Tips for Salesforce Success: Trusted Advisors
Our principal consultant, Paul Harris joined the Consultancy Dreamin’ ‘Experience Tract’ line up in July 2021 to share his valuable Salesforce ecosystem experience. The session focussed mainly on the ten things that might not be expected when delivering consultancy services.
Over the coming weeks, we’ll be sharing each of the tips mentioned in Paul’s session right here on our blog. This week, we’re going to discuss the importance of becoming a trusted advisor to your customers without trying to be an expert in everything.
Tip #4. Becoming a trusted advisor
Consultants can sometimes be branded as over confident with a touch of egotistical presence, but it’s not surprising given the challenges we are sometimes expected to deliver upon within equally challenging circumstances. The breadth of skills that, as consultants, we are required to harbour can often be mistaken for a know it all, maybe an over confident approach – but we like to think that’s not the case.
Thankfully, there is a differing and more positive opinion to this. We have had experiences where customers have built enough trust with our team that they expect us to have the knowledge and skills for anything and any industry. Although our team has many many years combined experience within the Salesforce ecosystem, our view is that we’re not superheroes with egos, but we’re happy to try and help wherever we can whilst providing the relevant skills and insights and expertise.
Building trust
Having worked with a customer in the event management space, who had already had two different consultancies attempt to implement their system and fail, it was clear that they had failed to connect with the key stakeholders in the business. So, after carefully and considerately building trust and confidence, once the core system was implemented, our team was asked to put together around 40 dashboard components which the CEO wanted to use to monitor the heartbeat of various parts of the business. The results enabled the different teams to monitor the core business KPIs, the CEO to look at the top level view and we were delighted to discover that the CEO was impressed that we had restored his faith in Salesforce consultants with our implementation.
The following day the CEO asked if we could take a look at one of his spreadsheets that required some further refinement. It actually turned out to be a spreadsheet for financial and business planning for the next 3 years and the presentation needed to be the best it could be as evidence for a further financing round into the business.
Need a trusted technology advisor?
As you’ll no doubt recognise, the additional requirement suggested by our customer wasn’t part of the original engagement, but it was something that we were asked to do because we had demonstrated expertise, understanding and a listening ear. They were delighted with our delivery, enough so for us to become their trusted technology advisers and to contribute to a critical business milestone.
If you require a trusted team to discuss your upcoming implementation projects, our registered Salesforce partner team is ready to listen. Contact us on 033 0233 0229 or get in touch for a FREE Salesforce Consultation. – But be quick, there are limited spaces available!
