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by Shannan Hearne, Salesforce Marketing Specialist at Summit Technologies LLC Perhaps you have heard that other companies are using artificial intelligence to do more business faster. What does that mean? Artificial intelligence in the Salesforce ecosystem is the powerful tool that analyzes your historical data and uses it to make intelligent decisions and recommendations about your sales process and your leads. If you want to use Sales Cloud Einstein to avoid repetitive tasks of data entry, easily identify the best prospects to target, gain helpful insights about your existing customers, and accurately predict revenue then you need a plan to rollout Sales Cloud Einstein. Many IT professionals mistakenly believe that artificial intelligence can’t really help their sales teams without writing code, adding staff, manually compiling sales info, creating in depth algorithms, and building new applications. Sales Cloud Einstein functions like a PhD’d data scientist living in your Salesforce org continually analyzing your data. It is practically ready to dig into your data right out of the box. Salesforce’s artificial intelligence tool learns from your CRM data and sales activities so it makes smarter and better predictions and recommendations over time. Additionally, Sales Cloud Einstein enables sales teams to work smarter and faster by freeing up their time. Read on to learn how. Sales Cloud Einstein licenses include Salesforce Inbox and Einstein Activity Capture, integrating Salesforce with reps email and calendar applications to reduce activity logging data so they can focus on selling. Einstein Opportunity Insights further gives sales reps intelligent information about opportunities so they can win more deals faster. The smart reminders help your teams nurture relationships with customers and the lead scoring tool shows reps which leads to focus on. Sounds good, right? Plan your Sales Cloud Einstein rollout in three stages: pre-enablement, enablement, and post-enablement. In the pre-enablement stage you will analyze your business’s challenges and priorities. Talk to sales reps and managers to understand what is most important to their success and how Sales Cloud Einstein can help them meet their challenges. Be sure to include input from other groups like marketing, service, and IT. Select the Sales Cloud Einstein features that will be most useful and productive for you to start with in your implementation. Set clear goals and criteria for use as this will help you gauge success down the road. Build your core Sales Cloud Einstein dream team - a group of varied users across teams and departments who will test the features you roll out and help you correct any unexpected issues. Ensure that you have plenty of clean data in your CRM with Salesforce’s readiness tools. Data is key to Sales Cloud Einstein’s recommendations. Now you are ready to enter the enablement stage. Get set to see Sales Cloud Einstein in action! You or your valued Salesforce partner will set up Sales Cloud Einstein. The features should be tested in your sandbox environment first. Ensure that the features work with your architecture, workflows, and Lightning components. Summit Technologies can test every aspect of the application providing you with a successful rollout. Make it clear for your dream team what you want them to accomplish with Sales Cloud Einstein and how to do so. Assign the users to Sales Cloud Einstein and give them access to this powerful sales enablement tool. Enablement is complete! As you enter the post-enablement stage you want to corral your dream team users and give them easy ways to share their experiences and ask their questions about the tool. A Salesforce Chatter group or Slack channel can keep feedback all in one place. But don’t ignore the value of live and in person sessions for check-ins. As a team you will decide what is amazing about Sales Cloud Einstein and what could be working better. Adjust and make changes as necessary. Let your dream team’s feedback make for a powerful engagement tool to deliver incredible customer experiences and add more users and more Sales Cloud Einstein features.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Salesforce Sales Cloud is a powerful extension of your organization’s business growth. An investment in Salesforce is a big step in growing your enterprise. Implementing Sales Cloud Einstein puts your Sales Cloud instance and your sales and marketing teams into overdrive. Planning the implementation sets you up for success with Sales Cloud Einstein. In the pre-enablement stage you need to fully understand your business challenges and priorities. Armed with that knowledge you can easily determine which Sales Cloud Einstein features you want to start utilizing in your organization. Ensure everyone is aligned with the goals you have for Sales Cloud Einstein so you can measure success along the way. Some of the challenges you might identify within the organization could exist around too much data, too little time, processes that are too vague, and opportunities that are too difficult to recognize as at risk. Best practice is to start with a small, varied group of users to test the features of Sales Cloud Einstein you want to incorporate. Utilize Salesforce or your implementation partner’s tools to ensure that your CRM data is plentiful, useful and clean. You are ready to roll into the enablement stage. Set up Sales Cloud Einstein in your sandbox org and turn on the features you wish to use. Be sure you are testing Sales Cloud Einstein with your existing architecture, workflows, and Lightning components. Communicate with your users what they should achieve with Sales Cloud Einstein and train them on the features. Set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-bound) goals so you can measure the success of your implementation. Some key performance indicators you might measure against could include lead conversion rate increases, closed won rate increases, opportunity pipeline increases, or time to close opportunity decreases. Assign your Sales Cloud Einstein licenses to the users and and you are ready to go live in your Salesforce org. Initial Sales Cloud Einstein users should include a mix of power users, a pilot group, and users from multiple departments. Feedback from your users, measurement of the ROI, and user group expansion will complete a successful implementation and the post-enablement stage. Key stages to a successful Sales Cloud Einstein implementation should include the following: A kickoff meeting to invite key stakeholders to have an overview of the goals and plans for Sales Cloud Einstein. A training session explaining what each feature is used for and how it works in your Salesforce org. You can provide materials that users can refer to later, focus on user roles and goals, and share a custom Trailhead mix to get everyone off on a solid footing. A Chatter or Slack group for early users can be a great place for questions and answers and for user feedback. Schedule regular meetings with a small group of initial users. Open discussion with users will provide more detailed and useful feedback than written conversations. Finally, before enabling the Sales Cloud Einstein features for your users create dashboards and reports that will help you measure the success of the implementation, user engagement, and measurement for your SMART goals. If you aren’t working with an implementation partner, Salesforce’s setup guide will walk you through the above steps.

