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5 Myths about Salesforce

Posted on January 12, 2017 by John McKenzie

As Salesforce partners, Prolocity is always looking for ways to enhance customer experience. This week, Prolocity is debunking 5 myths about Salesforce.

Myth 1: Salesforce is only for tracking Sales

It’s no secret that Salesforce started as a Customer Relationship Manager for Sales staff. However, since its inception in 1999, Salesforce has evolved to a comprehensive platform that can manage any aspect of a business.

Myth 2: Salesforce can’t support the needs of my industry

A common misconception is that Salesforce is only good for Sales or Service Industries. However, this simply isn’t the case. Salesforce has expanded offerings to include focused industries such as: Financial Services, Healthcare & Life Sciences, Retail, Manufacturing, Communications, Media, Government, Automotive, Higher Education, and Nonprofit.

Myth 3: My business process is too unique for Salesforce

Its an understatement to say that no two businesses are ran the exact same way. Salesforce recognized the need for an adaptability early on and created a completely customizable platform. Taking it a step further, Salesforce created the AppExchange which lets you search for apps to further customize the platform to your needs.

Myth 4: You have to know a lot about technology to use Salesforce

When Salesforce started, one of the main goals was to let customers/users be able to edit their system. They recognized the skill needed to run most business software and decided to create something new. What used to take years to learn can now be learned in months.

Myth 5: It will require a lot of money to get started using Salesforce

Unlike other products, Salesforce targets all business sizes and is made to be scalable. They have several editions of the platform that start at only $25.00/per user/per month.

Prolocity’s cloud consultants deliver strategy, design, implementation, training, and optimization services to ensure that businesses are getting the most out of the technology. Their solutions leverage the world’s #1 cloud platform, Salesforce, to deliver best-in-class solutions and accelerate success! Prolocity Cloud Solutions serves the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati area locally and also provides Salesforce implementation and Salesforce training services nationally through the use of cloud technology.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

During the Season of Giving, Give Back with Pledge 1%

Posted on December 15, 2016 by John McKenzie

As Salesforce partners, Prolocity is always looking for ways to enhance the customer experience. This week, Prolocity is focusing on Pledge 1%. Pledge 1% is a movement encouraging companies to cultivate a culture of giving back. Several companies have already taken the pledge such as Salesforce and SPCA. Pledge 1% asks companies to donate 1% of equity, product, and/or time.

1% Equity

One of the ways you can donate through Pledge 1% is by pledging 1% of equity. Pledge 1% encourages companies to donate equity to any organization of their choosing. They make it as easy as filling out an allocation form that allows Pledge 1% to pass along 100% of the cash value of the equity or profit allocated to the nonprofit chosen. The allocation It can be changed at any time and Pledge 1% will provide ideas of nonprofits in your community. To provide an example, Salesforce uses 1% of founding stock to offer grants focused on technology innovation in nonprofits and development programs.

1% Product

Another way you can give back through Pledge 1% is by pledging 1% of product. Whether this means a physical product or service your company provides, the idea is to provide the product for free or at a deeply discounted rate to nonprofits. There are a multitude of ways that products can be donated. For example, Salesforce facilitates the donation of up to 10 licenses per company through their foundation to nonprofit organizations. This means that 10 users can use Salesforce for free, no strings attached. A simple application is all that is needed to get started in the program.

1% Time

The last way you can donate through Pledge 1% is by pledging 1% of time. By implementing and promoting a Volunteer Time Off (VTO) policy at your company, you can encourage employees to donate time giving back to the community. Several companies use a blended approach of offering both corporate and non-corporate volunteer days. This helps foster a giving culture by allowing employees to donate corporate time to support a cause they are passionate about. Some companies even offer programs that match employee volunteer efforts with corporate dollars. As an example, Salesforce employees are awarded 6 paid days of volunteer time to use over the course of a year.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Run Your Business from Your Phone with the Salesforce1 Mobile App

Posted on September 15, 2016 by John McKenzie

As cloud computing consultants, Prolocity is always looking for ways to enhance customer experience. This week, Prolocity is focusing on the Salesforce1 mobile app. The Salesforce1 mobile app allows you to run your business virtually. The Salesforce1 mobile app allows you to stay connected by managing your day, managing your sales, and accessing your information.

