Salesforce.com is capable of a great many things to automate and drive your business processes. The misconception is that you have to have your business in order and visualized completely before starting. Such thinking may have been true of custom built software that was expensive to change.
However, the case is often true that your sales and business processes are continually evolving. Organizations gain clarity from feedback and iteration. It is hard to describe what you want without seeing something in action.
In my work with our Salesforce consulting clients, we encourage a smaller framework with the least amount of features. This enables a team to get off the ground using the system quickly and getting results. Inevitably, there are new requests.
With a Salesforce champion intact, requests can be collected and a decision process for what the team can benefit from is assessed in a collaborative fashion. A list of requirements starts to develop that makes more sense to everyone as each person lives with conveniences or inconveniences of various features and customizations.
Here is the mindset which tends to serve successful organizations starting or growing with Salesforce:
- Openness. Everyone is open to changing. They know that they will decide on new ways of doing things as they use the system.
- Focus. All feedback comes through a central leader who can facilitate and broker the merits of requests. This helps to drive towards effective decisions.
- Process. Everyone is thinking about the steps to serve a customer or get things done. The steps constitute the process. They are looking for efficiency.
- Care. Salesforce is an opportunity to do things better with execution and timing. They care about the customer and think about ways to make their experience world-class.
Your team does not have to start perfectly. However, perfection is achieved over time by having a focus towards perfection. It is what allows organizations to continue to grow and mold the tool to how they want to serve their markets.
How is your team doing with its processes?