In today's digital age, customer data is king. The ability to gather and analyze vast amounts of information about customers can provide valuable insights into their behaviors, preferences, and needs. This information can then be used to create personalized experiences that drive customer loyalty and satisfaction. However, with so much data coming from so many different sources, it can be challenging to gain a complete view of the customer. One solution to this challenge is to gather all customer data in one central location to create a 360 view of customers. By aggregating data from different sources, including social media, e-commerce transactions, and customer support interactions, organizations can create a more comprehensive view of their customers' behaviors and preferences. This can help them better understand their customers and deliver the best possible experiences. One of the benefits of having a 360 view of customers is the ability to automate tasks. By leveraging AI and other technologies, organizations can automate routine tasks and deliver personalized experiences at scale. For example, an organization can use customer data to create personalized marketing campaigns or product recommendations. This can save time and resources while also increasing customer engagement and satisfaction. Personalization should be implemented throughout the entire subscriber lifecycle. From initial onboarding to ongoing support, personalized experiences can help build stronger relationships with customers. By using AI or visual analytics tools to drive patterns and gather insights, organizations can create a singular view of the customer that can be shared across regions. This can keep everyone on the same page and ensure that customers receive consistent experiences, no matter where they are. Gathering data in one central location to create a 360 view of customers can provide valuable insights into their behaviors and preferences. By leveraging AI and other technologies, organizations can automate tasks and deliver personalized experiences that drive customer loyalty and satisfaction. Personalization should be implemented throughout the entire subscriber lifecycle to build stronger relationships with customers. By utilizing visual analytics tools to gather insights and drive patterns, organizations can create a singular view of the customer that can be shared across regions, ensuring consistent experiences and keeping everyone on the same page.

Einstein Automate is a powerful end-to-end automation solution for Salesforce that enhances productivity for individuals, account executives, and businesses. One of its key components, Salesforce Flow, revolutionizes business processes by facilitating seamless interactions for both customers and employees. With the help of Flow Builder, creating automated business processes is easy and efficient, allowing for streamlined enterprise-scale automation from testing to monitoring. Salesforce Flow is user-friendly because it utilizes visual elements and reusable building blocks, Einstein Automate allows for the creation of enterprise-scale automations in Salesforce. It brings together disconnected systems and siloed data sources into a seamless workflow, resulting in enhanced customer experiences and improved business agility through guided interactions. Studies show that automating manual processes with tools like Salesforce Flow and Einstein Automate saves employees four hours per week, allowing them to focus on higher value tasks. With Einstein Automate, businesses can trigger automations for repetitive tasks, provide self-service portals, guide employee workflows, and activate smart recommendations for next best actions on leads and accounts. The platform also offers reusable building blocks such as logic, data, action, and screen components, which can be leveraged to build business logic. Additionally, workflows can be created across Salesforce and external systems using platform events, External Services, and MuleSoft. Screen flows can also be designed to guide user interaction and collect user inputs, such as email addresses and names. Einstein Automate facilitates process lifecycle management, from low-code debugging and troubleshooting to monitoring performance and analyzing usage. Furthermore, businesses can leverage pre-built automation components and configure industry best practices through Salesforce’s AppExchange. Einstein Automate is a comprehensive solution for Salesforce that empowers businesses to improve their productivity, efficiency, and customer experiences by automating manual processes with ease. Reach out to Summit Technologies LLC to see How Salesforce’s Einstein Automate and Flow can further optimize your Salesforce instance.

It is essential for any business to move from older software development tools to the latest ones to increase productivity and ROI. The migration can seem overwhelming but the results can be amazing. Case in point: Migrating from Salesforce Classic to Salesforce Lightning Experience. With intuitive services and tools to automate your business processes with the feature of external application integration, the Salesforce Lightning platform is robust and powerful CRM technology. If your Salesforce development team is still using Salesforce classic to complete your business projects, then Salesforce Lightning is a new platform that can assist you to take your business to the next level. You likely chose or migrated to the Salesforce platform because of its powerful, best-in-class, cloud-based technology. Imagine what can happen if you kick it up a notch? What are the top 12 reasons that Summit Technologies, a Salesforce implementation partner, lists for companies to migrate to the Salesforce Lightning Experience? Personalization. Salesforce CRM has a wide range of widgets and customization options to enable rapid personalization of the platform for business processes across industries and departments. The cloud based Salesforce platform lets you take your business wherever you are, requiring fewer resources and providing greater flexibility. Highly Compatible. The Salesforce platform is compatible with all major internet browsers and works on desktop, laptop, and handheld devices. No Software, no Hardware, No Technical Debt. The Salesforce platform is not a software installation. The solution is housed in the cloud. There are no servers to maintain on premise. Real-time access to data increases business efficiency and minimizes response times. Salesforce Quickstart implementations from Salesforce partners like Summit Technologies are fast, customized solutions. Simple to Manage. A fully customized instance of Salesforce is intuitive and easily managed by creating an intelligent navigation bar. Tabs are divided into relevant categories for your business. Machine based learning empowers the platform to help you find what you are looking for. Training time is minimal for end users. Powerful Automation. Salesforce CRM is designed to manage business processes for sales, service, marketing, case management and more. Team leads and managers have a custom view allowing them to analyze in detail and adjust strategies based on the information available. Effective Management. Gather activities, monitor tasks and completions, view the status of scheduled and completed activities. Salesforce provides effective management tools your business needs to keep up with the ever changing landscape. Collaboration with Chatter or Slack. The social media functionality of fully integrated collaboration tools like Chatter and Slack are easy to use and help businesses work together across teams. Faster GUI Development. Salesforce Lightning components are reusable and built in a drag and drop process. The Lightning App Builder and Lightning Components framework allow administrators and developers to roll out visually appealing applications faster. Components Not Code. Coding skills are not required to build applications and user interfaces. The reusable drag and drop lightning components reduce programming skills and man hours required to enhance the functionality of the Salesforce platform. Custom Home Page Views. Every organization and industry is unique. Salesforce Lightning allows you to create custom home page views for every role in your organization with reports they need, tasks readily visible, lead assignment at their fingertips, and email creation or movement in and out of campaigns fully enabled with the