Podcasts about sfdc

According to the State of Sales Enablement Report, an estimated 90% of organizations now have enablement functions, representing a 20% year-over-year increase. So with this growth in mind, how can organizations successfully implement an enablement platform that ensures long-term success? Shawnna Sumaoang: Hi, and welcome to the Win-Win podcast. I’m your host, Shawnna Sumaoang. Join us as we dive into changing trends in the workplace and how to navigate them successfully. Here to discuss this topic is Shara Simms, the Director of Global Revenue Enablement at Cloudinary. Thank you for joining us Shara. I’d love for you to tell us a little bit about yourself, your background, and your role. Shara Simms: Thanks for having me. My name’s Shara. I am from the San Francisco Bay area originally moved down to San Diego and never left, married. Two beautiful little girls. I’m the director of Global Revenue Enablement at Cloudinary. The scope of my role is not just the sales teams, but also our customer support teams as well as our partners. So the revenue enablement kind of umbrella hits all of those different teams. And I think something probably really important to call out around the role is when people hear the term enablement, a lot of times they hear or focus on just the training aspect of it. But I think it’s, it’s so much more than that. It’s strategic partnership, it’s sales process, efficiency. It’s the connector between everything going on in the product world and the go-to-market motion and how that information gets filtered down to sales or again, partners or customer support. So that’s a little bit about me and my role. Shawnna Sumaoang: Thank you Shara! We’re glad that you’re here with us. And I couldn’t agree more. I’ve seen the evolution of the enablement profession just absolutely change from kind of being focused on content or focused on training to really taking a strategic seat at the table to help lead the strategy for the organization and how we bring kind of all the go to market motions together. So I love to hear that you’re kind of overseeing that for Cloudinary today, and you have a ton of experience in both sales enablement and leadership roles. I would love for you to talk to us a little bit more about that journey into enablement and how has your approach to sales enablement evolved over the years? Shara Simms: So I actually started out in the finance world working really closely with financial advisors in a customer support manager role. Just supporting day-to-day operations internal systems processes. I was in my, my young twenties, still trying to figure out, you know, what direction I really wanted to take my career. And there was a part of me that had considered going into teaching. I had realized this, this passion that I had for just taking complex situations or overwhelming scenarios and breaking them down into digestible information. And so with that in mind, and while I was working in this support role, an opportunity came up at the same financial company to do some internal training, onboarding for financial advisors, industry best practices, that type of thing. And I think that that was really the first turning point in my career where I realized I can take my business degree and this learned, you know, financial and business literacy and combine it with adult learning. Yeah. So adult learning quickly became not just a job, but really a passion and spent a good amount of my career at this. Finance company going beyond operations and into more marketing and sales type training. From there, I eventually made a jump into tech. I was with ServiceNow for a couple of years, doing a variety of roles from strategy to learning design, and then leading a team of instructional designers and trainers. And then I eventually made the move to Cloudinary and I would say after what has been my career so far that the background of adult learning mixed with the operational and business fluency is really what has served me well. And I think even though I don’t have a background as a seller per se, that’s really the background. The adult learning background and operational and business is what I’ve been able to effectively apply into the world of tech sales and enablement. Shawnna Sumaoang: I love that. I love that operational background that you have. I think it will apply to a lot of what I’d like to talk to you about today. As I mentioned in the introduction,sales enablement is becoming more and more mainstream for a lot of organizations, and those same organizations are trying to figure out, you know, what are the right people, processes, and tools that I need to have in place. Place in order to really do enablement. Right. You know, to your point at that sort of strategic level, and I know that you guys at Cloudinary had been on a previous enablement platform, and moved over to Highspot. I’d love to understand what motivated you to reevaluate and change your enablement tech stack. Shara Simms: So yes, we did move to Highspot a few months ago. I would say there were two really big motivators there for us. The first one, one of the largest ones would be the G Suite interability. There are a lot of platforms out there that have G Suite integration, but Highspot was able to support more of an advanced use case that we had, and the specific example, the previous platform we were on, so they did integrate with Google Drive in the sense that you could make updates to your master Google documents and then those updates would flow through to the version that the sales reps accessed on the platform. I think most platforms can do that, but beyond that basic integration, we had to jump through some hoops to achieve kind of what we really wanted, which was ultimately to take our internal customer data, have that flow through the platform, and then automatically transpose onto our templated customer facing slides for things like account reviews, which saves our CSMs and our account managers just hours of time Highspot can support this, which was really important for us. Whereas the previous platform, we would’ve needed to get virtual machines like parallels, for example, which came at an incremental cost. But more than that, our security team just they weren’t thrilled with that, and it was just extra workaround. So that G Suite Interability was huge in being able to apply our internal data to the slides. And then the, the second big motivator was the administration piece of it. We are a very small team, but a mighty team. But we spent a lot of hours trying to maintain and effectively administrate our previous platform. So the ease of use on Highspot, specifically ease of use with Salesforce integration, that and G Suite was the two big motivators. Shawnna Sumaoang: m. Well I’m glad that you are now a Highspot customer and I think when you make an investment in the right tools for your teams, you wanna make sure that it’s getting adopted and, and they’re able to take full advantage of it. And I know there can be challenges sometimes when rolling out a new enablement platform in driving that adoption, along with maybe, you know, a few other challenges that come along with kind of that change management, what are some of the biggest challenges that you think enablement practitioners might face when they’re rolling out a new enablement platform, and how have you overcome some of those challenges as you prepare to launch? Shara Simms: Yeah. I think first and foremost, the challenge of having a really good and realistic strategy for the rollout and the adoption. I’ll circle back to that thought in just a moment, and the other would be, again, the hurdle of maintenance and administration. It really is time consuming and if you’re a small team without a dedicated resource, it can be challenging. So with that in mind, circling back to my original thought, which was that realistic strategy for rollout and adoption, what we did was recognize, okay, we don’t have a lot of resources here. What is going to be the most impactful thing to our teams and drive, I wouldn’t say drive adoption right out the gate, but drive that initial buy-in and the excitement from our sales teams. We all love our salespeople, but we also know that behavior change and new system adoption can definitely be a challenge. So what’s going to get them excited to where they want to use this platform? For us, we determined it was seeing that Salesforce integration before even getting into building out landing pages and navigation and fancy training curriculums. Just having that Salesforce or whatever, CRM, you may use integration with Highspot so that. The sales individuals can see the recommended content to use right there within their opportunity page. Rolling that out. Got them really excited and bought in and, and it got them asking me on a weekly basis, when are we getting this whole platform? So we took a phased approach, realistic expectations of what we could do within our given resources. Phase one, Salesforce and Highspot integration Phase two, which is where we are right now, Digital Sales Rooms customizing content and sales facing landing pages. We purposely did not want to rush this portion of it because having a really well thought out organization of content on the various landing pages or HighSpot calls ’em spots, we use the term landing page internally. I think that’s probably a really important piece. So that went into our phase two. Then lastly, phase three will be the second half of the year, all of our learning and training curriculums. Shawnna Sumaoang: I love that. I know building strong professional relationships is another key focus of yours. As you implement a new enablement platform, how do you plan to drive adoption and build excitement? As you mentioned, how critical that is just a moment ago for your programs amongst the sales teams that you support. Shara Simms: Yeah, retouching on, you know, the strategy of our phased approach, but beyond that, I think maintaining really close relationships with our sales leaders is very important. It’s something that I do, you know, ensuring that they’re bought in and that we have a measurement of success that the teams will be held to as well is critical. So for example, we’re currently tracking our sales collateral usage. Are the teams using it effectively at the right stages, what’s working, what’s not? And as part of this tracking, we have an agreement with our sales leaders going into phase two of our Highspot rollout. And the agreement is we will be tracking that the teams are using certain pieces of collateral that have been deemed. Essentially a required piece of content to share for all deals. And we’re tracking that. They share it via Highspot. So if they have their own version or own copy of the material that they send directly, we aren’t tracking that. If they didn’t send it through to Highspot, it didn’t happen. And again, the sales leaders are partnering with us to hold their teams accountable. So that kind of strategic relationship at the sales leadership level I think is really important and it’s what’s helped driving our success with adoption of the platform. Shawnna Sumaoang: I love that. As you mentioned in your introduction, shara, you have a lot of experience in training. What are some of your best practices for designing and implementing effective training, and how do you see a new enablement platform optimizing these efforts? Shara Simms: Yeah, so first and foremost, always having clearly defined and stated objectives. This is your North Star. It’s gonna help you define if the. Expectation is a behavior change if it’s truly just knowledge retention, if it’s more so a communication versus training. So without a doubt, I want to call that out as probably the most important thing, and not only stating the objective, but also having really clear alignment and agreement of those objectives with your stakeholders. Beyond that, which was maybe stating the obvious. I think a blended learning approach is always the best tactic to use as well, which is one thing I’m really excited about to build enablement on Highspot with this kind of mixed learning. We’re gonna have the ability to pull in my live webinar schedules combined with any on-demand training courses, then technical product documentation that I need the team to read as part of the overarching curriculum. And it’s all going to be on one platform and one curriculum. We also use a tool called Second Nature, which is like an AI simulation tool for sales. It’s pretty cool. And we can also integrate those AI role plays into the same high spot curriculums. So just the ease of pulling in all of those different types of learning elements into one place. It’s gonna be a really exciting second half of the year for us. I’m also really excited to build out curriculums that are role-based or skill-based. So tying in not only the learning component, but then any collateral or resources from the platform into one place based on the specific role or the specific skill gap that I am ultimately trying to solve for. I think lastly, of course, the measurement component is also key. Being able to get insights that I can actively move against and identify, you know, where do I need to spend more of my time? By rep, by individual rep scorecards. So really, really excited for all of those kind of components and pulling in the best practices of learning. Shawnna Sumaoang: On the topic of insights, as you move forward with the implementation, how do you plan to use data and insights to continue to refine your strategy and really ensure a successful launch? Shara Simms: So I mentioned before that we are tracking collateral usage. Obviously we want to know what reps are using, not using how that correlates back to one or lost deals, but also from a behavioral change perspective. We want to also use that data to help us see how well our reps are following the sales process and where we might need to double down on either reviewing the content because it’s not working or reviewing our actual process because there’s some hurdle in the way for them that we need to solve. There’s also the customer engagement cracking that we’re hoping will help move the needle. So for example, as our reps start using the digital sales rooms, if they share a proposal there and the customer views it, great, there’s an indicator for the rep to follow up, see what questions they may have if the customer doesn’t view a case study that was shared. Okay, follow up with an email, highlight the key points from that case study to ensure the customer sees it. The customer engagement tracking is going to be a really big one that we’re going to to build off of. And then the last thing I’ll say in regards to data is. Specifically sales leaders or the manager’s insights, it’s going to be really important that my team actively works with the sales managers so that they understand, you know, how to read their teams. Data and their team’s insights. Again, I keep talking about behavior change, but really putting a focus on helping the manager turn into an effective coach for their team versus just a manager, right? Manager versus coaching, and really being able to use that data to help their teams get better. So I think those are the three big points. Shawnna Sumaoang: I love that. And, and while we’re on the topic of data, and as you mentioned earlier, you’ve been working on making sure that you have the integration set up between Salesforce. And Highspot, what value do you see in this integration and what outcomes are you hoping to achieve? Shara Simms: Yeah, the Salesforce integration is wonderful. I absolutely love it. We are definitely trying to drive better use of our internal collateral. Not only just using the content, but using the right content at the right stage, and being able to easily track that. Right now it’s very manual for us. Another big piece of this is. Time efficiency. You know, no more searching around to find the piece of collateral that, that a salesperson might need. It’s gonna appear right there in the opportunity for them. And then lastly, selfishly, from an administrative perspective, gaining a lot of time back in maintaining the Salesforce integration already. The integration works seamlessly. I’ve not had. Any trouble versus our, our last platform, we really just never got it to work correctly. Anytime we would update a field name on Salesforce, we would need to manually update the field, you know, in the platform. And that’s just not the case with Highspot. It’s just all in automatic flow. It’s saved us a ton of time. Shawnna Sumaoang: I’m glad to hear that. And as we look ahead, as you look to post-launch, what are some of the key go-to-market initiatives that you’ll be focused on driving? And how will your enablement programs help support these? Shara Simms: Yeah. Our biggest initiative right now that I think is we’re gonna support is the sales process. Adherence the right collateral. Right messaging, right process, all at the right, you know, time and the right stage. This is a mix of the SFDC integration and the landing pages we’re creating in Highspot, which are going to follow more of a sales process versus product-led theme. And what I mean by that is basically being guided by the opportunity situation versus having a seller go in and say, Hey, I just need information on this product. Well, do you really? Or are you jumping straight to solutioning? Where are you right now? Are you in discovery? And you need to pull in this material and have this type of conversation? So it’s really the entire go to market. Sales process that we’re trying to refine and ensure that our sales team is again, following the actions that should be taken versus jumping straight to product or solution material. Shawnna Sumaoang: I love that. This has been fantastic. Shara, last question for you, for our audience, for folks that are looking to roll out a new enablement platform, what’s maybe one piece of advice that you would give them to set them up for success as they get started? Shara Simms: Before you start organizing your content, have a solidified agreement behind the scenes on the methodology for how you want that content to be served up to reps and what content you want to be served up for your reps. It can be really easy to fall into a bottomless pit of content. On a platform, all of the internal resources, all of the FAQs, everything that product or product marketing has ever created, and it contend to get out of hand for reps really quickly. I think it’s fine if you want all of that internal material available, but just have a really smart way that you’re organizing and serving up the content. And I’ll give you our example. So I’m sure there’s, you know, a hundred different ways to do this as a best practice and the way that I do it might not be the best way for you, but again, that’s why we did the SFDC integration first, so that just the key content. Was rolling into the opportunity while we gave ourselves extra time to really think about content organization on our backend and align with product marketing on how we were gonna organize it to be fed out to the teams. Shawnna Sumaoang: I love that. I do think that’s a fantastic tip for our audience. So Shara, thank you again so much for joining us today. I really appreciate it. To our audience, thank you for listening to this episode of the Win-Win podcast. Be sure to tune in next time for more insights on how you can maximize enablement success with Highspot.