Manage Your Day

The Salesforce1 mobile app keeps you connected by helping you manage your day. With the ability to view your scheduled events, you can access a daily summary within seconds. The Salesforce1 mobile app directly links to contacts and accounts to keep you organized and provide a high ease-of-use. The app includes a notes feature that allows you to jot down items immediately after meeting.

Manage Your Sales

The Salesforce1 mobile app allows you to close deals faster by managing your sales from your phone. Opportunity creation, approvals, and sales tasks can be updated without having to log on to a computer. This flexibility lets you move faster as information can be communicated faster to the rest of your company. The Salesforce1 mobile app helps you stay in the loop on your account updates by sending notifications straight to your phone.

Access Your Information

The Salesforce1 mobile app brings your Salesforce information to you front and center no matter you go. You can get a picture of how your business is doing with live updates and feed changes. The app increases accessibility by displaying your custom list views, custom objects, and apps on your phone. Not only does this allow you to work faster, but it allows you to work smarter. The Salesforce1 mobile app gives you the ability to review metrics and make informed decisions even when on-the-go.

Prolocity’s cloud consultants deliver strategy, design, implementation, training, and optimization services to ensure that businesses are getting the most out of the technology. Their solutions leverage the world’s #1 cloud platform, Salesforce, to deliver best-in-class solutions and accelerate success! Prolocity Cloud Solutions serves Northern Kentucky/Greater Cincinnati and provides Salesforce implementation and Salesforce training services nationally through the use of cloud technology.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Streamline Your Sales Process with Salesforce Lightning Sales Path

Posted on January 28, 2016 by John McKenzie

Salesforce Lightning creates an enhanced sales experience with the roll out of Sales Path. Sales Path brings two features to Salesforce that were previously only available on Salesforce1: top-level visibility and a customizable sales process. When utilized, these features provide a clear picture of opportunity advancement and simplify the daunting task of managing your pipeline.

Top-Level Visibility

Sales Path provides top-level visibility by creating a visual path of each opportunity. Sales Path breaks every opportunity into individual stages. Each stage provides a summary of the applicable fields, activities, and account information. This allows the user to focus on the actions needed to move the deal along. Additionally, several tools are available that provide assistance without navigating to another screen. These tools include the ability to access notes, attachments, call logs, and emails on the same screen.

Customizable Sales Process

Sales Path also provides a customizable sales process. The customizable sales process allows you to regulate the order and content of stages used to close deals. Each opportunity will go through the same Sales Path to create consistency across the board. The ability to customize doesn’t stop there. Sales Path also allows you to add guidance per stage to give your sales reps tips and tricks for moving to the next stage.

Whether you have one sales process or several, Sales Path has you covered. Not only can you customize Sales Path to fit your needs, but you can create additional Sales Paths to accommodate different sales processes as needed. There is even capability to have one Sales Path per each opportunity record for even more flexibility. This allows for greater user adoption as the process can be clearly defined and easy to use.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Find Highly Qualified Leads, Faster, With Data.com

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Matt Farano

With Data.com, businesses can quickly find highly qualified leads, faster. We all know that one of the most critical success factors in a business is lead generation/qualification. In many cases, it can be the key differentiator that a business needs to gain a competitive advantage.

Recently we decided to improve some of our own internal processes and procedures. At the top of the list, we needed to streamline our lead generation & qualification processes. Since we are a Salesforce partner, the choice was obvious. We may be a bit biased, but we believe that Data.com is the best tool on the market for prospecting and targeting new accounts. Data.com allows you to find decision makers faster and access accurate and complete B2B contacts and company profiles. Here are a few of the things that Prolocity has experienced, since moving to Data.com

Fresh, Accurate Leads.

One of the top reasons for CRM failure…yep you guessed it, bad data. Salesforce combines the power of Dunn & Bradstreet’s accurate account data with Jigsaw’s robust functionality & contact information, so you can feel confident that you are working with the most accurate data out there.

Real-time Clean.

Data.com can deliver insight right into your Salesforce workflow. One of the most powerful features of Data.com is the Clean feature. At the top of your lead, account, & contact records in Salesforce, there is a “Clean” button that will check your record for any missing or updated data. Automated data cleansing empowers our reps to sell faster and sell smarter, with the most up-to-date information available.

