by Mike Walsh | Dec 5, 2019 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
As a Salesforce ISV and Consulting partner, we at CloudMyBiz have seen all sorts of complex situations and struggles when it comes to creating a case for switching to Salesforce. After all, making the switch to Salesforce isn’t always a quick and easy decision. Often, the person championing the idea of adopting Salesforce isn’t the person who has final say in the matter.
While Salesforce has innumerable benefits of adoption, it may not always be the right place or time to make the switch. To make that determination, we always recommend you do a thorough business analysis to come up with a solid case for making the switch.
So, to convince your boss (or yourself if you are the boss) that it’s a good idea to switch your company over to the Salesforce CRM, we recommend starting here:
1) Start with the basics. Take a minute to refresh yourself on what Salesforce is and what it does:
https://www.edureka.co/blog/what-is-salesforce/
2) Then do some digging into benefits of Salesforce:
8 advantages of CRM Salesforce
3) And the benefits of Salesforce Automation:
https://cloudmybiz.com/the-benefits-of-salesforce-automation/
4) Finally, take a deep look at building your case:
https://www.salesforceben.com/how-to-create-a-persuasive-business-case-for-investing-in-salesforce/
If you go through all of those, you should have all the pieces of information at your disposal and ready to thoroughly build the argument that making the switch to Salesforce is in the best interests of your company.
Now you just have to pluck up the courage to bring this all to your boss, and see your hard work pay off!
-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
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Nov 20, 2019 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
How many of you Salesforce users have ever experienced this: you have been in the middle of a project, or just your general day-to-day, when all of a sudden you run into an issue where the system doesn’t have the capability to do what would seemingly be a normal, basic task?
You scratch you head and say, “Why in the world can’t I do _____”. So you go online, do a quick search and sure enough, you find out that for whatever reason, Salesforce can’t do the function you want. So, for the admins and intrepid learners among you, you take it upon yourself to create a workflow, trigger or some other workaround solution. And for those without the knowledge, time, or whose task is just too simple to bother with, you move on and do your work another way.
These scenarios are pretty common across the board for Salesforce users, and starting many years ago, Salesforce introduced a message board called the IdeaExchange, where users could post their ideas, debate the use case, how the functionality should take shape, and most importantly, upvote the topics and features they most wanted to see.
This robust user engagement community has thousands of suggestions these days, giving the people at Salesforce plenty to think about. The best part though, is that every new release, a number of these user originated suggestions actually get rolled out, and added to the core functionality of Salesforce!
So without further ado, here are a couple of the best features rolled out in Winter ‘20 that origination on the IdeaExchange.
Lightning Recycle Bin
It’s almost crazy that this didn’t exist until now. The “Recycle Bin” or “Trash Can”, has been a computing concept since at least 1983. The Lightning Recycle Bin is a combined Bin for everyone in your team. This means that if other users delete something, you can go back in and un-delete if desired.
Printable View for Lightning Lists
When you switched from Classic over to Lightning, you lost the ability to view your lists in a print view. As someone who really likes to see my lists all nice and orderly, this one is very much appreciated. Also, if you are going to actually print out your list, you will save a lot of ink and paper with this better formatted list.
View Records by Topic on the Topic Detail Page
Are you using Topics yet? Topics provide a way to organize records by theme, and on the topic detail page, you can view a list of all related topics. Examples of topics are just about anything you can imagine, from the general example of “cars” or “textiles”, to specific like “delinquent” or “rush order”.
“Where is this used” – now generally available!
Nothing like trying to clean up your pages and finding old fields that you have no idea where they came from, what they do, or how they are being used. This feature is now available in all orgs, letting you search for usage in formulas, email templates, reports and more!
Opportunity Contact Role is a full-featured object
This update has been long-awaited for many Salesforce users, especially businesses who use specific contact role designations, such as “client, donor, etc”. By making the Opportunity Contact Role it’s own object, you can customize the object like any other, use it in triggers, process builder or flows.
For anyone interested in seeing all of the new changes and features in the Winter ‘20 release of Salesforce that originally started on the IdeaExchange, click here!
-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
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Nov 8, 2019 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
Just because you and your team have, or are going to, implement Salesforce, doesn’t mean all of your business problems will be instantly fixed. At the end of the day, user adoption is absolutely critical to establishing a working business process on a powerful CRM like Salesforce. It doesn’t matter how much you spent on custom development or if you have the latest plugins and integrations. If your team isn’t using them or isn’t using them properly, you business will suffer.
So with that in mind, here are six of our top recommendations, taken from various points in the Saleforce implementation and usage cycle to help ensure quality user adoption and ultimately, the success of your business.
1. Establish leadership, the project team and empower enthusiasts.
Before the project really gets underway, it is always best to have your teams set and ready to go. Make sure every department is represented among the leadership and project team. Consider how much leadership needs to be involved in the day-to-day, and establish a rhythm and routine.
