Wave6 Insights

Dreamforce is always a whirlwind of different experiences related to Salesforce. Every year they manage to absolutely out do themselves in terms of content and the amazing ways they deliver that content.

This year was no different. There were so many amazing announcements and “Ohana” (family) moments, but we will try to condense it into the top three that inspired us (along with some outlier things we really loved).

1. Einstein and Accompanying Apps

Here at Wave6 we've been building on two of Salesforce’s most recent and popular Clouds: Analytics Cloud and Community Cloud. Wave6 is one of the premier partners when it comes to solutions on these two Salesforce platforms. We are starting to hear from quite a few of our existing and new customers an interest for convergence of these two clouds. 

In many of our implementations we have integrated Sales or Service Cloud with Analytics Cloud, or App Cloud integration using tools like Lighting Connect with Analytics Cloud and even Partner Communities using Sales/Community Cloud or Customer Communities using Service/Community Cloud. The new fusion of a robust analytics tool with a best in breed collaboration tool has bought new concepts that have not been seen much as of yet. 

Working in the Higher Ed space, or any B2C O2I*[1] organization, can present the Salesforce Administrator with a headache: how to manage the Account of the Contact record, when the Contact is as important, if not more important, than Account. 

Sure, Accounts are important – we want to know about the schools we recruit students from, the companies where they end up working, the foundations who contribute to alumni relations and the partner organizations we work with.  But we don’t want the Account to dictate how we deal with the Contact. Salesforce, however, mandates that all Contacts are associated to an Account. 

What are the traditional Salesforce configuration options for a Higher Ed?

• Person Accounts: A ‘standard’ Salesforce function which rewrites the data model, turning the Account record into a ‘Contact’.
• Administrative Accounts: Create an Account for every Contact record.
• Household Accounts: Create an Account for the Contact, their spouse, parents, siblings, as required.
• Bucket Accounts: Lump all the Contacts into a single account.

Salesforce recently introduced a handful of new ways to show off your knowledge. Whether your expertise is in the Sales, Service, Marketing, Analytics or App cloud, Salesforce has a cert for you!

One of the new certifications will actually be one of the options replacing the previous Force.com Developer Certification. The new Platform App Builder Certification has very similar concepts and offers both a full exam and transition exam for those holding the older dev cert.

Now, for the transition options. The previous Salesforce Certified Force.com Developer exams are officially gone. (Previously obtained certifications are still valid and, as of now, recognized by Salesforce). Since these exams are no longer available, this means the new Platform App Builder Certification is the way to go if you are a functional developer.

Are you putting more time into new opportunities? Or are you focused on selling more to existing accounts?

It's pretty common for sales professionals to chase after new business when new leads roll in. It's the thrill of the chase all sales professionals possess.

The problem is it can cost 10 times more to acquire a new customer than it does to sell more to an existing customer.

But, selling more to an existing customer can be difficult without the right strategy and tools.