Sometimes, it can be a little intimidating being the Salesforce Admin for your company. On a daily basis, you are interacting with professionals and executives at all levels of the organization. They expect BIG THINGS from their investment in Salesforce, and in turn, their investment in you. Your job is to not only ensure your salesforce org runs smoothly, but also to help your sales and service teams be more productive, to help them do their job BETTER.
You’re a particularly devout salesforce administrator, tuning in to webinars, reading blogs, interacting with peers on the Trailhead Community forums, and following your salesforce ohana on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. A steady stream of salesforce-related information enters your brain every day. And every so often, you’ll see something that REALLY excites you!
Perhaps you read about how another Salesforce Admin switched their organization from Classic over to Lightning. Their approach seems fairly straight forward, and one that you could replicate at your own company. Or maybe you saw a really interesting use case for a salesforce community, and you’re convinced that will greatly enhance the customer experience. Or you’ve seen a new feature in Salesforce, like Lead Scoring, which you’re certain will improve the sales user experience and help the company close more deals. Wow -- now you’re really pumped.
But then a big old dose of Monday morning reality settles in. While you know that implementing new approaches can drive innovation and help your organization succeed, you also know that for a lot of people, change is not easy. We humans are highly resistant to change. Ok, maybe not us admins -- we love change, at least three times year, #AmIRight? But the user communities we support are often a bit more reluctant. Bureaucracy, emotions and plain old stubbornness get in the way so easily.
So if you have this great idea to enhance your salesforce org, how do you get the support you need to push it forward? How do you effectively share your idea, build momentum for it, win support from your executive leadership and empower the right people to implement it?
Here are some #MondayMusings for strategies I’ve used to gain support for my ideas. Consider using these techniques when you’re looking to garner support for your salesforce ideas.
Just as a salesperson hones their elevator pitch for a busy prospect, so too do you need to craft a quick pitch to sell your business ideas. You’ve likely heard of the elevator pitch concept already. An elevator pitch is a brief, to the point proposal, something that can be delivered in 15-30 seconds. That’s the time you might have to share with an executive sponsor as you incidentally meet her in the elevator, and travel the elevator banks together to whatever your shared destinations might be. In the time it takes that elevator to move 50 floors or less, you want to be able to delivery your pitch and sufficiently garner their interest so as to encourage a follow-up meeting.
Each unique idea or proposal you have warrants it’s own 15-30 second pitch. The idea itself will almost certainly be more complicated than can be fully conveyed in 30 seconds, but it’s important to tune your pitch to that brief, succinct delivery time.
The pitch isn’t something you mentally whip up in your head during the morning commute. While it should only take a half-minute to deliver, you’ll need to spend a good amount of time working the details behind the pitch BEFORE you deliver it. You must translate your excitement, enthusiasm and interest into a clear, solid business proposal. Don’t skimp on this step. Really think it through. The more prepared you are with it, the more successful you’ll be in the delivery.
What’s in a good pitch?
You may find, through this exercise, that the idea really is too costly, or won’t yield the benefits you originally thought it might. It’s better that YOU make that discovery at this early stage, rather than having someone from your executive team bring you to that realization.
Or the opposite may happen, and you may find yourself more convinced than before that his action is critical for your organization. That conviction will only help you as you present your elevator pitch to the leadership team.
The important thing is to seek out people who can be critical, and are willing to give you open, honest feedback about your idea. You’re likely going to get one shot when you pitch this idea to decision makers, so get some early feedback from your “friendlies” first.
Make sure you’re getting REAL feedback: you want something more honest than “great job, they’ll love it” and more helpful than “this sucks”. Press for the feedback that will help you make the pitch better.
Now here’s the hard part: when you do get the RIGHT feedback, you may not like it very much. You may not like it at all. Some of it might be downright discouraging. Just remember the reason you approached these evaluators in the first place is because you WANTED their input (good and bad) so you could use it to refine your pitch.
It is important to get feedback from several different people. Giving your pitch to 3-5 different people will allow you to identify trends or patterns in the feedback. If one person out of five hates it (but can’t quite tell you why), two people give you some creative suggestions for refining the pitch, and two people give you only minor suggestions for improving it -- maybe you have enough feedback that you can discard or ignore the hater. Or maybe you press that person hard to help explain where you’re losing them in the pitch, why your numbers don’t make sense for the business, or what specifically they don’t like about the idea.
NOTE: For some organizations, it may be politically important to make this Step #2 rather than Step #3. Your boss may not want you going out and “stirring up ideas” before passing them by him first. Use your own discretion. Where I work, I feel comfortable sharing my ideas with a couple different groups before presenting the pitch to my boss. He seems to appreciate that, as well, because it means I’ve already filtered out some of the “noise” (some of my pitches die at step 1 or even step 2, based on the feedback I get).