00:00 Introduction01:02 GTM/Marketing/Rev Ops is Escalating in Complexity18:12 Is Linkedin Beef a good GTM Strategy?31:50 When in the sales process should you create an Opportunity?Hear more from us:Subscribe to us on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN-x5u0G03LWmU0Ds_4zR8wSubscribe to our newsletter here: https://www.cs2marketing.com/revenue-growth-architects#subscribe-to-newsletterFollow Crissy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/crveteresaunders/Follow Charlie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charliesaunders/Follow Xander on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/xanderbroeffle/

On this week's episode, we welcome one of our favorite guests - Alison Rouse, Chief Architect and Analyst at CS2, to talk about why using a custom object to track your funnel is our preferred method.Historically marketers have been stuck with some less-than-ideal solutions to track their funnel properly. Whether it's only on the lead/contact object and losing out on multi-journeys and causing inaccurate data, or having to invest money into solutions that are separate from your CRM, trying to track the funnel has always felt "hard."Well - Alison has a solution that she has developed for our clients that uses an SFDC custom object and it has made us all true believers. So sit down and hear why you need to think about adopting this approach and the benefits you will see from using it! And if you are interested after the show to learn more, reach out to us on our website www.cs2marketing.com.

On this week's episode, we welcome one of our favorite guests - Alison Rouse, Chief Architect and Analyst at CS2, to talk about why using a custom object to track your funnel is our preferred method.Historically marketers have been stuck with some less-than-ideal solutions to track their funnel properly. Whether it's only on the lead/contact object and losing out on multi-journeys and causing inaccurate data, or having to invest money into solutions that are separate from your CRM, trying to track the funnel has always felt "hard."Well - Alison has a solution that she has developed for our clients that uses an SFDC custom object and it has made us all true believers. So sit down and hear why you need to think about adopting this approach and the benefits you will see from using it! And if you are interested after the show to learn more, reach out to us on our website www.cs2marketing.com.

Are you struggling to measure the impact of your marketing channels and track the origin of your leads? You're not alone! This week on The Revenue Growth Architects Podcast, Nina Valtcheva, Director of Solutions Architecture at CS2, comes back to chat about how to unravel the mystery of SFDC Campaign/Channel Tracking and help you master the art of attribution.In this information-packed episode, we'll cover:The Where/What Challenge: Discover how to track how someone got to your content and what they converted on, and learn about the different methods to set up your SFDC Campaigns for better attributionSetting Up SFDC Campaign Tracking: Dive into the process of creating SFDC Campaign Types, defining UTM values, and setting up automation to streamline your tracking and reportingReporting and Utilizing Data: Explore various reporting techniques and learn how to use the data to optimize your marketing campaigns and boost your ROI, and finally,Common pitfalls to be aware of, key monitoring strategies, and the importance of not setting and forgetting your tracking processThis episode is sure to help you take your campaign tracking skills to the next level!

Get ready for 30 minutes on how to prevent churn and ensure your sales team gives customers an amazing start to their experience.1. There is such a thing as a bad-fit customerWhere misalignment happens- Sales gathers a customer's pains and goals - but CS is responsible for them- Sales is only concerned with closing dealsCS can be as proactive as they want - if it's a bad fit, there isn't much they can do2. How sales can help CS1. Information transfer- SFDC can only help to a point - Sales needs to communicate information to CS in detail2. The Handoff- The handoff should not be the first meeting with CS3. Managing expectations and talking through the engagement touchpoints- This should be discussed before the handoff with CS and the customer- What does implementation look like? The first 30/60/90?3. How CS can help Sales1. Feedback on best-fit customers- CS can track successful customers and provide that information back to sales to better target- They can also share current and new challenges Sales can use in conversations2. Expansion and upsells- CS can identify the right time to start talking about expansion opportunities and when to bring in sales (depending on how your org is set up)...Sign up for the Modern Leader Newsletter for more tips and talks like this from Jake: https://skaled.com/modern-leader-sign-up/ Follow Jake: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakedunlapInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/jake_dunlap_/Twitter: https://twitter.com/jaketdunlapWebsite: https://www.jakedunlap.com/

Summary/Abstract Richard Harris is the owner and founder of the Harris Consulting Group, as well as the co-founder of Surf and Sales. He is also a five-time AAiSP Top 25 Most Influential Inside Sales Professional two times Salesforce Sales Leader. In the podcast, Jax and Richard discuss the early stages of SaaS startups, and how Richard is able to help them grow. They also talk about the importance of microdoses in the sales process, and how they can help keep top of mind for potential customers. Richard is a sales trainer, startup adviser, and trusted sales professional. He has always wanted to be in management and sales, and he started his company about ten years ago based on a startup he was working for. Richard describes how he teaches sales reps how to earn the right to ask questions, which questions to ask, and when to do it from a sales training perspective. If you're an upcoming Account Executive, this is an episode you don't wanna miss. Key Takeaways: Upfront Contract Sales Methodologies Mental Health Connect with Richard Harrison on LinkedIn https://theharrisconsultinggroup.com/ --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/jtlieu/support

Steven B. Strout Mr. Strout's is a recognized and experienced technology leader with extensive experience in delivering value.   He has successfully led business and technology transformations by leveraging many dozens of complex global SFDC, Oracle and/or SAP projects.  He is especially adept at leading what some call “Project Rescues” - saving people's careers where projects have gone awry; always driving "on-time and on-budget." Mr. Strout, is the current President of Miovision Technologies and the former CEO and board member of the Americas' SAP Users' Group (ASUG).  His wealth of practical knowledge comes from 30 years of extensive experience in many CxO and executive roles at some prestigious organizations such as Vonage, Sabre, BlackBerry, Shred-it, The Thomson Corporation (now Thomson Reuters) and Morris Communications.  He is or has been on many different industry and company boards, including the Customer Advisory Boards of Apple, AgriSource Data, Dell, Edgewise, EMC, LogiSense, Socrates.ai, Spiro Carbon Group, and Unifi.  Mr. Strout speaks often at major conferences such as SAPPHIRE, Oktane, and user group meetings across the globe and is quoted in many publications including Forbes and The Wall Street Journal. In addition, he has co-authored a number of books including:  The Elephant in the Room: Data  How to Best Govern and Manage Your Enterprise Data.

