Cutting down the time it takes to close a B2B deal isn’t just about working harder—it’s about working smarter. If you’re reading this, you’re probably tired of deals stalling out, prospects ghosting you, or endless back-and-forths over proposals. This guide is for sales leaders, ops folks, and reps who want to use tech to actually shorten the sales process, not just add another dashboard to check.
Let’s be clear: no tool is a magic bullet. But Octavehq can save you real time—if you set it up right and focus on what actually matters. Here’s how to do it without wasting your team’s energy or budget.
Step 1: Map Out Where Your Sales Cycle Slows Down
Before you start tossing software at the problem, take a hard look at your current sales process. Where do deals get stuck? Common culprits:
- Proposal creation takes forever
- Approvals (legal, finance, etc.) drag on
- Prospects go quiet after receiving a doc
- Basic info gets lost in email threads
Make a quick list. If you don’t know, ask your top reps. Octavehq is best at speeding up document-heavy stages—think proposals, contracts, and pricing approvals. If your main bottleneck is prospecting, this tool isn’t going to help much.
Pro tip: Be honest about what’s fixable with software vs. what’s a people/process issue. Octavehq can cut busywork, but it can’t make a bad product or a completely unresponsive buyer move faster.
Step 2: Standardize Your Sales Content (Don’t Overdo It)
One of the biggest time-wasters in B2B sales is everyone building their own proposal from scratch. Octavehq lets you create templates for proposals, quotes, and contracts—so you aren’t reinventing the wheel each time.
What to do:
- Audit your current docs: Grab 5–10 recent proposals from your team. What’s consistent? What changes every time?
- Build templates for the 80%: You don’t need a template for every edge case—just the deals you do most often.
- Lock down compliance sections: Let reps fill in the stuff that matters (pricing, scope), but lock anything legal or required.
What works: Start with a simple template, then tweak as you go. Teams that get bogged down “perfecting” their templates never actually start using them.
What to skip: Don’t try to automate every possible variable. If your deals are super custom, focus on what can be standardized (intro, legal, pricing tables).
Step 3: Set Up Approval Workflows That Don’t Suck
Approvals are a huge sticking point, especially when deals need sign-off from legal, finance, or management. Octavehq lets you build approval workflows—so docs get routed automatically to the right people.
How to make this work:
- Map your real-world process: Who actually needs to approve what? Don’t just mirror your org chart—go for the shortest legal path.
- Use conditional approvals: For example, only trigger finance approval if the deal is over $X.
- Keep it simple: The more steps you add, the more likely someone gets stuck.
What works: Fast-tracking small deals, or auto-approving low-risk contracts. Saves time and keeps bigger deals from getting held up by $5k renewals.
What doesn’t: Adding approvals for the sake of “visibility.” If someone just wants to be CC’d, give them view access and move on.
Step 4: Make It Easy for Prospects to Interact (and Sign)
Sending a giant PDF and hoping your buyer reads it is a recipe for ghosting. Octavehq lets you send interactive, web-based proposals—so buyers can review, comment, and even sign in one place.
Best practices:
- Use interactive pricing tables: Let buyers select options or see instant calculations. This cuts out days of “Can you send a version with X?” emails.
- Add clear “Next Steps” sections: Spell out what happens after they sign. Don’t assume they know the process.
- Enable in-document comments or chat: If your buyer has questions, they can ask right there—instead of starting a new email thread.
What’s overrated: Over-designing your proposals. A clean, easy-to-read doc is better than a flashy one that takes forever to load or confuses people.
Step 5: Track Buyer Engagement (But Don’t Stalk)
One of the handier features in Octavehq is seeing who’s viewed your doc, when, and what they focused on. This can help you time your follow-ups and spot potential blockers.
What to pay attention to:
- Who actually viewed the doc? If only your champion opened it, you’re not selling to the real decision maker yet.
- Where did they spend time? If legal combed through terms, you know what’s holding things up.
- Did they share it internally? More views from new people means the deal might be moving—time to offer help.
Don’t overdo it: Don’t use this data to send creepy “I saw you spent 12 minutes on page 3…” emails. Use it to inform your strategy, not annoy your prospects.
Step 6: Automate Reminders and Follow-Ups
Chasing signatures is a huge time sink. Octavehq can send automated reminders to buyers who haven’t signed or viewed a doc. Used well, this keeps deals moving without you nagging.
How to set it up:
- Customize reminder timing: Don’t spam buyers daily. A gentle nudge every few days is plenty.
- Personalize messages: Automated doesn’t have to mean robotic. Add a human touch to reminder text.
- Pause reminders if they reply: Nothing’s worse than a buyer getting a “reminder” after they already asked a question.
What doesn’t work: Relying only on automation. If a deal’s stuck, pick up the phone or send a thoughtful email.
Step 7: Integrate Octavehq with Your CRM (If It Actually Helps)
Most sales teams already live in Salesforce, HubSpot, or another CRM. Octavehq can connect to these, so you don’t have to re-enter data or hunt for docs.
Tips for real-world use:
- Push key doc data into your CRM: Like sent date, signed date, and deal value—so you can report on what matters.
- Don’t force integration if it breaks: If the sync is buggy or slows you down, stick to exporting PDFs or links for now.
- Keep permissions tight: Make sure only the right folks can see or edit docs from your CRM.
Pro tip: Integrations are great if they actually save time. If you spend more time troubleshooting than selling, skip it (or revisit when you have more bandwidth).
Step 8: Review, Improve, and Keep It Simple
After a month or so, look at your new sales cycle metrics. Are deals moving faster? Are reps actually using Octavehq, or are they working around it? Tweak as needed:
- Kill templates or steps no one uses.
- Shorten approval chains.
- Train (or re-train) anyone who’s confused.
Don’t treat your Octavehq setup as “finished.” The best teams keep it lean, make small changes, and don’t let the tool become another thing to babysit.
Final Thoughts: Don’t Overcomplicate It
The real win here isn’t fancy automation or dashboards—it’s making it stupid-easy for your team to send, track, and close deals. Octavehq works best when you keep your process simple and focus on removing friction, not adding features.
Start small, fix the biggest bottlenecks first, and don’t be afraid to change what’s not working. The fastest sales cycles usually come from teams that actually use their tools—not just pay for them.