In today’s competitive landscape, sales teams face increasing pressure to produce more than ever before with fewer resources.

To accomplish this, sales leaders must find ways to enhance their team’s sales capacity and allow them to generate revenue more efficiently.

The key to achieving this nirvana? Automation. Particularly of tasks that consume excessive amounts of sellers’ time without adding corresponding value. 

What’s the most common culprit here? Document work. Something that rarely makes the job description but is critical to getting deals done. Think about it, there’s no closed sale without a proposal, capability deck, product description, ROI model and more.  

Compiling these documents is incredibly time-consuming and involves a huge amount of manual work. According to a recent study*, enterprise employees create 172 documents per week and 72% said they’re frustrated by this time-consuming work. 

By automating document work, sales teams can work more efficiently, focusing on high-value activities and ultimately increasing their capacity to drive revenue growth. 

Why document work consumes sales capacity

There are several reasons why document work drastically cuts into sales capacity, but one theme stands out: it’s too manual and the right technology is often not in place to support the creation process.  

Based on the recent survey findings, employees cite the following pain points as reasons why document work impedes their capacity:   

• Inefficient document workflows (33%) 
• Outdated IT infrastructure (28%)  
• Difficulty finding or accessing the right information (28%)  
• Too many rules and regulations to follow (27%) 
• Insufficient training or guidance on document procedures (14%) 

Furthermore, almost a quarter (24%) said document work takes so much time because they don’t have automation tools available to expedite the process.  

But there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Document automation is set to be a priority for 37% of enterprises over the next 12 months, with a further 38% having already discussed or initiated plans to adopt new document automation tools. Welcome news for busy sales teams. 

The transformative power of document automation

Document automation holds the potential to revolutionize sales capacity by enabling teams to focus on the work that matters.  

When they’re not spending time in PowerPoint or Excel, they can instead focus on the interpersonal components of sales – like business development and customer engagement – to increase their revenue generation. Not to mention, automating document creation often results in better quality documents.  

In fact, Templafy customers have found 30% faster document and presentation creation without compromising accuracy.  

How does it work in practice? Implementing a document automation solution, such as Templafy, provides sellers with easily accessible templates that automatically adapt to their workflow without sacrificing accuracy or quality. The platform automatically pulls in brand-approved, accurate content and information to ensure global brand compliance in all documents – without negatively impacting sales capacity.  

Simply put, document automation tools like Templafy enable better, safer and faster document creation to give sellers time back in their days to close more deals.  

Automation is critical to sales capacity

Automation is no longer negotiable for sales teams seeking to unlock their full potential. By embracing document automation, sales leaders can eliminate time-consuming tasks, increase sales capacity and empower their teams to focus on revenue-generating activities.  

Embracing automation technology is a strategic move that aligns sales processes with the demands of the dynamic business landscape, ensuring that sales teams can achieve their maximum potential and seize new opportunities for success. 

*Research Methodology: This survey was conducted by Templafy and Kickstand between April 20, 2023 – May 9, 2023. Respondents were 1,209 full-time workers at enterprise level-organizations (1,000+ staff) in the US and UK. 50% of survey respondents had budget ownership within their organizations.