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Segmenting Prospects From Customers in Pardot | THE DRIP

Segmenting Prospects From Customers in Pardot | THE DRIP

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.salesforceben.com

Very helpful insights! Keeping customers distinct from prospects helps in so many ways

Dropbox, HelloSign, Asana, Salesforce, and Slack work together to support organizations impacted by COVID-19 | Dropbox Blog

Dropbox, HelloSign, Asana, Salesforce, and Slack work together to support organizations impacted by COVID-19 | Dropbox Blog

Sourced through Scoop.it from: blog.dropbox.com

Great to see cooperation and leadership in these challenging times!

Essential Characteristics of a Quality Loan Origination Solution

Essential Characteristics of a Quality Loan Origination Solution

With the continued growth of FinTech and the Alternative Lending industry, systems and solutions that are tailored to these industries have also flourished. Loan Origination, that fundamental piece to any lending business, can be one of the biggest pain points as it involves a complex sales process as well as various documents, checklists and qualifications to complete.

Naturally, digitizing and automating your loan origination process will mean a huge savings of time, effort and investment. What’s more, because so many systems and solutions are available through the cloud, lenders no longer have to buy a custom built option or spend a lot on in-house hardware.

What to look for from a Loan Origination Solution

Replacing an outdated loan origination solution with a streamlined, automated and scalable system is not an easy decision, or one that should be done spur of the moment. Whether your company is coming from an analog process involving pen, paper, notepads and spreadsheets, or a computer system that you have simply outgrown, you know that moving to one of the newer and better options could be a huge boost for your business. If you’re dissatisfied with your current system’s performance or concerned about growing operating and support costs, then your company’s overall success and profit are taking a hit and it’s time for a replacement.

When browsing around for a solution, you will see that most of your solution options will have many of the same features, including automated deal submissions, renewal management, stips and document tracking and easy to use application pages. Further, with so many companies having slick, modern looking websites with well written copy, it can be hard to know who you can trust to really deliver a system that will take your business to the next level.

So, in addition to the features and price of your potential solution, here are some characteristics of the solution and the company that provides it, that will help guide you to a winning option:

  • Company Focus, Experience and Background
  • Cutting Edge Technology
  • Quality Resource and Data Integrations
  • Scalability and Configurability
  • Quick and Efficient Implementation

Company Focus, Experience and Background

First and foremost you should consider where the company came from and what their focus is? Do their employees have experience working in lending and do they understand if from all sides? While a very large software provider may have some advantages, if they are providing solutions for dozens of industries, how can you be sure that what you get will really meet your needs?

What you are really looking for, at the end of the day, is someone who speaks your language, understands loan origination inside and out, and intimately knows the lending industry.

A team of highly-knowledgeable employees with a background in lending, or hands-on-experience using a loan origination system, can significantly enhance the design, development, and support of a lending system.

Another tell tale sign of this is the solution provider’s client list. Have they worked with just a handful of businesses similar to yours, or dozens? If some of the top players in your industry or vertical are using their software, it’s probably a good sign that the solution is a good one.

Cutting Edge Technology

Cutting edge technology for software and solutions isn’t exactly like a new phone, which usually equals a better camera and sharper display. For a loan origination system, it means not only being built on a solid foundation of proven architecture, but one that also has the capability to grow and adapt to whatever developments arise down the road.

Software platforms can only grow as much as their development company puts into them. However, when a loan origination solution is built on a robust, worldwide CRM platform, like Salesforce, which spends billions every year to grow, enhance and develop, you can be sure your system will stand the test of time. After all Salesforce isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, and their arsenal of products, features and results only continues to grow.

Quality Resource and Data Integrations

Lenders rely heavily on 3rd party data providers to help them make quality decisions. With growing online support, this has become much easier than it was 15 years ago, however the next step is a quantum leap forward. A new loan origination system can integrate directly with your data provider, giving you instant access and sometimes pre-built automation, giving you a supercharged process. What was once a tedious, manual process, that could take hours of going back and forth between different screens and manually entering repetitive data, can be automated and reduced to just a fraction of the time commitment.

In addition, lenders can take advantage of Integrations with of Lender API’s, giving them direct access to some of the biggest players in the game, such as OnDeck and Kabbage.

When looking at a new system, take a look at which data sources and integrations you currently use, which ones are supported by the solution you are looking at, and which ones you might want to grow into in the future.

Configurability and Scalability

No two lenders have identical procedures. Your process is something that you have worked with and developed based on your own experience, portfolio and the overall market. You want to remove pain points, not scrap the whole thing.

So when looking for a new system, you should make sure that the system can not only be configured to your needs, but that you have transparency into the process as well. Some questions to consider:

  1. Does every change and tweak need to be made by the developer, or can that be done by users as well?
  2. How technical is it to make changes?
  3. What level of support is offered and needed to ensure the longevity of the system?