Andrew Bauer is our guest for Underserved episode #080. Andrew is another guest who is a product of the Syracuse I-School. Combining business and technology skills, the I-School produces graduates with the rare skill set of being able to talk to both technical people and business folks (and living to tell about it!) Andrew has made a career of this, translating requirements into implementations with technologies ranging from IoT to SFDC. We talk about being an EMT on an ambulance (the second guest this season!) and the personalization of advertising as well.   Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewbauer9 NEXIS - https://nexis.ischool.syr.edu/ SUA - https://sua.syr.edu  PMC - https://profile.pmc.org/AB0205

Sarah McConnell is the VP of Demand Gen at Qualified, software to identify website visitors, chatbot and live chat---specifically for companies that use Salesforce. She helps companies achieve MLG via proper, modern, non-spam marketing. Sarah dons B2B buyers' flip flops to share buying preferences for Marketing + Sales: ✅aware of vendors via peers/network/referrals/WOM/influencers via content/social/communities (tks to Marketing + Marketing's influence on peers) ✅learn about/try/buy vendors via peers and website (tks to Marketing) w/OPTION for Sales ❌Turn off + tune out: telemarketing, email spam, LinkedIn spam, bribery via gift cards (Sales Development)

Camille Trent is the Head of Content at Dooly, a Sales software company for sellers to take meeting notes and automatically push them to Salesforce, as well as manage their pipeline. 100 employees, Series B. Camille dons B2B buyers' flip flops to share buying preferences for Marketing + Sales: ✅aware of vendors via peers/referrals/WOM/influencers via content/social/communities (tks to Marketing + Marketing's influence on peers) ✅learn about/try/buy vendors via peers, Google, consultants, agencies, review sites, and on website (tks to Marketing) with option for Sales ❌Turn off + tune out: telemarketing, email spam, LinkedIn spam (Sales Development)

Working in digital engagement is a constant learning process filledwith many opportunities to test, learn, and change directions. If there is one thing you can take away from today's guest, it's that learning and shifting is all part of the growth process. Jeff Shurtliff, Business Applications Manager & Developer at RSA, joins the podcast to share his experience in launching new digital programs, and how to support and inform customers by involving them in development and testing. Here's a sneak peek: Community integrations with both JIRA and SFDC to help bring the power of community to key internal teams whose participation and contributions are critical to overall community performance. The importance of User Acceptance Training, particularly in a large deployment The importance of internal and external communications when making changes to the community Utilizing easy to access data to help plan knowledge content for the community Subscribe to Titans of Customer Engagement on your favorite podcast platform to hear more interviews like this one. Apple Podcasts Spotify Amazon Google Podcasts

What is Up SharkNation!  On this episode the guys chatted to Co-Founder of Pitchedit - Rob Halligan.  PitchedIt provide tech founders with a platform to validate ideas, raise capital and connect with service providers who can help execute their vision, so they can launch better products, faster. Rob left his job in SFDC to concentrate on the business full time just one month ago. On the SharkPod we love chatting to entrepreneurs who have just taken the leap - we hope to have a followup episode in a few years to see how Rob's getting on.  Key Takeaways:  1. Go all in: A wise man once said that no man can serve two masters. In order for people to invest in your idea - you have to be all in.  2. Scratch the itch: If you are working for a large company with a great salary and perks it can be easy to deny the urge to strike out on your own... for a while... in the end you're likely to do it anyway so why not now? As Mark Baker always says..."Nature vs Nurture... Nature always wins....". Make your plans - build out a worst case scenario 'come back plan' if the business fails and just f'ing do it! 3. Don't be afraid of complexity: Rob has a job on his hands... anything that has money involved will have regulations... Anything you build where a thriving community is key it will be difficult to build - but these difficulties build moats around your business - creating real barriers to entry for would be competitors.  For more information on PitchedIt: https://pitchedit.co/ For feedback: Luke@Shark.ie

In this episode, Rachel is joined by Elizabeth Medlicott, Director of Marketing Operations at Model N. Elizabeth has over a decade of experience in marketing operations, primarily in B2B software, for enterprise, mid-market, and start-up businesses, including public and unicorn companies. She is skilled in Marketo, SFDC, ABM, data migration, data management, and various marketing/sales tech stack tools. Model N was also a finalist for a 2021 OpsStars Award for Digital Transformation. In today's episode, Elizabeth shares how to build a revenue dashboard. In doing so, removing huge operational burdens on MOPs by automating reports and improving the speed and access to critical business information.

RevOps is not your SFDC admin, your business systems, your IT department, or your help desk. So, what is it? Brad Smith the CEO and CoFounder of Sonar, and the beloved WizOps community joined us for today's episode to school us on all the things RevOps is not, so that he can help educate us on what the function actually is, how to scale it, when to implement the team, and the critical path to scale. Dive in! ✌️ Show Notes: Rosalyn Santa Elena, Vice President, Global Revenue Operations @ Neo4j: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rosalyn-santa-elena/ Jeff Ignacio, Sales Ops Lead @ AWS: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffbethechange/ Keith Jones, GTM Systems @ MURAL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/revenueoperations/ WizOps: https://www.wizops.org/ Follow Kaylee: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaylee-edmondson/ Learn more about Chili Piper: https://www.chilipiper.com/ Demand Gen Chat is a Chili Piper podcast hosted by Kaylee Edmondson. Join us as we sit down with leaders in marketing to discover the key to driving B2B revenue. If you want benchmarks or insights on trends in the market, this podcast is for you!

In this episode, get Prateek's insights on Future of SaaS(Software as a Service) Key Milestones in his career journey? SaaS definition, examples (Salesforce.com has revolutionized it) How SaaS is different from On-Prem and installable software Popular SaaS companies – SFDC, Ramco, Concur, Zoho, Zendesk, ServiceNow etc. Domains & Sectors where SaaS is booming? SaaS helps small businesses in making profits Prateek's Witty answers to rapid-fire questions 1 piece of advice to those aspiring to make BIG in their careers and LIVES Trivia about Largest Hard Drive in the world! ABOUT Prateek Singhania: He is currently part of an early-stage investment team at a VC firm (Elevation Capital). His areas of focus are SaaS and B2B enterprise technology. His functional experience includes cost optimization, growth strategy, organizational re-design, process optimization, and advanced analytics among others. He holds a Dual Degree (B. Tech+M. Tech) in Mechanical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur Connect with PRATEEK on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prateeksinghania Here is a chance to broadcast yourself

In #DevDC Podcast Episode 11 we have a career journey discussion with Rusty Pickens. This includes talking about leading the implementation of Salesforce for the Obama White House and how cloud first began in the US Government. Today Rusty helps run 580 Strategies to help establish digital practices in all types of organizations. We talk about his journey, his technology passions (which include #DevSecOps, #Agile and Human Center Design ,#HCD) as well as the motivations that brought him to where he is today.Rusty has managed annual budgets north of $60M and served as a U.S. Department of State Senior Advisor for Digital Platforms. Interestingly he also has a lot of experiences working with startups. He believes supporting such diverse organizations was key to his growth and he encourages others to "pull the parachute rip cord out of Government and do something radically different"!Rusty is passionate about his community and roots. A proud Chickasaw, he cut his teeth in IT working as a Network Admin for Smokesignals Computer Company (a subsidiary of Chickasaw Nation Industries). Today he helps lead “Agile Academy” which is available through his firm and at East Central University in Oklahoma - where he graduated and serves as a Guest Lecturer. The 580 in 580 Strategies comes from his area code in Southern and Western Oklahoma. Rusty also served as a VP for Out in STEM and Co-Founded Out in National Security.It is important to Rusty that he help set up the next generation and believes mentorship is key. Contact Rusty if you would like to connect in general or if 580 Strategies' mission to help establish digital practices in your organization is something that interests you!

What's up PartnerUp! We're BACK and dropping heat with the best names & knowledge in partnerships you SHOULD have heard of.  And this is a name you're not going to forget with some lessons you can take all the way to the Board Room.Did you see those logos in the title?Avanish is perhaps (and IMO undoubtedly) the most decorated B2B SaaS Partner Executive of all time. Avanish has helped lead partner programs & ecosystems for SalesForce, ServiceNow, Google Cloud and is on the Board of Directors for HubSpot. We discuss the rapid changes in B2B GTM leaving the door open for ecosystem as a competitive advantage that executives and boards are starting to wisen up to. You're going to love Avanish's cool, calm, and collected thoughts from someone who can say a thousand words in one crisp sentence. This is how a true partner executive and board representative talks partnerships and the strategic imperatives for their business. Tune in and level up your executive presence that you can take all the way to the Board Room on this very special episode of PartnerUp.Don't forget to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere you get your pods on the go. And leave a FIVE STAR rating -- because I do this all for free for all of you. It's the least you can do :) If you liked the show, share the episode with your commentary on LinkedIn and hash #partnerup #partnerships. Tag us in on the post so we can comment and share back!Check out all past and future the PartnerUp episodes at https://www.partneruppodcast.com and... don't forget to follow join the world's largest partnerships community at https://www.cloudsoftwareassociation.com to hang out and learn with 4,000+ partnerships professionals.

You've heard of love languages but how about the language of value?  The language of value is the backbone of today's most customer-centric organizations and the leaders talking this language with their colleagues and customers are catapulting their organizations to new heights. In this episode of Value Builders, Michael Sachs, Head of Customer Success Value Methodology & Strategy at Slack, sits down to share how he thinks about the language of value while explaining how organizations can use it to unify to effectively manage customers. Michael also shares why Slack/Salesforce has decided to bring him on board to develop the company's first value methodology and strategy team. He reflects on his value management leadership experiences at Oracle, AWS, and Salesforce (his first stint) and offers advice to those working to define value strategy and management functions in their organizations.  Michael rounds out the conversation by sharing how he uses the idea of ‘carpe diem' as a personal mantra to champion his work and focus on driving innovation with a value delivery mindset. About Michael Sachs Michael Sachs is currently head of Slack's Value methodology organization. He is an executive value management strategist who transforms organizations and ignites continued growth by aligning core business outcomes with strategic solutions, utilizing Cloud SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, Mobile, Analytics, and Collaboration. He brings a broad background across numerous business functions and technologies. His industry knowledge and passion has grown throughout his career, leading him to obtain senior executive leadership roles for Fortune 500 organizations. For the past 12 years, he has launched, scaled, and optimized Value Management organizations at Oracle Tech and Apps, SFDC, AWS, and Slack.

