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For the better part of a decade, Salesforce.com has reigned supreme over the CRM world. Millions of users around the globe use the system every day to manage pipelines, track KPIs, and stay in sync with the rest of their team.
And yet, you can talk to 10 Salesforce clients and 9 of them will tell you the same thing: As powerful a system as it is, Salesforce is not without its headaches. Fortunately, the company itself has provided a full menu of potential solutions to those headaches on its App Exchange.
The best sales enablement technology allows your organization to operate more efficiently. Here are 5 Salesforce hacks that will save your team time and help close more deals.
5 Technology Hacks Guaranteed to Drive Salesforce KPIs
Whether its increased process efficiency, smoother workflow, smarter prospect targeting, or better KPI visibility that you're looking for, you'll find a hack for it here below.
We're Salesforce clients ourselves (and members of the App Exchange) here at Ambition, and here are 5 of our favorite technology hacks you can implement using a product from the App Exchange.
Salesforce Hack #1. Automate Data Input
Auto-logging email activity into Salesforce is a no-brainer value-add to your sales force. Chances are, your sales people spend way too much time logging their data, and are prone to forgetfulness and user error.
The benefits of automating data input are varied and impactful enough to make it a top-priority sales hack for you. Reps have more time to sell, a less disruptive workflow, and improved culture.
Managers have accurate data, which means accurate reporting, which means more time coaching and less time figuring out why last month's numbers don't jibe. Data automation is pivotal. ToutApp is a great vendor that's worth checking out.
Salesforce Hack #2. Schedule Future Emails
Email follow-ups are the bane of many a Salesforce user. They're easier to forget than your Great Aunt Kathy's birthday, more time consuming than they should be because you have to go back and recall what your last conversation looked like, and are just a generally unsatisfying part of the process.
Email schedulers let you schedule an email to be sent at any future time of your choosing. So if you get off the phone with a prospect and know that you want to send a follow-up email the next week, you can write it right then and there, when it's fresh on your mind, then schedule it to send automatically the next week.
We suffered from the usual email follow-up issues here at Ambition, until we switched to Cirrus Insight, who has a robust email scheduling feature that's been hugely helpful to our team. Definitely worth a look if your team uses Salesforce + Gmail.
Salesforce Hack #3. Score KPIs
How does using scoring overall KPI performance actually drive KPIs? Look to this Harvard Business Review for your answer. Bringing Salesforce data directly to the user and contextualizing performance creates ownership over KPIs.
It also frees up manager coaching (less time running reports and divvying out data) and encourages peer-to-peer coaching, which can further drive KPIs. Have we seen it work? We'll let our Ambition users speak for themselves.
Salesforce Hack #4. Score Leads
Want to make it as easy as possible to differentiate a hot lead from a cold one? Why not score them. Infer is a great solution that integrates with Salesforce and scores inbound leads based on a complex algorithm taking into account thousands of attributes.
Your sales team's time is precious. They don't need to waste it chasing doomed leads down a rabbit hole. The smarter your prospect targeting and the shorter your sales cycle length, the better your key numbers at the end of the day.
Salesforce Hack #5. Do Competitor Intelligence.
Want to step on the throats of your hapless competition? Of course you do!
Competitor intelligence tools like Datanyze integrate with your Salesforce and detect who is using your competitors, to the point where they can tell you the moment a new customer on-boards and another one cycles off.
Those are your ideal customers. When you're selling to a prospect who is new to your type of product or service, you're having to make two sales:
- The merit of your type of product.
- Your actual product.
It's a lot easier to only worry about selling your product, rather than sell both the product and the concept itself. Competitor intelligence can tell you who only needs to be sold once.
Beyond that, Datanyze just added a new feature that points to the future of competitor intelligence -- the ability to qualify a prospect based on the other technologies they are using.
Example: If you're selling a cutting-edge, expensive B2B software, and you see that a prospective company is using technology tools from the stone age, you can disqualify them as a buyer. Conversely, a prospect that uses Hubspot, Salesforce, Tableau, and a host of other expensive tools is going to be more qualified, since your product is a better fit for their culture and budget.
Use the App Exchange to Hack Salesforce
Technology-based sales hacking isn't about manipulating prospects or replacing cold calling and personalized messages with automated outreach. It's about making your overall sales process smarter, leaner and more enjoyable to perform on a day-to-day basis.
Most of all, it's about maximizing your Salesforce KPIs. Technology is the great equalizer in these respects, and I encourage you to look into them more closely.
Ambition: The 360° Sales Management Platform
Ambition is a sales management platform that syncs every sales organization department, data source, and performance metric on one easy system.
Ambition clarifies and publicizes real-time performance analytics for your entire sales organization. Using a drag-and-drop interface, non-technical sales leaders can build custom scorecards, contests, reports, and TVs.
Ambition is endorsed by Harvard Business Review, AA-ISP (the Global Inside Sales Organization), and USA Today as a proven solution for managing millennial sales teams. Hear from our customers below.
Watch Testimonials:
- FiveStars: Adam Wall. Sr. Manager of Sales Operations .
- Filemaker: Brad Freitag. Vice-President of Worldwide Sales.
- Outreach: Mark Kosoglow. Vice-President of Sales.
- Cell Marque: Lauren Hopson. Director of Sales & Marketing.
- Access America Transport: Ted Alling. Chief Executive Officer.
Watch Product Walkthroughs:
- ChowNow. Led by Vice-President of Sales, Drew Woodcock.
- Outreach. Led by Sales Development Manager, Alex Lynn.
- AMX Logistics. Led by Executive Vice-President ,Jared Moore.
Read Case Studies:
- Clayton Homes: HBR finds triple-digit growth in 3 sales efficiency metrics.
- Coyote Logistics: Monthly revenue per broker grew $525 in 6 months.
- Peek: Monthly sales activity volume grew 142% in 6 months.
- Vorsight: Monthly sales conversations grew 300% in 6 months.
Contact us to learn how Ambition can impact your sales organization today.
