Whether you’re dealing with a complex multi-cloud Salesforce implementation or just want to get more out of your CRM platform, working with a full team of Salesforce consultants and developers gives your company access to on-demand expertise across a range of products and tools.
But successfully outsourcing your Salesforce optimization, implementation, and development needs isn’t as simple as hiring the first Salesforce consultant you find online.
In fact, a poor-fit partnership or a project that’s improperly scoped are a couple of the biggest reasons why Salesforce implementations fail, leaving expensive inefficiencies in their wake.
We put together this straight-shooting Salesforce consulting partner guide to simplify your search process
Whether you choose to work with our Salesforce consultant team, or use these tips to find a partner somewhere else, we want to help you lock in on the right professional services for the projects on your list, get a detailed scope and estimate you can plan around, and make the most of the tools and Salesforce services available to you—without wasting your time or budget in the process.
Salesforce is the most powerful customer relationship management tool on the planet. If you have the right implementation team in place. And we’re here to help you find them.
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First up, let’s talk about working with an independent Salesforce consultant vs partnering with a full Salesforce consulting agency, and why the top Salesforce consultants often work in teams.
Salesforce consultant vs consulting agency. Which do you need?
Don’t let the broad title mislead you—not all Salesforce consultants have the same training, focus areas, and solutions in their tool belts.
Here’s a quick overview of some of the most common types of Salesforce implementation experts you can work with:
CRM Developers
Customer relationship management (CRM) developers specialize in building and customizing CRM platforms to meet unique business requirements that go beyond out-of-the-box solutions. CRM developers may focus on Salesforce implementations, or may offer services across other CRM products, but their work is largely centered around sales support processes, customer management, and lead automation.
Business Process Improvement Consultants
These consultants focus on analyzing and improving the processes that drive your company’s efficiency and productivity. They may audit how your CRM platform is used, identify areas for optimization, set up tracking dashboards, and improve usage of the systems you already have in place.
Implementation Experts
These are specialists often deployed in the initial setup and launch of new Salesforce tools. If you’re implementing any products from Salesforce’s main lines—Sales Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Service Cloud, or Commerce Cloud— for the first time, your implementation expert will work with you through every stage, from planning and configuration to testing and optimizing, to ensure each feature is leveraged and the transition is smooth.
Integration Experts
The bigger your company becomes, the more systems you’ll need to keep it running. A Salesforce integration expert audits the communication between your CRM and other applications to create a unified ecosystem where collaboration is seamless.
Freelance Salesforce Consultants
These are independent contractors who offer their expertise on a contract basis. They can fill in for a variety of roles depending on their skills and experience. They offer a flexible alternative to consulting teams, for companies with a specific basic task in mind.
Consulting Agencies
The most comprehensive option when it comes to hiring a Salesforce expert is partnering with a whole team of them. Consulting firms, like our team here at Arketek, offer a wide range of Salesforce consulting services delivered by a team of trained and vetted specialists.
Salesforce consulting firms can provide extensive, specialized, and ongoing support across a variety of needs, products, and problems, giving companies a single contact point for every need.
The Salesforce partner you choose has a big impact on your ceiling—how far you can take your systems, and what improvements you can expect.
The ideal Salesforce expert for your specific business depends on the problem you’re facing, the business outcome you’re after, and what Salesforce products you’re using to get there. Once you’ve dialed in your needs, you can choose to work with a consulting company whose team can address a range of objectives and projects, or you can hire an independent Salesforce consultant who offers the specific services you need.
As a general rule of thumb, if you’ve got a niche problem, an advanced Salesforce product, or you want a partner who can scale with your business needs, a Salesforce consulting partner agency will be the best fit. While a freelance Salesforce consultant can help you resolve some issues, only a full team, complete with analysts, architects, developers, project managers, and strategists can give you the best experience on every single project.