The team passionately debates the impact of GPT-3 converting speech to code on the business and software developers. Microsoft introduces this as a low code feature at their Build Conference. @Mike points out that IT must provide the business with guard rails. “The biz knows how to read and use the data, more so than someone in a technology role. This is the democratization of software development, and data is the next step. It's going to continue and has to continue.” @Mike reminds us that Bubble & SquareSpace are empowering users to create the next Amazon or Shopify with no-code. @Lilac is looking for a low code version of Atlassian. “A CICD type cycle that allows people to manage these type assets, to cycle them and collaborate against them, relate them, fork them, etc.” A16z pens an article about cloud and repatriation cost but quickly loses credibility with the classic and worn-out Dropbox example. The team debates the report and future of the cloud. Speed round: Apple iPad Pro and the Center Stage feature is impressive. @Dominic shares his feedback on the wide camera angle that focuses on the active speaker and zooms out if someone else enters the frame. “Impressive. The iPad camera has been poor UNTIL NOW.“ Rapid7 has a software supply chain breach that has not hit the news like SolarWinds. People are in shock. Companies are going back and reanalyzing. In-person events…AWS is leading with re:Inforce in Houston this August. Basecamp has learned nothing and doubled down. SFDC threw a lone engineer under the bus for an outage…Really Salesforce!? One employee is the reason for everything that has gone wrong, and they should feel bad? Follow the show on Twitter @Roll4Enterprise or on our LinkedIn page. Theme music by Renato Podestà. Please send us suggestions for topics and/or guests for future episodes! Show Links: From conversation to code: Microsoft introduces its first product features powered by GPT-3 https://blogs.microsoft.com/ai/from-conversation-to-code-microsoft-introduces-its-first-product-features-powered-by-gpt-3/ Microsoft uses GPT-3 to let you code in natural language https://techcrunch.com/2021/05/25/microsoft-uses-gpt-3-to-let-you-code-in-natural-language/ Bubble is the most powerful no-code platform, empowering entrepreneurs to build production-ready web apps. https://bubble.io https://twitter.com/dwellington/status/1397842550153793536 The State of The Cloud https://app.livestorm.co/p/b445fedf-e2a9-432e-8935-7321c43e29d0 Over 90% of respondents reported growth in on-prem sales over the past 5 years. Over 50% of respondents' revenue can be attributed to on-prem software sales. 86% of respondents are using Kubernetes for their on-prem software The Cost of Cloud, a Trillion Dollar Paradox — a16z https://a16z.com/2021/05/27/cost-of-cloud-paradox-market-cap-cloud-lifecycle-scale-growth-repatriation-optimization/

Salesforce is an amazing company led by its founder and CEO Marc Benioff. What started as a CRM-focused SaaS company has evolved over the past several decades into a business process automation ecosystem. Salesforce's core strategy is to provide a few core applications around customer relationship management (CRM), service management and marketing, and allow independent service providers to connect to its platform and augment its core capabilities to create a more niche application. Salesforce also provides basic partner relationship management (PRM) capabilities, and in this article we will explore the pluses and minuses of Salesforce PRM. Before we proceed further, let's take a step back and understand Salesforce's overall strategy. As I said in the beginning, it started as CRM platform in a SaaS package—an alternative to on-premise software that had to be installed and configured on a company's physical servers. (Yes, remember those days? Not so long ago, eh?) More recently, Salesforce has followed the lead of software platform providers like Microsoft in offering customers a development environment called Force.com, with its own software built on that. In much the same way Microsoft provides Windows as an operating environment, but then also sells Microsoft Office applications like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, Salesforce provides a solid CRM platform and allows third-party providers to build and run applications on its Force.com platform and connect to its core applications. In fact, ZINFI's own PRM application connects to Salesforce CRM as well as Salesforce PRM. Now, over the past decade or so has Salesforce dabbled in the area of partner relationship management. At one point in time, it had a dedicated product, but according to industry analysts achieved only lackluster sales, and therefore decided to roll that into the Salesforce Community Cloud business line. Salesforce PRM today is essentially an extension of Salesforce Community Cloud, rather than a purpose-built PRM platform. Salesforce PRM has unique strengths and weaknesses, and if you are considering investing in it you should understand what they are. There are basically three core positive areas for Salesforce PRM. They are focused on a) extending your direct selling motion to the channel via Salesforce PRM, b) minimizing or eliminating any integration work for another application if you are a Salesforce CRM house already, and c) giving you powerful tools to build custom workflows for your channel applications, in much the same way you can build workflows for direct sales automation activities.  Let's take a moment and explore these three areas in a bit more detail: Extending Direct Selling – If your organization has chosen Salesforce CRM for sales and/or marketing automation and you are looking to provide some basic capabilities for sharing information with your channel partners, then Salesforce PRM is certainly worth a look. Using Salesforce PRM community capabilities, you can build some basic collaboration capabilities and share content with your channel partners. This allows your direct sales team or inside sales team to easily collaborate with partners using a few basic communication tools.Eliminating Integration Work – If your organization is already using Salesforce CRM, then turning on the PRM capabilities is quite simple. Even though Salesforce PRM is not a purpose-built application and may require you to do a lot of configuration and customization work, in the end you can eliminate any integration requirements. While ZINFI's PRM platform—along with other third-party purpose-built PRM platforms—comes with easy-to-connect PRM to SFDC connectors, in the end some organizations simply don't want to manage another application. If you are in that boat, Salesforce PRM is a reasonable option for you to consider.Powerful Workflow Tools – even though it comes with very limited PRM capabilities,

Thilani is joined by Salesforce Administrator, and all-around great guy, Jake Aguilar, who's back to discuss the SFDC Spring 2021 release and the features that excite us the most.

Thilani is joined by Shift3's resident Salesforce expert, Brandon Madeuño about 5 questions your team needs to consider before embarking on a digital transformation with Salesforce.

Guest: https://twitter.com/Lost_Signal Topic Summary: Jobs Friday John Hates M$ Teams Sales Force / Slack Netapp Earnings Covid Vaccine & MRNA delivery AI MAJOR Breakthrough Warner Bros & HBO Max Don’t put your router in jail!

SFDC Consultant is here to support your Salesforce Career through Interviews, Podcasts, Videos and Articles about and around the best way to grow and develop as a Salesforce Professional. We have a list of high value and highly packed Salesforce Podcast Episodes with Salesforce MVP Guests, Salesforce Architects, Salesforce Consultants, Directors, Developers and Administrators. Welcome back to the SFDC consultant Podcast, I'm your host Emeric and today I would like to share with you a conversation with Jason holt. I've done a number of podcast episodes around the best way to tackler certain subject when building a Salesforce consultancy or an AppExchange Business. Today I am adding to that list by sharing this extremely insightful conversation with Jason. Jason has published an app on the AppEchange, and in this discussion, we went through his journey. not the technical side, but the more operational side of that, which included getting the first client, deciding and segmenting the market and more. I know that this will be of great support for anyone thinking of building and publishing an app on the AppExchange. Jason LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonhoult/ Website - https://www.anvilappworks.com/ Guest Description These are some of my favourite SFDC Consultant Episodes:

James Phillips, the head of engineering for Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform, that we all either use, or make a living on, recently tweeted "The name changes will continue until morale improves". It was a joke people!!! Relax My inbox blew up with people asking me what "morale" issue James was referring to. Jimbo was paraphrasing an old quote that I used for the title of this post. In fact, Jimmy is not even responsible for naming as far as I know,  that merry-go-round is operated by Alysa Taylor's team. I think JP was acknowledging the angst of name changes in a humorous way. So.... relax... morale is fine. But for some, there are legitimate concerns with certain motions other than naming. ISVs on Edge Despite James' public insistence that Microsoft wants to be a platform company, his product engineering teams are continuing to crawl up-the-stack. It was not that long ago, that the position expressed by Microsoft was, we will never go vertical, that is for our partners and ISVs. It feels to me like the recently launched "Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare" is pretty darn vertical. I also assume this is the first of more "Industry Clouds" to come. Microsoft's message to ISVs? "There's plenty of opportunity for ISVs here".  I'm not convinced yet. Keeping up with the Jones' This is most likely a Microsoft reaction to similar motions by Salesforce. I do understand the competitive forces in the marketplace, and reacting to them is necessary. But one of the reasons I moved from a Salesforce Consultant to become a Microsoft Partner 10 years ago, was the "Partner First' ecosystem. "Partner First', or 'Partner Led" have never been part of SFDC's lexicon. At the moment, I am struggling to reconcile Satya's words with some of these motions. You will eat it, and you will like it Historically, Microsoft provided the platform, and some relatively generic applications, that were then extended by SIs and ISVs to meet the specific requirements of verticals, including healthcare. It has been the meat of a business application partner's business. It feels to me that these Industry Clouds scrape much of the meat off partners' plates, and onto Microsoft's. It feels like we are left with mostly vegetables... and I never liked vegetables. Get on, or get out of the way None of us can say that Microsoft has not been crystal clear in their guidance to Partners and ISVs in the last few years: Get Vertical! Seeing the huge vertical opportunity, maybe Microsoft just got tired of waiting for us all to come around. So "Partner Led" becomes "Partners Follow", I can't say that I blame them, I'm not a particularly patient person either. Looking at a vast unmet opportunity, and sitting on your hands waiting for partners to see and act on it, would probably drive me to eventually elbow past the stagnant herd also. Seeds were planted I hate to say "I told you so"... but I did. I saw this coming with the initial launch of the first "Industry Accelerators", free data models with "example apps". Again, not enough of us bought into the accelerators, so "Industry Clouds" built by Microsoft on top of them, was an obvious next step. "Example Apps" evolved into finished, supported and SKUed applications from Microsoft. Impact on ISVs and SIs? It's too early to tell what the impact will be from these motions. Clearly if you had built extensive healthcare IP, there will be an impact, you may even find yourself competing with Microsoft in some cases. If you were thinking about building IP for Healthcare, you may have to focus on the vegetables now. For SIs, what you may have charged historically to build out a healthcare solution, will likely be less for extending a pre-built "Industry Cloud" solution. Who wins! This motion will be a win for the customers of course, by potentially lowering development costs, and having more direct support from Microsoft for Microsoft-built stuff. But I really feel that Microsoft will be the biggest winner. I have written before that Partners are simultaneously Microsoft's biggest asset, and biggest liability. While opening every partner presentation with the obligatory "Thank You Partners!" slide, there have been distinct moves to reduce their dependency on partners from Microsoft's first stepping into the cloud. "Citizen Developers" for one obvious example. I'll conclude this post by saying that, no business model is immune from disruption, and that includes Partners.

Though sometimes you hate to admit it, your users have a love/hate relationship with Salesforce. In this episode, host, Thilani Grubel, and guest, David Akina, discuss a few simple tricks to help you increase the adoption and satisfaction of your users.

Cuarto capítulo de Xtreme Digital, el podcast de LabsXD con el que llevamos el universo digital a tus oídos. En esta ocasión, vamos a explorar dos roles aparentemente rivales: QA y Developer. Para ello, hablamos con Ángel Dudamel SFDC & Vlocity QA Lead y Leandro Petri, SFDC & Vlocity Functional Solution Designer en LabsXD. ¿Cuánto hay de mito y de verdad en la rivalidad entre estos roles? ¿Cuán importante es la comunicación entre ellos? ¿Qué se necesita para trabajar en estas especialidades? Estas son solo algunas de las preguntas que respondieron nuestros invitados. Dale PLAY y disfruta de nuestro capítulo. Seguinos en nuestras redes como @labs.xd o en www.labsxd.com

Cuarto capítulo de Xtreme Digital, el podcast de LabsXD con el que llevamos el universo digital a tus oídos. En esta ocasión, vamos a explorar dos roles aparentemente rivales: QA y Developer. Para ello, hablamos con Ángel Dudamel SFDC & Vlocity QA Lead y Leandro Petri, SFDC & Vlocity Functional Solution Designer en LabsXD. ¿Cuánto hay de mito y de verdad en la rivalidad entre estos roles? ¿Cuán importante es la comunicación entre ellos? ¿Qué se necesita para trabajar en estas especialidades? Estas son solo algunas de las preguntas que respondieron nuestros invitados. Dale PLAY y disfruta de nuestro capítulo. Seguinos en nuestras redes como @labs.xd o en www.labsxd.com

Host, Celeste A. Barron, has a conversation with organic grower, Steven Cardoza of Cardoza & Cardoza Farming Company about his experience with AgTech and how it's revolutionizing his company.