Again, a system like Salesforce built its reputation on “clicks not code” meaning users everywhere were given the power to configure their system by clicking, dragging and dropping, rather than needing a coding background.

Going hand in hand with this is scalability. If you are going to make a big investment into a new solution, you don’t want it to break or be completely outdated in just a couple of years. So make sure to look for a system that is built on proven tech, built to last, and can be changed and configured without too much hassle. If you can meet these requirements, you should have a system that will grow with you.

 

Efficient Implementation and User Adoption

So you have done your homework and know which system will be best. Now comes the next challenge, the implementation. While you naturally want to have the system up and running as fast as possible, sometimes good things come to those who wait (at least a little).

Get a system that can be implemented at lightning speed and you might be running a risk that it isn’t robust enough to really handle your business needs for today and for tomorrow. Or there could be corners being cut when it comes to QA and testing, so while the system is up and running fast, it is full of errors and you end up wasting more time and money to get things right.

On the other hand, a solution that takes a long time to implement might end up costing you more than you expected, as you are stuck with your in-effective system while others get further ahead.

The Goldilocks zone is different for every company, and will change based on the project and level of customization. After all, if you are spending $5 million on a system versus $30K, your timeline and expectations will be very different.

Finally, there is user adoption to consider. How easy is it for new users to be on-boarded and trained? How challenging or cumbersome do employees find it to be diligent with their data and practices? No matter how good the software, how quick it is implemented or how great the price, none of it matters is your team doesn’t use it, or doesn’t use it the right way. So make sure you look for a loan origination system that is easy to adopt and use, and is built on a platform that is known for its usability!

 

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team

 


 

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Understanding Salesforce Communities and Licenses

Understanding Salesforce Communities and Licenses

Salesforce communities can be a huge boost for any business because it allows you to connect with your partners, customers and internal team in a curated and functional way. You can connect your Salesforce org, define exactly what data will be shown to users of the community and custom tailor it to your use case, sales, customer support, knowledge bases, you name it.

 

Because communities can be so flexible and useful, there are also a number of considerations and options relating to creating a community, specifically around licensing. There are actually 6 different licenses for external community users:

  • Customer Community
  • Customer Community Plus
  • Partner Community
  • Lightning External Apps Starter
  • Lightning External Apps Plus
  • Channel Account

Each of these licenses allows a different type of access and each is associated with an individual user. As a bit of clarification, a user is someone who will login, and use the community. Guests to the community (ex. Knowledge base sites) have no restrictions.

How do you get licenses? Simply put, you buy them from Salesforce. Generally, they are purchased in bundles, depending on your individual needs. Once you have them, you can go into Salesforce and assign the different contacts as users of your community. As an alternative, you can purchase logins, rather than licenses. Logins are a one time use, and are a great option if you have a large volume of potential users, who may or may not exist in your org.

Want more details? 

Click here to get the breakdown on community licenses from Salesforce!

 

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team

 


Want to get started with Salesforce? 

Need custom development or consulting to enhance the Salesforce you already have?

 

Contact us

 

Driving User Adoption in Salesforce

Driving User Adoption in Salesforce

User adoption is critical, especially for software that drives your business like Salesforce. At the end of the day, it just doesn’t make sense to be spending money on a system that your team isn’t using.

However, the importance of user adoption is more than “we bought it so use it”, rather, user adoption has been linked to all sorts of business issues, including:

Keeps Data Relevant

One of the most powerful features of Salesforce is its ability to capture, track and analyze many facets of your Sales data. However, if your users aren’t using the system or aren’t entering everything properly, you can pretty much throw all your data out the window.

Avoid Losing Leads

Proper use of Salesforce across all sales team members can provide timely, accurate and detailed information to potential consumers, encouraging higher conversion rates.

Improve the Skills of Your Sales Team

Full adoption and utilization of Salesforce helps team members grow their skills, which leads to higher conversion rates and a stronger return on investment.

Discourage Ghost Users

Ghost users are those who simply log in, and do a few things every so often to avoid being shamed. When adoption is high though, it is more difficult to hide and avoid using Salesforce without being noticed.

Encourage Collaboration

When a company has high adoption, each department can contribute their expertise to the benefit of the entire company. Conversely, when a company has low adoption – the data is unreliable and each department must work much harder to find information.

So with all of that being said, how do you increase user adoption? Well, there are a number of ways, from setting incentives to designating internal use champions to working with a consultant to help your team. This article gives a nice example of going at it from the consulting perspective.

There are quick and easy options as well, like Emojis! Emojis can be useful in more than just text messages, and can, in fact, make your org more user-friendly, fun and actually help drive user adoption.

Take a look at this article here, and remember that every bit of adoption helps, even the little things like emoji! 🙂

 

-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team


Want to get started with Salesforce?

Need some custom consulting or development to enhance the Salesforce you already have?

 

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