Matthew Schwab

Salesforce won’t invest more in CPQ. The market sentiment says so. Since the launch of RLM (Revenue Lifecycle Management), the market sentiment for CPQ has gone down. People are speculating: → no new advancement → differences b/w RLM and CPQ → CPQ as an outdated tool and more. Here’s the most absurd yet believable speculation: In light of RLM, Salesforce will discontinue CPQ in 2-3 years. But all of this may be just that - speculation. There is nothing to worry, yet. Because RLM isn’t ready to use. It is still in beta. I’ve been getting a lot of queries around - how to migrate from CPQ to RLM. My answer - There is no straight forward way. Even if we do, the migration is going to be costly. What do you think about the future of Salesforce CPQ? #cpq #salesforce #salesforcecpq #rlm

166

24 Comments

When one SalesOps person quits, another gains a new hobby: Salesforce archaeology. Why does this happen? No documentation. Often, there wasn't any logic to why it was set up that way. It often didn't even support the current business practices, which is why so many of the salespeople rebelled against using it. What's the solution? Rebuild it. Rebuild right. Rebuild it with documentation. But that will take forever! Unless you have shortcuts and swipe files like we do in our Salesforce Accidental Admin Accelerator. If you want a sneak peek at the accelerator watch this webinar replay: https://lnkd.in/g297XegA

9

1 Comment

Do you love multi-select picklists?! 🔽☑️☑️☑️ Best field type IMO. And that’s my favorite selling point for Keyplay’s Salesforce integration.🤓 Some details matters. Text area fields are very frustrating when you want to segment and sort your account lists in SFDC. RevOps people know this pain. That’s why I love those picklists. Bigger picture, I’m proud of Keyplay’s SFDC integration for ease of use and speed to setup. I made a page and video showing it here: https://lnkd.in/gYHvRS77 #salesforce #SFDC #RevOps

28

12 Comments

You're probably handling subscriptions wrong in Salesforce and frustrated with poor reporting, botched renewals, and billing snafus. It seems reasonable enough to add subscription start/end dates, MRR, and TCV to the Opportunity record... BUT ⁉️ What how about pulling a report on upcoming renewals? Now you need renewal Opportunities created (with Close Date and Opp products set correctly). ⁉️ Cool, now how about payment and billing terms for Finance? Opportunity Custom fields? Messy but still feasible. Now let's get into add-ons, upsells, price changes at renewals... Now you can see how Opportunities can no longer be bent into submission. Enter Orders - the under the radar Standard Object central to SaaS subscriptions and the perfect intermediary between Sales/Opportunities and Finance/Subscriptions and Invoices. More to come tomorrow so hit the like button to have it show higher in your feed.

4

I like money. A lot. I also like saving money. (So I can spend more of it later 😂). So when looking at what SaaS to integrate into our marketing and sales stack, Total Cost of Ownership is a pretty huge metric for us. https://buff.ly/3SexH1J #salesforce #hubspot #finance #marketing

1

Salespeople would love this Are you finding updating opportunities and managing pipelines on Salesforce more challenging than selling your product? Tracktable is what you’ve been missing. Here’s why: With Tracktable, you get a spreadsheet-like interface that is easy to use and syncs in real time with Salesforce, ensuring no data leakages. Here’s what you can do with Tracktable: 🚀 Act on leads 🚀 Manage opportunities 🚀 Track pipeline 🚀 Update account and contact details 🚀 Add notes Its user-friendly interface saves AEs countless hours on redundant tasks, allowing them to focus on what matters most: building relationships and driving sales. 𝗟𝗮𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗔𝗹𝗲𝗿𝘁: We’re launching 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗸𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 on Product Hunt tomorrow at 1:30 PM IST. We need your support! 🚀 Save time. Increase productivity. Join us tomorrow! Hoping the community supports #Salesforce #SalesTips #ProductivityHacks #ProductHunt #SalesManager #AE #SDR

9

1 Comment

How can Salesforce increase revenue and profitability? Listen to the expert on the topic. Andy Moldenhauer just launched his VLOG - begining with a "Summer Series" - first video is on the Pipeline Inspection Tool designed to increase the quality of your forecast. If you learn something valuable, like it and subscribe to the channel!