A trailer for Shift3 Technologies' new podcast about the intersection of Business and Technology. The show will feature brief conversations with industry experts about how custom software and technology shape businesses and how businesses are shaping technology in today’s marketplace. Each tech talk is under 30 minutes, making each episode a fast listen for business leaders on the move.

I guess it is fairly obvious from my post yesterday, that I am pretty pissed off at Microsoft. I have always been one of those "Don't point out a problem, without suggesting a solution" kind of guys, and I have done my share of pointing out problems with Microsoft's Business Applications ISV efforts. So here are some ideas. Why ISVs? First, why should Microsoft even give a shit about ISVs? Certainly prior to sharing in ISV's revenue there did not appear to be much reason, based on how Microsoft had historically engaged with ISVs. I guess we have to thank Salesforce and their successful AppExchange for Microsoft paying any attention at all. For years I have watched various Microsoft people get up and say "ISVs are critically important to us", followed by very little in the way of tangible actions. Obviously, "We have a marketplace too!" should not be the end goal here. What Salesforce keenly grasped, was that ISVs either generate business they would never have had, or make their platform for the customers they do have, extremely sticky. We know this from our collective efforts to get customers to move away from Salesforce; very often it is some ISV solution they depend on, that is making them stay put. It has gotten easier to be sure, but mostly because of Microsoft's integrations to other Microsoft products being superior. SFDC customers are giving more weight to that now as so many of them have switched to Microsoft 365. On one side of the scale is this fully integrated Microsoft story, and on the other they have the disruption of losing a critical ISV solution for which Microsoft has no ISV comparable. What Microsoft really needs is 10X the number of ISVs they have today! It all costs money I don't recall when Salesforce started AppExchange, but I don't think it was long after they launched the company. I also don't recall whether they took a cut of ISV's revenue when they started, but they clearly do now. It would not have mattered, because at the time, they were essentially the only game in town. 800 lb Gorillas, with triple anyone else's market share, can afford to be demanding of ISVs. I have no doubt that SFDC makes a huge amount of revenue from this motion, not only for licenses that they would not have sold otherwise, but also their ISV vig. I have no idea what they invest in their ISV ecosystem, but I am sure it is not small, because building and maintaining it is not cheap. But SFDC recognizes the value. Up until recently, Microsoft apparently invested the change found in the sofas around campus. I applaud James Phillips and Charles Lamanna for seeing they were not going to win the race with SFDC on Microsoft's trajectory at the time, and pivoting into new ground. The "Citizen Application Platform" is an entirely different approach, but "Citizens" are not going to build robust mission critical applications on Dataflex. Microsoft needs customers on the big money, sticky stuff that ISVs have historically created for SFDC. Cart before the Horse? Guggs apparently realized there was no budget to create this thriving ISV ecosystem that Microsoft would be the primary beneficiary of, and decided ISVs should fund this. Let's think about this for a minute. You have a historically dismal track record for ISVs, you publicly acknowledge that, and step one towards a fix is to ask ISVs for the money to fix it. I had suggested at the PAC meeting where the Revenue Sharing idea was first floated, that maybe they should "prove" success for ISVs first, but I guess they didn't hear me. I am sure that Microsoft has had to spend some of their own money on this effort, as I doubt that the Revenue Sharing income is significant yet, but they need to spend a lot more. And they need to spend it fast and right, otherwise they should suspend the Revenue Sharing for a while until the value for ISVs is there. I can see it! When I throw my head back, and let the possibilities swirl around, I can see success for ISVs, and Microsoft. I know I have been a strong Microsoft advocate in the past, and call me a flip-flopper, but I could easily become one again. Even though SFDC does not have it perfect, I still envy their ISVs today. And, even though he is a egomaniacal as they come, Benioff still let ISVs shine, less concerned about brand positioning, than money rolling in the bank. So, what might I suggest to Toby? Stop Antagonizing Maybe they can't see it. Maybe they don't actually believe that ISVs are critical, or even necessary. Maybe they see us a necessary evil for certain edge case deals. Maybe they see an ISV ecosystem 10X the size it is today as a huge hassle. That would certainly explain things. Or maybe they don't think any of that, and simply don't know what to do to solve the problem. Launching a Revenue Sharing program at this stage, in spite of knowing full well that it was going to piss of the entire ISV ecosystem, does not appear to have been the best first step. If this is going to work, we have to all be smiling the whole way through. No pain, no gain, only works for the gym, Equalize the effort Right now, particularly in Co-Sell, my guess is that 5% of the ISVs are getting 95% of the attention from Microsoft. I understand that's where the quick money is, but that is also short-sighted, scorecard-based thinking. The goal should not make the few large ISVs even larger, it should be to make all ISVs larger. If you want to recruit a lot of ISVs, they need to see that they won't just be given the crumbs left over after the existing large ISVs have had their fill. Kind of like how many organizations and governments have a minority program, where a certain amount of projects must go to a certain population, Microsoft should come up with a similar program for small and start-up ISVs. Engineering I am aware that Toby will not have much influence over what the product teams do, but it impacts ISVs in a big way. The last thing the product teams think about when they create new features is the ISV story... it's more of an afterthought. As a result, many of these features or products are not what I call "ISV Ready" for various reasons. Every product team should have an ISV advocate, from the very first conversation about a new product or feature. I mean there's like 6,000 people in the BAG organization now, surely we can task a few of them with watching out for ISVs. AppSource One of the touchier subjects for ISVs is AppSource. If done right, AppSource could be a primary benefit to ISVs, and draw for new ISVs. I know AppExchange certainly is for SFDC. Unfortunately, AppSource for Bizapps ISVs has become little more than brochure-ware. Poorly built, hard to use, and not promoted nearly enough. I am also aware that AppSource is not "owned" by the Business Applications Group, they only own their own door to it, so again, Toby may have his hands somewhat tied. Supposedly, AppSource has been very effective for Azure, and some of the efforts have been toward trying to copy that success. But the Azure buyer is a completely different person than the BizApps ISV buyer, and AppSource is not giving that buyer what they need. What specifically might I do? First, I would reverse the process. Right now when you enter AppSource, a significant amount of the page is dedicated to showing you a bunch of "Featured" solutions. The problem is, AppSource has no idea what I might be looking for. The odds that I am looking for a solution, that you happen to be "Featuring" are pretty slim. I'm not even sure how these apps got "Featured". I would delete that whole section. The entire focus on the landing page should be helping me find what "I" am looking for. This is an area where Microsoft could actually do something better than AppExchange. Make this landing page into a "Process" that guides me easily to understand what I want and need first. Only then, show me a list of options, limited to that. Once I land on a solution that looks promising, give me the opportunity to book a time on the ISVs calendar for an in-person demo or conversation, not just a generic contact form. Circling back to the "ISV Ready" conversation, AppSource is not ISV Ready. Test Drive is clumsy and largely ineffective. Trials only really make sense for widgets, and there is no way to expire the trial unless the ISV builds that into it. The promised commerce component is nowhere in sight, and even if it was, the churn challenge will be similar for ISVs as it is for Microsoft when customers just try and deploy something on their own, again other than a widget. More important to ISVs than commerce, would be a universal licensing system that we can just plug into. Licensing schemes end up costing ISVs a lot to build and maintain, and customers end up with a different one for each solution they install. Lastly, drop the dime on promoting it. Stop being the marketplace that is down the street around two corners, and be right up on main street. I have more, but that's a good start. Benefits To offset the shock of the Revenue Sharing program there was a promise of benefits. Most of the benefits seem to be targeting new ISVs, and that's fine, but when you look at the costs of an ISV, and particularly those that Microsoft is in the unique position to help offset, there are some obvious opportunities to create value. One of them is IUR. Historically Internal Use Rights have been a benefit of Competencies. But for an ISV, competencies are not nearly as important as they are for SIs. For a short time there was an ISV Competency, that again seemed to have been put together without talking to any ISVs. It was summarily cancelled without any replacement plan. Either this should be reworked and brought back, or IUR should be a benefit of ISV Connect. It is not reasonable to expect ISVs to have to not only pay Microsoft for development platform, but then also ask for a share of the revenue earned as a result of the platform we had to pay Microsoft to use... Pick one! I am aware that IUR is not free to Microsoft, but I did say Microsoft needs to spend some money on this. I think I will leave this here, for now. I am aware that I ruffled a few feathers with my last post, and may with this one also, but to be honest, the survival of my business depends on Microsoft getting this right. I see no upside in keeping quiet.