click of a button. Custom Page Layouts. Salesforce Lightning Experience allows you to layout standard salesforce object page views focused on the action required with activity timelines to clearly follow a contact’s activity and best next steps to move the sales process forward. Related records and lists can be added for immediate access without searching around the database. Sales Automation and Kanban Views. Navigate through the opportunity stages with one click functionality. View the opportunity and keep it moving forward through the pipeline. Define the fields most relevant to the opportunity path. Utilize kanban Views to visualize all the deliverables for a deal or project in one place. The feature-rich Salesforce Lightning platform offers a wide range of customizable tools. It is important to decide whether all the features of Lightning are required for your instance and relevant to meet the needs of your business or not. Summit Technologies can help you adopt and visualize the best end results of your Salesforce Lightning Experience. Salesforce platform solutions are not one size fits all and Salesforce’s many cloud based services meet a wide range of problems for businesses with customized solutions from Salesforce partners like Summit Technologies LLC. With the wide assortment of options, it often becomes difficult for the business to decide which features are needed and which are most appropriate. In such situations, businesses may choose many features, thereby resulting in overloading of functions. This not only reduces the efficiency of Salesforce Lightning but also impacts the user experience significantly. The primary reason for adopting Salesforce Lightning is to increase the productivity of businesses. However, post the migration of Salesforce Lightning, your business might experience certain issues with the performance. The performance issues may include high loading time, less responsive pages, complications in navigations, scalability issues, and more. These performance issues usually result due to a lack of proper analysis before the migration. Even if you are planning to do your own Salesforce Lightning Migration, consider working with Summit Technologies to ensure the best end result.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Not all leads are created equal. And they can’t be accurately scored with arbitrary details, either. Not all clicks, opens, and form fills have the same value for every lead every time. Just because a lead visits your Careers page doesn’t necessarily mean it isn’t still a hot prospect. Lead scoring tools and models aren’t all created equal, either. Einstein Lead Scoring with Sales Cloud Einstein is a key capability built on the backbone of artificial intelligence to help sales reps convert more leads, faster. Automatically analyzing your historical sales data and discovering the top factors that determine whether a lead is likely to convert into an account or opportunity, sales reps can segment and prioritize leads and their work. Einstein Lead Scoring models are customized to fit each customer's unique needs, ensuring that the models are tailored to their specific business. How does it work? Einstein Lead Scoring analyzes all standard and custom fields attached to the Lead object, and tests various predictive models, such as Logistic Regression, Random Forests, and Naive Bayes. It then automatically selects the best model based on a sample dataset. You don't need to be an expert in statistics or mathematics because Sales Cloud Einstein has done the heavy lifting by finding the best model to optimize lead conversion. To ensure the most accurate predictions for your leads, the models are updated monthly. Plus, leads are scored every hour using the latest model. If anything changes with one of your leads, it will be rescored within the next hour. With Einstein Lead Scoring, you can confidently prioritize your leads and focus on the ones that are most likely to convert into customers. The factors Einstein Lead Scoring uses to score leads are displayed on the lead record page, helping sales reps prepare for each and every call or email quickly. The real magic behind Einstein Lead Scoring is the machine learning that continually improves the accuracy of its predictions. If Einstein discovers based on your latest Salesforce data that VPs in a certain industry who view demos are hot leads, it will rescore all leads matching that criteria automatically. The top benefits of Einstein Lead Scoring are: Increased connection and conversion rates Accelerated engagement with your best leads Understanding of lead scoring factors The top features of Einstein Lead Scoring are: Zero Setup - no implementation or extra tools or import/export of data Custom Lead Score-Driven Workflows - easy task assignment based on predictive lead scores Smart Lead Lists - The best leads are sent to the top of your reps’ contact lists quickly If you have or are considering implementing Salesforce Sales Cloud, talk to Summit Technologies about how Einstein Lead Scoring can close more deals faster for your business. Summit Technologies is your Salesforce implementation partner and our discovery process ensures we build a Salesforce solution for your business that incorporates everything you need, customized for your business model, and nothing that you don’t need. The Einstein tools can be a powerful component of your Salesforce ecosystem. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Pardot, Field Services and Salesforce Communities. Summit Technologies strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

Capturing the right data is essential for delivering a personalized experience to your target accounts. With the help of lead capture forms, you can gather the information you need to gain a deeper understanding of your buyers and create tailored experiences based on their interests and behaviors. To capture the most useful data, consider the following key data points: Industry: Understanding which industry your target accounts belong to will help you tailor your messaging to their specific needs. Pain points: Identifying the specific challenges and pain points your target accounts are facing will help you address their concerns more effectively. Job title: Knowing the roles and responsibilities of the people you are targeting will help you tailor your messaging to their level of expertise. Area of interest or product interest: Understanding which products or services your target accounts are interested in will help you tailor your messaging to their specific needs. Region: Understanding the location of your target accounts will help you tailor your messaging to their specific region. Company size: Knowing the size of the organizations you are targeting will help you tailor your messaging to their specific needs. Once you have captured the necessary data, it's time to put it into action. Here are some effective ways to use your data to create personalized engagements for your target accounts: Personalize email content: Develop email templates that feature dynamic sections, which can be customized based on the recipient's persona and interests. Targeted sales outreach: Drive engagement by creating sales outreach emails with personalized callouts to account-relevant content. Regional event invitations: Increase participation in events by sending personalized emails that adjust based on the location and interests of the recipient. "Next best action" global footer: Keep your target accounts engaged with personalized offers that are refreshed based on their previous actions. Create a personalized web experience: Use dynamic content to personalize interactions across your website and ensure that visitors always see content relevant to them. To personalize your web experience, consider using the following ideas: Industry-specific CTAs: Use industry data to personalize CTAs and showcase industry-specific content that is most relevant to your target users. Customers vs. prospects: Customize CTAs for target accounts that are not yet customers, pointing them to demo videos or case studies, while existing customers may benefit more from additional product or service recommendations. Regional CTAs: Recommend events or webinars based on the region and time zone of your target accounts. By capturing and utilizing the right data, you can create a more personalized experience for your target accounts, resulting in more engagement and higher conversion rates.

