Sales are a company's lifeblood. Contracts clarify, frame, and distill these sales into documents. In agile, successful companies, contracting is a collaborative and transparent process, and a successful partnership between the sales team and contracting group can serve not only to reduce enterprise risk but also accelerate business opportunities.
Regardless of where a company operates or what it sells, getting this collaboration right serves as a powerful growth engine. This article will explore sales and contracting team best practices to accelerate the contracting process and provide powerful sales growth. The key standards this article will focus on include forecasting, integrated feedback loops, transparent frameworks, and the importance of a customer-centric approach.
Forecasting together
Perhaps nothing is more frustrating to a sales team than getting within sight of the finish line on a key win with a client, only to realize that terms and conditions need to be negotiated and that the parties are nowhere near to agreement on how those should look. Similarly, spending time and effort pursuing an opportunity with a company that the contract team knows will never provide reasonable terms (or pay their bills) wastes precious time that sales experts could use to target truly reliable and collaborative partners.
The key to avoiding these stumbling blocks is to ensure regular, structured sales and contracting team meetings and communication paths are integrated into standard business forecasting processes. For example, conducting weekly meetings to review the sales funnel1 and project contractual requirements for projects 3-6 months out helps ensure awareness and prioritization of upcoming negotiations. Problematic partners can be identified in time to either hunker down for a challenging negotiation or be rejected if they are simply untouchable. Complex, multiparty projects can be mapped out with plenty of time to align on terms and requirements so that the contract supports, rather than delays, the business. Aligning on when and how the legal team engages in a sales pursuit is key to avoiding last-minute, and often disappointing, surprises.
Feedback Loops
No one knows a customer better than the sales teams that support them. Sales experts understand the nuances of their people and processes, anticipate client needs, and can explain their customers’ business strategies. They strive to provide a tailored solution that will match not only their current requirements, but also their future vision. Conversely, the contracting team historically received a statement of work (SOW) and a template contract and were encouraged to negotiate and execute a document on a single transaction basis. While their business acumen may have been high in regard to understanding their own company’s offerings and place in the market, their customer understanding was limited to whatever crumbs were apparent in the SOW or from chance conversations with the team putting the proposal together.
Legal and contracting teams can help by showing sales teams flexibility in the contracting vehicles. Insisting on staying on a ‘perfect’ template agreement comes across to the sales team and clients as intransigent . Perhaps giant Fortune 100 companies can obstinately refuse to budge off their templates, but for the rest of the business world, the ability to work well with others is crucial. Sales experts must share client insights on a regular basis to ensure success and mutual understanding. What is driving their negotiation strategy, what do they really care about, and where can they show flexibility? When the sales team can offer insights, such as ‘Company X is hypersensitive about intellectual property rights because they are developing a new product that they feel is a game changer,’ then the contracting team can inform their negotiation accordingly. Giving a little on IP terms in return for favorable limitations on liability is a great approach but requires the insights of the sales team and business acumen on the contracting team’s side to come together. Appropriate flexibility from the contracting team paired with client insights from the sales team allows each stakeholder to bring their expertise to the game, improving both the employee owner and customer experience.
Transparent Frameworks
Contracting works poorly when it is done in a vacuum. One of the most important benefits of a contract lifecycle management (CLM) system is that it encourages participation from all relevant stakeholders by opening up the contracting process to scrutiny and transparency. At Novaspect, we targeted a CLM system that did not charge per licensed user, so that we could authorize any and all stakeholders to leverage the benefits of the platform. Every salesperson and project manager in the company, which is employee-owned and prioritizes transparency, has full access to the system, so that they can not only add and track tickets, but also access and search the archive on their own when they want to check on agreement details.
The sales team at Novaspect relies on our customer relationship management (CRM) platform to store key customer information and manage opportunities in the sales funnel. By integrating our CLM and CRM platforms, sales team members have visibility to contract related data in their core tool, in addition to direct CLM access when even more detailed information is needed. By tracking the opportunity funnel and upcoming “must wins” together, the contracting and sales teams can jointly ensure that the right agreements are in place to support the intended project. Where contract negotiations are needed, the group can prioritize the needs together, providing clarity on where discussions stand on a weekly basis. This also helps the contracting team to highlight any workload concerns and for business unit leaders to see the full spectrum of tasks that require attention and time from the contracting experts. Utilizing a framework of shared tools and cross-functional meetings enables open exchanges on priorities and pending tasks, preventing the contracting teams from being under intense pressure to negotiate agreements on unrealistic timelines. By avoiding employee owner burnout and allowing ample time to negotiate, the company also avoids less-than-optimal terms by ensuring that contracting does not become a last-minute chokepoint for projects.