"Microsoft has always been a partner-led company, and we are committed to creating more opportunity for our partners across our businesses." and "This ethos of being partner-led will be there in everything we do". Satya Nadella has said these things, but I am wondering... Lip Service? One of the major factors that brought me to transition my company from a Salesforce Consultant, to a Microsoft Partner in 2011 was the "Partner Ecosystem" story. After almost 10 years with SFDC, during which their relationship with consultants was borderline antagonistic, I was fed up. Microsoft sounded like a breath of fresh air. But their "Partner Ecosystem", particularly for ISVs, has been weighed on the balance... and found wanting. No Bigger Advocate You would be hard-pressed to find a bigger advocate for Microsoft's ISV ambitions than myself over recent years. Having drank the Koolaid and creating I.P back in 2015, as we were all strongly encouraged to do, I had a vested interest in their effort. Many of my posts started out apologetic for my previous encouragement, but ended up positive and hopeful. But, I am starting to lose hope that Microsoft will get it right. Was Saleforce Better? There is no doubt that at the time I came over in 2011 Microsoft's business applications were complete shit compared to SFDC. This was clearly demonstrated by their market share. I took it on as a personal challenge to seek out anyone at Microsoft who would listen, and press annoyingly for change. Over time, my incessant ranting made its way through the grapevines of Redmond, and I was invited to participate in many things. Multiple Partner Advisory Councils, more private phone calls and in-person meetings with Product Managers and leaders than I can count, and an MVP designation. I can honestly say that today, Microsoft has an undeniably better product than Salesforce on every measure other than market share. Not Alone Before I start sounding like some kind of narcissist, claiming to have single-handedly straightened up the leaning tower of Pisa, I was far from alone in this mission. While it is satisfying to see aspect of products or programs that I know I had a direct influence on, many others had similar influence over other critical aspects. Each of us "trouble-makers" have a vested interest in our mutual success. My Biggest Disappointment? Almost every aspect of the ISV effort for Business Applications ISVs has been found "wanting". Up until last year, the various aspects of the ISV efforts have been led by lower level soldiers with little authority, no imagination and no understanding of the ISV business. "Hi, I'm Joe, I'm in charge of this important ISV facet, I just transferred from the MS Paint development team where I have been for the last 15 years. How can I help?" Sorry Joe, but you know less than my dog about this business. Not Guggs Fault After years of watching the revolving door of low-level solders step up to within two feet of their targets, raise their rifles and miss... a General showed up. Steven "Guggs" Guggenheimer, a long-time veteran of Microsoft and self-described "Fixer" was brought in. I first met Guggs at a Partner Advisory Council meeting with about 15 other ISV leaders. He struck me as a no-nonsense guy who planned to get things done. He also struck me as a guy who did not need, or want, our opinions. ISV Connect Guggs' brainchild was ISV Connect. A program developed mostly in the dark, that basically seeks to take a share of ISV's revenue, in exchange for some benefits. It is not optional, it is "Pay to Play". The program was launched in lightening speed with agreements being sent out to ISVs almost immediately who were expected to sign or leave. The minimum tier is 10% of your revenue, in exchange for some benefits from Microsoft that in my opinion are mostly worthless, at least for existing ISVs. If you opt into, and are accepted into, the 20% tier, there was an additional promise of Co-Sell business, meaning Microsoft's own sellers, would pimp your solutions. At a recent Inspire session Guggs, as well as in a few interviews I have done with him,  intimated that some ISVs are happy. I have not met any of these ISVs, and Guggs just announced his eminent retirement. Now what? Back to my post title The Microsoft ISV landscape has become a risky place to be. In order to continue participating, we now have to find another 10% or 20% of margin. For those with paid resellers in particular, this is a huge challenge. If the program was producing 10% to 20% more business for ISVs that would be one thing, but that is not what I am experiencing, nor any other of the many ISVs I have talked to. Another risk is Microsoft's continued encroachment into first-party vertical solutions. If you were not lucky enough to be acquired, like Field One, Microsoft has caused problems for several ISVs as they entered their spaces. Project Management and Marketing are a couple of areas that Microsoft has moved to displace existing ISVs. I was also very suspicious of the entire Accelerators program. Their recent announcement of an Asset Leasing Accelerator sounds pretty damn vertical to me. So what's the play? What is the message we are getting from Microsoft? "Come join our booming ISV ecosystem, where we will take a share of your revenue in exchange for basically nothing, and if you are wildly successful in spite of that, we might just knock you off!" I would like to believe that is not the intent, but as my ex-wife used to tell me, "Actions speak louder than words". Is there still reason for hope? Maybe for a lucky few, but I am not seeing any for the masses at the moment. Let's see what Guggs' successor can do. Update 08/06/2020 I received an email from Guggs after this post went out that included the following: "I’m curious about a few things, but one in particular caught my attention. I can’t remember the time I said the ISV Connect program was “widely successful”.  I’m sure I have almost always said something along the lines of …..some things have gone well and some things we need to do more work on….but can’t ever remember using those words.   I don’t mind you pushing hard on the company or the program, but I would be happier if you didn’t attribute absolute phrases to me unless I had indeed used them….which isn’t really my style." After digesting this, and thinking back, I agree with Guggs, that he did not ever proclaim that the program was wildly successful for ISVs as I wrote above. I apologize for attributing that sentiment to him. He also confirmed in the email that Toby Bowers would indeed be taking over his role as leader of the effort. I have known Toby for probably 5 years now, and hope for the best as he walks into what has been a very challenging issue for Microsoft. Toby has a completely different personality than Guggs, and time will tell if that is more effective at driving the program, and easing the discontent among ISVs. At the end of the day, the buck stops at the leader's desk. To be fair, Guggs came into a pile of shit, and I am aware that a lot of work needed to be, has been, done in the background on his watch. I would like to believe that while ISVs have still not seen the success they should have, Microsoft is closer than before at delivering on that soon. Hopefully Toby can push it over the goal line for us all.

Antone Kom, 7X Certified Salesforce expert, explains to W. Curtis Preston and Prasanna Malaiyandi all the things that can go wrong when you don't backup your Salesforce database.

In this episode #16, the hosts Naveen Samala & Sudhakar Nagandla have interacted with another guest Salim.   Salim Sha has been living in the world of legacy CRM and also witnessed the transformation from Siebel to SalesForce.   Salim started his career in CRM with Tally Solutions, working through his journey with Wipro, Infosys, and also led Digital transformation initiatives for GE. He is now working as a Global SalesForce Practice Leader for a major IT Services Consulting firm in Bengaluru.   Coming to his education, Salim has done his Bachelor of engineering from Maharashtra Institute of Technology along with MS in Software Engineering from BITS Pilani   In this episode, there was a great conversation around CRM Transformation in Salesforce Era   Get to know from Salim on following: - CRM Basics – Cycle Start to Finish - Major transformations in Customer Engagement in last 2 decades - Roles in CRM space & Career Progression path - How AI & ML are transforming CRM Industry? - Business Transformation & Impact to customers - How CRM tools can help customer retention? - Personal tips for those who want to shine in their careers   Enjoy the episode!   Do not forget to share your suggestions or feedback at theguidingvoice4u@gmail.com or by messaging at +91 9494 587 187   Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheGuidingVoice   Also, follow The Guiding Voice on Social Media: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/theguidingvoice Facebook: http://facebook.com/theguidingvoice4u Twitter: http://twitter.com/guidingvoice Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theguidingvoice4u/ Pinterest: https://in.pinterest.com/theguidingvoice4u/pins/

In this episode we journey into the magical world of Buddhist Sutras and how they can help us in our modern lives.

Ryan Lott is a successful entrepreneur who founded his first company, Neocol, before he was 25! He currently lives in Chicago and his company Neocol is a System Integration Partner for SaaS and subscription companies that want to use or use Salesforce CPQ & Billing. In this interview Ryan talks about his move from the UK, his growth plans, why he is passionate about CPQ and Billing,  and much more LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-lott-538313b/ Website neocol.com email Ryan.Lott@neocol.com

We talk to Holly about her new adventure at Venafi. She went from working at SFDC as a Community Director with several people under her to Venafi, which she is green fielding a new community there as the Head of Community.

So it's just me (Charlie) flying solo on this week's episode of fwd, following on from part one on attribution. With everything going on in the world and the impact on the economy and business, it's more important than ever to know where to put your marketing dollars to get the best bang for your buck. That's where campaign attribution comes in. In the complex world of b2b this can get complicated, and if you ask 100 marketers how they do campaign attribution you'll likely get 100 slightly different responses. Often with different ways to tackle the issue with online touchpoints known as the "where/what multi-touch problem". WHERE they came from (paid social, organic search, etc.) WHAT they did (trial, ebook, etc.) Traditional MAP and CRM are just not that great at handling this in a way that's helpful for reporting, but no method is inherently better than another, it is all based on your needs. In this episode I focus on 6 methods that result in reports being built in SFDC or Marketo, and discuss the pros/cons and level of difficulty for each option.

We are starting to see more and more forms attacked with spam with increasing intensity. It is troubling because there are a ton of very serious downstream effects that can cause some pretty big problems. Things like malicious links sent from your instance, taking your corporate email down, performance issues in SFDC, and more. We discuss all the issues we have seen and potential solutions. Expect more on this topic as we dive deeper.

As an ISV I want to be able to take full advantage of everything that Microsoft's Power Platform can offer. Like SI's and customers, I get excited when I see the roadmap of features that are coming... it is mind-boggling. Unfortunately, just because something goes GA, does not mean it is "ISV Ready". ISV Connect Technical Summit I recently attended the least "technical", technical event I have ever been to. As part of Microsoft's larger "ISV Connect" effort to create excitement for ISVs, they had extended what had previously been a smaller F&O ISV focused event to encompass all of Dynamics 365 and the Power Platform. I missed the follow-up email suggesting that I send my technical people, and instead went myself. Cave Dwellers It seems that this majority F&O crowd, did send their technical people, who apparently all live under rocks. Many of the sessions were about things like "What is CDS?" Content I had already seen 100 times. What I found interesting, was that this far into the game, so many people still did not understand what we have all been talking about for the last two+ years. Twists and Turns I have seen the Power Platform slides many times, but these had been updated to include "Power Virtual Agents" in the mix. To be honest, I don't think Power Virtual Agents should sit at the same level as Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI. It feels like the dwarf on the basketball team. If I were in charge, I would probably have renamed "Dynamics 365 Customer Insights" to "Power Insights" and given it the upper level. As a standalone product, similar to Power Apps, Power Automate and Power BI, Dynamics 365 Customer Insights does not even require Dynamics 365. Ironically, I had predicted a while back that "Dynamics 365" would eventually become the brand name for Microsoft's "finished" apps that run on the Power Platform, which is the reason I was given for this naming. But it is not that dissimilar a level of "finished" than Power BI, and we don't call that Dynamics 365 BI. Burned by GA With my ISV hat on, I have become suspicious of the GA tag. Microsoft should really clarify that a feature or product is "GA for SIs and Customers", but not ready yet for ISVs. What's the difference? Well, as an ISV, who is drinking the AppSource Koolaid, I have to look at it differently. In an ideal world, my customer can go to AppSource, click a button to install my solution, and just use it. For the most part, this turnkey dream only works for Model-Driven apps today. ISV Ready Tag In one of the session Q&As, I asked one of the Microsoft ISV leaders about the possibility of an "ISV Ready" tag. He said "Good Idea!", which I have heard many times with no subsequent action. But he was actually all over the idea, including creating a slide for his closing session about the "ISV Ready" tag, I had previously caught him in the hallway and suggested the ISV Ready tag should not be applied by the product teams, but rather by a volunteer committee of actual ISVs.... because we actually know when something is "Ready" for us. What is ISV Ready? Well, since Microsoft seems to be running with the idea, I guess we will eventually find out what they think it means. I also think it will vary from ISV to ISV. Many ISVs have an intentional services component that comes behind their IP, to perform various tasks and configurations. For me, I want turnkey. I don't want to have to get on the phone with every customer, or create some complicated instructions, for them to be able to use my solutions. It's more than just being "Solution Aware", although that is obviously part of it. I mean Power Automate is now "Solution Aware", but is not "ISV Ready" in my opinion. I recently installed Microsoft's own Center of Excellence Starter Kit solution on an instance, and then spent half a day manually connecting all of the included Flows to make it light up. I can't expect a customer to do that, as soon as it does not work as advertised, they'll just delete my solution. Customers First I get that Microsoft is going to build things that solve issues for customers first, and I am not suggesting that they hold off on GAing things until they are ISV Ready. But don't think that feature is truly done, and move on the next shiny object, until it is ISV Ready. This assumes of course that Microsoft is sincere in their desire to grown a thriving ISV ecosystem like SFDC. At the moment, I believe they are sincere, but as my ex wife used to say to me, "Actions speak louder than words".  

