Salesforce is a well-established and widely used CRM among businesses of every size; from enterprises to solopreneurs for years now. It was first founded in 1999, and since then, it has evolved into various plans and platforms within itself, as well as apps and tiers to accommodate changing dynamics of doing business and managing customers. To provide an overview, there’s Salesforce Experience Cloud, Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Service Cloud, and so on. Each and every one of their products come with a different set of features solving myriad problems occurring in different business processes, which is why It can be hard to figure out exactly which solution is right for your business.
Apart from choosing the right Salesforce solution, you will need to integrate it, implement it, train to use it, etc., which can be daunting even for experienced businesses and organizations. Hence, when dealing with technical products such as Salesforce solutions, it is always a better idea to hire Salesforce consultant.
Now, you might be wondering what or who are these Salesforce consultants.
They are Salesforce experts who understand your business requirements and, while keeping the dynamics of your industry in mind, guide you to explore various possible integration of Salesforce in different business processes.
But largely, the question still remains, why should you hire Salesforce consultant to make the most of Salesforce to achieve your business goals? So let’s answer this question:
Why should you hire Salesforce consultant?
A certified Salesforce consultant has seen it all. They have helped many businesses successfully implement various Salesforce solutions, so they know all the strategies and nuances one needs to keep in mind. For instance, with the help of different Salesforce solutions, they can help you optimize your sales processes, streamline your targets, and manage your customer base better. Hire Salesforce consultants so they can help you grow steadily.
Now, if you are hiring a Salesforce consultant, how should you go about it? What are things you need to ensure before hiring? Here’s a checklist curated by our in-house Salesforce team.
Checklist to hire Salesforce consultant:
To hire a certified Salesforce consultant, you will need to do a lot of groundwork. This person, once hired, will be responsible for setting systems in place that you will likely use for many years to come. The systems they set up will enable your internal teams to operate in a certain way, so their mindset and soft skills are also something you want to check for.
For hiring the right Salesforce consultant, assess possible candidates for different skills like understanding a business, its requirements, needs, and finally, their implementation processes and training.
Understand requirements & set a business goal
Before searching for a consultant, you need to understand your current and future business requirements. You need to set up long-term goals. They will help you understand what you may need to get there in the projected timeline you have set. For example, if your goal is to establish yourself as a national leader in the industry within the first 10 years, you need to hire someone who understands what needs to be done and strategizes for that.
Research
When looking for a Salesforce consultant, there will be many to choose from. Some may specialize in everything Salesforce has to offer, while others may be specific to one of the Salesforce Clouds and or other solutions. If you’re clear as to what you need, as mentioned above, this should not be a problem. So look for consultants but don’t accept all that offer the service. Research. Hire a Salesforce consultant who best matches your needs. There are two basic things you need to ascertain about them: their soft skills and their certifications.
Look at the soft skills
Hire a Salesforce developer who knows things beyond development. When you’re hiring a consultant, they are not going to be an internal team member, so they don’t necessarily have to follow your company’s code of conduct. However, they do have to operate and work with your internal team members, so they do need to have basic soft skills to collaborate productively.
Validate Certifications
Needless to say, their certifications have to be valid at the hiring and throughout the duration of the project. Hire Salesforce consultants who are Salesforce ISV partners.
We are not only ISV Partners but also have the following certifications: Salesforce Platform Developer 1 and Platform Developer 2, JavaScript Developer 1, and Salesforce Administrator.
With our certification and experience, we make a formidable team of Salesforce consultants.
Schedule an interview
Because you can hire Salesforce consultants from anywhere in the world, you have to be very careful not to just be impressed by how they present themselves on the internet. Shortlist a few candidates and set up interviews with them.
This will help you get an experience of their way of conducting business meetings; you can talk to them about their past work, their style of working, their daily availability, and so on. On top of that, you can also set up a brief live coding session to see how they think on their feet if required.
Check the implementation method & discuss the execution plan
Once all the basics are cleared, you will need to discuss your actual project in detail to help them put together an execution plan along with various possibles Salesforce solutions that will help you solve business problems at hand.
Essentially, this is the starting point of your project but it can also be a part of your assessment process as it can be a good idea to have them create a rough execution plan and different ways they think will be right to help tackle the business problems at hand.
Check relevant experience
For any Salesforce consultant to work with your business, they need to be familiar with the industry. Any development does not happen in a vacuum. For example, if you’re in the food delivery business and a competitor is letting customers change the address in the first 10 minutes of placing the order. Are your consultants keeping up with that market at all? Did you hire someone who has exclusively worked with medical clients? Or someone who has only worked with small antique businesses? Then they are not going to work out for you.
When hiring a Salesforce developer, you need to ensure that the person/team you hire has experience in your industry. They should, in fact, be able to add to your knowledge about the industry and what goes on in it.
See portfolio, review & testimonials
As a part of the hiring process, you need to see the candidate’s portfolio and the reviews and testimonials from their previous clients to determine how their experience with the consultant was. Are they a team player or do they stick to their own task list and do nothing outside of it? Are they cautious or hesitant?
All this hints at their mindset, whether they will actually see you as a partner or not, and if they have a growth-oriented mindset. You will also be able to see how they worked with big and small teams and if there was any friction there.
Sign contract
Lastly, configure a scope of work, build a timeline, even if it is flexible, and sign a contract stating the same. Both you and them need to be help accountable for the project. And you also need to ensure that you get the entire code ownership once the development is over. For sure it goes both ways, the contract is also important, when you want to get a job in a salesforce, so you can be sure about your duties, responsibility and reward.
When you hire Salesforce consultant from us, we help you find the right person and ensure their smooth onboarding with your project. From then, they are well-equipped to help you navigate through the development cycle.
Advantages of hiring Salesforce consultants
Hire Salesforce consultants to get the best skills on board for your project without having to pay for the operational cost of having an in-house developer. An external consultant has a varied experience about the industry, thus giving you an advantage over your in-house developers.
Salesforce consultants can help you optimize your sales processes, define realistic targets, and therefore reach new customers. Along with that, they can help train and guide your in-house team to adapt to the process.
Sales management:
The Salesforce consultant can work to establish a well-structured process that can help run smooth operations. These processes are specifically tailored to your business and your sales team members.
Expert advice:
A Salesforce consultant, with their industry experience, will be able to judge better what works in the market, and therefore they can give better overall guidance about what customers are like to buy, what kind of service they like, and so on.
Strategic advantage:
Strategy planning is one of the most important benefits of hiring a Salesforce consultant. They can create custom reports that give you deep insight into your sales, thus showing you how your products and services are doing, what your customers prefer, and so on. This will help you determine how to grow your business consistently.
Final thoughts
An external Salesforce consultant will bring a fresh perspective to your business. With their insight, you can take bigger leaps in your growth journey.
We have expert Salesforce consultants for hire and help you with a thorough vetting process. You can contact us to give a 360° consultation on all things Salesforce, specifically tailored to your business.
Tell us your requirements, and we can walk you through your options.
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