The signs are all around us that 2023 and beyond may be a challenging time for sales organizations. Sales enablement technology from Salesforce and Summit Technologies LLC can help you bridge the gap between quotas and realities. Sales enablement tools and technology can increase close rates by as much as 35% on average. What does effective sales enablement technology look like? It consists of the tools that ensure any sales representative can find the proper content, submit it to prospects, and track prospect engagement with full visibility for sales management. But it is so much more than that. A robust suite of sales enablement tools provide learning tools, selling insights, centralized content, and sales team collaboration all in one place. Based on Salesforce’s recent benchmarking of companies that have implemented a formal coaching process for sales reps supported by technology, they often have the following components: • Learning Tools: a learning environment to facilitate continuous learning. Training modules are available on topics such as product capabilities, competitive differentiation, purchase cost justification, etc., that salespeople can leverage as they engage prospects throughout the sales cycle. • Selling Insights: technology-generated recommendations to supplement one-on-one coaching sessions. For example, analyzing a salesperson's territory, selling insights could recommend which accounts to pursue first and what value propositions are most likely to resonate. • Centralized Content: a centralized online repository that salespeople can easily utilize to get access to the information/sales tools needed to effectively engage prospects and customers throughout the sales process. • Sales Team Collaboration: a social network that supports data, file, and knowledge sharing among sales team members as they work together to pursue and close opportunities. In the early days of sales enablement, these initiatives typically involved implementing point solutions that were loosely connected to CRM. Now Summit Technologies is seeing the emergence of sales enablement suites. The most recent example of this is the release of Salesforce’s Enablement, which provides functionality to cover all four areas mentioned above. It is fully integrated with Sales Cloud to optimize how sales professionals engage with prospects, customers, and other members of their team. The pressure is on for sales leaders to create enablement tools and programs for their teams that make a real impact on revue goals with built in tools to measure how well it is working. Selling in a hybrid world is challenging and 58% of sales people say virtual selling is harder than selling from an office. Salesforce’s Enablement provides: Revenue Milestones Tailor-made Templates Insights and Analytics Structured Enablement with Drag and Drop Building Einstein Conversation Insights to Harness the Data and Power of Artificial Intelligence Tools to Manage Change and Drive Adoption With heightened uncertainty of what the buyer/seller environment will look like in 2023, sales management has no choice but to challenge the “status quo” around how they have been selling. Summit Technologies and Salesforce are ready to drive success for your sales organization with outcome-based enablement. Are you ready for the challenge? Reflecting on the above, the importance and value of optimizing sales coaching are clear. Sales organizations choosing not to do so will put their sales performance at a higher than necessary level of risk—at a time they cannot afford to do so. Summit Technologies is ready to implement Salesforce’s Sales Enablement with your new or existing Salesforce CRM tools to provide an empowered sales force.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies LLC Sales and Marketing Consulting Specialist The two biggest challenges facing businesses today are lead generation and lead conversion. The more successfully a company generates leads, the more challenging warming and converting them becomes. Summit Technologies is proud to offer implementation and customization solutions with Einstein Lead Scoring to help you overcome both challenges. With Einstein Lead Scoring from Salesforce - a key capability of Sales Cloud Einstein - sales reps can convert more leads, faster. Using artificial intelligence to automatically analyze your company’s historical sales data, Einstein Lead Scoring determines whether or not a lead is likely to convert to an opportunity. Sales teams can segment and prioritize the leads they are working for faster lead conversion using Einstein’s predictive intelligence. Summit Technologies customization and implementation services will enable your company to get the most value from our Sales Cloud Einstein and set your sales reps up for success. The factors that Einstein Lead Scoring uses to predict conversion potential are displayed on each lead record in Salesforce, aiding sales reps to prepare for every call and interaction quickly. How does Einstein Lead Scoring work with your data? Einstein Lead Scoring models are built specifically and uniquely for each customer and organization. Einstein Lead Scoring analyzes all the standard and custom fields for the Lead object and then runs different predictive models such as Logistic Regression, Random Forests, and Naive Bayes. Einstein Lead Scoring automatically selects the best model based on sample datasets. Sales Cloud Einstein does the heavy lifting by determining the best model to drive lead conversion. Your models are updated monthly ensuring you have the most accurate predictions for your leads. Leads are scored on an hourly basis using the latest model. When something changes with a lead it is rescored within the next hour! The backend power behind Einstein Lead Scoring is the machine learning that improves the accuracy of Einstein’s predictions. If Einstein discovers that certain job titles in specific industries who view demos of a particular product are great leads, the data model will update the lead score of your leads meeting the newly discovered criteria providing sales reps with a fresh batch of hot leads to work. Studies show that companies using AI spend less time figuring out what to do and more time actively growing revenue. Einstein Lead Scoring empowers your company to spend more time selling and less time prospecting. Einstein Lead Scoring discovers an insight, predicts the likelihood of the lead converting, and provides direct insight into how the new score was determined automatically. When you can work leads smarter you can convert leads faster shortening sales cycles and closing more business. Summit Technologies LLC will assist you in analyzing and automating your sales and marketing processes and putting the power of Einstein Lead Scoring to work in your business. Einstein Lead Scoring helps you accelerate engagement with your most qualified leads while requiring zero setup, custom lead score driven workflows, and smart lead lists to keep your sales teams working smarter and faster. There are no additional tools required and tasks can be easily assigned in Salesforce based on predictive lead scores. Einstein Lead Scoring and Summit Technologies adds a Lead Score field to leads in your Salesforce org. The Lead Score lets sales and marketing teams prioritize their work by ranking leads according to their similarities to prior converted leads. Using data science and machine learning, Einstein Lead Scoring offers a simpler, faster, and more accurate solution than traditional rules-based lead scoring approaches. When your Salesforce admin - or Summit’s Salesforce team with a Salesforce Sales Cloud Einstein quickstart - sets up Einstein Lead Scoring you choose to score all leads together or group leads into segments based on field criteria. Einstein builds a separate scoring model for each lead segment. With each lead score, Einstein displays the lead’s field values that have the most significant positive and negative effects on its score. With Einstein Lead Scoring enabled in your Salesforce Sales Cloud account, artificial intelligence scores your leads by how well they fit your company’s previously successful conversion patterns enabling sales reps to prioritize the leads they are working on by lead score. By working smarter, sales reps can convert leads faster. With the lead score appearing on your lead detail pages, sales reps can quickly see which fields have the greatest influence on the lead’s score. When you add the Einstein Score field to list views you can hover over a score to display the top factors behind the score and focus on leads with the highest scores for the fastest lead conversion. Einstein Lead Scoring includes a dashboard with reports that show key lead score metrics for your org including average lead score by lead source, conversion rate by lead score, and lead score distribution across converted and lost opportunities. Sales Cloud Einstein - of which Einstein Lead Scoring is a part - is a ready to use out of the box set of tools that learns from your Salesforce CRM data and sales activities making its predictions and recommendations better and smarter over time. Sales Cloud Einstein helps the sales team throughout the sales process driving time and attention to the most profitable next steps. In addition to Einstein Lead Scoring, Sales Cloud Einstein includes Salesforce Inbox and Einstein Activity Capture. Einstein Opportunity Insights gives sales reps smart reminders or tasks to nurture relationships with customers. Einstein Lead Scoring helps reps prioritize leads focusing on those most likely to convert. Adding Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Lead Scoring to your sales and marketing arsenal can provide a greater return on your Salesforce investment and fill up your opportunity pipeline. Contact Summit Technologies LLC for a free consultation to determine how Sales Cloud Einstein can help you convert leads faster.