The approach you take when presenting to your boss will usually vary, depending on the size of the project. For something rather small or benign, but still widely impacting, I’ll bring the 15-30 second pitch in as part of my weekly 1:1 meeting with my boss.
If he’s interested, and wants to go into more detail, I’ll be fully prepared to go into the more detailed action plan (yes, that means I’ve already done some of Step #4 BEFORE doing Step #3; as Edna Mode would say, “Luck favors the prepared”). Sometimes, we might dedicate the entire meeting to that one idea, so if I have a pitch ready, I always present it early in the meeting, not in the last 5 minutes.
If it’s a particularly large endeavor, something that might have cross-platform or team impact, or create a significantly different user experience, I’ll reinforce that by being a bit more formal in my approach. I’ll tell my boss that I’d like to do a formal presentation to him, and potentially other members of the executive team. I’ll request a dedicated meeting where I can pitch the idea and take questions from a broader audience. Invariably, he’ll want to know more right away, so I’ll give the 15-30 second pitch -- but he’ll often stop me with a wave of his hands, and say, “Yep, this is bigger than a breadbox, let’s have on the invite.”
By reinforcing the need for a formal meeting, he’s already groomed to expect this to be a fairly large endeavor that will warrant feedback and input from a larger team. But he also has enough information about the idea that he can start “sowing the seeds” of interest among his peers, when they ask him about the invite they got from his Salesforce Admin.
Ready for some more tough love? Here’s the sad truth: your boss might not like your aidea. Yes, even though you’ve gone through the exercise of creating your pitch, practiced it with a few key evaluators, and even worked out your “Next Steps / Action Plan”, your efforts might be stopped right here at the pitch to your manager.
Keep in mind that your boss has a broader awareness of what is happening across the organization than you do. She is exposed to different circles of information and influence. She is also presented with a fair amount of sensible and practical ideas from other members on her team every week. It’s her job to filter those ideas and determine which are worthy of bubbling up to higher management or decision makers.
If you do get a “No” or even a “Not at This Time”, probe to understand why. Your data is sound, you have the facts -- find out what are the more pressing business needs impacting the organization right now that have greater urgency and greater ROI than this proposal. It’s important to make it not seem as if you are challenging your bosses decision. Rather, you are probing to understand the goals, needs and current priorities of the company, so you can better align your ideas toward them.
Ideas are nothing if you can’t execute them. Most likely, you’re going to need the support and resources of other individuals to move your plan forward. The larger the scope and impact of your project, the greater the amount of support and approvals you’re going to need from other teams or individuals. Be ready for that.
I list this as the 4th step, but in reality, I’ve fleshed out the outline for my “next steps” action plan before the meeting with my boss. I know the action plan will go through additional levels of validation and refinement AFTER the project is approved, but I want to make it easy to get started. I’ll detail as many of the subsequent required actions or approvals that I can reasonably think of, and jot them down. At this stage, I’m not putting a lot of details into the plan (no sizing of effort or setting of dates and deadlines). Otherwise, I’m being as specific as I can in naming individuals or teams, and what specifically is needed from them.
I can’t tell you that using this approach with every idea has resulted in gaining support for the idea in the workplace. But each time I’ve followed this practice, I’ve gained new insight into the needs of the business. I’ve practiced and improved my communication and project management skills. I’ve benefited from the networking and collaboration in pitching my idea with peers. Even if the work I’ve put into this doesn’t result in my GREAT IDEA being implemented, I’ve come out at the other end of the process as a better Salesforce Administrator.
You’re a particularly devout salesforce administrator, tuning in to webinars, reading blogs, interacting with peers on the Trailhead Community forums, and following your salesforce ohana on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. A steady stream of salesforce-related information enters your brain every day. And every so often, you’ll see something that REALLY excites you!
Perhaps you read about how another Salesforce Admin switched their organization from Classic over to Lightning. Their approach seems fairly straight forward, and one that you could replicate at your own company. Or maybe you saw a really interesting use case for a salesforce community, and you’re convinced that will greatly enhance the customer experience. Or you’ve seen a new feature in Salesforce, like Lead Scoring, which you’re certain will improve the sales user experience and help the company close more deals. Wow -- now you’re really pumped.
But then a big old dose of Monday morning reality settles in. While you know that implementing new approaches can drive innovation and help your organization succeed, you also know that for a lot of people, change is not easy. We humans are highly resistant to change. Ok, maybe not us admins -- we love change, at least three times year, #AmIRight? But the user communities we support are often a bit more reluctant. Bureaucracy, emotions and plain old stubbornness get in the way so easily.
