Rethinking Sales. How Can Salesforce Help My Business?

The Evolution of How We Communicate

How do you invoice your customers? Are you still using pen and paper, filling out a printed template with your company logo? Do you pull out a heavy calculator with tape to total all the line items?

I hope not. If you are, you might want to stop reading here.

In the old days, we used carrier pigeons to send messages. It was slow, unreliable, and limited by the number of pigeons you had.

Then came the telegraph, which was much faster, but you still had to visit the telegraph station, write your message on paper, and have a trained operator send it in Morse code to the recipient.

Next, we invented phones, faxes, emails, and now we use chats. Each of these advancements has transformed how we sell, attract new customers, and manage customer relationships. But has your approach kept pace with these technological changes?

The Transformation

Back in the day, people would keep track of birthdays in a paper notebook and either call or visit each other to offer congratulations. 

We don’t do that now. But what about our business and customer relationships? Have they evolved? For many companies, they haven’t. Except maybe we send emails, not pigeons nowadays.

We are witnessing the largest transformation of market ever and technology plays instrumental role in that. 

Companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon are reshaping the business landscape and they have grown bigger than some of the countries.

But customers love this change. These advancements have made our lives easier than ever and significantly enhanced the customer experience. Deliveries come straight to our doors, services are accessible from anywhere in the world, and we get answers to our questions 24/7.

However, there’s a catch. Companies that embrace technology thrive, while those that don’t risk becoming relics of the past.

How Can Technology Help?

Now, the most important question: How can technology help us? Specifically, how can CRM enhance our sales teams and their effectiveness?

Is it really that effective? Do these tools actually work, or are they just the result of multiple successful marketing campaigns convincing everyone they do?

Let’s dive a bit deeper and help you on your journey.

Keep All Records in Order

You’re invoicing your customers, right? You also receive bills from your suppliers. You have expenses that are filed with your bookkeeper, who then hands them off to your accountant for tax returns. You keep your records organized.

You might not want to, but the law requires it. The government wants its share in the form of taxes.

Bookkeeping and accounting record what has already happened in the past. Salesforce, as a customer relationship management (CRM), helps you shift that timeline by organizing the records of what hasn’t happened yet. Sounds a bit confusing? Bear with me for a second. 

Back to The Future

You see, when you book an invoice that your customer has already paid for – you are registering something that has already happened in the past. There was certain work done before you have invoiced your customer and received a payment.

Most certainly, you’ve had a conversation with the client, maybe a phone call, maybe a meeting, maybe you signed a contract with them. And maybe you’ve even provided services to them. 

All that has resulted in you creating an invoice and booking it. But what if we could track the process that happened before you’ve created that bookkeeping record? 

Advanced Notebook

That’s where Salesforce CRM software comes into play. It helps you track and manage all records related to future sales performance (or other processes).

For example, imagine you have a website with a form that collects submissions. Each submission becomes a record in Salesforce called a “lead,” which you would then contact. 

After speaking with the lead, you determine whether it’s a legitimate inquiry, and if it is, you create an Opportunity.

Once an Opportunity is created, you’ve essentially initiated the process leading to the creation of an invoice. Now, you gain more visibility and a better understanding of what your future sales process looks like.

Each time you create an Opportunity, you estimate its “closing date” and projected amount. This information helps generate a report with the “pipeline value,” where you can see your expected revenue in an ideal, realistic, or worst-case scenario.

Think of it as a tool to aid in your planning. If you notice you don’t have enough prospects in your pipeline, you can take action. For example, you could adjust your marketing strategies, hire a marketing agency to run an ad campaign, or collaborate with your sales team to boost sales and fill your pipeline.

But this is just a basic scenario where Salesforce can be helpful. It’s where you’d typically start, but once you’ve mastered that, Salesforce can do much more for your business processes.

Power of Self-Service

Let me start by reminding you how banking was done in the past. I’m too young to remember it personally, but we’ve all seen how it worked, thanks to movies.

To transfer money, say in the 1970s, you would ideally call the bank and ask them to initiate the transaction. But more often, you’d hop in the car, go to the bank, and request the transfer in person.

