on the market.

This video is brought to you by TechnologyAdvice. Our mission is to educate, advise and connect

buyers and sellers of business technology and one of the ways we do so is by providing

unbiased reviews of software.

Today we’re focusing on Salesforce and its numerous integrated cloud-based programs that

are designed to improve sales, productivity, and social media acumen. The Salesforce Sales

Cloud home screen is designed to look like a social media news feed and offers the user

a quick glance of important company and customer updates.

These updates help users communicate with team members and keep everyone aware of which

team members are working with which clients.

The home page also contains the Dashboard which offers a quick summary of the sales

pipeline and what goals need to be hit.

Everything from Open cases to case types and cases closed are viewable in simple and easy

to view charts. These dashboards can be customized and shared with other users to increase collaboration.

Perhaps the most important feature within Sales Cloud is the contacts tab.

It offers a critical first glance of recent contacts, reports, and tools to improve customer

relationships.

Users can dive into a contact’s information by clicking on their link.

The contact tab allows users to view everything from a contact’s social media profiles to

their details, activity history, and campaign history.

This information also links users to specific accounts.

Users can find out more about a company or account with the account tab. It offers information

about who a users contacts are and potential opportunities.

The opportunity record tracks all of the information you need to know about that deal, from the

deal stage and size, to all of the calls, emails and meetings.

From there users can view activity History to see a summary of the latest touch points

with a prospect.

Within the opportunity tab, users can add quotes, notes, and attachments to help prepare

for meetings and interactions. Within the campaigns tab, there are several features

to assist users with email marketing.

Users can find out what marketing campaign a lead came from, have the most up-to-date

contact information, and see all relevant activities to helps convert more leads.

Users can also manage and track campaigns across all channels, including social media.

Make smarter decisions about where to invest, and show the impact of your marketing activities

on your sales pipeline.

Creating engaging reports is as easy as drag and drop. Users simply have to scroll through

the fields, filters, groupings, and charts that you want, and get an immediate real-time

view, with instant drill-down to the data you need.

It’s also possible to have dashboards set up for anyone in the company from the CEO

to Marketing.

There are also several ways to filter and gather information within a report such as

Mike’s Deal Types. Here users can see everything from expected revenue to the stage a deal

is in.

Perhaps the single best differentiating factor for Salesforce is its AppExchange.

It’s Salesforce.com's marketplace of business applications and consulting partners. Users

can find, evaluate and install solutions for every department and industry.

Users can Browse hundreds of applications for CRM and beyond, Find system integrators

and custom app developers that can help, Learn how to deliver and market your app or consulting

service on the AppExchange.

These apps help users integrate data with everything from Excel to Gmail to Evernote

and much much more. A CRM review wouldn’t be complete without

the ability to view and review leads.

Leads are defined as unqualified prospects — people you hope to do business with but

who you need to qualify to see if they’re a real potential sales deal.

Once users verify a real potential sale, it’s possible to convert a lead into a contact,

account, and opportunity to track the deal through the sales cycle.

Made for larger companies, Salesforce is available at a high price point.

One of Salesforce’s biggest limitations is it becomes very easy to become overwhelmed

by a huge palette of information and resources within Salesforce, especially if you have

simple CRM needs.

Also they often say that they are going to charge for many features through the app exchange

(such as billing & invoices) and it can get expensive quickly.

In summary, Salesforce tries to motivate behavior and drive sales through:

1. Closing sales through a complete contact management system

2. Getting more and better leads through opportunity management

3. Accelerating productivity with it’s innovative lead management system

To find out more about Salesforce, or other customer relationship management, check out

our website where we can help you find software that will fit the needs of your work.

Thanks for watching!