer and undermine your business – and hold back revenue.

That’s where DocuSign comes in.

One of the process breakdowns we see often is when it comes time to send prospects the closing package for signature.  By the time you print, fax and deliver your package, the prospect has had time to get buyer’s remorse or to shop your competitors.  In the financial services industry this delay is called “breakage.”  A survey by research firm Profitable Channels of more than 50 retail financial services executives showed that up to 70 percent of leads for loans and lines of credit “fall out of the funnel” after they are approved.  And that was in good times when the economy was rolling along. Ouch.

With DocuSign, your sales reps can lock in prospects in minutes rather than days by getting them to sign and commit using the Web. Instead of your prospects falling out of the funnel, they can immediately become long-term customers.  Unlike the sales guru who offers a fuzzy return on investment, DocuSign’s is much more measurable, profitable and (though this might sound like a Sales Guru) very quick to be felt by a business. If you’re still relying on paper contracts, it might be worthwhile to research how DocuSign can help you turn more leads into deals. Now. You can still bring in the sales guru, but at least you’ll be able to afford to pay him.