9

Are we more excited about tomorrow's World Tour Boston event with Salesforce and clients, or that if the Boston Celtics win tonight, we might also find ourselves in town for the parade, too!?? 🏀 😎 If you and your team will be in Boston for the World Tour, let us know, as we would love to get together. Jokes aside, helping clients, like sports franchises improve their customer experiences is very much top of mind for our V2 team, as we've been discussing the role that solutions like Media Cloud, Data Cloud, AI, and Slack, can play for both the BRAND (think enhanced advertising options leading to more partnerships and ad dollars) and the FANS (think improved personalized experiences that keep me coming back) which lead to greater loyalty and revenues. If you are curious to learn more about this solution POV or would like some help in another area of your Salesforce strategy, let our team know, and we'd be happy to help. More than anything, we like to make sure that teams are getting the value they need and expect from their Salesforce investment, so let's talk about what you have already, and where you are trying to get to, and then we'll help you think about what you might need to get there. This can happen tomorrow at the World Tour or any time/day after, but don't be a stranger, and let's start accomplishing great things together! Find us tomorrow at the Boston Convention Center and let us know your coming so we can look for you! https://lnkd.in/eZsBgeaW #Salesforce #Technology #DigitalTransformation #RetailMedia #Advertising #Media #Retail #DataCloud #AI

6

📣 Cacheflow launches Revenue Recognition for Salesforce users in partnership with APPropoz REVvue! SaaS deals aren't as straightforward as they used to be, which has caused finance teams to struggle with Rev Rec. But with Cacheflow and REVvue, you can now... ⚙️ Automate contract ingestion ✅ Ensure compliance with ASC 606 accounting standards 👁️ Gain real-time visibility and reporting Read more about the partnership in the press release below!

20

1 Comment

But for many operators across #RevOps and finance, this move towards simplicity has created a bigger mess than it was originally meant to solve for 😱 Join James McArthur 👋, Director of RevOps at Nue.io, and 🐰 Jen Igartua, CEO of Go Nimbly, on June 4 @ 1 PM ET to learn: ❤️‍🔥 Real life examples of automations going horribly wrong (and some that we've gotten right too) 🕵️ How to detect these problems before a fire drill morphs into a fiasco 🎂 How to bake our lessons learned into your tech stack evaluation and implementation process Register now and learn how you can find your automation zen. 🧘 https://hubs.li/Q02x_mMx0

3

🚀 Exciting news for all Salesforce users! 🤝 Imagine having your meeting notes and all CRM field updates done automatically—saving you and your sales team valuable time. Say goodbye to manual tasks this summer (and beyond)! 🏖 😎 Reach out to me for more info. #CRM #Automation #Productivity #AI

94

5 Comments

What does CPQ stand for? Here’s the answer you get when you ask someone who’s not in RevOps that question. 🤣 In my case, I know what cpq stands for :) But I still have A LOT of other questions about CPQ, like: How big is a typical company when they adopt their first CPQ system? What are the main mistakes people make with a CPQ deployment? And a lot more. Our friends at Subskribe are hosting a CPQ&A session in a few weeks, They’ll have RevOps folks who have worked in biz tech at places like Okta and Lacework So heres my question for you - if you could ask these biz tech ninjas anything, what would you ask ❓ We’re collecting questions in advance so drop em in the comments below👇🏻 Ps - thanks to my awesome wife Kimberlee Petrie Volm for being a good sport at 5:30am while I asked her a RevOps question on camera 🙂 #revops #revenueoperations #cpq #salesops #salesoperations

24

7 Comments

Thinking about switching to a Contact-only model in Salesforce? It's got some fantastic benefits: -Easier reporting -More efficient internal sales process -Less ongoing Salesforce maintenance Click through to learn insider tips from Etumos Marketing Ops Consultant, Kyle Sosa. #leadrouting #leadtoaccountmatching #speedtolead #contactrouting #revenueorchestration #revops

8

The launch of Salesforce’s Revenue Lifecycle Management has given birth to doubtful market sentiment: → RLM vs. CPQ → no new CPQ advancement → the death of Salesforce CPQ In my opinion, it shouldn’t be a point of debate. RLM is a smart move towards automating and managing the product-to-cash process. It caters to businesses of all sizes and industries, aiming to streamline operations across: → product/service design → price management → contract lifecycle management → configuration, quote, and order management → billing, collections, and revenue lifecycle intelligence Salesforce RLM isn't a standalone product but a suite of offerings designed to address the full revenue lifecycle for a diverse range of customers. This includes: → Salesforce CPQ → Salesforce Contracts → Salesforce Billing → And RLM itself I have written a full article explaining RLM and the operational areas it covers. Link in comments below. #salesforce #salesforcecpq #rlm

