Jeff Stieber

Salesforce surveyed 5,500 sales leaders from around the world and the results are stunning. 89% of salespeople are actively using partners today and, for those that aren’t, 58% will be soon. This will reach the magical 96% of revenue that we believe is partner-assisted today. Oh, and 84% are improving their sales results from last year by working more closely with partners. As the decade of the ecosystem hits half-time (year 5) we are more convinced than ever that partnerships are the key to success. No time for a victory lap - we have more work to do!

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💸 How can Salesforce ISVs use tiered pricing and multi-year contracts? 😎 Clip from discussion with Chirag Mehta, Founder Satrang Technologies, an ISV partner with multiple paid apps on AppExchange. 😎 The full Video podcast will premier soon on 🔗 https://lnkd.in/gdkzhmsu #Salesforce #AppExchange #Startups #ISVs #PDOs #TagsPodcast

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This deal marks a major milestone for Salesforce, as this is the largest acquisition they have made in nearly 4 years. It’s also one of the largest acquisitions they have ever done, just behind ExactTarget (Marketing Cloud) at $2.5B, and ahead of Vlocity (Salesforce Industries) at $1.33B.

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In last week’s post, I discussed some important differences between CPQ and RLM (https://lnkd.in/gTJ7bU-C). In this week’s post, I’m starting a deeper dive into the mechanics of migration for each of the major areas of CPQ, starting with features and options (or bundles and kits). Migrating features and options from Salesforce CPQ to Revenue Lifecycle Management is a relatively straightforward process — with one exception and some critical considerations. Here’s what you need to know: ✅ MIGRATION 1️⃣ Both CPQ and RLM use the standard Product (Product2) object to represent a SKU, though they enhance it with a different set of fields. This is both good and bad. Good because CPQ and RLM can peacefully co-exist in the same org. Bad because migration is required to move from one to the other. 2️⃣ In CPQ, possible selections within a bundle/kit are stored in Product Options (SBQQ__ProductOption__c) object. These map pretty cleanly to Product Related Component (ProductRelatedComponent) object in RLM. 3️⃣ In CPQ, product options are grouped into Product Features (SBQQ__Feature__c) object. Again, these map pretty cleanly into Component Group (ComponentGroup) object in RLM. *️⃣ The only wrinkle is that in RLM, bundled products must have Type field set to “Bundle”. Since that field can only be set when you create a new Product (Product2) record this means you have to at least duplicate bundled SKUs between CPQ and RLM. ❗ CONSIDERATIONS The object mapping described above achieves what I call a lowest common denominator migration. It will create functional bundles in RLM, but it fails to take advantage of the power of the RLM data model to build a scalable product catalog. For example, RLM allows you to configure Product Classification Components, which are basically placeholders that reference a dynamic product template that gets resolved to actual products at run time. This enhances scalability considerably and facilitates the management of large product catalogs at scale. And there is no equivalent functionality in CPQ. All things considered, this migration allows for a high level of automation, which simplifies the process, but I strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to refactor your product catalog to take full advantage of RLM functionality. Next week I’ll be covering Configuration Attributes. Stay tuned! #salesforce #revenuecloud #cpq #revenuelifecyclemanagement #rlm #migration

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People don’t realize what “closing skills” are in sales, and they’re not “is persuasive.” Reps with closing skills CONSISTENTLY know, can choreograph and advise on how the deal gets signed and returned. And their forecast accuracy reflects those skills.

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Actionable data has always sat weeks if not months away from leaders in key GTM roles like Sales, Service, Marketing, Advertising or BI. Bringing arguably the best BI tool to your CX teams allows them to make quicker decisions and show faster results.

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