Getting Started with Your Salesforce CPQ Consultant
Once you’ve decided to implement CPQ and engage a Salesforce CPQ consultant, it can seem like a lot of unknowns at the beginning. A good consultant will understand that, guiding you through the process as your partner, getting your input and feedback every step of the way.
They’ll keep the emphasis on value, simplicity, and sustainability. Rather than diagnose and prescribe, they’ll want to know why. And they’ll ask a lot of questions because of that.
The most important questions you’ll answer together include:
What value are you hoping they’ll deliver to your company?
How can we streamline processes and make the quoting process faster to get deals out the door?
How can the system be a sustainable solution?
How will this work move the needle on the company’s goals?
How will this work serve the company’s needs one year after implementation?
You probably touched on these questions while vetting potential consultants — if you haven’t selected a consultant yet, we’ve got you covered on what to consider in that process, too. Of course, spending more time answering these questions with your chosen Salesforce CPQ expert will strengthen the foundation of any future work that much more.
It can be a lot to iron out early, but these conversations are crucial to have when implementing a complex Salesforce solution like CPQ. While your dialogue may shift as you assess and reassess the strategy, discussing these questions in more depth provides focus to your partnership and ensures everyone is working towards the same measures of success.
In our experience implementing CPQ, a great true starting point is the product list. Once the product list is tightened up, every subsequent step benefits and becomes more efficient. For folks with an eye on ROI, this work delivers continued value.
We’re big fans of keeping it simple at Cloud Giants — after all, it’s one of our Core Values! If you’ve heard of comedian Mitch Hedberg, you’re probably familiar with his joke about advertising a product that’s only three easy payments of $19.95 and one really hard payment. It’s a funny take down of infomercials. And it sounds absolutely awful in practice.
Why have anything unnecessarily complicated in your process?
So why hold on to a product list that makes the work harder and not smarter?
At Cloud Giants, we’ve helped guide companies from around 300 active SKUs to just 40. You can imagine the saved time, people power, and technological investment that difference of 260 makes.
By simplifying your product list first, you can focus on the parts that matter most and let technology take the strain. And after investing in a robust solution like CPQ, that’s the main goal.
In order to assess your product list and reap the same benefits, you’ll need a consolidated list of:
All SKUs
Their prices
Any factors that affect their prices
Any volume discounting you offer
The currencies you sell in
All price books
It’s important to dig in here. This knowledge may seem second nature to members of your organization — as it should be! But during your partnership with a consultant, it will need to be communicated and understood by someone not in your business. The clearer, the better.
Time spent on this step will reward you throughout the Salesforce CPQ implementation process and its continued maintenance. And during this time, your consultant can get building on the next steps.
And those, folks, will be the subject of our next blog post on CPQ. So stay tuned for more.
Ready to start your CPQ implementation? Want to know how our approach can help you gain efficiencies across your business? Let’s discuss your goals and the value we could provide your organization. Get in touch with us today to get the ball rolling on a more efficient Salesforce org.