So if you have this great idea to enhance your salesforce org, how do you get the support you need to push it forward? How do you effectively share your idea, build momentum for it, win support from your executive leadership and empower the right people to implement it?
Here are some #MondayMusings for strategies I’ve used to gain support for my ideas. Consider using these techniques when you’re looking to garner support for your salesforce ideas.
Step #1: You’re a Salesman, Craft Your Elevator Pitch
I’m a believer that all of us are salespeople. That may not be our job title, but you’re involved in selling every single day. As a Salesforce Admin, you are already selling your expertise and skill set to your organization every day. A significant amount of your time is spent persuading, influencing and convincing others to make an exchange of some sort.Just as a salesperson hones their elevator pitch for a busy prospect, so too do you need to craft a quick pitch to sell your business ideas. You’ve likely heard of the elevator pitch concept already. An elevator pitch is a brief, to the point proposal, something that can be delivered in 15-30 seconds. That’s the time you might have to share with an executive sponsor as you incidentally meet her in the elevator, and travel the elevator banks together to whatever your shared destinations might be. In the time it takes that elevator to move 50 floors or less, you want to be able to delivery your pitch and sufficiently garner their interest so as to encourage a follow-up meeting.
Each unique idea or proposal you have warrants it’s own 15-30 second pitch. The idea itself will almost certainly be more complicated than can be fully conveyed in 30 seconds, but it’s important to tune your pitch to that brief, succinct delivery time.
The pitch isn’t something you mentally whip up in your head during the morning commute. While it should only take a half-minute to deliver, you’ll need to spend a good amount of time working the details behind the pitch BEFORE you deliver it. You must translate your excitement, enthusiasm and interest into a clear, solid business proposal. Don’t skimp on this step. Really think it through. The more prepared you are with it, the more successful you’ll be in the delivery.
What’s in a good pitch?
- Be brief and to the point. 15-30 seconds max.
- Clearly articulate the problem you’re solving or the process you are improving
- Explain WHAT the problem or issue is and HOW your approach addresses it
- Present facts, including the approximate costs (resources, time, budget), as well as the business costs of NOT implementing the solution
- Keep assumptions to a minimum; don’t clutter the pitch with confusing “admin-only” terminology. I take out a lot of Salesforce phrases in my pitches (Einstein becomes AI, Lightning becomes “improve UI”, etc.). You need to talk the same language as your audience, which is often very different from that of your salesforce ohana.
- Be ready to go into additional details, but only if requested (usually at a later date or during a follow-up meeting).
You may find, through this exercise, that the idea really is too costly, or won’t yield the benefits you originally thought it might. It’s better that YOU make that discovery at this early stage, rather than having someone from your executive team bring you to that realization.
Or the opposite may happen, and you may find yourself more convinced than before that his action is critical for your organization. That conviction will only help you as you present your elevator pitch to the leadership team.
Step #2: Get Feedback Early
You’re smart. I mean it -- really smart! That’s why you’re a Salesforce Admin! But it doesn’t matter how smart you are, no great idea will come together in an echo chamber of your own brain. After you’ve crafted your pitch, perhaps even rehearsed it a couple times in front of the mirror or during the morning commute, present it to some trusted colleagues -- or perhaps some of your salesforce ohana. Talk it up with peers at your next UG meeting, or sync up with friends on #SalesforceSaturday. Here’s an open invitation to pitch your elevator proposal to me; I’m happy to give you some open, honest feedback (reach out to me on LinkedIn or Twitter to exchange contact details). Don’t be shy about pitching it to a frequent naysayer in your circle, someone who isn’t as big a salesforce enthusiast as you are. You will hone your negotiating and presentation skills as you win these personality types over!The important thing is to seek out people who can be critical, and are willing to give you open, honest feedback about your idea. You’re likely going to get one shot when you pitch this idea to decision makers, so get some early feedback from your “friendlies” first.
Make sure you’re getting REAL feedback: you want something more honest than “great job, they’ll love it” and more helpful than “this sucks”. Press for the feedback that will help you make the pitch better.
Now here’s the hard part: when you do get the RIGHT feedback, you may not like it very much. You may not like it at all. Some of it might be downright discouraging. Just remember the reason you approached these evaluators in the first place is because you WANTED their input (good and bad) so you could use it to refine your pitch.
It is important to get feedback from several different people. Giving your pitch to 3-5 different people will allow you to identify trends or patterns in the feedback. If one person out of five hates it (but can’t quite tell you why), two people give you some creative suggestions for refining the pitch, and two people give you only minor suggestions for improving it -- maybe you have enough feedback that you can discard or ignore the hater. Or maybe you press that person hard to help explain where you’re losing them in the pitch, why your numbers don’t make sense for the business, or what specifically they don’t like about the idea.