Jennifer Lynn Schneider responds to the below question from fellow #PardotLifeHacker, Stephen Meyer, from Agility Recovery. "How can we create one landing page that you can use for a whole bunch of different channels (paid search, re-marketing, display, organic/direct, partners, social, etc.) and how can we properly set them up to add to the correct corresponding SFDC campaign that’s tracking each channel’s success?In the past, we were told you had to have a dedicated form and landing page for each source, which made things messy when we were using some of our best pieces of content for a dozen or so outlets/channels."She answers Stephen’s questions with a few different options of how to execute best practices and of course some #PardotLifeHacks. TakeawaysTo capture the engagement from multiple channels for one landing page, consider using custom redirects for each channel. For example, you can create a separate custom redirect for LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook all leading to the same landing page. Then create completion actions that assign prospects to the associated campaign with the status of either LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.To track the last touch of each lead, you can create a last touch lead source custom field in both Salesforce and Pardot.Campaign statuses allow the marketer to view how prospects are engaging throughout the campaign. To view campaign status metrics on a dashboard, create a component for campaign statuses, so that the data will automatically update with a visual of which status is getting the most engagement.To track engagement with your top content, consider creating a Top Content Parent Campaign and then each piece of content you want to track would be a child campaign underneath this parent. In a dashboard you can filter by this Top Content Parent campaign and then all of the children associated to this parent will automatically show up. #PardotLifeHacksBe sure to change the sync behavior in Pardot to use the most recently updated record if you want the last touch lead source custom field to constantly update or overwrite. - Pardot only fills in null values in Salesforce, so if you want Pardot to be able to overwrite, you need to change the sync behavior.Enable engagement history custom reports to boost reporting and attribution. - With engagement history reporting, you can create a component that has landing page views versus submissions, specific to each campaign all within Salesforce lightning.Add the API Name of any Salesforce Pardot Field after the iframe code of a Pardot Form to fill in that field rather than using a completion action. Add global filters to your Salesforce lightning dashboards. - This allows you to manipulate the data in whichever way best suits your business needs. You can filter by campaign start date, lead created date, etc. Shout Out:0:42 Stephen Meyer #Social#PardotLifeHackers#TrailblazerTalk#Ohana

Salesforce Admins are now finding themselves working with Pardot, now that the two are married. To get the perspective of Salesforce objects, product trends, and product releases for all of our Pardot marketers and to give the background for how all of this works with Pardot, Jennifer Lynn Schneider brings in a veteran Salesforce admin.A Salesforce.com MVP Alumni, a host of the Salesforce Admin Podcast #AwesomeAdmin, and the Senior Admin Evangelist at Salesforce, Marc Baizman, gives his take on the Salesforce Admin outside looking into Pardot, upcoming product updates, and his advice for those attending Dreamforce. If you are an #accidentaladmin or #accidentalmarketer, this one is for you. TakeawaysA lead is the first contact point with your organization. They come from in-person events, or you get their business card, but the point is that they are new to you. It’s the start of a relationship that you may or may not convert to dating.An account is a company your organization has a business relationship with. They could be a customer or a potential customer.New admins tend to want to over customize. However, they need to ask themselves, what fields are actually being used? What is the business process? What is the point of taking the time to customize a field that your team does not use?Establish a qualification process with your team of when to create an opportunity. What information does the sales team member need to have, to take that step?Define within your organization what you care about as it pertains to understanding what activities lead up to the outcome of a deal. You should not have to log every single call, but when certain results happen from particular calls, perhaps you are logging those.You HAVE to be using opportunity contact roles to get attribution for the marketing campaigns that contributed to that opportunity. Without that, you cannot see what marketing activities the people on that opportunity engaged with.Jennifer’s top advice for Salesforce admins that now find themselves working with Pardot: Many of the new features, like Engagement History need to be provisioned in Production. These changes are simply aggregating data, like custom report types and new components being added to page layouts.  Pardot marketers will need access to Salesforce, especially with lightning. The marketing team needs the CRM or Sales Cloud user permission set licenses.For new Salesforce admins coming into Pardot, start by owning the sync error queue.Pardot Engagement Studio allows you to segment and nurture leads that are not hot and ready.Marc’s Trailblazer Community top tips: Find your local trailblazer community group, they meet offline. Find a Salesforce Saturday group near you. They could help you study for things like certification.Marc’s advice for Dreamforce:Wear comfortable shoes, not a heavy backpack.Do not over schedule yourself, prioritize your time.Talk to other humans, you never know who you are going to meet. Put good conversation before running off to your next session, finish the conversation.Do not do work meetings the week of Dreamforce. If you try to multitask, you will do neither Dreamforce nor work well. It costs a lot of money to be there, so make the most of it and be present.Take care of yourself. Hydrate, eat, and bring medicine because we do not want you to get the Dream Flu #PardotLifeHacksPut your Business Analyst hat on. - It’s now more important than ever to ask questions. You all share data now and you may be the only bridge between marketing and sales processes. Best practice is to realize that nothing lives in Pardot alone. - We only want to collect useful information. What is your sales team using? How can you enrich the leads in the database by collecting relevant data to fill in the fields. Make sure that all your marketing users have the marketing user checkbox true on their user record inside of Salesforce.A prospect can be a Salesforce lead or contact, Pardot does not differentiate. Your prospect list could be leads or contacts.The act of assigning your prospect is the trigger that creates a net new lead inside of Salesforce.  Links to Find Marc BaizmanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbaizman/Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbaizmanSalesforce Admins Podcast #AwesomeAdmin: https://admin.salesforce.com/salesforce-admin-podcastSalesforce Admins Podcast episode Salesforce for Good: Billy Daly hosted by Marc Baizman: https://admin.salesforce.com/blog/2019/salesforce-for-good-billy-dalySalesforce Admin: https://admin.salesforce.com/  Trailblazer Community and Trailhead Links:Find your local community group! www.trailblazercommunitygroups.comTie Accounts to Campaigns - Trailblazer Community post about this: https://success.salesforce.com/0D53A00004aXkQtTop  5 Trailhead Modules for adminsPardot Lightning App Basics: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/modules/pardot-basics-lightningPardot Salesforce Integration for Lightning App: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/pardot-salesforce-integration-for-lightning-appPardot Process Automation for Pardot Lightning App: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/pardot-process-automation-lightningSummer '19 Release Highlights: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/summer-19-release-highlightsWinter '20 Release Highlights: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/content/learn/modules/winter-20-release-highlightsPardot | Engage | B2B Marketing Analytics Mix  by Jennifer Lynn Schneider - Everything Pardot -Soup to Nuts: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/users/00550000007njXQAAY/trailmixes/pardot-engage-b-2-b-marketing-analytics-mixGet Obsessed: The Salesforce Side of Pardot Functionality  by Jennifer Lynn Schneider - To fully make the connection between SFDC and Pardot, get obsessed with these objects, campaigns, opportunities, reports and dashboards! https://trailhead.salesforce.com/users/00550000007njXQAAY/trailmixes/get-obsessed-the-salesforce-side-of-marketing-automation-pardotGive Sales some Love too.. by Jennifer Lynn Schneider - In all of this don't forget your sales team! https://trailhead.salesforce.com/users/00550000007njXQAAY/trailmixes/give-sales-some-love-tooAll things Pardot | Support | Training & Certification: https://www.pardot.com/successCRM skills for Pardot Users by Ann Beattie - For Pardot Admins working in Pardot Lightning. Take a dive into Salesforce CRM Lightning & enhance your Pardot and Salesforce experience. https://trailhead.salesforce.com/users/abeattie/trailmixes/crm-skills-for-pardot-users  #Social#pardotlifehackers#TrailblazerTalk#accidentalmarketer#accidentaladmin

Moving your CC to the Cloud lets you provide an interactive experience to your customers, but integration with a CRM remains critical. PLM Dan Buck explains our integration with SFDC and other points on our Cloud CC Roadmap in this podcast with Fletch.

Salesforce had another strong quarter and raised FY20 revenue guidance, indicating that they expect even better quarters ahead. Knowing that their customers are focused on digital transformations, Salesforce is aggressively pushing the Customer 360 Platform as the solution that will enable their success. In this podcast, Adam Mansfield discusses the recent acquisitions that are starting to pay off and the actions Salesforce is taking to continue to grow revenue.

Customer Revenue Optimization is about delivering value for customers, which presents opportunities to upsell and cross-sell, but most companies miss the mark on upselling. According to new research from Gartner, 72% of organizations fail to execute account planning initiatives. In this episode, Helen Harwood of Harwood Partners LLC, shares her insights on strategies to bring effective account planning to any organization and avoid the failure that dogs other companies.  About Harwood Partners, LLC Harwood Partners supports sales organizations to maximize revenue capture through the right combination of technology, skills, and focus. The company collaborates with sales leaders to manage their most important accounts and close their most important deals. Sales performance results include more qualified opportunities in the pipeline, higher win rates and revenue growth in major accounts. Partnered with Altify (formerly the TAS Group) we are able to offer a powerful combination of sales best practices leveraged by the innovative Altify sales platform native in SFDC. Clients are enabled to consistently accelerate revenue growth as their sales teams adopt a more professional level of selling.Capabilities include: Account Management, Opportunity Management, Sales Performance Automation, CRM, Sales Process Improvement, Sales Training and Business Strategy.  ______________________________________ Revenue Optimization Radio Podcasts is a weekly program hosted by Pat Morrissey on the Funnel Radio Channel. The program is produced by Altify.  

