The most important thing to know about value-based projects is the value of a project is determined by a combination of math and art. The math can sometimes be straightforward, but sometimes it may require additional creative help.
For example, let’s say the project is to merge Salesforce orgs.… Read the rest
Method #5: Value-based projects
The following process must be quite familiar to you:
Now instead of all that, what if we flipped it around and use value-based pricing (VBP).… Read the rest
Method #4: Retainer
Once you become well known in a specific vertical or horizontal domain in Salesforce, you can offer a retainer service.
When I say “vertical”, I’m talking about an industry, such as nonprofit, financial, or healthcare. For “horizontal”, it could mean a cloud specialization, like CPQ or Field Service.… Read the rest
Method #3: Managed service
A managed service is a monthly subscription-type of service. In return, you offer and fulfill a list of clearly set functions or objectives.
The main difference between this method and a productized service is that you customize the price based on the client’s requirements.… Read the rest
Method #2: Productized service
A productized service is a hybrid of a product and a service. You sell it like a product, with a fixed price. And you fulfill it as a service, with a very clear scope.
The boundaries of the scope are important here, as you don’t want scope creep.… Read the rest
There are five main ways Salesforce consultants can move away from hourly billing. Depending on whether you are a full-time employee or a freelancer, not every way will be easily available to you. The goal here is to show you the ways and then for you to determine which one or ones are best suited for your situation.… Read the rest
Just before we get into details about having fixed-prices for Salesforce work, consider the following story. This is probably not a factual story, but an allegory with an important moral.
Henry Ford of the Ford motor company had a huge machine that automated an important part of the car manufacturing process.… Read the rest
There’s a growing trend in the Salesforce ecosystem to shift away from hourly billing. It’s a trend that is more commonly found on other platforms and industries, so it’s about damn time it came to Salesforce.
When you’re starting your Salesforce career, it’s normal to only hear about hourly rates.… Read the rest
On this week’s podcast, I interviewed Pat McClellan of Proton7Group.
Pat, a Salesforce MVP, is the creator of a Salesforce-native SMS app. In short, it allows users to send SMS and MMS messages from any object It looks so integrated, it could have been built by Salesforce themselves.… Read the rest
One of the most important observations I made during my many travels is often downplayed.
In the media, there’s a focus on our differences and they are often exaggerated. It doesn’t matter if they talk about people from different continents, countries, regions, states or even cities.… Read the rest
Best practices exist because they are generally approved and recommended. In the Salesforce ecosystem, this usually means Salesforce introduced the best practice and the community agreed. Sometimes it’s the other way around; it’s community initiated and Salesforce rubber stamps it.
Does that mean you should always follow best practices?… Read the rest
There’s a method called “Spaced Repetition” that helps you remember things better and for longer. Basically, you shouldn’t cram all your studying into a single session. Instead, you’ll have better results if you space out your studying over multiple days while repeating key pieces of information each time.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, you sometimes need to deliver not-so-positive news. The recipient of this news can be a fellow colleague or a client, and the topic can be related to their performance or the project, or anything in-between.
The most popular method to deliver bad news is to use the sandwich model.… Read the rest
One common scenario you need to solve as a Salesforce consultant is populating data in a new pre-production sandbox. After all, there’s not much use in developing something without testing it with some data.
You can always use a full copy sandbox each time, but prices for those are comically high.… Read the rest
Today was dreamOle in Sevilla, Spain. It was awesome to be around kindred spirits again. It’s been so long since my last Salesforce conference (*cough* COVID *cough*).
There were quite a few interesting sessions to attend. Here are my personal favorites, in no particular order.… Read the rest
Salesforce has come a long way since its debut in 1999, and its four employees.
As of March 14, 2023, Salesforce is the fifth largest SAAS company in the world, ranked by market capitalization. That’s awesome!
Plotted on a chart, this data looks like this:
It’s interesting to note that aside from MS and Google, who are leading the pack by a huge margin, the remaining companies line up nearly perfectly.… Read the rest
Last week, I wrote about a power question to use when your client no longer responds to your emails. The goal is to encourage a response so you can move the project forward.
There’s another one-liner you can write, when you’re in the same scenario.… Read the rest
Salesforce has numerous conferences around the world. The most famous and largest of which is Dreamforce in San Francisco.
Not everyone has a chance to attend this event, so there are many local events around the world. Depending on your profession, there are also many industry-specific conferences and those tailored for developers, consultants, partners, etc.… Read the rest
When making technology decisions for your client, how should you consider the short-term payoff versus the long-term strategy?
In this week’s podcast, I have a wonderful conversation with Kevin Christopher-George about short vs long-term approaches, the RFP process, and avoiding the “shiny new tech” syndrome.… Read the rest
Several months ago, there was a wave of articles talking about “stealth workers”. These are individuals who pretend to be working from home, when in fact they are remote.
Tactics they employ include:
Recently, a colleague of mine was sharing a story about a Salesforce Field Service (SFS) project he’s currently working on.
As anyone who has worked with SFS knows, these projects can be tricky. It always feels like the client needs to follow a strict structure and process to benefit from it.… Read the rest
The subject of this email is an extremely powerful negotiation tactic.
To give it more context, imagine a scenario in which you are communicating with a potential client. They are a warm lead and you believe your services would be an excellent fit for their needs.… Read the rest
Let’s pickup from last week’s email about the New Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud (NPC).
Here are some of the reasons why Salesforce decided to bring the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) to the core platform:
I’ve been recently helping a client interview for a MuleSoft developer position. The client is using a recruiting agency, and we receive numerous candidates each week. Unfortunately so far, all of them have a common issue.
Once all the technical questions have been asked, I switch gears and ask soft-skill questions.… Read the rest
One of the reasons why I love being a digital nomad is the opportunity to embrace minimalism.
Several years ago, I trekked around the world for 1.5 years with just two backpacks; a 65L for clothing and a 25L for tech.… Read the rest
Complex validation rules in Salesforce can be a real pain in the butt.
When it’s a single IF statement with perhaps one OR or AND statement, there’s usually no issue. But when it’s a nested statement if ORs followed by ANDs, things can escalate quickly.… Read the rest
Salesforce made a huge announcement yesterday regarding the Salesforce Nonprofit Cloud.
Until now, if a nonprofit organization used Salesforce, they typically installed a managed package called Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP). This is a mature product, evolving for more than a decade.… Read the rest
Yesterday I published a podcast episode with Julia Devine of Devine Parker.
Julia and her colleague Catalina help nonprofits determine a technology strategy. This means assessing a client’s current state and building a plan to get to the target state.
They also help determine which CRM is the best fit for their clientele.… Read the rest
Last Friday, my colleague told me about a head-scratcher moment that he had with his Salesforce client.
The client had an old Salesforce instance, and there were too many “cooks in the kitchen” over the years. Sometimes these were internal people, other times it was external Salesforce agencies.… Read the rest
Let’s pickup from yesterday’s challenge. The conceptual answer is to create a state machine.
What is a state machine?
According to Wikipedia, “A finite-state machine (FSM) … or simply a state machine, is a mathematical model of computation. It is an abstract machine that can be in exactly one of a finite number of states at any given time.… Read the rest