Accelerated Sales Activity.

Working with data you can trust means less time running around looking for what you need and less chance for human error. Data.com helps your sales team to improve productivity & increase win rates. Now you can spend more time selling, and less time searching for your next opportunity.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

3 Million Downloads in the Salesforce AppExchange

Posted on April 28, 2015 by Matt Farano

I am sure you have heard of the iTunes App Store, but have you heard of the Salesforce AppExchange? Today, the Salesforce AppExchange hit 3 Million Downloads, according to a blog post on Medium.com. What’s really impressive…that number only represents the amount of downloads, not the individual users across a company.

The Salesforce AppExchange is the world’s leading business app marketplace, and houses more than 2,700 pre-integrated apps that extend the power of Salesforce. Everything from Marketing, Sales, Service, ERP, HR, Payroll, Accounting, and just about every other function you can imagine, exists in the AppExchange. The most beautiful thing about the Salesforce AppExchange (in my humble opinion), is that you no longer have to try and fit every single business requirement that you have into a single out-of-the-box solution. Salesforce is the heart…and the AppExchange serves as your other vital organs.

In the old world of business software, if you had a unique functionality requirement that was not inherent to the core solution, it usually meant a huge increase in cost, time, and long-term maintenance. With the advent of App Stores, the game was changed forever. With powerful APIs and mobile-ready tools, the Salesforce1 Platform lets you easily build apps that you can sell and market on the AppExchange. By piggy-backing the world’s #1 cloud computing company, you can rest assured that these apps are flexible, reliable, and secure. Salesforce takes care of all the heavy lifting, so you can focus on solving business problems.

To give you a real-world example, I will reference a project that we recently completed for one of our customers. This particular customer had multiple departments, all working in silos with very poor internal communication & organizational efficiency. To make matters worse, they were highly dependent on Excel spreadsheets and error-prone manual processes. When we got engaged with the customer, they had already made the wise decision of implementing Salesforce, but quickly realized that their needs extended beyond the core functionality that Salesforce had to offer. To give you a point of reference, I would estimate that Salesforce alone was only going to meet about 70% of their needs. After completing a business process review session (what we coin a “Discovery“), we determined that 4 AppExchange applications were needed to bridge the gap with their total solution. This included functionality such as: high-volume document storage, proposal generation, electronic signature, & project management. In the end, the customer received a taylor-fit solution to meet their unique needs that has set the stage for long-term growth and scalability.

Prolocity is a national Salesforce Partner providing cloud advisory, implementation, and support services to businesses and non-profits. Our cloud consultants deliver strategy, design, development, implementation, training, and optimization services. www.prolocity.com

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Salesforce takes mobility to a whole new level with Apple’s newest gadget of 2015: Apple Watch

Posted on March 16, 2015 by Brenda Harmon

Did you hear about the cool new gadget of 2015 from Apple last week? Salesforce takes mobility to a whole new level with Apple’s newest gadget, the Apple Watch. The Apple Watch is coming April 24, 2015! It’s the newest device Apple has created making the user’s relationship to technology closer because it can be worn.

Imagine all the things you do on your phone, now imagine all of that can be done from your wrist! We have come a long way with technology. We are living in the days of cartoons such as The Jetson’s and comics like Dick Tracy. Back then we could only dream of calling a friend from our watch. That dream and then some has come true. You can call, email, text, monitor your exercise and workouts and much more with the flick of your wrist and a few taps.

Salesforce (top CRM software) announced they will have Salesforce1 Mobile App for the Apple Watch. Statistics show 68% of executives call wearables a “priority” for their companies, according to Forrester Research, so this marriage with Apple can really help. Waiting on a top deal to close? You can get an alert when it happens.

You can explore data, analytics, take actions with dashboards, and receive alerts if a critical case is escalated. A swipe here, and a tap there, and you have tons of your business information in real-time all right there on your wrist.

You might be wondering why would you need a watch to do all these functions if you have a phone, but there are times you need your hands free and a watch definitely keeps it simple. Plus it’s really cool! So check out the Salesforce for Apple Watch Demo below…

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Salesforce Analytics Cloud Is 2015’s Next Big Platform

Posted on March 2, 2015 by Brenda Harmon

Companies are finding that their employees need to stay productive while away from their desk to keep up with things like, connecting with partners, engaging potential new leads, and taking care of business on the fly. Imagine if you were able to reach all of your analytics information from wherever you may be and whenever you need it?

