Tag: salesforce consultant in Chicago

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How to be a Salesforce Consultant?

salesforce consultant

Being a person who has been with the Salesforce environment for more than 10 years, I always dreamt of being a consultant. The opportunity to work on numerous Salesforce implementations for varied clients in a wide ranging business verticals allured me a lot. I really enjoyed the process of understanding how companies perform their business.

As a Salesforce customer, I was associated with various kinds of consultants, some were very good and others not very good. However, what I always marveled at was the depth and breadth of their Salesforce knowledge.

Understanding Salesforce from scratch

I began my association with Salesforce in 2008 when my VP of Marketing told me to find the team for new CRM. I assessed various products and zeroed in on Salesforce as the required solution. I swiftly got to know that the potency of the tool lay in the platform and the capability to create new functionality that wasn’t very innovative. To put it simply, I got convinced fully that I should forgo AVP title for pursuing Salesforce full time.

One Salesforce Administrator post resulted in another and then finally I ended up being in charge of all Salesforce products for a pan Indian, privately held company with numerous business units under a shade. My task was to work with these business units to learn their individual business requirements and then devise a tailored Salesforce solution for their group in a manner that also integrated their data with all of the other business units within the company. Consulting was a tough task and when the time was ripe to take my next step, I felt I was game for the change.

Willing to describe my journey

When I began my quest for the ideal Salesforce consulting shop, I spoke to a few different firms that I thought was a perfect fit for my requirement. As I talked to several prospective recruiters one sentiment cropped up inside my mind. It seemed that only those who were consultants previously were meant to be consultants. I mean it was the usual problem of not being able to gain experience till you already have experience.

Eventually, I lended up as a Solution Architect at a reputed entity — but it was not a cakewalk. So, if you experience similar kind of feeling and want to get into consulting, here are some valuable resume and interview tips:

Speak regarding your internal clients: Simply for the reason that the product owners or subject matter experts that you associate with are working in the same company as you, does not imply they are not your clients. You get additional points for speaking about tough as nails clients and the way you handled them.

Highlight your work with regard to projects: Salesforce is a continuously growing product and it might come across like one giant body of work, however, try to dissect those features that were made into individual projects and speak regarding the problems and successes that you achieved during those projects.

Speak about certain business woes: We very well understand that the Salesforce is an amazing tool but where it actually shines is in its capacity to simultaneously handle puzzling business issues and make the lives of end-users very convenient, so showcase those stories.

Highlight the numbers: You can speak about the amount of time saved by your Salesforce solutions or a certain dollar rate of new business wound up as a result of improved workflow. This explains lucidly why your solutions got a genuine ROI.

I am of the belief that these tips will help you get your next or maybe first Salesforce consultant. I am working as a Solution Architect with Winklix for a little more than a year now and it is a call I am really proud of. All the best.

Thanks ,

Mithitesh

Salesforce Consultant

Winklix

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How Much Time Does It Take For SalesForce Data Migration Project ? Ask Winklix

salesforce consultant in new York

This is one of the most important task to be performed at salesforce migration projects . If you want to efficiently use your salesforce CRM , you have to take care of this with utmost care .

In order to better plan and forecast your Salesforce migration , our in house team of Salesforce certified developers can help you with Salesforce implementation from their past experience . Let’s look at different stages of migration process one by one .

1. Preparation Of Data Migration 

This initial stage starts with pre analysing by developers to inspect existing CRM so that they can get overview of data structure of their existing CRM , data formats , business workflows and also create migration checklist with data to transfer . Once the database tables has been identified , developers check on the possibility in correspondence with Salesforce CRM right from mapping fields to data quality check and more in a way that data which is yet to be transferred is in readable format with no data duplicity . This places usually takes up to 5 days .

2.Using Ready Made Data Migration Tool Or Building Custom Tool From Scratch 

If number of records to import is no more than 50,00,000 , developers can easily use ready made tools such as Salesforce Data Loader . If any ready made tools are getting used , migration can be finished within few hours . But if developers are planning to build custom tool or script for carrying on migration to Salesforce , the development time varies which totally depends on the type of data structure and new CRM structure . Custom tool migration usually takes around a month .

3. Trial Data Migration 

Trial data migration is mandatory process before actually transferring all the data . This helps developers to see whether if there is any issue like data loss , or is there any way to improve migration tool to carry on final transfer in smooth way .This phase in total will take no more than 2 days .

