Boost collaboration in your sales process with Team Selling and Deal revenue's Split—empowering your Zoho CRM for smarter teamwork!

Boost collaboration in your sales process with Team Selling and Deal revenue's Split—empowering your Zoho CRM for smarter teamwork!


AlertThis feature has been released for a majority of users in all DCs. It will be released in a phased manner for the remaining users.

Hello everyone,

As you may all know, closing a deal is rarely a one-person effort. It often involves multiple teams - from pre-sales and marketing to legal and customer success - all working together to close a deal. However, traditional CRM structures only recognized the deal owner, which limited visibility and collaboration for all the other key contributors. Besides, there was no structured way to fairly attribute revenue among all the contributing members as well.

It is to address these challenges that we are excited to introduce Team Selling and Deal Split in the Deals Module. These features make teamwork easier by giving everyone involved access to important deal details while also making sure that their contributions get the credit they deserve.

Let's first look into Team Selling.

Team selling: working together to close deals

Team Selling allows organizations to bring together multiple contributors on a deal, providing them with appropriate access and visibility. Instead of relying solely on the deal owner, teams can now work together efficiently, adding notes, tracking progress, and also sharing important updates within the CRM.

Let's look at how it works for Zylker Inc, a leading SaaS company that specializes in cloud-based software solutions.

So generally, when closing high-value deals, multiple teams are involved, from sales and pre-sales to legal and customer success.

Let’s say the company is working on a huge deal with a large enterprise client. Traditionally, only the sales representative (who is the deal owner) would have access to all deal-related information. However, in reality, closing such a deal would require contributions from multiple teams.

So here’s how Team Selling would help Zylker Inc. streamline collaboration.

Account Executive - A representative of the sales team, the account executive owns the deal and ensures that the deal flows through the blueprint with ease. This also involves tracking the deal's activities and progress.

Pre-Sales Engineer - They provide technical expertise and demonstrate the workings of the product to the client. They help the client customize their CRM system to ensure it meets their needs and solves their problems.

Sales Engineer -They offer insights on integrations with the client’s existing systems and address any concerns that the client may have with regards to technical feasibility.

Marketing Specialist - They share use cases, case studies, and ROI data with the client in order to support the value proposition during discussions.

Legal and Compliance Advisor - They review and negotiate contract terms to meet the client’s compliance requirements.

Customer Success Manager - They ensure the client is confident about onboarding and also of long-term support post-sale.

We've seen the involvement and contribution of numerous teams in the process of closing deals. So how does Team Selling help the company simplify their process?

To start with, the Account Executive sets up the deal in their CRM system. They then configure their preferred team in their personal settings. They assign roles and access levels based on each member's involvement, ensuring that each of them can view and contribute to the process of closing the deal as required.

The Pre-Sales Engineer gathers the client's requirements and shares insights with the team. The Sales Engineer demonstrates technical integrations, while the Marketing Specialist provides the client with material to reinforce the pitch. The Legal Advisor works closely with the client’s legal team in order to address compliance concerns. And as the deal approaches closure, the Customer Success Manager outlines a tailored onboarding plan to instill client confidence.

It is important to note that all team members log their notes, updates, and tasks in the CRM’s deal record. The Account Executive monitors the deal's progress, assigns follow-ups, and ensures everyone is aligned on the next steps.

How to set up Team Selling

  1. Navigate to Settings
    —Go to: Settings > Customization > Modules and Fields > Deal Management.
  2. Configure Team Selling
    —Select the layout.
    —Add team roles such as pre-sales, consultants, or marketers.
    —You can enable the preferred Deal Team option (if required).
    —Save configuration.



3. Configure Preferred Deal Team.
—Go to: Settings > General > Personal Settings.
—Scroll down to Preferred Deal Team.
—Add Members.

Note. You can edit your preferred deal team - including adding or removing a member -or revoke the team altogether.



4. Add Team Members to a Deal.
—Go to the Deals Module.
—Open a deal record and locate the "Deal Team" related list under the stage history.
—Click Add Members, select users, assign roles (as configured earlier), and set access permissions.
—Another option would be to add the Preferred Deal Team (that you had previously created).
—Save your changes.



With these steps, team members can access the deal record based on their assigned roles and permissions.

Next, let us look at the second enhancement - Deal Split.

What is Deal Split?

Here again, the contributions of various team members involved in closing a deal are taken into consideration. Deals Split allows you to allocate the revenue that a company gets from a deal proportionally among team members based on their roles and efforts.

It is important to note here that there are two types of deals splits:

Revenue split: Members who contribute directly to the closure of the deal are included under revenue split. They will have their credits allocated directly based on the deal amount.

For example, the pre-sales engineer would get 10% for converting the cold call to a lead as they are directly contributing to the deal amount.
Note. As the maximum percentage revenue split is 100, the splits of all contributors can add to 100.

Overlay split: Members who have an indirect influence on the deal are included under the overlay split.
Note. Here, their credits can be allocated as a percentage or the split amount itself.

Since they do not contribute to the deal amount directly, their credits do not depend on the deal amount. Hence, the split up can amount up to 1000 per cent.

For example, a consultant who provides research or critical information on the customer. Another example of someone who comes under this category could be a legal team member who helps in drawing up the contract.
Note. As they probably work on fixed charges per hour, the overlay split can be entered as a percentage or an amount.

How to set up Deal Split?

  1. Navigate to Settings
    Go to: Settings > Customization > Modules and Fields > Deal Management.
  2. Toggle on the Deal Split
    Select the type of split you would prefer for your organization.Revenue Split - It must add to a total of 100 per cent.Overlay Split - It can add up to 1000 per cent.
  3. Customize your Deal Team roles with their split percentage.
  4. Save your changes.
  5. Go to the Deals Module.
  6. Open a deal record and locate the "Deal Team" related list.
  7. Click Add Members (to Revenue Split or Overlay Split) and select users, assign roles (as configured earlier), and set access permissions.
  8. Save your changes.

    Note. The existing Deal Team related list records of the above selected layouts will now have the Deal Split records available.
    If either one of the splits is enabled, the existing Deal Team members will be added to the enabled split automatically.
    In case both the splits are enabled, the existing Deal Team members will be included to the Revenue Split. The user can proceed to edit and reassign the members to their required split.
















Why use Team Selling and Deal Split?

  • Improved Collaboration: Ensures seamless teamwork by involving all contributors in a deal.
  • Transparency: Gives team members appropriate access to deal records for better coordination.
  • Fair Recognition: Distributes revenue based on individual contributions, enhancing accountability.

You can now create forecasts based on the splits configured

The introduction of Revenue Split and Overlay Split in Forecast Configuration can help organizations allocate credit fairly among team members who contribute to closing deals.

When a deal’s value is distributed among deal team members using the Revenue Split or Overlay Split, these allocations are automatically reflected in the forecast reports when a split-based forecast is created. By factoring in deal split, organizations get a clearer picture of individual and team contributions and thus can set more realistic targets, track sales team performance, and also distribute incentives effectively.

Since we have already defined the deal split, we can enable it in the configuration of Forecasts.


And then select the type while creating a Forecast.

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Note.
Only the user with Module Customization can configure the Team Selling settings.
Once configured, the users with Manage Deal Team profile permission can manage Deal Team related list and Preferred Deal Team (under Personal Settings).
Please check our help doc for more information on Team Selling and Deal Split.

Availability:  Enterprise, Ultimate, CRMPlus, and Zoho One Enterprise editions.