Training exchanges are also extremely beneficial. At Novaspect, our legal and contracting teams have monthly training sessions with the sales teams to go through topics such as insurance language, warranty clauses, and limitations on liability. This helps them understand what areas are challenging for negotiation and what risks the company is exposed to in the contracting process. They can act as helpful co-negotiators when speaking with the client about our contractual limits and preferences. Conversely, the sales experts can help to educate the contracting team about what market norms are for contractual language and help to improve the business acumen of the contracting team so that they better understand client requests for non-standard language in sensitive areas such as intellectual property.
Customer-Centric Approach
Customer engagement surveys and client feedback tell us how we are as partners. Is the contracting process a headache and if so, why? Are legal teams viewed as partners or roadblocks? “Customer-centric” contracting is where sales and contracting teams collaborate to understand long-term customer needs and negotiate accordingly. By using sales team insights and finding innovative and flexible solutions to address client needs in the contracting process, companies can build up goodwill and smooth out negotiations. This does not mean absorbing unnecessary risk or taking ‘a bad deal’ but rather using sales insights to think strategically about the contracting process and offer win-win solutions to clients while minimizing friction during negotiation.
One tip in this area is to include contracting and legal personnel in customer visits outside of the negotiation process. This not only humanizes contracting, but it also helps to create key personal ties to strategic allies on the customer’s team. It will also open communication channels and build empathy and trust that can improve the negotiation process.2 At Novaspect, we strive to become strategic, trusted advisors for our customers, and incorporating our legal and contracting teams into the sales process can not only make the process feel easier, it can help increase the success and sustainability of our customers with a high quality experience.
Teamwork Delivers Value
Novaspect defines teamwork as “all reaching across boundaries to get the job done together.” The advantages of close collaboration between key stakeholders in the contracting process are clear, but the challenge is in establishing a framework which facilitates this teamwork. By leveraging shared tools and integrated CLM and CRM platforms, creating client feedback loops and joint forecasting meetings, and setting expectations for a customer-centric approach, companies can optimize results in their contracting and sales processes. Teamwork is not optional - it is how value is delivered.
END NOTES
- A sales or purchase funnel is a visual representation of the customer journey from initial awareness to final purchase. It illustrates how potential customers progress through various stages as they interact with a business, ultimately leading to a sale or conversion. See generally What is a Sales Funnel?
- Galinsky, Adam et al “Why It Pays to Get Inside the Head of Your Opponent The Differential Effects of Perspective Taking and Empathy in Negotiations,” psychological Science, Volume 19 Number 4, 2008, pgs 378-384 available at https://willmaddux.web.unc.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/15846/2019/01/Psych-Science-PT-Negotiations.pdf as well as this recent blog from Harvard Law School’s Program on Negotiation (The Importance of a Relationship in Negotiation, written April 9th 2025 by Jeswald Salacuse).
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Jayme Bojicic, Senior Vice President of the Systems Solutions business unit and board member at Novaspect, is an engineer-turned-executive with over 15 years of experience in the industrial automation industry. She joined Novaspect as an application engineer in the control valve business unit in 2004. As an inside sales manager, Jayme developed expertise in multiple Novaspect business units and the industries they serve, along with internal business systems and processes. Jayme was an environmental engineer for a small engineering design firm in Honolulu, Hawaii. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Kirk Samson, General Counsel at Novaspect and a Fellow at the World Commerce and Contracting Association, is a business leader, experienced legal counsel, veteran, and former diplomat. He has a law degree from the University of Wisconsin, an MBA from Thunderbird School of Global Management, and an MA from the University of Minnesota. Kirk is an active speaker and commentator on trade, political risk, commercial contracting, and international business trends. He is a director at the International Trade Association of Greater Chicago and Co-Chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Contract Law Committee
ABOUT NOVASPECT
Novaspect’s core purpose is to improve their customer’s performance through the innovative application of technology. They do this by engineering, selling, and servicing industrial process controls, valves, and automated control systems. With a commitment to customer success, Novaspect provides a range of services, including valve repair, process automation, and reliability programs. The company is also an employee-owned organization and a member of the Emerson Impact Partner Network