Show: 378Description: Aaron and Brian review the biggest news, trends and topics of 2018.Show Sponsor Links:Datadog Homepage - Modern Monitoring and AnalyticsTry Datadog yourself by starting a free, 14-day trial today. Listeners of this podcast will also receive a free Datadog T-shirtCloudcast Housekeeping:Thank you to our sponsors, both A Cloud Guru and DataDog64% of Krispy Kreme Funding - http://bit.ly/Cloudcast-Donuts201951 Shows, Avg Listens (show): 18-20k (+19%), Avg Rank iTunes Technology: 63Over $50B in M&A and VC Funding for guests (all-time)Acquired: Red Hat, Rightscale, CoreOS, GitHub, Evident.io, Loggly, CloudHealth, VictorOps, BonsaiIPO: PivotalFunding: SWIM.AI, Stryth Leviathan, Atomist, Kasten, Lightstep, Rubrik, Hashicorp, A Cloud GuruShow Notes:Previous Year Cloudcast Predictions: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014,Top Tech Trends (expected) in 2019 (via CBInsights)Commercial Open Source Software Companies ($100B)Cloudability - State of the Cloud (2018)Big Trends:Gartner IaaS MQ is down to 6 companies (AWS, Azure, GCP, Alibaba, IBM, Oracle)AWS growing +40% ($25B revenues) and Azure revenues ~ $28-30B (but not explicitly broken out) - AWS claimed at re:Invent to have 51% market-share.Big acquisitions around Open Source (Red Hat, GitHub, Hortonworks)A new push by Open Source companies (Redis, Confluent) to change their licensing model to help protect them from public cloud providers taking their software and not giving back - http://dtrace.org/blogs/bmc/2018/12/14/open-source-confronts-its-midlife-crisis/Big funding and investments around HCI and Backup HCIKubernetes continues to dominate containers and cloud-native (see: @PodCTL podcast)New CEO at Google Cloud (Thomas Kurian)Blockchain seems to need a new PR agencyInterest rates are rising (2 more raises are projected in 2019), which changes all the VC modelsTech Stocks (2018):S and P 500: (-12.2%), DJIA: (-12%), NASDAQ: (-8%)AAPL: (-12%), AMZN: (+14%), CSCO: (+5%), FB: (-29%), GOOG: (-7.5%), IBM: (-30%)MSFT: (+11%), NFLX: (+25%), NTAP: (-1%), NTNX: (+1%), ORCL: (-11%), RHT: +43% (acquired by IBM)PVTL (0%), SAP: (-8.5%), SFDC: (+18%), VMW: (+13%)How are SaaS priced after 2018 correction? - https://tomtunguz.com/just-where-are-saas-companies-priced-after-the-2018-correction/

If you are considering adding Salesforce to your supplier portfolio or are already a customer, this webcast will provide many valuable insights, including: • Outlining how to effectively prepare for your SFDC renewal • Providing actionable strategies to increase your leverage with SFDC • Addressing SFDC’s sales tactics come renewal time

@PoulterKen -- LINKEDIN:  Identifying & Delivering High Quality Talent, you want to hire, driving your organization to a higher level of performance and ROI. HIT Healthcare IT, HIMS Healthcare Information Systems, Big Data Analytics, BI, ETL, Data Scientist, SalesForce.com SFDC,BI, Linux / Unix Systems Engineers, Mobile Apps , eCommerce, SEO / SEM, Social Media Marketing, Web Development, Microsoft Technology Stack) Information Systems/Information Technology HIMS / HIT (Epic, etc.) & HIPPA Compliance / Regulatory / Audit Engineering (Electrical, Mechanical, Welding, Metallurgy, Design, Science, Research)  Finance  Technology Sales Sales "Rainmakers" Hunter's Provider of Interim C- Suite (CIO,CEO,CTO etc.,) Directors "Interim executives include experienced C-levels, Presidents, General Managers and Vice Presidents driving all major corporate functions"  

Winter is coming and the Two WIT crew is not a fan. We talk to Davina, a 10 year SFDC veteran & prep for our 1 year anniversary Links: HungerCast https://teespring.com/hungercast?tsmac=store&tsmic=hungercast17#pid=46&cid=2742&sid=front Super Faves: Kristi - Growlers Melinda - My Favorite Murder Podcast - https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/ 

While it's unknown how much time you should let your kids play Minecraft, it's equally unclear at the moment who'll win the second cloud wars. Between Google, Azure, AWS, and all the others, how companies differentiate themselves and what customers will buy on isn't sorted just yet. We discuss Google Next, Pivotal's momentum announcement, and serious theories for Okta IPO'ing. Pardon the shoddily formatted show notes below, Coté was in a hurry to get to Spring Break. Google NEXT Competing on features? Or just pricing and brand? The "complete solution." Richard summarizes announcements (https://www.infoq.com/news/2017/03/google-cloud-next) More from Google... (https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/03/Google-Cloud-Platform-your-Next-home-in-the-cloud.html) Cheaper, faster, more data centers Google Cloud Dataprep for cleaning up data for ingestion Cloud Opinion's Keynote Day 1 (https://medium.com/@cloud_opinion/google-next-day-1-keynotes-45c78be3dbfc) "Differentiation from other cloud providers — "we are Google, damn it" isn't working too well" Hangouts to take on Slack (http://www.theverge.com/2017/3/9/14864552/google-hangouts-chat-update-announced-slack-group-messaging-video)? This space is getting crowded Customers (http://fortune.com/2017/03/06/google-cloud-event/): Snapchat, Evernote, Disney, Coca Cola, Home Depot, Whirlpool. Hosted container builder service (https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2017/03/Google-Cloud-Container-Builder-a-fast-and-flexible-way-to-package-your-software.html) Pivotal was the Google partner of the year (https://twitter.com/phillip_webb/status/839506314975821825)! Mid-roll Coté at a Meetup next Tuesday, March 21st, in DFW. "Digital transformation in the streets." (https://www.meetup.com/Dallas-Cloud-Foundry-Meetup/events/237314533/) Hopefully some new material from my ImpossibleDevOps writing (https://cote.io/2017/03/07/cloud3/). Coté: CF Summit - June 13 to 15th, 2017 (https://www.cloudfoundry.org/event/summit-silicon-valley-2017/). 20% off registration code: cfsv17cote Matt: DevOps Melbourne March 28th (https://www.meetup.com/devops-melbourne/events/237351075/) Talking Compliance as Code DevOps Days Tokyo April 25th (https://www.devopsdays.org/events/2017-tokyo/welcome/) Chef Meetup - Singapore April 29th (https://pages.chef.io/ChefMeetup_Singapore_RSVP.html) ChefConf May 22-24 ChefConf 2017 Teaser (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhHpt-Xhj84), early-bird pricing through March 31st Pivotal: we make money, cause we have paying customers "over $270 million in bookings in one year" (https://content.pivotal.io/announcements/why-the-fortune-100-turn-to-pivotal-for-digital-transformation) Previous years: 2015 (https://pivotal.io/corporate/press-release/pivotal-announces-changes-in-executive-leadership-and-record-results): In 2015Q3 "Pivotal Cloud Foundry has crossed $100 million in annual bookings run-rate" 2014 (https://pivotal.io/platform/press-release/pivotal-cloud-foundry-record-breaking-fastest-first-year-sales-growth-for-an-open-source-product): "In less than a year, Pivotal Cloud Foundry has booked ~$40 million in software sales" In addition to customers mentioned there, see some more testimonials in John Allwright's post (https://content.pivotal.io/cloud-native/the-cloud-native-ops-opportunity). Okta files to go public S1 filed (http://www.businessinsider.com/okta-files-for-ipo-2017-3). I don't get it. This is going to be a disaster. Whatever the fantasy running SFDC and MSFT running identity. BONUS LINKS! Five AI Startup Predictions for 2017 Link (http://www.bradfordcross.com/blog/2017/3/3/five-ai-startup-predictions-for-2017) "Pure hype trends will reveal themselves to have no fundamentals behind them"

Avaya, a global leader in Customer Engagement solutions, today announced an expanded alliance with Salesforce Service Cloud to deliver solutions that more deeply integrate the contact center products of the two companies. The expanded alliance will focus on cloud-based solutions that enable seamless access, greater contextual awareness and rapid, knowledgeable service at all points along the customer journey -- making it easier for businesses to meet the digital demands of today’s customers. This announcement was made at Avaya ENGAGE 2017, the largest gathering of Avaya users under one roof, taking place this week in Las Vegas.

In this episode, we discuss slow deployments, unit testing, Oracle's new data centers, Salesforce hiring Monica Langely as an executive VP, Microsoft's continued investment in AI, and Marc Benioff's interview from the annual World Economic Forum. Salesforce Analyst Summit Recap: Why Salesforce Must Regroup To Reach Higher In 2017 Salesforce Deploy Times Tool to monitor Deploy times across SFDC Microsoft Buys Canadian Artificial Intelligence Startup for More Brainpower Salesforce hires well-connected Wall Street Journal reporter for EVP post Did The Trump Campaign Just Get Hit With The Monica Langley Curse? Salesforce CEO: I'm not changing how I run my business under Trump Yahoo Finance

Evan Liang, CEO of LeanData talks about getting agile with lead routing and their massive stack including: Builtwith, Datanize, Yesware, Outreach, SalesLoft, Persist IQ, Trello, SFDC, GoToMeeting, WebEx, Zoom, Capterra, UberFlip, DocuSign and Marketo! To learn more visit: www.stackandflow.io www.infer.com

The Sales Acceleration Show Follow @GabeLarsen and @SteveEror on Twitter and LinkedIn: Steve Eror - Gabe Larsen David Rudnitsky, SVP of Enterprise Sales at InsideSales.com, discusses the principles he's learned over his sales career to close large enterprise deals. Dave's methodology has been honed over the years and was featured in Marc Benioff's book, Behind the Cloud, to describe how Salesforce.com was able to achieve unparalleled success in the enterprise space. 1) Think Big; Have Attitude, Go High -Thinking BIG and having a winning attitude inspires confidence -Thinking BIG and having a winning attitude allows you to play high 2) No Deal is Won or Lost Alone -Enterprise Sales is a team sport, not a spectator sport; it’s a contact sport 3) Connect the Dots: Never Dial for Dollars! Never Cold Call! -Always call with a plan; social due diligence = never having to cold call -Always call/connect as high as possible in an organization 4) Focus on "Why Not" -Find 5 to 6 reasons/red flags why it might not work – always challenge yourself -WHY’s are table stakes, WHY NOT’s win deals 5) Always Take the Deal Off the Table -If a deal is ready, close it; increase deal velocity -Time is the enemy of all deals, work with a sense of urgency 6) Get Your Face in the Place - Walk Their Halls Frequently -Know your customers better than they know themselves -Walking the halls, physically or virtually, builds trust and confidence; get badged 7) Fun Fact Build Instant Credibility -Be a student of our customers’ fun facts 8) Be a Master of Your Business; Be Consultative; Be Prescriptive -Be a trusted advisor; ensure professional services/consultants are involved

Some favorite features of NPSP, Arkus ideas needing some votes and we catch up on news in and around SFDC (Salesforce.com).

Part two of our implementing Salesforce.com series. This time around we talk with Kamela Arya about which modules to license, how much they cost to license (on an annual basis), and what it costs to implement Salesforce.com in a mid-size organization, with 10 - 20 SFDC users. We even discuss the dreaded data migration problem.

Part one of a three-part series on Salesforce.com.   Jim talks with longtime SFDC collaborator and implementer, Kamela Arya about everything you need to know about customer relationship management software and implementing Salesforce.com in the middle market enterprise

We celebrate the 200th episode, talk about things we are thankful for, a checklist for disabling SFDC system admins, NGO Connect and our live David Allen session.