Beyond the Salesforce License: What You Need

The decision to invest in Salesforce is not made lightly. Deciding you need a CRM and then choosing the right one can be an involved process. Implementing Salesforce within your organization is a project, as well.

In the process of evaluating Salesforce it’s likely that you made the decision to go with the industry-leading platform because of its value, and part of that value is its flexibility. With Salesforce, licenses for your team are just the start.

Depending on your business and your intended use of the platform, there are a variety of other Salesforce elements that can accelerate your value realization and enhance the usability and usefulness of the CRM. Below are just a few of the additional elements you should consider to get the most out of Salesforce for your organization.

What Your Salesforce Implementation Needs - Beyond Licenses

Configurations, Customization & the AppExchange

Nearly every Salesforce customer - more than 150,000 of them - end up customizing and configuring the platform in some way. The platform was designed for this, and it’s one of its biggest strengths.

Configuration in Salesforce is the most common of the two. This is the addition of user-defined values - like an email setting or a new field in an object. While these can be quick and easy changes, they can get out of hand and clutter your system without thought and planning.

Customization, on the other hand, is slightly more involved. This refers to adding features or functionality that aren’t part of the platform out of the box. This could be as straightforward as a trigger that assigns a lead to a sales team member based on region, or it could be entirely new functionality that is added using Apex code in Salesforce.

These two can appear together, too. For instance, you might configure the stages of your sales process and then customize it to take specific actions when a customer is moved from one stage to another, like triggering an email to a sales team manager or creating a contract.

It’s also worth noting that other companies may have had the same need to customize Salesforce that you do. If that’s the case, you may be able to find an application in the Salesforce AppExchange that will serve your purposes without needing to write any code. These 3rd party developed applications may suit your needs, and functionality spans a wide range of potential requirements, from agreement generation to ZoomInfo integrations.

A Salesforce Administrator

For a small company, it might seem silly to add a position for a Salesforce administrator to your team. Even if you don’t have a full-time, dedicated person doing this task, you’ll need someone to handle the duties of an administrator for your system. This might be someone on your staff with a desire to learn Salesforce, someone within your IT department, or even an outside consultant who handles all Salesforce administration tasks for you.

Why? Your Salesforce admin handles a myriad of important tasks, such as maintaining the platform, configuring and customizing it, adding and suspending users, requesting additional licenses, monitoring permissions, and much, much more. Someone must handle these critical tasks, whether this is their primary role or not.