Sales Force Cheat Sheet

Recently, cloud computing is a great buzz in the IT industry, and one of the most popular cloud platforms having an immense impact on the computing world is the Salesforce. In this blog, we will discuss what is Salesforce, why use Salesforce and different industries where Salesforce can be utilized? This is an ultimate guide for admins and developers looking for a bright career in the world of computing and the Salesforce.

What is Salesforce?

Salesforce is a SaaS CRM, and Salesforce.com helps you to manage customer relationships, it can be quickly integrated with other systems, and even helps in building cloud-based apps. There are plenty of tools that help you in creating custom solutions based on your business needs. Today, Salesforce has expanded from just a simple product to a multitude of products.

Initially, it was started as SaaS (Software as a Service) Company then it was converted to PaaS (Platform as a Service) Company where one platform was given to the users to manage customer details and sales prospects. Soon, Salesforce was ranked as the largest customer success platform with various features listed below –

• Contact, leads and opportunity management
• Deal Tracking and Product planning
• Product Manufacturing and shipping

So, how did it all begin?

Initially, CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems came into existence with a strategy to simplify interactions with the customers and enhancing the sales prospects to retain existing customers and generating new leads too. But traditional CRM systems were not the optimal choice for leading industries due to the following reasons –

• Higher in costs
• They were taking months to set up.
• They were hosted on a personal server of the Company and,
• They were difficult to manage and understand.

Here, enterprises were in emergency need of an affordable CRM system that can be set up within a few days only and easy to understand as well. This was the main idea behind the discovery of Salesforce.

The Power of Salesforce 

So let’s start off by explaining what Salesforce is and how it works. 

Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) solution that brings customers and companies together. It’s one integrated CRM platform that gives all your departments — including marketing, sales, commerce and service — a single shared view of every customer.

Unlike traditional software, Salesforce is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) meaning that there’s no installation or hardwire setup required. All you need to do is sign up for the service and log in through a browser, and the software is immediately available, ready for use. With Salesforce, you have a full suite of services at your fingertips, stored on the cloud so you can sleep easily knowing your data is safe and secure, automatically backing up on its own.

Salesforce works for businesses of any size or industry, and gives all departments the ability to share a 360° view of your customers with one integrated CRM platform. It also allows companies to streamline their business processes and manage customer relationships by focusing on sales, service, marketing, and commerce. It keeps your data organized and secure while also presenting reports with effective analytics. Its automation features include tracking leads, managing emails, assigning tasks, notifications, approvals, etc, and so much more. It also handles all customer interactions of an organization through different forms of communication including phone calls, site email enquiries, communities, and social media. 

Salesforce helps companies accelerate efficiency and productivity, and ultimately increase revenue and growth by organizing data and automating business processes. With visibility and easy access to data, it’s easier to collaborate and increase productivity. Everyone in your company can see how customers have been communicated with, what they’ve bought, when they last purchased, what they paid, and so much more.

10 Reasons Why Companies Choose Salesforce 

1. 1.Get more leads, close more deals
2. 2.Better data management, improved visibility and more access to key insights for better decision making.
3. 3.Efficiencies through automation
4. 4.Ability to strategically up-sell and cross-sell 
5. 5.More effective marketing
6. 6.Accessibility from any location on any device 
7. 7.Faster deployment and automatic software updates
8. 8.Cost-effectiveness and scalability 
9. 9.Better customer experience
10. 10.Improved team collaboration and time management 

Salesforce Solutions

Now that you have an idea of what Salesforce is and how it works, let’s talk about its best-selling solutions, which include the likes of Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Community Cloud & Einstein Analytics.

Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud is a performance management software created for salespeople that optimizes business processes and increases conversions through personalized customer journeys. It is designed as a start-to-end setup for the entire sales process, empowering sales reps to work faster and smarter. It stores and organizes data including leads, accounts, contacts, contracts, opportunities, products, pricebooks, quotes, campaigns, and more. Some of its key features include lead management, sales forecasting, workflows, and email integration. 

Service Cloud

Service Cloud is a platform designed for customer service and support, enabling users to automate service processes, streamline workflows and find key articles, topics and experts to support the agent. It can listen and respond to customers across a variety of social platforms and route cases to the appropriate agent. It also gives agents a 360-degree view of each individual customer by providing AI-powered insights and predictions.  

Marketing Cloud 

Marketing Cloud is a digital marketing software that enables you to connect interactions from any channel or device, and combine customer data and behaviors to create real-time engagement. It includes integrated solutions for customer journey management, email, mobile, social media, advertising, landing pages, content creation, and data analytics. It also allows you to create campaigns and target specific customer behaviors, needs, and demographics. 

Commerce Cloud

Commerce Cloud is a B2B and B2C commerce platform that empowers brands to create intelligent, unified buying experiences across all channels including mobile, social, web, and store. It provides a rich set of capabilities, including marketing, merchandising, content, promotions, customer service, fulfillment, and artificial intelligence.

