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

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 .

Help Desk Software : How Actually Is Customer Getting Benefit Out Of It

helpdesk software solution

Customer satisfaction is first and foremost priority in building a good relationship with customers . So in order to maintain stronger relationship and business treats its customer as a king . One of the quickest and best way to satisfy the customer is quickly addressing their concern and queries upto their satisfying level .

Help Desk software facilitates receiving , logging and allocating tech issues to the relevant department in the organisation with ease . So if we are considering the end point , customer will get their issue solved with the help of right techie person of required department  who has been allocated by automatic ticketing system . The presence of ticketing component allows raising , tracking and allocating of ticket together with keeping a track of the resolution in timely manner .

In order to achieve all these things , company can choose help desk software that best suits their needs . Some of the types of Help Desk software are :

  • Ready-made solutions which are already experts in handling customers like Freshdesk .Such solutions are less expensive as they come on the basis of monthly subscription but at the same time will offer you less flexibility .
  • Add on modules in your existing CRM software. For instance you are using salesforce , you can easily purchase salesforce service cloud in order to store all customer information in one place .
  • Custom help desk solution that best suits the enterprise needs . A software development company can facilitate them with highest level of satisfaction by developing solution as per the tailor needs of the organisation .

Advantages of Help Desk Software

  • Fast response time : As soon as a ticket is raised by the customer support department on request of customer , it will be automatically allocated to the concern department for faster resolution process . This implies to the customer directly that company is serious about proving  excellent customer services even after sales . Setting the priority on the basis of customer requirement helps solving the same on priority basis
  • Brand Creditability : Help desk software helps improving brand recognition . Many of the companies outsource their support services which does not make sense and at the same time customers does not feels personalisation while interacting with your organisation .Because of this reason business is personally willing to address consumer problems thereby aids in increasing brand creditability .
  • Accessibility : Most of the help desk software are now based on web based technology which are easily accessible through phone or computer with working internet connection and web browser irrespective of the geographical location .With help desk ticketing software , all tickets are uploaded in one single unified platform and can be tracked and solved from any place .
  • Automatic Allocation Of Tickets : As soon as ticket is raised , it will get automatically allocated to the specified department , thereby eliminating cumbersome task and paperwork , labour dependencies and more . Tech department are also not getting frustrated and will be getting time to solve the issues .
  • Centralised Database : User has a separate portal online to raise their tickets in a more convenient manner according to their level of priority . Ticket can be stored , viewed , edited and closed once they are resolved in flexible and structured way . The same portal which is already equipped with all customer database can help convey messages in case of any breakdown or site downtime . The centralised repository of customer ticket data is highly secured .

In Conclusion

Help desk software is the best tool which makes life of the technical staff as well as customer easier with automated systems . Implementing these systems in enterprise in timely manner aids in better result and better customer services .