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Account-based marketing (ABM) is a powerful B2B marketing strategy that aims to target specific customers or accounts. Instead of using broad-based campaigns, ABM uses personalized campaigns to engage accounts with a unique approach, building trust and increasing customer relationships' lifetime value. ABM is not limited to the marketing team, but involves close alignment across the marketing, sales, and service teams to target accounts and ensure a seamless experience. The three types of ABM programs are 1-to-1, 1-to-few, and 1-to-many programs, which vary based on your business goals. To implement a successful ABM strategy, you need a customer relationship management (CRM) solution and a marketing automation platform to deliver a personalized and relevant message to the right accounts at the right moments. Salesforce CRM and Salesforce Marketing Cloud or Salesforce Account Engagement are great tools for account based marketing. AI tools like Salesforce Einstein can make identifying target accounts more efficient by providing insights and a clear rubric to engage the best accounts. Once you've identified the accounts you want to target and developed an understanding of their needs and preferences, these accounts can be used as templates to build lookalike audiences for one-to-few or one-to-many ABM programs. ABM is ultimately about being account-centric, where your buyers are at the center of every interaction. If you are ready to employ account based marketing in your business, contact Summit Technologies for help customizing your CRM and marketing automation platform. Summit Technologies offers customization, implementation, and ongoing managed services for the Salesforce platform.

When a really robust, game changing tool arrives in the marketplace, it can be difficult to fully understand its capabilities and its potential impact on your business. Summit Technologies LLC has been deep diving into Sales Cloud Einstein to give you insight into how it can enable your organization to sell more. The key features of Sales Cloud Einstein include: Einstein Lead Scoring, Einstein Email Insights, Salesforce Inbox, Einstein Automated Contacts, Einstein Activity Capture, Einstein Opportunity Scoring, Einstein Opportunity Insights, Einstein Forecasting, and the Sales Analytics App. What do they do? Einstein Lead Scoring Einstein lead scoring adds a lead score field to leads. When reps use scores to prioritize their list of leads, they can focus on the ones that have the highest chance of conversion. Managers understand the health of their leads and opportunities better, and can share relevant information with others. Inexperienced reps work from a prioritized list of leads without much involvement from their managers. Einstein Email Insights Einstein email insights give sales reps critical sales context alongside relevant emails, making it easier for them to send the perfect response at the perfect time. Actionable intelligence in reps’ inboxes helps identify which customers need attention. Salesforce Inbox A suite of productivity tools helps reps focus on what needs attention. Salesforce inbox brings email, calendar, and CRM together in one seamless experience. For example, Email Tracking helps reps focus on engaged prospects. Insert Availability makes scheduling meetings a breeze. Salesforce Inbox is a suite of mobile and desktop productivity apps that help sales reps work smarter without leaving their Microsoft or Google inbox. Einstein Automated Contacts Einstein Automated Contacts uses email and event activity to find new contacts and opportunity contact roles to add to Salesforce. Contact records are automatically added to Salesforce, so reps spend less time on data entry. Reps reduce data entry and improve contact data quality. Einstein Activity Capture Einstein activity capture helps keep data between Salesforce and your email and calendar applications up to date. Having email and event data automatically logged on Salesforce records increases reps’ productivity and visibility into potential customers. Reps reduce context switching and manual activity logging, improve data quality, and generate more insights. Activity Metrics, which comes with Einstein Activity Capture, helps sales managers know when to step in with assistance. For example, managers might add the Inactive Days and Lead Score fields to a lead list view. Then, they can see which high-scoring leads haven’t had any activity. Einstein Activity Capture is a productivity-boosting tool that keeps each sales rep’s email and calendar aligned with Salesforce. Einstein Activity Capture performs two main functions. First, it captures email and events from a rep’s Microsoft or Google account and adds them to the activity timeline of related Salesforce records. Reps no longer need to log activities manually in Salesforce. Einstein Activity Capture also syncs contacts and events between Salesforce and a rep’s Microsoft or Google account. Einstein Opportunity Scoring Einstein Opportunity Scoring is available to users with or without a Sales Cloud Einstein license. Opportunity scores tell you the likelihood that an opportunity will be won. For each opportunity score, Einstein shows the factors that have contributed the most to the score, both positively and negatively. Reps prioritize deals based on scores that indicate how likely an opportunity is to close. For example, a rep can prioritize high-scoring opportunities that are in early stages. Because scores are based on real data, reps get an accurate understanding of their opportunities. Reps see the factors that contribute to the score, which helps them take appropriate action. Managers understand the health of their leads and opportunities better, and can share relevant information with others. Experienced reps with a heavy workload work from a prioritized list of opportunities so they can focus on the deals most likely to close. Sales managers keep an eye on low-scoring opportunities and reach out to reps with assistance. Sales managers understand the health of their pipelines and share relevant information with others. Einstein Opportunity Insights Opportunity Insights includes predictions about which deals are likely to be won, reminders to follow up, and notifications when key moments in a deal take place. Each insight offers details about why it’s shown, tying it to relevant metrics. Reps get relevant updates about their opportunities. Insights includes intelligent updates about which deals are likely to be won, smart reminders to follow up, and notifications when key moments in a deal take place. Reps get smart reminders when opportunities are past their close dates, have no future activity, or have overdue tasks. Insights also include key moments, such as a contact leaving or a prospect not responding. Reps know what to do next with relevant predictions, reminders, and notifications about opportunities. Einstein Forecasting Einstein Forecasting uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to bring more certainty and visibility to your forecasts. Improve forecasting accuracy, get forecast predictions, and track how sales teams are doing. Einstein forecasts are based on AI that analyzes past sales data, explores how records change over time, and tracks new changes. This data analysis is the basis for accurate and objective forecasts. When managers have a better understanding of the team’s performance, they can coach their reps more effectively. Sales managers improve forecasting accuracy, get forecast predictions, and track how sales teams are doing. Sales Analytics App Sales Analytics brings the power of Analytics to Sales Cloud on any device that supports Analytics. With intuitive visualizations based on your Salesforce data, Sales Analytics lets you move from insight to action quickly and helps you turn data into smarter sales. Managers analyze sales data, look at opportunity whitespace, review pipeline status, and evaluate team and rep performance better than they did without sales analytics. Intuitive visualizations based on Salesforce data help reps move from insight to action quickly. Reps see the latest wins, win rate, and average deal amount. Analytics highlight quotas and reliable forecasts.