Salesforce.com has launched the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, powered by Wave to achieve just that. This Analytics Cloud was built to work with or without Salesforce1 mobile app to make your CRM software more mobile. You can Measure, Group, Filter, View and Share your data with just a few finger taps on your phone, making your data work for you and not against you. Salesforce.com has developed this cloud-based mobile software to be reliable, with no hardware glitches, and allows you to send your information five times faster than the competition.

The awesomeness doesn’t stop there. Three new features to the Salesforce Analytics Cloud are expected to launch this month. The Wave Mobile Connector, Wave Mobile Dashboard, and Wave Links. The Wave Mobile Connector helps users import a raw data file and transform it into interactive visualizations that can be explored instantly. The Wave Mobile Dashboard can create analytic dashboards using any data source. The Wave Links allows you to embed links into any Salesforce record or custom objects that takes them to a specific visualization.

With all of these great new enhancements with the Salesforce Analytics Cloud, there is no more waiting until you are back at the office to run reports. Now, you will have this information right at your fingertips. Prolocity provides cloud advisory and technology services to businesses and non-profits. Our cloud consultants deliver strategy, design, implementation, training, and optimization services.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E. RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011

Is Your Business Utilizing the Top 4 Cloud Computing Trends For 2015?

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Brenda Harmon

The time is now to stay ahead of the cloud computing curve. Technology is always changing and it is important to be tuned in to the latest and greatest trends. The top 4 Cloud Computing trends for 2015 are Mobile, Integrations, Analytics, and Big Data. With these tools, you can run your business on the go and no longer be forced to work behind your desk in the office.

Mobile

Businesses are finding themselves away from the desk more often and are needing to run their company on the go. It is all about improving productivity, which means being able to stay on top of things from anywhere, anytime. For example, Salesforce.com has created their Salesforce1 mobile app that allows users to manage leads, contacts, accounts, opportunities as well as have access to data from external sources directly from your phone. Cloud Computing allows you to pick up right where you left off, on any internet enabled device.

Integrations

With the emergence of cloud computing integrating software is easier than ever. Rather than operating multiple pieces of software in separate silos, you can now integrate them into one seamless solution, making work more productive and efficient than ever. With the use of robust API’s, cloud-based platforms who embrace open communication will flourish, and those who build walls around their solution will not be able to survive. Salesforce.com (#1 CRM solution on the planet), for example, embraces integration through their Force.com development platform, AppExchange Marketplace, and their open API structure.

Analytics

So you spent a bunch of money on a new whizz bang solution and you are putting all of this fantastic data into it, but what is the point if you don’t have visibility into key business metrics and data analytics?

Data analytics are essential to running your business. This trend may be the most powerful of them all, because we are finally able to easily see how our data is working for us. Salesforce.com recently released Salesforce Analytic Cloud powered by Wave. In March three new features will be added: Wave Mobile Connector, Wave Mobile Dashboard Designer, and Wave Links. These new features help users import a raw data file and transform it into interactive visualizations that can be explored instantly, create analytic dashboards using any data source, and embed links into any Salesforce record or custom object that takes them to a specific visualization. All of this can be done directly on your phone or tablet at your convenience.

Big Data

Cloud technology now allows you to take data Analytics to a whole new level. It allows you to put forth action with the data you have collected. The promise of big data is still not fully fulfilled, but is surely a trend in cloud-computing that will continue to grow. The key is to capture data at a granular level to allow for faster decision making. Analytics gives you visibility into the data. Big Data gives you predictable analytics that will allow you to take action. This tool will enable more efficient business processes and fine-tune the way that we make key business decisions.

The Top 4 Cloud Computing trends will be a big factor in your business to run effectively and efficiently and stay ahead of the game. Prolocity provides cloud advisory and technology services to businesses and non-profits. Our cloud consultants deliver strategy, design, implementation, training, and optimization services.

Salesforce Consultants Cincinnati

Ohio

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
407 Vine Street, Suite 219
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Salesforce Consultants Kentucky

Kentucky

Prolocity Technology Solutions, LLC
50 E RiverCenter Blvd., Suite 414
Covington, Kentucky 41011