Services

You have a sales team but no sales leader. Owners of the company may be trying to run sales but either don't have the skills or the time to do it effectively (or both).  You may have a sales leader but that person may not have a great deal of experience in the Salesforce, HubSpot or Microsoft ecosystems or isn't that connected.

Allow me to serve as a fractional (part-time) Chief Revenue Officer for your company. I'll leverage my knowledge, expertise, relationships and prior success leading teams at Salesforce partners, to help your salespeople and organization increase pipeline and close more deals!  If you have a sales leader, I can coach that person, assist in deal reviews and even help close opportunities.

Sales leadership, coaching, mentoring, pipeline building & management, interfacing with prospects, helping to close deals, developing and refining go-to-market strategies, establishing and modifying sales and operational process are examples of how I will help.

Recommendation:  1 - 2 Days per Week

Customer success is EVERYTHING! A company can purchase licenses of the greatest CRM platform in the world (which Salesforce is), hire a kick-butt implementation partner or ISV (which your company is) but if they can't get people to use it or if only a fraction of its intended users are using some subset of the intended functionality, they will never get the optimal Return on Investment (ROI) they expected when they made the purchase. That means, there won't be additional clouds purchased and no further implementation or consulting dollars spent with your company.

Let me serve as your fractional head of Customer Success. I'll help in the three phases of customer engagement:

1. Before the Project Begins I'll attempt to capture specific, measurable, realistic, time-boxed goals for the upcoming Salesforce project. Without these, how will your customers know they're successful?
2. During the Project I will serve as a liaison between your customers, Salesforce and your delivery organization, to keep projects on track. Let's face it, there are no perfect people so we know there are no perfect projects. Sometimes, there's a fine line between a successful implementation that had a few bumps in the road and a "Red Account" which can damage your reputation and impact your revenue. I can help.
3. Post Go-live Most partners measure success when they've completed the work outlined in the SOWs. That's not success for the customer! Real success can't be achieved until they can get their intended users to start using the licenses. I will have meetings with customers mapping outcomes to their original goals for the platform. We can review usage, hold listening sessions with users and make sure CRM is a living, breathing, part of the organization. THIS is what leads to successful customers, additional licenses and more projects for your company. It can also lead to sales for additional support and managed services offerings.

Recommendation:  1 - 2 Days per Week

Working closely with Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Partner Sales Managers is CRITICAL for partners to be able to get leads from Salesforce regularly. These Partner Sales Managers are the trusted resources at Salesforce who Account Executives and their sales leaders turn to for guidance on the best partners for their opportunities. Partners should have good relationships with them, so that they understand when to recommend them.

Many partners don't have the bandwidth to have this position filled with full-time staff or if they are on board, they're focused on things like partner level, certification, etc. I can help drive revenue through these partnerships, as I've done for partners over the past 13+ years.

Recommendation: 1 Day per Week

I will help you sell Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft professional services through the their respective sales channels, as I have done over the past 13+ years with tremendous success. It's not an overnight transition, going from wherever you are in your sales journey to being a top tier implementation partner (SI) for them. There are actually 3 sales needed to make a buck in before seeing any revenue.  Don't believe me?  Here's a brief explanation of each sale:

• Sale #1: Sell Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Salespeople and Sales Leadership on the "Why you?"
  Hundreds of partners are reaching out to Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft salespeople and sales leadership on a weekly basis. You have to have a compelling message that resonates with them. You have to give that message over and over again until it sticks. That's the water-on-rock or erosion factor successful partners go through when entering this market.  Eventually, it will work if your differentiation to help them sell is compelling.
• Sale #2: Help Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft Win!
  Once you become a trusted partner, Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft will allow you the opportunity to help them co-sell their licenses to their accounts. Now, you have to focus on helping them sell their licenses to prospects. There's no services nor product revenue for you until or unless you help your CRM partners close their license deals.  This is the second sale.
• Sales #3: Compete Against Other Partners
  A partner can secure the relationship with Salesforce, HubSpot or Microsoft (sale #1), help convince the account that it is the best CRM platform (sale #2) and STILL not win the services business. The third sale is where the partner has to compete against other implementation partners.

Most salespeople struggle to attain success in these partner ecosystems...it's not just your team. It's challenging to find salespeople who are great at both building relationships with partners (as is required to establish relationships with Sale #1) and selling against direct competitors to actual prospects (Sale #2 and #3). The great business developer can get the relationships over time but struggle with direct Sales. On the other hand, you have terrific salespeople who just aren't great at establishing those relationships with sales. They'll never get to prove how great they are because they won't have enough opportunities if they don't convince Salesforce, HubSpot and Microsoft to partner with them.

I have mastered both the business development needed to win Salesforce hearts and minds AND the ability to compete and win in our highly competitive market.  Not only can I do it for your organization, I can train and lead your salespeople to master it, over time, as well.  You just have to remember that in the same way Rome wasn't built in a day, your sales pipeline and closed deals won't be either.  However, make no mistake that we will get there!

Recommendation:  2 - 3 Days per Week