Beginning February 1, 2022 all Salesforce customers were contractually required to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) in their Salesforce orgs. What is it? Why is it required? How do you roll it out to your users? Multi-factor authentication is a layered approach to securing data and applications where a system requires a user to present a combination of two or more credentials to verify a user's identity for login. MFA is a highly effective method to increase protection for Salesforce user accounts against common threats like phishing attacks, credential stuffing, and account takeovers. It provides you with an added layer of security to your Salesforce login process by requiring users to enter two or more pieces of verification or factors to prove their identity. One factor is something the users knows like their username and password. The other is a verification method from something the user has in their possession such as an authenticator app or security key. Salesforce has begun requiring MFA for all users to further insure the safety, security, and integrity of both the platform and your data. Salesforce puts the value of trust and success for their customers at the forefront of everything they do. Salesforce customers who have not set up MFA for all Salesforce users are out of compliance with their contractual arrangement with Salesforce. Don’t worry. Summit Technologies can help you meet Salesforce’s MFA requirements! For the do-it-yourselfers, Salesforce has provided Everything You Need to Know About MFA Auto-Enablement and Enforcement. MFA is not currently required for Experience Cloud sites, employee communities, help portals, or e-commerce sites and storefronts. MFA does not have to be enabled for external users. MFA options are varied and your Salesforce consulting partner can help you assess which one or more are most appropriate for your Salesforce users. MFAs can be apps on mobile devices, email or text notifications, security tokens, built-in authenticators, security keys, the Salesforce Authenticator, or many other options. Rolling out MFA for users is a multi-step process dictated by which Salesforce products you are using and what MFA tools you will incorporate. Salesforce provides quite a bit of guidance on how to roll out MFA and how to ensure your Salesforce users are remaining compliant. Or you can have us at Summit Technologies sort it out for you.

In today's world, media companies are searching for agile platforms to manage the subscriber experience in a streamlined and comprehensive way as more companies launch their own subscription services. Before choosing a management platform, it's important to understand the scope of a company's needs and current systems. The subscription model is becoming increasingly popular, and competition for customers' attention and wallets is intense. To adapt to changing monetization models, flexible platforms will be necessary. When selecting a subscription management partner, companies should consider the platform's ability to provide services across channels, offer a singular view of data, and integrate with other systems. It's essential to clarify which services a company needs help with and seek out vendors accordingly. Companies should also be clear about their strengths and what they don't want to give up control over. Summit Technologies LLC can assist you in selecting and implementing the right subscriber lifecycle management platform.

With Salesforce's Subscription Quotes feature, your sales team has the ability to create quotes for subscription products and services. This includes the ability to apply discounts, get approvals, and send a PDF to the customer with important subscription details such as the start date, prices, and billing frequency. Additionally, reps can sync the quote with its corresponding opportunity in Salesforce, ensuring that the latest product and pricing information is always up to date. When a customer accepts the quote, your team can initiate the order by clicking the Create Order button, or you can configure Subscription Management to initiate the order automatically. Orders are activated once they are initiated, and Subscription Management automatically creates assets and billing schedules to help you track what customers own and when the next invoice is due. This streamlined process helps to ensure that your sales team can efficiently manage and close deals involving subscription products and services. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Pardot, Field Services and Salesforce Communities. Summit Technologies strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Improving email deliverability doesn't have to be a mysterious process. By taking actionable steps, you can increase customer engagement and eliminate wasted spending. Litmus and Salesforce have created a comprehensive four-part guide that will help you understand email deliverability and form a proactive and holistic approach to your email marketing, ensuring every campaign is optimized for success. When you send an email, it goes through two important checkpoints: delivery and deliverability. Delivery determines whether the email was received by the subscriber's inbox provider's servers. If the message was accepted, the email is considered delivered; if not, it is marked as a hard or soft bounce. Deliverability is the follow-up process after delivery that measures the rate at which emails make it into subscribers' inboxes instead of being labeled as spam and sent to the junk folder. You can improve your email deliverability by taking preventative measures and monitoring your efforts regularly. One of the most critical steps is confirming your authentication and infrastructure. To do this, make sure your infrastructure is set up correctly, send only from authenticated domains, and establish the three primary frameworks: SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. If you're sending emails from a new IP address, you may need to consider IP warming. This involves slowly sending emails from a new IP address or domain name and gradually increasing send volume over time until you've proven yourself as a legitimate sender. This is especially necessary if you're using a new dedicated IP address, a new domain, a new subdomain from a warm domain, or switching to a new ESP. These tips from Summit Technologies LLC will help improve deliverability in Salesforce Account Engagement (formerly known as Pardot).

