The challenge
Vallen Distribution faced a common challenge in their sales operations — creating accurate, professional and consistent sales documents. Vallen sales reps regularly work big deals ranging from $2 million to $200 million and generated proposals using the tedious “File Save As” method, leading to errors and brand inconsistency across documents.
The solution
Vallen Distribution implemented PandaDoc with the Zapier integration to create an automated workflow to streamline the proposal creation process, reducing their time to create proposals by 75%. With PandaDoc, they ensure brand consistency across all proposals while allowing for customization and personalization for every proposal sent.
Brand inconsistencies slowed sales down
Vallen’s previous method of proposal and RFP creation was both time-consuming and prone to errors. Sales reps were creating their own documents with their own language and write-ups about Vallen. Their business development team, responsible for securing deals of significant value, needed to convey Vallen’s capabilities and history in a consistent and professional manner.
Emily Maxwell, Strategic Proposals Manager, said it best:
“We’re Vallen — we shouldn’t have 14 different ways of saying who Vallen is. It was crucial to make [proposals] more professional, consistent and reduce error rate.”
Emily chose PandaDoc for its powerful customization and automation capabilities, which directly addressed their main pain points of inefficiency and inconsistency in proposal creation. The decision was influenced by PandaDoc’s ability to integrate seamlessly with Zapier, which lets you connect PandaDoc with thousands of apps to automate workflows with no code required. Leveraging this integration offered Vallen much more flexibility than was previously possible.
Automating proposal creation
Leveraging the powerful capabilities of PandaDoc alongside Zapier’s automations, Vallen Distribution crafted an innovative workflow centered around a SmartSheet webform. The form is designed to streamline the proposal creation process based on reps’ responses. If sales reps indicate specific needs or preferences, the system determines the type of executive summary that would best suit their request. Six of these summaries have been prepared by Vallen, stored in PandaDoc, and linked to this SmartSheet form.
Once a form is filled out and submitted by a sales rep, corresponding variables are matched and added to a row in SmartSheet, initiating the automation process. This automation is not only about matching the right template but also about integrating the process with Vallen’s sales opportunity tracker. The moment a new entry is added, PandaDoc automatically generates a document based on the pre-selected template. This seamless integration between SmartSheet and PandaDoc significantly reduced their teams manual input, ensuring that sales documents are created accurately and efficiently.
Appropriate team members then receive the auto-generated document directly in their inbox to review, suggest edits and approve. Sales reps and stakeholders no longer have to get into the weeds of proposal creation – it’s as easy as making quick updates to a pre-generated proposal, turning proposals around faster and maintaining a higher standard of quality and consistency.
PandaDoc’s Zapier integration reduced proposal creation time by 75%
Vallen Distribution’s custom automation with PandaDoc and Zapier has dramatically transformed their operational efficiency, reducing the time preparing proposals and RFP documents from 6–8 hours to just two hours. With a lengthy buyer’s journey, their sales reps don’t have time to waste manually preparing proposals. With PandaDoc, Vallen gives time back to their reps to nurture and educate prospects throughout the complexities of an extended sales cycle.
The power of PandaDoc
Vallen Distribution’s creative use of PandaDoc with the Zapier integration has optimized efficiency but also enhanced the quality and consistency of their sales documents, empowering their team to focus more on strategic sales initiatives rather than administrative tasks.
The transformation Vallen experienced illustrates the powerful impact of integrating automation tools in modern sales operations. Ready to reduce time spent on your own manual proposal creation? Book a demo
About Vallen
Vallen Distribution is recognized as a premier distributor of indirect materials, specializing in best-in-class Maintenance, Repair, Operations, and Production (MROP) products. With the recent acquisition of Wesco Integrated Supply, Vallen is now the largest provider of Indirect Integrated Supply Solution with revenue of over $3B annually. Vallen Distribution aims to provide unparalleled service and value, making them a go-to source for businesses looking for competitive prices on superior products and end-to-end indirect supply chain solutions.
