Should you use Salesforce “Leads”?
5 reasons why you should, and 6 reasons why you should't use Salesforce "Leads" When a client uses the term “lead” somewhere in their vocabulary, they have a natural tendency to assume that the “lead” should go into the “Lead” object in Salesforce. I almost never let the client … [More...]
Eloqua integrates Chatter: Is this the future of enterprise software?
Yesterday Eloqua announced they’ll be integrating Chatter into its marketing automation platform. Eloqua says this will allow marketers to collaborate over a campaign through Chatter. Additionally, sales users who follow the campaign or the marketing user will see what’s being discussed about … [More...]
Two questions that will help ensure your Salesforce Instance is manageable
I recently won a project to spend a significant amount of time removing all ‘custom’ functionality in a Salesforce Instance, and return it to "vanilla". Why did the customer ask for this? Sales reps and managers were forced to use spreadsheets to manage the pipeline for almost a year. In the … [More...]
My favourite Salesforce question: “does it always work that way?”
Most Salesforce requirements help support a complex business processes. This can be something as simple as Opportunity stages; too much more complex needs like approvals, payment terms, product bundling, commissions, etc. The problem with understanding what a client really needs is that they tell … [More...]
The problem with Salesforce “quick starts”
Having been in the Salesforce community for 5 years, I’ve seen many different flavors of “quick start” Salesforce deployments – I’ve personally delivered many. But I’ve always felt that attempting to deploy Salesforce “quickly” can be absurd. Most of these quick start Salesforce … [More...]
Beware of the Salesforce.com “Integrated” label
I'm coming across more and more business applications that clame they're "integrated" with Salesforce. The other week I was presented with a system where the "integration" was part of the implementation package. However, the vendor knew nothing about our environment, and based on the use case of … [More...]
You must document your Salesforce org, but do it right
Like most people, I always need to fight off the feeling of being overwhelmed when presented with a Salesforce environment that's been active for many years. The core architecture is almost always sound, it's the edge cases that the system supports which worry me. I'm currently trying to … [More...]
Should Salesforce.com Be On Your Marketing Automation Shortlist?
I was recently contacted by Lauren Carlson, a CRM analyst at Marketing Automation Software Guide who asked me to give my two cents on this issue. Lauren recently posted her analysis of Salesforce as a marketing automation tool over at the Marketing Automation Software Guide. In general, Lauren … [More...]
I’m excited to start a new job at Eloqua
For the past few weeks I've been sitting on an announcement that I can now make public. I'm excited to say that today will be my first day as an Eloqua employee. Working out of Eloqua's Toronto office, my mandate is to help drive Eloqua's use of Salesforce.com, ensuring Salesforce is the CRM and … [More...]
Making your Dreamforce vision, Salesforce reality
One of the most valuable takeaways from Dreamforce are the customer case studies. These customer success stories give us tons of ideas, and help turn the abstract concept of “running your business in the cloud”, into tangible examples we can all understand. BUT, we often under estimate what’s … [More...]
Extending Salesforce into the marketing department using email and marketing automation
In my experience the first step in extending Salesforce beyond it's native Salesforce Automation (SFA) functionality is to being using Salesforce to drive outbound messaging initiatives. (Unless you do direct mail, this is essentially a fancy way of saying email marketing). Below is a quick … [More...]
A simple explanation of Salesforce data storage limits and costs
Anyone who has worked extensively with Salesforce will tell you that it has many limitations. A major example of this are the data storage limits Salesforce imposes. If your Salesforce requirements are particularly data heavy, the limits on data storage will quickly become a major problem. … [More...]
Salesforce success metrics that you can actually measure
When trying to justify an investment in Salesforce, we might think of increased close rate, leads created, etc., as metrics to support our business case. In fact, Salesforce.com likes to use these metrics when selling Salesforce. But, unless "Salesforce" is the name of a new sales person in the … [More...]
The Salesforce nonprofit starter pack, explained
I have now worked with, and spoken to a number of medium to large charities and not-for-profits, and each share a common challenge: not understanding what the "nonprofit edition" of Salesforce is. While lots has been written on the existence of Salesforce.com's donation program and it's features, … [More...]
Administrative pre-work for any major Salesforce development project
As a Salesforce consultant I like to add value to an orginization through their use of Salesforce, but that quickly gets complicated when my first recommendation is to cleanup Salesforce, before any significant feature development can take place. It's always a challenge when the client wants new … [More...]