On July 17, I hosted a webinar with a couple of our colleagues at Salesforce titled: “What You Didn’t Know About Selling with Salesforce: 5 Best Practices.” I was lucky enough to be joined by AppExchange Sr. Solution Manager Salesforce Tara Gonio and Salesforce ISV Enablement Manager Deanna Reyala. Both Tara and Deanna focus in on helping ISVs connect with Salesforce and ensure their solutions resonate.

Here’s a sample of the topics we covered:

  • Targeting key roles and segments pivotal to your ISV success
  • Strengthen your ISV’s value proposition by using Salesforce’s own lingo
  • Build a Salesforce-facing sales kit that opens doors
  • Crafting messages that make the direct sales team respond
  • Partnering with other ISVs and SIs to extend your reach

Being a trusted adviser to more than 250 ISV applications on the Salesforce AppExchange, we are regularly asked, “How do we work better with Salesforce?” If you build an app for Salesforce, don’t expect a windfall of leads without putting in any of the work! You need a game plan, and this webinar offered great insight into where to start.

Seeing Double is a Good Thing

If you have been browsing the Partner Community lately, you may have also seen a webinar titled, “Selling with Salesforce.” This webinar was hosted by Manager of ISV Enablement Rachel Gabbay, Associate Manager of Partner Enablement Courtney Rivard and Salesforce ISV Enablement Manager Deanna Reyala. They took a look at how the Salesforce sales organization is structured and how to construct your message to internal Salesforce teams.

Sound familiar? This is a subject A LOT of ISVs ask about. Insights offered in this webinar take a look at how to craft messages that resonate with the Salesforce direct sales teams, the who’s who at Salesforce, building your Sales kits, and ensuring you are telling the right customer success stories. This subject matter is so relevant that Salesforce is now doing a recurring webinar of this content every month!

Although this topic remains top of mind for Salesforce and AppExchange partners, you would still be amazed at how many partners try and do it “their own way.” Don’t! Stop doing that!

We offer these best practices because they are what SUCCESSFUL ISVs have done in the past — and it is what Salesforce recommends. Listen to this wisdom and ensure you are following their advice. Build your Salesforce Playbook, follow the Sales Kit templates, join the AppExchange Enablement group (via the Partner Community), follow the App Selling Trail, and always reflect back to the CodeScience Selling with Salesforce Guide.

Also, should we mention that Dreamforce is less than 100 days away? Do you have your game plan ready? Everything we’ve mentioned today is a GREAT way to prepare to have your best Dreamforce ever. We are halfway through an amazing webinar series to prepare you for Dreamforce ‘19 — the Road to AppExchange webinar series. This eight-part series offers incredible insights from veterans of the Salesforce ecosystem.

Read up and Research

We’ve released and shared a ton of amazing resources lately, and I’ve gathered a handful of links you shouldn’t miss.

Industry Research and Salesforce Basics

Playbooks, Templates, and Trails

Webinars

Please Note: Be sure you are logged in to the Partner Community when accessing Salesforce links via this blog.


CodeScience has helped over 250 applications thrive in the Salesforce ecosystem. We pride ourselves on being the first and only company to receive the  Master Navigator PDO designation from Salesforce. If you’re ready to get started or want to see how CodeScience can make a difference for your application. Contact us today!