Sales forecasts are like weather forecasts: you rely on them to plan ahead, but they’re useless if not backed by accurate data. They’re also notoriously difficult to perfect. Only 45% of sales leaders are confident their organizations have accurate sales forecasts, according to a Gartner report. That’s why at Salesforce, they’ve created a whole culture around data that allows them to make consistent, accurate forecasts. The entire Salesforce sales organization plays a role in maintaining this culture. How can you do the same in your company? Here’s a look into how a data culture can drive success now, fueled by accurate Salesforce forecasting. Give everybody access to the data This isn’t about equality. Everybody in your organization needs access to the data because everybody — from sales rep to executive — manages metrics that feed your forecast. This starts at the opportunity level for the rep. Every rep reviews all the data the company has on a given prospect so they can map out the best and fastest path to close a deal. Then, they dig into the sales process. Up a level, managers look into individual opportunity and pipeline statuses of their entire teams. They spot snags and delays, and coach reps to move deals along efficiently. The more accurate the data, the more applicable their assistance is. Finally, leaders review the progress toward sales targets for all teams in weekly executive forecast calls. We visualize data from around the company in a single view. The question at this stage isn’t just, “How are we doing now?” but “How will things look at the end of the quarter and what can derail us?” Identifying possible hurdles to hitting our targets is key to adjusting our strategy to stay on course. When pivots are needed, they’re communicated to managers and reps, who adjust tactics accordingly. All of this is possible because data access is open across the company — no data silos. This means everyone from reps to managers to the C-suite can focus on what’s working and what needs more work. Make everyone accountable for keeping data up to date Companies depend on reps, managers, and leaders to keep pipelines moving and targets on track. With these checks in place, you can ensure accurate Salesforce forecasting, adjusting as needed to address business and market changes. But this accuracy is only possible if you collectively keep all data up to date. The entire sales process (and corresponding metrics) must be mapped and tracked in a single-view platform. In fact, Salesforce has a golden rule about this: if it isn’t in their system of record, it doesn’t exist. Salesforce’s own process is standardized across teams and is the expectation, not a guideline. Account executives identify, create, and adjust opportunity data. Managers inspect this data, monitor pipeline changes, and add their own feedback and guidance to help close deals. Top executives then investigate trends and redirect resources based on the overall picture. Everyone is encouraged to keep data updated in their system of record because everyone can see and hold each other accountable to it. Yes, everybody has a different job description. But as Yan Pu, vice president of sales operations and strategy at Salesforce, notes, everyone works to keep data updated and, as a result, support the accuracy of our forecasts. “If anyone fails to do their part, forecast reviews are inefficient and inaccurate since they’re based on stale data.” When it comes to data and forecasting, predictions need to be more accurate than the weather. Salesforce and a single source of truth for data can help. Summit Technologies is your Salesforce implementation partner and our discovery process ensures we build a Salesforce solution for your business that incorporates everything you need, customized for your business model, and nothing that you don’t need. Summit Technologies is a Columbus, Ohio based Salesforce Consulting Partner consisting of a talented and creative team of Salesforce certified Consultants, Developers, Analysts and Project Managers. We specialize in building innovative solutions for our clients within the Salesforce family of products including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, CPQ, Experience Cloud, Nonprofit Cloud, Education Cloud, Pardot, Field Services and Salesforce Communities. Summit Technologies strategic services solutions bring custom Salesforce technology to work for your business.

The term ‘digital-first’ is thrown around online and for some it just reads like the next buzz word being used by big businesses. However, digital-first is a huge shift in business strategy and mindset. This shift has presented new opportunities and new challenges for those who have embraced the change. Summit Technologies LLC helps organizations make the monumental digital transformation with tools from the Salesforce ecosystem. Digital-first companies focus on delivering their service through digital mediums. MuleSoft is an excellent example of a digital-first company, as they have developed an integrated platform that allows customers to manage their business processes in one uniform place. They also provide APIs so their partners can easily integrate with their products, enabling them to expand beyond the traditional enterprise market to a unified customer experience. Digital-first marketing is expanding faster than ever. With inbound marketing costing 62% less than traditional outbound marketing, and a lucrative 55% increase in web traffic for those businesses that take advantage of new media tools such as Salesforce content hubs, it’s not surprising that businesses are pushing towards a solidly digital-first culture with an emphasis on digital disruption. Connectivity and data drives digital-first businesses When delivering a digital service, the focus should be on creating a great customer experience (CX) and building a robust online presence. Modern-day connectivity clears the way to make this happen. We’re more connected to the digital world than ever before. This connectivity means that a digital-first business can instantly gather user data and feedback, improve its offering, deliver quickly, and target its marketing through online mediums such as email, social media, videos, blogs and websites. Consumers expect to find you where they want when they want rather than just receiving repeated and possibly monotonous email and text messages from your brand. More often than not, a digital-first business will have a less physical presence than a traditional brick and mortar business. Think of the cost savings. Where traditional companies have transitioned into a digital-first existence, they have left a trail of empty offices, stores and banks scattered throughout the country. This business mindset isn’t just changing customer and employee experiences, it's experiences it’s changing our landscapes. The growing digital-first culture is helping cement the importance of global digital transformation. Ever-changing customer behaviors are becoming more complex with a growing desire for personalized communications. The more complex they become, the more important it is to track every level and stage of engagement in the customer journey. Customers are more demanding than ever before and businesses are taking advantage of customer-centricity to fully realize the potential and capacity of digital transformation. A different way of thinking The digital-first business way of thinking isn’t just about adding an e-commerce store to a website, closing offices or moving marketing online. It’s about seeing where a business could leverage technologies such as cloud and API integration, where customer and employee experiences can be improved and adopting an agile mindset that embraces the continuous change that technology affords. Salesforce has been at the forefront of customer relationship management since its inception and Summit Technologies has been implementing and customizing Salesforce technology since 2016. A digital-first mindset focuses on: Delivering a service digitally. Creating a great user experience for both customers and employees. Online marketing and building a strong online presence. Integrating data along every touchpoint to exceed customer expectations. Enhancing a business with technology. Remaining agile and integrating new technology. Accelerated transformation. The pandemic of 2020/21 accelerated the digital-first business transformation. The businesses that had no digital product or service sat by the sideline while the ones that did, flexed their digital muscles and continued to deliver. Many companies had to quickly transform to provide digital services or otherwise risk going under. This challenge impacted for profit companies, nonprofits, educational institutions, and government