Next, identify prospective users who are enthusiastic about the Salesforce initiative. These users can be your “Champions” group, and serve as a communication conduit to and from the remainder of the team, relaying messages, sharing success stories and reporting back questions or issues.
2. Celebrate!
Share Salesforce successes big and small, and communicate them outward each time a milestone is reached. At launch, think about celebrating, thanking or rewarding your early adopters and champions. From emails to banners to TV screens, get creative so that people internally can’t help but be aware of the growth and changes, and want to get in on the action.
3. One size doesn’t fit all
It might be helpful for management to take stock of where different groups of people are, and tailor responses and training accordingly.
- Able and Willing – These people are already Salesforce power users.
- Willing but Unable – They’re willing to use the Salesforce, they’re just not able (or not able to fully use it). Focus on solving the issues that are stopping them and encourage them to work through it.
- Able but Unwilling – Often a key group to address. Make expectations clear and continue moving forward while offering them plenty o opportunity to get on board
- Unwilling and Unable – Hopefully there aren’t many of these folks. These people will require a lot of work, and generally, complete unwillingness might be an indicator of a larger problem.
4. Go in Phases
The more complex the system, the more there will be for your team to learn and adapt to. Don’t overwhelm them by doing it all at once. Set up your new CRM adoption plan into phases to make it easily digestible. Focus on small steps and achievable goals so that everyone can see, smell and taste the growth that you are achieving.
5. Move Basic Tasks and Processes onto Salesforce
The idea is that it will become easier for people to do their jobs by using the system, and if they choose to not adopt, their jobs will be more difficult by default. Some examples include:
- Align Salesforce configuration and functionality with the business processes.
- Use third-party applications (ex. electronic signature) to increase efficiency.
- Use Chatter to communicate with the team on deal updates, internal news and important events.
- Conduct performance reviews and team meetings using the information in reports and dashboards.
6. Wash, Rinse, Repeat
Remember that user adoption is never static. It can always be increasing or decreasing. Set regular review periods, ex. 3 mo, 6 mo, 12 mo, and analyze how well your team is doing and what could be improved upon. Then make sure to follow through with fixing any issues.
If you are using a phased approach, try and establish measurable goals for each, and use them to help you know when it’s time to start the next phase. Plus, you can use your quantitative and qualitative data from the first phase to guide your way forward in Phase 2.
-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
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Oct 18, 2019 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
When writing marketing emails, it can be pretty common to re-use certain details and bits of content not only throughout the email, but across various emails within a certain campaign. The more emails you are creating, the more you will use these pieces of content, and the more time you will spend on it. This can be a drain on your time, and pose a risk of error as tedious content needs to be created over and over.
To help avoid these issues, Pardot is introducing Snippets. Pardot Snippets are basically merge tags that are specific to a certain campaign, rather than the prospect account.
For example, say you have a campaign letting customers know about a new software product you are offering, you can create Snippets of relevant content, such as, “Release Date” “Product Name” “Product Details” and “Call to Action”. This way, you only have to type these bits of info once, and then use the Snippet tag in each email campaign to insert the exact same content, every time!
Even more powerful, is that the Snippets are saved, and can be modified at a later date. Using the same example as above, say a new product is being released a few months later. The email templates have already been created, using the Snippets. Now all you need to do is go in and update the snippet content to reflect the new product details, and just like that, you have a whole new set of marketing emails ready to go!
Click here to learn more!
-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
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
by Mike Walsh | Oct 11, 2019 | Blog, Salesforce Tips
As a certified Salesforce Partner and cloud consultant, at CloudMyBiz we are in the business of revamping and improving the system that our clients run their business on. However, it sometimes happens that clients come to us wanting to improve without really thinking about what all that means. You can’t always improve your business if you don’t look at what is working and what doesn’t, and then be willing to let go of what doesn’t work.
The folks at Salesforce know this better than anyone, as the CRM platform is specifically designed to be the single, lifetime solution that a business can be built on. Salesforce is so much more than just a Sales tool. With all of the various integrations, products and platforms, such as Pardot for B2B marketing or Einstein for AI analytics, you can do it all on Salesforce.
With all of that in mind, it bears repeating that if you are going to make the switch and investment in Salesforce, you may want to spend a bit of time thinking about how to adjust your practices for the better. After all, if you are getting a clean start on a new system, why would you want to import over all of your bad habits and ineffective practices?
The following blog post on the Salesforce Admin site, gives a quick and easy breakdown of the process: Build the Vision, Shape the Environment, Deliver the Results. While this article is aimed at Salesforce Admins, the general principles apply to anyone looking to improve their business process. Of course, if you would like to work with a Salesforce consultant to give you a more detailed vision of what you life could be with Salesforce (or how your could improve your current Salesforce) feel free to drop us a line and we would be happy to talk to you!
Click here to read the blog post!
-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
CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.