The bottom line: In most cases, if you’re a growing small business, a midsize venture, or an enterprise, we recommend working with a full Salesforce consultant team like Arketek’s, so you have a whole network of experts dedicated to each phase of your project.
Why outsource your Salesforce services?
When businesses are ready to transform their operational capabilities by launching an all-in-one CRM platform or optimizing the business processes they already have in place, they need a robust team with relevant experience across a variety of tools and services.
They need more than technical support—they’re after an implementation consultant team that can:
1. Accelerate business growth and sales
As businesses expand, their existing systems often struggle to scale smoothly and keep up with the growth pace. A Salesforce consultant can come in and add or activate additional Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or Commerce Cloud products, so your Salesforce environment evolves as quickly as your business.
2. Resolve inefficiencies and implementation bottlenecks
Disjointed systems and redundant tech tools make it hard for sales teams to operate efficiently. Before long, sales opportunities are missed, team members get frustrated, and customers fall through the cracks.
Salesforce consulting gets straight to the root of the system issues, toppling the data silos that keep your teams disconnected and removing the bottlenecks that slow your processes. With streamlined workflows and automation functionality in place, your company can move faster and do more with less.
3. Untangle botched integrations
Growth is good…until it gets messy. As your company expands, adding new systems and solutions at every juncture, botched integrations and incompatible tools can limit your team’s ability to collaborate.
By bringing in a team of Salesforce integration experts, you can turn your disparate systems into a cohesive ecosystem that maximizes your data flow and work flows.
4. Develop custom solutions to enhance functionality
Companies that implement Salesforce CRM tools often have specific business requirements that need customized functionalities that aren’t always available out-of-the-box. Especially if you’re a niche company operating with unique business processes.
Salesforce experts, like the analysts, architects, and developers on our team at Arketek, can tailor Salesforce solutions that fit those specific needs—or custom-build competitive tools no one else has.
5. Prepare for acquisition or max the ROI on a recent investment or funding round
If you’ve been acquired or recently received funding, the pressure is on to deliver tangible results. By working with a Salesforce implementation team, you can close the gaps in your processes and find quick profitability boosts, while setting up the kind of sustainable processes that will keep your company going and growing. Technology is a strong place to drive visible ROI in the short-term and over time.
6. Train and guide their teams
Your systems are only as strong as your processes. Without ongoing training and guidance in place, you can quickly lose the ground you gained by upgrading your tech stack and optimizing your tools.
Some Salesforce consulting partners, like our team at Arketek, offer train-the-trainer style instruction to equip your key leaders with the resources they need to lock in your gains, no matter who joins the company. We believe it’s one of the best ways to maximize your Salesforce investment over time and build continuous improvement into your culture.
What is the Salesforce consulting process like?
While every Salesforce implementation partner has their own process and workflows, here’s what you can expect if you choose to work with our team:
Stage One: Estimate and project proposal
Once we engage with a new client, one of the first (and undeniably, the most valuable) things we do is a Business Process Review (BPR).
The BPR is a detailed and in-depth audit and evaluation of your project requirements, the potential solutions that would meet those objectives, and an estimate of the time and expertise that would be needed to deliver the outcome you’re after.
Once prepared, we’ll meet with your team to review the BPR, talk through our recommendations for your company, and prioritize what should come first. We aim to start with the highest-value projects first, so you can see profitable and productivity-driving results as soon as possible.
Stage Two: Planning and preparation
Once you’ve approved our recommendations and are ready to kick off the project, we build a custom dashboard and set up communication channels, so you always know where your project stands.
We’ll then gather all the requirements and details we need to start development. We’ll take a deeper look at the expectations and constraints that could impact the project, and document every action we take meticulously for future reference later in the process.
Stage Three: Building your implementation solution
Next, we start building out solution prototypes based on your requirements. This step is crucial for visualizing the end project and making optimizations along the way before our software development team begins their work.
