How to Avoid 9 Mistakes in Selecting a Salesforce Consulting Partner?

Selecting the right Salesforce consulting partner can make or break your Salesforce journey. Whether you’re a startup implementing Salesforce for the first time or an enterprise undertaking a complex digital transformation, the right partner is your guide, strategist, and execution arm.

Unfortunately, many companies fall into common traps when choosing their Salesforce consulting partner, leading to wasted time, budget overruns, or underwhelming results. In this blog post, I’ll Walk you through nine critical mistakes to avoid and how to steer clear of them so you can confidently choose a partner that helps you achieve your business goals. Let’s dive in

Here are the 9 Mistakes to avoid in Selecting a Salesforce Consulting Partner

1. Not Defining Your Goals Clearly

• A major mistake companies often make is partnering with a Salesforce firm before they know what their success will be.

• Do you want to see your sales pipeline more clearly? Can we automate addressing customer problems? Make marketing campaigns easier. Integrate Salesforce with systems you already have?

• A good consulting team needs defined goals, priorities, and KPIs to achieve good results. Before getting partners involved, assemble the team from within your organization, outline your needs, and find measurable goals. This ensures you find the right business and makes it easier to judge your project’s outcomes.

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2. Overlooking Industry Experience

• The Salesforce itself is strong, but what makes it truly work for you is setting it up for your industry.

• Since they aren’t experts in your sector, a Salesforce expert from another firm might not notice or appreciate important issues related to regulations, customers or methodologies in your company.

• As an instance, a healthcare organization should work with a partner that understands HIPAA, and a financial services firm would require a partner skilled in KYC and AML rules. Before choosing a partner, find out about their previous work, customer case studies and Salesforce credentials to verify they will work well from the start.

3. Focusing Only on Certifications, Not Capabilities

• Certainly, getting a Salesforce Administrator, Platform Developer or Solution Architect certification helps prove one’s skill and understanding.

• Having certificates, however, is not a guarantee you will be successful. What matters most is working alongside someone who knows what it takes to build technology and is accustomed to leading through business, embracing change and rethinking beliefs when necessary.

• Ask about actual projects, what customers think, and actual results, not just the number of badges they have. A capable consultant will display recognized skills, think strategically and be able to deliver on projects.

4. Ignoring the Importance of Cultural Fit

• The main concern in technology projects isn’t technology, but the people using it.

• Although an IT expert is technically outstanding, this does not always mean they will fit into your culture. The way they talk to each other might be either formal or too casual. Perhaps their working habits don’t fit with yours or they promote tools and ideas that don’t reflect your company.

• Pay attention to how your consultants communicate with everyone during the selection process. Do they appear to cause your problems? Do they engage your team in ways that make the most sense to them.

5. Underestimating Change Management Needs

• A lot of companies put their resources solely into technology and often forget how much effort must be put into managing the change for a successful rollout.

• Having the best design in the Salesforce won’t help if your staff, processes or company leaders don’t support the change. Your consulting partner should make sure change management is part of the project, helping you deal with change adoption, communication, training processes, and the reaction to changes.
• Seek allies who offer a big picture approach not just site development, but aid in your achievement.

6. Not Clarifying the Engagement Model

• Different expectations about how involved each party will be can bring down a good partnership.

• What type of cost structure does the partner provide: fixed scope, time-and-materials or retainer contracts? Should you pick a fully managed company or a provider who fills gaps in your team?

• Before finishing the contract, make sure you agree on the approach for engagement, structure for governance and method for delivery. How will they carry out the development in Agile or Waterfall mode? How frequently are you allowed to get updates? What should each person be responsible for? Being clear about goals early on prevents project swelling and unexpected challenges.

7. Neglecting Post-Go-Live Support

• While many consider go-live to be the end, it’s really only the start.

• Even after being deployed, your product still needs help with upgrades, bugs, user issues, and addressing new needs. At times, after the launch, some consulting partners seem to disappear, and the clients find themselves with no one to help them.

• Ask the business which post-live support services they plan to provide: Are managed services included? Will there be a team to assist me? How do they deal with issues that become urgent and keep to AN SLAs? An effective partner thinks about the future, not only the tasks they are working on today.

8. Skipping the research of references and reviews is a mistake

• Would you bring someone onto your team without verifying them through references? The same principle is true when choosing a consulting company to work with.

• Ensure to request references from people who have worked on projects related to your own. See what their AppExchange profile shows, notice the positive customer reviews, read the comments from customers and check for Salesforce Crest (formerly Platinum) or Summit Partner certificates to confirm their proven delivery skills.

• It gives you a chance to confirm both the partner’s sayings and their actual actions when pressure increases.

 9. Deciding on a Brand Just for Its Cost

• People watch their spending in business, but cutting back too far will usually harm you in the end.

• When the bid is low, this may suggest that they do not value experienced staff, rush through the discovery process, or do not realize how much work must be done. The same amount of money paid to someone else won’t always give you the best fit.

• Highlight who can provide excellent skills, fit in well with your culture, encourage new ideas and offer continuing support at a reasonable cost. It’s true that a project that fails once implemented will cost you a lot more than hiring the right partner when you begin.

Final Thoughts

Picking the right Salesforce consulting partner is a key decision you’ll make as you start using Salesforce. When you don’t make these nine mistakes, you help your organization implement Salesforce more effectively, use it more often, and get more value from the investment. Don’t rush, prepare properly and focus on a company that will advise and guide you, not only supply you with products. If you are evaluating Salesforce partners and want some advice for your company, feel free to use the contact details below to get in touch.