agencies alike. The unexpected demand for a cloud-based digital-first solution in every imaginable industry and vertical challenged us all to think outside the box. Even with life returning to what it was before the pandemic, customers and employees are now spending more time at home and online, where they want to shop and work. Their expectations are of a smooth user experience that allows them (within reason) to achieve what they would if they were there physically. Digital transformation involves large-scale IT integrations, strong leadership and alignment, and a road map to a future that is anything but clear. Digital-first marketing isn’t only about technology, it’s about consumers. Our modern technology demands that nearly every interaction a company has with their consumers is in some way a digital experience. Your business cannot transform to digital-first until your people do. And you people cannot shift to digital-first without the mindset and the tools to do so. Summit Technologies LLC helps your company succeed in a digital first transformation because of our history of success in transformation. A digital-first mindset is about putting the customer first and creating a customer-centric culture. It means constantly looking to improve the user experience and ensuring that customer needs guide everything. These businesses can stay ahead of the curve and capitalize on the latest trends and technologies. By focusing on the customer, a digital-first company can create a loyal fanbase that will stick with them. Digital First Statistics 92% of businesses say that now is a unique time to accelerate digital-first transformation (Harvard Business School) 86% of businesses agree that user retention was amongst their main priorities in 2022 (Harvard Business School) 58% of businesses use product analytics, surveys, web analytics, and business intelligence to gain a competitive advantage (Harvard Business School) The digital transformation market is expected to grow at a compounding annual growth rate (CAGR) of 23% from 2019 onwards to $3.3 trillion by 2025 (Gartner) 89% of businesses have already adopted a digital-first business strategy or plan to do so (Gartner) 32% of all nonprofits surveyed said ensuring the mental health and wellbeing of their employees was a major issue for them over the past year, with 38% of nonprofits with revenues of more than $10M rating it a major issue compared to only 28% of those with revenues below $1M To build a landscape that incorporates the multifaceted aspects of digital transformation, businesses are figuring out how to meet customer expectations economically while simultaneously prioritizing internal areas of focus and investment. Summit Technologies LLC provides Salesforce implementations, custom development, integrations, training, and solutions that aid organizations in sailing smoothly into a digital-first environment while delivering amazing customer experiences.

By Shannan Hearne, Summit Technologies Marketing Specialist Ecommerce refers to the buying and selling of goods and services online. Change management, on the other hand, is the process of preparing, supporting, and equipping employees to effectively adapt to new initiatives or changes in the workplace. The success of ecommerce initiatives depends largely on effective change management strategies that ensure employees are adequately prepared for inevitable changes. When planning for change management, it is important to anticipate potential resistance and understand how each team will be affected. Failure to properly manage change and level set expectations can result in ambiguity, low morale, declining productivity, decreased efficiency, employee turnover, and lost revenue. One effective approach to getting teams on board with new ecommerce initiatives is to tap into personal and social motivators by answering the question, "What's in it for me?" This approach emphasizes the unique needs and benefits of each team and individual employee. To successfully implement change, it is important to define the change strategy, build a change management team, create a communication plan, coach and train change agents, and collect and analyze feedback. Continuous evaluation is crucial for success. Overall, effective change management is essential for the success of ecommerce initiatives. By taking a systematic and thoughtful approach, organizations can successfully navigate changes and ensure their employees are equipped to thrive in a rapidly evolving business landscape. Summit Technologies LLC has been aiding companies in technology development and change management since 2016. Whether you are seeking assistance with a Salesforce implementation or a managed services solution provider, Summit Technologies is here to help.

Alumni engagement is critical to an educational institution's success, and the involvement of alumni is not just limited to providing financial assistance. Alumni can help in career guidance, volunteering, partnerships, and enhancing the institution's reputation when appropriately engaged. Using personalized technology is vital for successful outreach, but it's equally essential to comprehend the donors' and volunteers' unique backgrounds and preferences to establish strong, long-term relationships. The Education Data Architecture (EDA) is Salesforce's fundamental architecture for education that provides a baseline framework for an institution's Salesforce. EDA enables institutions to use a common language and configuration across the entire learner lifecycle without the need for customization. Since EDA is a data architecture, not a product, it allows schools to customize an advancement solution according to their unique needs and processes, such as page layouts, custom fields, and objects, without writing any code. Summit Technologies LLC has extensive experience creating customized Salesforce instances for colleges and universities with custom objects and automations. Relationships and affiliations are two custom objects in EDA that help track various connections between contacts and accounts, making it easier for the alumni relations and advancement teams to drive constituent engagement. Affiliations are crucial for advancement teams as they allow them to see the specific experience an individual had while attending an institution and the employers and organizations they connect to after graduation. To further customize the alumni engagement solution, administrators or your Salesforce implementation partner can create an app using clicks, not code, that groups various objects together around a function or role. If administrators don't have the bandwidth to build everything, they can explore the Salesforce AppExchange, a marketplace for pre-built solutions designed to be more plug-and-play for organizations in specific areas or engage a Salesforce partner.

Creating a sales plan is a crucial aspect of achieving your revenue targets. To make sure that your plan is robust and adaptable to changes, it's important to gather all your sales data in one place and use technology that provides real-time updates. Here are the steps to create an effective sales plan: Integrate with a CRM: Store all your sales data in a centralized customer relationship management (CRM) system. This will provide you with real-time visibility into any changes that may affect your targets and allow you to adjust your plan quickly. Assess team capacity: Use your CRM data to understand the revenue your team is capable of generating. Take into consideration various metrics such as historical sales performance, quotas, and targets, and hiring data. Evaluate the gap: Determine the difference between your revenue predictions and your revenue targets. For example, if your goal is to hit $6 million in ACV this year, but you are short of two sellers, you'll need to find ways to close the gap and meet the target. Create action plans: Write a sales plan that outlines the expectations, rewards, customer segments, and territories. Then, test different scenarios, such as hiring additional staff, reassigning territories, or creating an enablement program, to see which one will be the most cost-effective in closing the gap and achieving your targets. Present and execute: Present your proposed action plans to leadership and get their approval. If the preferred plan is not feasible due to cost, then consider alternative options. For example, if investing in an enablement program is not approved, increase each seller's quota instead. Continuously adjust: Keep in mind that market conditions may change and you may need to adjust your sales plan accordingly. Reimagine your sales plan as a living document that requires constant monitoring and adjustment to stay on track and achieve your goals.