A student of mine recently asked me for advice regarding a Salesforce proposal he was about to submit.
The submission included a presentation of his proposal, and my student wanted to be well prepared for any arguments the client had. One of his concerns was, what if the client says my prices are too high?… Read the rest
Last week was the Nonprofit Dreamin 2023 in Chicago. It’s a Salesforce conference for partners and clients working with nonprofits.
Provisio, a Salesforce partner, hosted the event at their really cool new office. It’s right next to the Chicago river, with spectacular views of the water and surrounding building.… Read the rest
While networking at Nonprofit Dreamin this week, someone asked me why am I so good at marketing myself? Being a soloist cannot be easy, he added. After all, I
My response was laughter.… Read the rest
Yesterday’s article left off with the question: how can you come up with a time and price estimate for the implementation phase of a Salesforce project?
The non-typical answer is: you don’t.
That is, you don’t estimate anything. Instead of the typical approach of
Here’s the non-typical approach:
This is called value-based pricing (VBP), and it’s a completely different mindset than hourly billing.… Read the rest
I’m wrapping up a Salesforce discovery project with a multinational client. The engagement went really well, so they’ve asked for a proposal to do the implementation.
The client was also transparent from the start of the engagement. They said they would submit a Request for Proposal (RFP) so other Salesforce partners could bid on the project.… Read the rest
I recently had a conversation with a frustrated client.
He wanted a straightforward report that shows all contacts in Salesforce with the following criteria:
The report must display
This information would be used to segment an audience for upcoming events.… Read the rest
Every once in a while, I rewatch an YouTube video from 2014 called The Expert (Short Comedy Sketch).
It’s titled a comedy but it’s actually scary how real it feels.
The actors are:
Sadly, being a Salesforce consultant can often make you feel like the expert in this sketch.… Read the rest
To work effectively as a digital nomad, you need to have systems in place. Here are 5 of them that will keep you humming along, no matter where in the world you are.
1. Determine your work schedule
If you’re a morning person, you can choose a region that is in the same or earlier time zone as your clients.… Read the rest
The possibility to nominate someone for 2024 Salesforce MVP is currently open.
But wait, what is a Salesforce MVP?
As defined by Salesforce, Salesforce MVPs (most valuable person) are exceptional leaders and product experts who go above and beyond to help others succeed in the Salesforce ecosystem.… Read the rest
I was recently a guest on Jonathan Stark podcast, and the episode was just published.
For your information, Jonathan is my main mentor for fixed pricing and value-based pricing. Listening to his podcast episodes and digesting his articles about the topic completely changed the way I do business.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, sometimes your client can irritate you.
Perhaps they do it unconsciously or inadvertently, and they may do it to try and exert their dominance on you. It actually doesn’t really matter why they do these things. You cannot control them, you cannot change their behavior, and you should not retaliate.… Read the rest
Another approach to setting expectations with a Salesforce client is to set the bar low and then deliver more than promised.
Thus, instead of telling them how great the results are going to be, you almost do the opposite.
For example, you could say, “All these extra features sound great, but I doubt we’ll have time to do them for the MVP”.… Read the rest
As a digital nomad, as long as you have a laptop and internet access, you can pretty much work anywhere you choose.
When I travel, I usually decide between Airbnb and hotels. The decision depends on how long I intend to stay, what amenities I’m looking for, and what overall experience I want.… Read the rest
Well, it’s official!
After many
I was recently on the Mission: Impact podcast with Carol Hamilton. The topic was, “Finding the right CRM for your nonprofit organization”.
This may sound odd coming from a Salesforce Architect, but I don’t believe Salesforce is the right choice for all organizations.… Read the rest
Did you know they’ve done studies about anticipation?
One of these studies linked anticipation to experience. They found the positive or negative anticipation or expectation of something has a direct relationship with the actual experience of this something.
For example, when you open a pop or soda, it makes that wonderful fizzing noise.… Read the rest
Keeping track of all the possible user licenses Salesforce offers is tricky because they change often. It’s usually best that Salesforce manages the commercial agreement with the client.
However, it’s important to be aware of what kind of user licenses exist and to sometimes provide guidance.… Read the rest
Once the ledger of technical debt reaches a certain amount, it’s a good idea to sit down with the product owner (PO) and review the list. The PO can prioritize the work, and the project manager (PM) can slot the work into a future release.… Read the rest
Technical debt is not not always a bad word. Sometimes it can be useful.
Whenever creating tech debt however, it’s a great idea to record it. This could mean something as simple as a note in a technical design document. The goal here is to create a ledger of the debt.… Read the rest
Another of the great breakout sessions at Northeast Dreamin’ 2023 last week was by Hunter Dunbar. His session was called, “The Leverage and Luggage of Technical Debt”. Here’s a summary of that session.
Let’s start with a definition.
Technical debt, tech debt, or code debt, is the result of the shortcuts taken by the development team to speed up the delivery of a piece of functionality.… Read the rest
One of the wonderful breakout sessions I attended at Northeast Dreamin’ 2023 last week was by Daniel Gorton. His session was called, “Delivering Empathic and Joyful User Experiences”.
Being UX certified myself, I was drawn to the words “empathic” and “joyful”.… Read the rest
I recently listened to a wonderful podcast with Annie Duke.
Annie is a former poker player and author of some books related to decision science and decision education. As you know, decision making is an important part of being a Salesforce consultant.… Read the rest
For the last two days, I’ve been at Northeast Dreamin in Manchester, New Hampshire, and it’s been a blast!
Some familiar faces were present, most of whom I met in person while at the Salesforce World Tour in NYC earlier this year.… Read the rest
This email may be a little controversial. I don’t mean it to be, but it’s something I’ve noticed more often these days.
Salesforce, as a company, has certain targets to meet. They tend to focus the client’s attention in a very specific way.… Read the rest
Let’s say you have a few webforms to design, which will be embedded into a public facing website, and used by a non-authenticated user
When a form is submitted, it’ll be send to Salesforce, applying a previously discussed webform pattern.… Read the rest
This is the age-old apex trigger question, but for flows. Should an object have one after-save trigger flow or multiple?
In apex, it was usually recommended to have a single apex trigger handler that organized which subclass was called based on the type of trigger (after insert, after update, etc.).… Read the rest
While working with a Salesforce client recently, I noticed they used an interesting reporting structure.
There was a report folder called “Development”, used by the development team. Under that were several subfolders, one per calendar year.
The reports in each subfolder were slightly different, and some in the 2023 folder still had the label of 2021.… Read the rest
Return-to-office (RTO) mandates are killing employee engagement. One of the consequences is financial losses.
According to a recent survey by McKinsey, public mid-size companies risks losing around $300 USD million each year due to low engagement. Yikes.
The survey also grouped employees into 6 categories on the disengagement spectrum:
Salesforce training isn’t something you do once the project is launched and is never discussed again. It’s an iterative process you need to keep in mind at all times.
Why is that?
Because people don’t remember everything they’ve been taught on the 1st pass.… Read the rest
How many Salesforce sandbox instances should you have? What is each of their purposes? What are their inputs and outputs? When do you migrate from one to another?
At the absolute minimum, there should be one sandbox for development and testing.… Read the rest