Once we start the actual development of your solution, we rigorously test the system for bugs, performance issues, and usability. This stage is our quality and reliability check—our chance to prove the solution before it’s live and deployed. We also gather a good bit of client feedback in this stage, to make sure our solution meets your expectations.
After testing, we deploy your solution and push the system out to your team. Ideally, we complete this step overnight or on the weekend, when as few employees and customers as possible are live in your systems. Our goal is to minimize disruptions at every point, so the entire implementation is as smooth as possible.
Stage Four: Project handoff and training
Finally, we hand the project off to your team, providing all the training, documentation, and support needed for an easy transition.
Between our end-to-end training, meticulous documentation, and post go-live support, we make sure every client feels confident in their ability to maximize their new tools.
Post-project follow-up
Even after your project is complete, our work isn’t done. One of the ways our team continuously improves our expertise and outcomes is by analyzing what went well—and what we can do even better for our next client.
From our project post-mortem to our customer satisfaction survey, we take every opportunity to look for optimizations in our own processes, so we can drive better success through yours.
First time hiring a Salesforce consulting agency? Here’s what you should know
Hiring a consulting agency isn’t like putting out a job post. Having the right expectations going into the partnership can be the difference between a successful project and a frustrating one.
If you’ve never hired a Salesforce consulting team, here are four details that may surprise you:
1. Every aspect of your project should be scoped
We give our clients a detailed project scope before we begin development, so they know exactly what to expect cost- and time-wise, as long as the project stays in scope. Our Statement of Work clearly defines all the deliverables included in your project, so you know the final price, to the penny, that gets it done. That transparent billing practice ensures you understand what you’re paying for and why, so you know you’re getting the best results for your budget.
2. Post-project training isn’t always standard
Some clients are surprised to learn that not all consulting agencies offer training to maximize project success.
We’re strong advocates for train-the-trainer style training, which empowers your leaders to champion the project—and boost post-project buy-in. Our model not only reinforces everyone’s understanding of the new system, it improves your long-term outcomes by engaging employees at every level around your new processes.
3. Many projects are built on more than just Salesforce expertise
That’s why it’s important to work with a consulting team that knows a broad range of tools, including Salesforce and non-Salesforce systems. With our growing team of tech professionals, we’re constantly expanding our core competencies to include all major tech systems and the complex integrations needed to make them work for you.
4. Project management is a major value-add
Not all Salesforce consultants have a project management professional or organization system dedicated to their implementation projects. And even some of the consultants that do have a project management tool or role aren’t using it effectively to minimize project risks and avoid bottlenecks.
We have highly trained, Salesforce-competent project managers that keep every major deployment running smoothly from BPR to final handoff, so you’re always clear on your budget, timeline, scope, and level of risk. It’s a benefit we build right into our workflows, saving you time and expenses throughout every stage of the process—and it’s one of the biggest reasons our growth-minded clients choose our team again and again.
Meet Arketek, your successful Salesforce implementation team
Why settle for one Salesforce consultant when you can have a whole team of them? Our highly trained developers, strategists, and problem-solvers bring their best to every project—and deliver stronger ROI and better business outcomes as a result.
With experience across nearly every industry, and over 2,000 successful implementations already under our belt, we’ve yet to meet an inefficiency we can’t solve or a bottleneck we can’t break down.
When you’re ready to take a next step, we have two options for you:
1. Book a call with our certified Salesforce consulting team.
We’ll talk about your business, your systems, your people, and your processes—and how we can make the most of each.
Tap the button below to tell us a bit about your company, and what an ideal partnership would look like. Then grab a spot on our
2. Grab our CRM Data Entry Template.
Not ready to connect with our team? No sweat. DIY your way to a cleaner and leaner sales system with our CRM Data Entry Template and migration guide. In it, you’ll find the bulk import template we use when moving crucial lead data from one Salesforce platform to another, plus step-by-step instructions and pro tips to help you get your new tool up and running.