Community Cloud 

Community Cloud is a social platform designed to connect and facilitate communication among an organization’s employees, partners and customers. It allows users to share information in real time throughout an ongoing conversation, and is beneficial for troubleshooting, human resources management, and collaboration. 

Heroku 

Heroku is a cloud platform that allows companies to build, deliver, monitor and scale apps. It supports several programming languages so developers can build apps in the language of their choice including Java, Ruby, Node.js, Scala, Clojure, Python, PHP, and Go. 

Lightning Platform 

Salesforce has two versions: Classic and Lightning. The Lightning Platform offers more advanced features including customizations and app integrations so you can work faster and smarter. In essence, Lightning Platform is an app development platform that is designed to simplify processes for business users by accelerating development and app performance. It offers low-code to no-code building and automations so you can customize apps for any business need. 

Einstein Analytics

Einstein Analytics provides advanced analytics powered by artificial intelligence that automatically analyzes billions of data combinations to surface predictive insights and prescriptive recommendations. With these analytics, you can create Analytics charts to better visualize and understand your data. Einstein Analytics also allows you to build your own custom, intelligent apps, utilize APIs and SDKs to enhance your app, and connect to third party data sources to view all your data in one place. 

Quip for Salesforce 

Quip is a collaborative productivity software that allows teams to create and edit documents and spreadsheets together as a team. You can embed real-time document collaboration inside Salesforce and communicate via its built-in chat to boost sales productivity and resolve complex service cases faster.  

myTrailhead 

With myTrailhead, you can empower your team to learn how to use Salesforce in a gamified learning platform customized with your brand and content. You can tailor content to match the roles and needs of your company and increase Salesforce adoption. 

Pardot 

Pardot is a powerful B2B marketing automation to help marketing and sales teams find and nurture the best leads, close more deals, and maximize ROI. It uses data to personalize the customer experience, display targeted offers, and seamlessly develop nurturing and email paths as you uncover new information.

Mulesoft 

Mulesoft is an integration software for connecting apps, data, and devices in the cloud or on-premises. It allows you to bring data into Salesforce from any third-party system such as SAP or Oracle. 

All of these Salesforce products are available in different editions, so you can choose the edition that’s best suited to your current business size and needs. Bundled by functionalities and different pricing models, these editions put customers in the driver’s seat and gives them the ability to start with the basics and upgrade to more advanced editions as their businesses grow over time. 

Salesforce also offers products tailored to specific industries including— Health Cloud, Financial Services Cloud, Government Cloud, and Philanthropy Cloud. 

Due to its breadth of offerings, Salesforce can be fully customizable to fit any business in any industry. Need an app? Check out the AppExchange, an online marketplace filled with hundreds of pre-built mobile and desktop apps, components and services ready for use. Want to customize your Salesforce solution? Check out Salesforce’s standard features. Looking for something more tailored to your business? Find a Salesforce certified consultant, like us, that can work with you to tailor the whole platform to meet your specific business needs and goals. Whether you’re a global conglomerate or a small business, Salesforce has solutions to help everyone regardless of size or industry. 

Available Salesforce Editions

Essentials (for Small Business)

Designed for companies who need 10 users or less, this edition includes intuitive walk-throughs and a setup assistant to get you up and running as quickly as possible. Plus it comes with an easy-to-use user interface (UI) and administration tools that let you customize your deployment as you grow.

Professional (for Mid-Size Businesses)

Professional is the go-to for businesses who need full-featured CRM functionality. This edition offers a straightforward and easy-to-use customization, integration, and administration tools to facilitate any small to midsize deployment.

Enterprise (Most Popular for Large Businesses)

Enterprise is deeply customizable and allows for a substantial number of users, meeting the needs of large and complex businesses. It includes advanced customization and administration tools so you can support large-scale deployments as well as access to Salesforce APIs so you can easily integrate with back-office systems.

Unlimited 

As the name suggests, this edition grants you unlimited CRM power and support across the entire enterprise through the Lightning Platform so you can maximize your success. It grants you new levels of platform flexibility for managing and sharing all your information on demand as well as Premier Support, full mobile access, unlimited custom apps, increased storage limits, and other advanced features.

Developer (for Developers)

Developer edition was designed specifically for developers, giving them the freedom to extend Salesforce, integrate with other applications, and develop new tools and applications. It includes access to the Lightning Platform and APIs as well as to many of the features available in Enterprise Edition.

AppExchange & Integrations 

As we mentioned above, Salesforce has its own app marketplace where you can purchase and integrate apps. The AppExchange is a sharing interface that allows you to browse and share apps and services for the Lightning Platform. Think of it like Salesforce’s version of the App Store. You can download and install third party integrations directly into your organization.  

Some of Salesforce’s most popular integrations include: 

• Google Cloud
• Google Analytics 
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Outlook 
• Slack
• Quickbooks
• Dropbox
• MailChimp 
• DocuSign
• Jira
• HelloSign
• CodeScience 
• Eventbrite