113

12 Comments

You’ve probably heard the buzz about Salesforce’s next-generation revenue management platform, RLM or Revenue Lifecycle Management, which will eventually become a successor to Salesforce CPQ. As Salesforce’s preferred migration partner from CPQ to RLM, the team here at Prodly has been building the tooling to streamline migration for the past eight months, and I’d like to share some learnings ahead of time. To begin with, there are some fundamental differences between CPQ and RLM. 1️⃣ RLM is built “in core” or inside the Salesforce platform. 2️⃣ RLM  has a much more robust—but also more complex—configuration data model. Whereas CPQ has a pretty flat structure, RLM has multiple levels of hierarchies with product classifications, attributes, and attribute groups to name a few. 3️⃣ RLM is API first, which makes it much more composable and customizable. 4️⃣ RLM is built for omni-channel, so you can expose the same product catalog and pricing to your internal sales team, to partners through a partner portal, or to customers for self-service. All in all, RLM is a highly configurable & flexible but also more complex platform. Stay tuned for the next post in our CPQ to RLM series, where I discuss migrating bundles from CPQ to RLM. #salesforce #revenuecloud #cpq #revenuelifecyclemanagement #rlm #migration

492

42 Comments

In last week’s post, I discussed some important differences between CPQ and RLM (https://lnkd.in/gTJ7bU-C). In this week’s post, I’m starting a deeper dive into the mechanics of migration for each of the major areas of CPQ, starting with features and options (or bundles and kits). Migrating features and options from Salesforce CPQ to Revenue Lifecycle Management is a relatively straightforward process — with one exception and some critical considerations. Here’s what you need to know: ✅ MIGRATION 1️⃣ Both CPQ and RLM use the standard Product (Product2) object to represent a SKU, though they enhance it with a different set of fields. This is both good and bad. Good because CPQ and RLM can peacefully co-exist in the same org. Bad because migration is required to move from one to the other. 2️⃣ In CPQ, possible selections within a bundle/kit are stored in Product Options (SBQQ__ProductOption__c) object. These map pretty cleanly to Product Related Component (ProductRelatedComponent) object in RLM. 3️⃣ In CPQ, product options are grouped into Product Features (SBQQ__Feature__c) object. Again, these map pretty cleanly into Component Group (ComponentGroup) object in RLM. *️⃣ The only wrinkle is that in RLM, bundled products must have Type field set to “Bundle”. Since that field can only be set when you create a new Product (Product2) record this means you have to at least duplicate bundled SKUs between CPQ and RLM. ❗ CONSIDERATIONS The object mapping described above achieves what I call a lowest common denominator migration. It will create functional bundles in RLM, but it fails to take advantage of the power of the RLM data model to build a scalable product catalog. For example, RLM allows you to configure Product Classification Components, which are basically placeholders that reference a dynamic product template that gets resolved to actual products at run time. This enhances scalability considerably and facilitates the management of large product catalogs at scale. And there is no equivalent functionality in CPQ. All things considered, this migration allows for a high level of automation, which simplifies the process, but I strongly encourage you to take this opportunity to refactor your product catalog to take full advantage of RLM functionality. Next week I’ll be covering Configuration Attributes. Stay tuned! #salesforce #revenuecloud #cpq #revenuelifecyclemanagement #rlm #migration

81

7 Comments

New Salesforce Revenue Cloud Advanced (#RLM #RCA): See how customers can now easily self-serve their add-on orders in this quick demo of amendments and pro-ration from the Shiftlogic.io team

49

4 Comments

Using 2 CRMs? Here is a cool automation I built for #RevOps to manage leads coming in from HubSpot then making their way to Salesforce. This will help you stay on track for the planning season. Additionally, Fullcast: The Intelligent Go-to-Market Platform, will help you automate the rest of your planning process! https://lnkd.in/gg6CbrNC

14

1 Comment

Some great hack by Colby Ricker for troubleshooting #salesforce with AI https://lnkd.in/gYTtvq-s My favorite part is on the proactive stance SF teams can and should take instead of waiting for error messages... "While error messages may be a common use case for those looking to leverage AI in their Salesforce management, there’s another benefit to capitalizing on this technology: proactive problem solving. By using AI, Salesforce teams could determine where potential errors may be lurking and solve them before they even become an issue."

14