Now, think of how it works today. What happens when you actually need to visit a bank? Personally, I get extremely annoyed. Banking has become such a commodity that I sometimes forget these are real companies, with complex licensing and people working behind the scenes.

That’s the power of self-service and customer engagement. Something that just a few decades ago was accessible only to the “chosen ones” is now a utility, thanks to technology.

Salesforce can help you bring self-service to your business through its product called “Experience Cloud.” It’s a tool with a drag-and-drop builder that allows you to create basic customer portals, though you can customize them even further with the help of developers.

You can take it even further by creating your own B2B store, where you can sell products to your customers at custom prices for each of them or provide them with quotes—online, without the need for human intervention.

Make Processes Faster

Now, think about customer experience. What happened in the past when you purchased something you weren’t happy with?

I don’t know how it worked where you lived, but where I grew up, returning an item was a nightmare.

Since purchases left no trace, you had to have the receipt (which I always lost), then you had to drive to the store where you made the purchase, and finally, you had to track down someone in charge of returns. Often, stores weren’t even sure how to handle returns because they were so rare, and there was no easy way to access purchase history.

Today, with Salesforce, the process can be much, much quicker. You can define every stage of your customer journey before an issue arises, and your employees simply follow the predefined steps.

Why Salesforce?

Before I dive into this, I have created an article answer this question, why I think Salesforce is the best CRM for small business.

When I first came across Salesforce, it wasn’t my first CRM software. I had tried Pipedrive, amoCRM, SAP, SugarCRM, and played around with a few others.

All of them had some brilliant features, and some not-so-brilliant ones. But every time I searched for the “best CRM solution for…” I would inevitably find the Salesforce platform. Maybe not always at the top of the list, but it was everywhere.

Some might argue it’s because they’re a huge company with a massive budget. And they’d be right. But I don’t usually see Salesforce promoting features it can’t deliver.

Salesforce platform isn’t the best in every category, nor is it the cheapest or the easiest to learn. But where it excels is in its universal applicability and widespread recognition.

If you have an ERP system, chances are Salesforce has an out-of-the-box feature that enables you to integrate with it. If you have a highly specific industry use case, Salesforce likely has something on the AppExchange (their marketplace for apps) that can cover your needs.

At Muncly, we use Salesforce as our email marketing tool and customer relationship management system to track opportunities. While we don’t invoice customers through Salesforce, we have an integration that allows us to see whether a customer was invoiced and if they’ve paid.

We don’t use Salesforce for everything, but we keep it as our central hub for storing all customer data in one place. This allows us to easily filter and find client details when needed.

Most importantly, Salesforce checks one critical box, at least for me: it’s a platform that lets me not just automate business processes but also customize my CRM as the company grows.

I’ve been in the consulting business for eight years, and I’ve seen countless cases where companies grow from small to medium-sized (or even larger) and struggle to switch systems.

For some reason, when we choose a product like a CRM, we don’t always consider growth, but it becomes a huge blocker when we do grow.

Not too long ago, we worked with a finance sector client who had a CRM from a well-known vendor that wasn’t serving them well.

They’d been in business for years and had accumulated many processes in their CRM platform. Then one day, they faced a major issue. They were launching a self-service KYC (Know Your Customer) process to evaluate new clients for risks.

The process needed to check information in the CRM, but their CRM didn’t allow them to handle the volume or format they required. 

This cost the company a year of growth and several million dollars to re-integrate Salesforce—something they wouldn’t have had to do if they’d chosen the right solution from the start.

Salesforce allows you to start small and gradually scale as your business evolves. You can begin with their most affordable “Starter” licensing model, which is one of the most budget-friendly options on the market. As your company grows, you can easily upgrade to more sophisticated solutions to meet your expanding needs.

Closing Thought

Thanks for reading this far. I hope this article was helpful in shedding some light on how Salesforce can transform your business operations, improve sales efficiency, and support your growth as you scale.

Remember, choosing the right CRM platform is a critical decision that can have a lasting impact on your business’s growth and adaptability. 

If you’re looking for expert guidance, talk to us first—our team is ready to help you find the perfect solution. The first consultation is on us. Go ahead, click “Contact Us,” leave your details, and let’s start a conversation.

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Cheers,
J.