Step #3: Share It With Your Boss
You’ve crafted your pitch. You’ve shared it with a few resources. That has allowed you to refine the pitch and make it better. Now it’s time to share it with your boss.NOTE: For some organizations, it may be politically important to make this Step #2 rather than Step #3. Your boss may not want you going out and “stirring up ideas” before passing them by him first. Use your own discretion. Where I work, I feel comfortable sharing my ideas with a couple different groups before presenting the pitch to my boss. He seems to appreciate that, as well, because it means I’ve already filtered out some of the “noise” (some of my pitches die at step 1 or even step 2, based on the feedback I get).
The approach you take when presenting to your boss will usually vary, depending on the size of the project. For something rather small or benign, but still widely impacting, I’ll bring the 15-30 second pitch in as part of my weekly 1:1 meeting with my boss.
(You ARE having a weekly 1:1 meeting with your boss, aren’t you? If you aren’t, get that recurring meeting on the books right away!).
If he’s interested, and wants to go into more detail, I’ll be fully prepared to go into the more detailed action plan (yes, that means I’ve already done some of Step #4 BEFORE doing Step #3; as Edna Mode would say, “Luck favors the prepared”). Sometimes, we might dedicate the entire meeting to that one idea, so if I have a pitch ready, I always present it early in the meeting, not in the last 5 minutes.
If it’s a particularly large endeavor, something that might have cross-platform or team impact, or create a significantly different user experience, I’ll reinforce that by being a bit more formal in my approach. I’ll tell my boss that I’d like to do a formal presentation to him, and potentially other members of the executive team. I’ll request a dedicated meeting where I can pitch the idea and take questions from a broader audience. Invariably, he’ll want to know more right away, so I’ll give the 15-30 second pitch -- but he’ll often stop me with a wave of his hands, and say, “Yep, this is bigger than a breadbox, let’s have
By reinforcing the need for a formal meeting, he’s already groomed to expect this to be a fairly large endeavor that will warrant feedback and input from a larger team. But he also has enough information about the idea that he can start “sowing the seeds” of interest among his peers, when they ask him about the invite they got from his Salesforce Admin.
Ready for some more tough love? Here’s the sad truth: your boss might not like your aidea. Yes, even though you’ve gone through the exercise of creating your pitch, practiced it with a few key evaluators, and even worked out your “Next Steps / Action Plan”, your efforts might be stopped right here at the pitch to your manager.
Keep in mind that your boss has a broader awareness of what is happening across the organization than you do. She is exposed to different circles of information and influence. She is also presented with a fair amount of sensible and practical ideas from other members on her team every week. It’s her job to filter those ideas and determine which are worthy of bubbling up to higher management or decision makers.
If you do get a “No” or even a “Not at This Time”, probe to understand why. Your data is sound, you have the facts -- find out what are the more pressing business needs impacting the organization right now that have greater urgency and greater ROI than this proposal. It’s important to make it not seem as if you are challenging your bosses decision. Rather, you are probing to understand the goals, needs and current priorities of the company, so you can better align your ideas toward them.
Step #4: Prepare Your “What’s Next?” Action Plan
One of my recent bosses gave every member of the team an 8.5” x 11” framed poster of a light bulb with the words, “What’s Next?” on it. It was a reminder, he told us, that wanted us to never be resting on our laurels, to always be looking toward the next problem that needed to be solved. That was two bosses ago, but I still have that picture hanging in my office. It’s become a personal mantra.Ideas are nothing if you can’t execute them. Most likely, you’re going to need the support and resources of other individuals to move your plan forward. The larger the scope and impact of your project, the greater the amount of support and approvals you’re going to need from other teams or individuals. Be ready for that.
I list this as the 4th step, but in reality, I’ve fleshed out the outline for my “next steps” action plan before the meeting with my boss. I know the action plan will go through additional levels of validation and refinement AFTER the project is approved, but I want to make it easy to get started. I’ll detail as many of the subsequent required actions or approvals that I can reasonably think of, and jot them down. At this stage, I’m not putting a lot of details into the plan (no sizing of effort or setting of dates and deadlines). Otherwise, I’m being as specific as I can in naming individuals or teams, and what specifically is needed from them.
I can’t tell you that using this approach with every idea has resulted in gaining support for the idea in the workplace. But each time I’ve followed this practice, I’ve gained new insight into the needs of the business. I’ve practiced and improved my communication and project management skills. I’ve benefited from the networking and collaboration in pitching my idea with peers. Even if the work I’ve put into this doesn’t result in my GREAT IDEA being implemented, I’ve come out at the other end of the process as a better Salesforce Administrator.