4. Migration Validation By Customers 

This stage is wherein customer will validate the test data migration and will give their outcomes . If there is positive feedback form customers side , then there is no further room for improvement of data mapping and migration procedure and customer has deemed approved the project . This phase on an average takes around 4 days . But if there is some room for improvement on the basis of inputs by customer , it make linger on to upto a week .

5. Final Data Migration And Testing 

This is the final stage of which we are waiting for . At this stage all data gets migrated from legacy CRM to new Salesforce solution . Before getting final live , data is checked twice fro any kind of duplicity . Final migration takes around a day or two . It is always carries out in a way that it does not effect the existing CRM functionalities .

6. Post Go Live Support 

Support is what is needed right after the migration which a CRM user may encounter while starting using it . Such support is usually required during very first week after new Salesforce CRM goes live , and may be required upto a month .

Wrap Up

From our past experience , the migration process in Salesforce CRM usually taken between 20 days to around 2 months  . This time coves all stages as discussed above . Winklix is leading Salesforce consultant in USA providing wide range of Salesforce services .

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How To Customise SalesForce Opportunity Stages

salesforce customisation

One of the best features offered by Salesforce is their ability to carry on the sales process with transparency with a special tab called ” opportunities ” . This tab includes list of all opportunities with their actual statuses to track each deal efficiently , which in turn help salesperson to track deals on real time basis and close them efficiently .

Salesforce opportunity tab facilitates you with many opportunities , that many companies might miss while not using it .

Why To Use Custom Salesforce Opportunity Stages

In general SalesForce opportunity stages represents key milestone which in turn consist of following milestones :

    • Prospecting
    • Qualification
    • Needs Analysis
    • Value Proposition
    • Id. Decision Makers
    • Perception Analysis  
    • Proposal/Price Quote
    • Negotiation/Review
    • Closed Won
  • Closed Lost

 

In general SalesForce in relation to sales call by company might not be of many use of many companies in general . Different companies have their different sales calls and flows and hence follow specific set of their guidelines which is apart from the milestone stated above . For instance companies which have a complex sales cycle which in turn also needs regular communication may need some extra level of opportunities , which in turn help sales manager in meeting their customer expectation . On the other hand same level of milestone may be proven excessive for companies with simple sales process . This is the challenges that is faced by an organisation and hence to make it easier we have prepared a specific sets of checklist in order to provide you with salesforce customisation service in relation to your salesforce opportunity stages . But in case you encounter any difficulties in your sales cycle and customisation process  , you can right away contact our dedicated salesforce consultant and developer  .

Important Steps To Customise Opportunity Stages 

1. Draw Out Your Sales Process

Who will be the end user of your opportunity stages features in Salesforce module ? It is obviously sales manager of your organisation . The best way is to map out your entire sales process and determine which of them perfectly suits your sales cycle and which one needs further customisation to adjust your sales process . You should primary aim at simplifying the complex procedure for your sales manager to make him understand what to use and how to use at what time.

2. Define Entrance And Exit Area For Each Stage

An opportunity stage never consist of only single milestone , rather it contains series of milestone which needs to be followed in order to move to the next stage . That is the reason each stage requires sets of activities to be accomplished in order to push the opportunity forward to next level . If you wish your sales manager could easily pass on next opportunity stage , always create a list of stages . For example , your sales manager will have to follow these stages if they wish to pass from ” Qualification ” to ” Need Analysis ” .

  1. Hold meeting
  2. Generate requirement list

Then during the need analysis stage , your salesperson with required some another sets of activities in order to proceed with next stage such as :

  1. Reviewing requirement of lead
  2. Decision maker identification
  3. Identifying measures to meet requirements
  4. Budgeting deal amount and adding the data to Salesforce
  5. Updating estimated closing data and entering in the system

3. Considering Percentage Is Beneficial

Percentage denotes the opportunity stages in which the sales lead has reached , which in turn also defines the sales grows . Assigning of percentage by companies at different level of opportunity stages will give you with probability of the sales closures . Out of the box SalesForce CRM are well equipped with predefined percentage in relation to standard opportunity stages . However this data is common for all specific sets of companies , so that is why Winklix strongly suggest customisation of probabilities service based on your historic data .

4. Revision Of Opportunity Stages

As sales cycle is something that changes continuously , it is always advisable to periodically revisit your sales process in order to ensure opportunity stages that are still being relevant .

Customisation Opportunity Stages And Better Revenue Forecast

SalesForce CRM shows opportunity pipeline report in order to show the entire open pipeline and probability analysis . These reports are always proven beneficial for any company which further allow them to plan future cash flows and revenue .

Winklix offers a wide range of salesforce customisation services to tailor your business needs .