All You Need to Know about Hiring a Salesforce Consultant

Salesforce implementation requires technical expertise and active engagement. This is the reason why most of the organizations always go for hiring a Salesforce consultant. Sometimes, Salesforce implementation projects fail due to various reasons like data issues, unrealistic expectations, or off-the-track project management. 

When you start your Salesforce CRM implementation, there are certain obvious factors that you need to make sure for your project and mask some others. This is where choosing a Salesforce consultant’s skills come in handy. The right skills of your Salesforce consultant can help you implement your Salesforce in a better way. 

However, choosing the right Salesforce consultant can be tricky. You can’t just simply go on different review websites and pick the one with the highest reviews. 

Every organization is different and has different sets of requirements. That is why, choosing the right Salesforce consultant is also crucial. 

So, below are the ways you can use to pick the right Salesforce consultant for you.

1. Research Well 

Before you pick any Salesforce consultant, spend ample time in online research. Search for popular Salesforce consultants, shortlist some of them, and visit their websites. You may check out their ebooks, case studies, videos, vision statements, and enquire more about them via email or call. 

You can also request for a meeting with them to understand them better and know how they can help you achieve your vision. It would be better if you search for Salesforce implementation use cases that are relevant to your business or industry verticals. You may also take help of the official Salesforce Chatter groups and Trailblazer community to help you make the right decision. 

2. Always Check Salesforce Certification

Needless to say, a certified Salesforce consultant would be much more beneficial to associate with for your organization. Therefore, always make it a point to find out whether your Salesforce consultant partner holds the Salesforce certification or not. Salesforce hosts a robust certification program which provides credentials for Salesforce Consultants, Administrators, Developers, Architectures, and Marketers.

Check and find out if your consultant has the latest Salesforce release or not. They should have both Salesforce Developers and Salesforce Administrators Certifications in the least. 

3. Request Salesforce to Help with Search of Consultants

Your Salesforce Account Executive may help you by providing a list of certified partners that can fit your Salesforce project type perfectly. A skilled team of Salesforce experts support these Account Executives and they also try to look like the partner. 

Apart from the official source, there are various vocal Salesforce admins who you can find at Tech and Social Media forums. They can assist you with the questions relevant to your specific implementation challenges, particular product’s functionalities, and feasibility of apps. 

4. Don’t Stop at Just a Few

Never go for the first proposal that comes to you without any detailed analysis and negotiation. There will be various companies who send you the first proposal but don’t accept them at once. Analyze them, try more and look around for better offers, and then decide which one to finalize. 

You can ask for the demos, proof of concept (POC), case studies, their Salesforce customer portal if they provide one, etc. from different Salesforce consultants to see their work methodology and assess whether they would fit your requirements. The best Salesforce consultant is the one who can acknowledge your needs and draw an implementation roadmap even before taking your onboard. 

5. Consider Budget

Hiring Salesfoce consultants isn’t an easy game. It requires you to invest a good sum of money. Therefore, you should consider the budget as well while deciding the consultant besides Salesforce consultant’s skills.

Make sure that your Salesforce implementation is the most time-efficient and comprehensive. One of the best ways that you can use to estimate the cost of implementation is the calculating the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 

This cost includes the cost of product licenses, internal labor, services, and long-term maintenance cost.

6. Focus on Long-Lasting Engagement

If your organization doesn’t have Salesforce certified experts and your project is critical, think of a strategy to find a Salesforce consultant who can help your organization in all aspects. Right from process execution to its expansion as per the growing needs. 

Salesforce certified experts have a proactive approach and they can recognize the risks and issues even before they emerge. This is why the ideal approach should be to focus and plan a long-term engagement strategy. 

7. Make Sure the Team Size is Sufficient 

Your Salesforce partner should have the right personnel to manage different aspects of your project implementation and in the right number. So, it is imperative to ascertain beforehand that your Salesforce consultant has the required team to implement your project on time.

Also confirm whether the team holds experienced QAs, business analysts, developers, admins, and consultants. Only after you ensure that your Salesforce consultant’s skills and team are the right fit, you should proceed. 

8. AppExchange will Help

If you want, you can refer to Salesforce AppExchange. It showcases various consultants for you to pick from. Each consultant holds a designated profile. You can filter them as per your requirements. You can also read testimonials and reviews and check out their certifications to assess their skills. 

9. Know About Responsibilities

When it comes to accountability, transparency, and clarity, both you and your consultant should be well aware about the consultant's roles and in-house team members’ roles in the project.

There are some important roles like Project Manager, Data Architect, Project Administrator etc. to take care of internal requirements and you should assign them based on their expertise. 

10. Check the Project Management Approach

In the end, when both parties reach an agreement; you need to discuss and document the things to ensure the perfect execution of the work. Besides that, you should also consider service-level agreements, stakeholders’ roles and responsibilities, the contingency plan to diminish the risk, etc. beforehand. This is because dealing with them in the middle of the project is neither wise nor feasible. 

CRMJetty - Your Salesforce Consultant Partner

With years of expertise and right talent, CRMJetty can be your Salesforce Consultant to fulfill your needs. We offer the right combination of solutions + services that cater to your needs. To extend your CRM functionalities, you can also configure and customize our ready-to-integrate Salesforce customer portal. In addition to providing a launch-ready portal solution, we can also build a custom portal from scratch specific to your business requirements.

Final Words

Picking the right Salesforce Consultant to fit your business requires a well-thought and systematic strategy. You should be aware of the kind of projects they have worked on, people they hold, and their way of execution of processes. 

After you define your project requirements, check and find out if their approaches and vision resonate with yours. Assess the full package of services that they can offer to make them your best long-term consultant. 

After you see they meet your expectations in all the parameters, you can go ahead with the final deal.