With a large proportion of US businesses now firmly entrenched in the salesforce.com camp with regard to CRM, I thought I would suggest a few ways that salesforce users can get more from their system without necessarily needing to spend more cash.
If you have a salesforce.com CRM in your business, or if you are just looking at it now you will have an allocated Salesforce Account Executive.
You may not have had much contact with them after you purchased your CRM; that being said it is their job to ensure that you are satisfied with the platform. They are rewarded when you happily renew or expand the number of seats you purchased. This gives them a great incentive to help you with any issues or challenges that you may be having.
So, if you want to fully leverage the advantages your CRM will provide then make them your new best friend!
Working with your Salesforce account manager can be a win-win.
So, to the next question I am often asked.
- Who are they and how do I find them.
This is fairly simple to determine if you are a salesforce administrator at your business or if you know who the salesforce administrator is at your firm.
On your CRM, any administrator can head to their user profile and enable an option called “Checkout”. This “checkout” function is going to be upgraded in February 2022 but it works for now and the replacement app will no doubt provide the same information (details)
After enabling this feature, while logged in to Salesforce, head to the salesforce webstore (store). At the bottom right you will see the contact information for your personal Account Executive.
There you go – a salesforce consultant and expert for free!
If you do want to get more from your system then this is the person that can find the right information & resources for you. Experienced account executives work with many clients – some of these are likely to have the same challenges you do and your AE can discuss with you what others may have done to solve these.
Listen to them. It is normal human behavior to think “They are just trying to sell me more seat licenses.” but it may be that these add-ons are the solutions to your problems or will allow you can realize more value from your system.
This resource is in effect a free CRM consultant – take advantage of their knowledge. After all the price is right.
If they do suggest more spend, at least look at the solutions that they suggest. Do the math on this additional Salesforce investment. It may provide great returns in time and productivity.
2. Remember they have a “brains trust” behind them
Your account executive works for Salesforce and they are plugged in to what is an enormous business. They have a vast body of knowledge and resources that can be accessed to provide you with what you need to know.
If they don’t know something, they probably know how to get the answer you need. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and make sure that you are persistent. They will be service-driven but to be blunt, their first focus is to sell more seats. That does not mean that they won’t be there to help and support you but you may need to be persistent and it may take more time than you expect to get answers.
That’s OK.. this is free help that you didn’t know existed until now.
3. This Account Executive is likely to change frequently
Salesforce continues to experience enormous growth and as such they have staff moving around, turning over and moving upwards. The individual with the task of owning your account is likely to change regularly.
That’s OK – variety is the spice of life!
It is always a good idea to have a short brief on your business ready to go and if reaching out for advice/support send this upfront. You want any sessions with your salesforce exec to be of real value (free consultant remember) so the more information you can provide them upfront the better.
4. Record the meetings
Take notes, record zoom calls, even have a scribe if that’s your thing but in a conversation with them make sure you get as much detail out of it as possible.
As noted, they’re busy and it may be tough to book a lot of sessions to help you, so extract every bit of goodness that you can from the ones that you do have. Have a plan.
5. Agree actions
If they promise to track down information for you that will help you get more out of your salesforce system then record this, copy them on this note (remember they may have many priorities and can easily push you down the list) and then hound them until they deliver.
They do genuinely want to help you. Help them help you by managing the relationship.
6. Build a relationship
You should always know who your account executive is. Build a good relationship with them. Dangle the carrot of more seats or more feature sales for them to try to extract as much value as you can for your business.
Think about what you need and find out what they can deliver. Also building a relationship is a two way street. Listen to their challenges also and you’ll likely learn something as well as perhaps get faster help in the future. People like to feel you’re engaged – especially with todays digital based communication.
7. Contact us at Sentia
As a salesforce partner (with an amazing upgrade to the standard sales cloud available right now!), we enjoy helping out clients or potential clients with salesforce advice and tips.
We learn from every new sales team discovery session and never feel that a call is a waste of time. We will always tell you if we can help or not. In fact, we often provide (FREE!) a fast fix session for businesses detailing a few easy things that they can do themselves (and how to do it) to generate more value from their system.
Ask me and we can set up a call!
