What Is Salesforce

Before beginning, it’s important to understand what Salesforce is. Salesforce is a CRM that lets you manage customer details and sales prospects. It’s used to boost productivity and efficiency within an organization using a Cloud computing service. 

Cloud computing is the delivery of different services through the Internet, including data storage, servers, databases, networking, and software. Cloud-based storage makes it possible to save apps and data to a remote computer and retrieve them on demand.

Core Components

When you start using Salesforce, you’ll want to take full advantage of all the great and productive features. You can use this CRM for core fundamentals such as email, tasks, and activities. 

Email lets you send emails from within the CRM. There’s also an option for email templates to save time and be more productive. When you’re done, the email will be saved automatically within the system. 

Tasks you can create an action for yourself to take care of. Within the task, you can set a date, time, and even a note with the task. You can set tasks for others as well. 

Activities you can log interactions that you had with your customers, comments about why you interacted with them, or log meeting notes. 

1. Take a Tour 

Before beginning anything, you’ll want to take a tour of Salesforce which is available when you first sign up. This tour will walk you through the many great features of Salesforce including how to set up different opportunities and how to manage your pipeline. 

2. Use Automation

To save time you’ll want to use automation as much as possible. Locate the reports tab, once you’re there you can create reports on anything you’d like such as revenue, leads, opportunities, etc. Once you create your report, then click run report and choose select future runs. You can then choose how often it produces those reports and who it’s emailed to. 

Some examples of information you can see from reports are:

• How long it takes to make a sale
• The industry most of your accounts are in
• Resolution for most of your cases
• Where the biggest deals come from

3. Customize Navigation

You don’t have to keep the navigation bar exactly as shown, you can change around the name, order, plus pin records and list views. Go to your navigation bar and click on the pencil icon. Once you click on the pencil icon, this is where you can change the navigation.

4. Use Campaigns

Salesforce campaigns are great for customer acquisition analytics. The tagging feature lets you have a closer viewing of leads.

Some pros of campaigns:

• Tracking responses
• Tracking meeting points
• Measuring ROI for events
• Tracking conversions

If you just mail potential clients at meetings, you’re not keeping track of the value of that meeting, that’s why campaigns in Salesforce are so important. 

5. Favorites

If you come across a page within Salesforce that you don’t want to worry about manually going to every time, there’s a favorites option within the CRM. You’ll see a little star icon at the top of the page, and when you click on it, it’ll add that page to your favorites. 

If you’d like to access your favorites anytime, click the dropdown arrow next to the star. 

6. Add Chrome Extensions

If you decide to add chrome extensions, this will increase productivity within the CRM. One great Chrome extension is the Salesforce Lightning extension for Gmail which lets you see activity from Salesforce in your email page.

Ebsta is another great Chrome extension which lets you have information from Salesforce in a webpage. 

7. Create List Views 

List views are a way to manage different amounts of data within objects (leads, accounts, etc). There’re standard list views but you can create your own as well. If you see the option to create a new view under opportunities, then you have permission to create your own lists. 

Once you click on create a new view, you’ll be prompted to give your list a name and then filter criteria. You’ll choose a value, operator, and field name. The operator is the filter you want to be performed, the field name is in your object you want it filtered by, and the value is what the field should be tested against.

Once you have selected a field and how it’s to be tested, you’ll then enter a value. Then, you’ll select which fields you’d like to see within your list. Next, you get to choose who this list is visible to. 

Salesforce for Beginners 

Salesforce for beginners can seem overwhelming, but just make sure to follow this complete guide and take it one step at a time. Remember that you have options and aren’t forced to set it up alone. Before you know it, you’ll feel much more comfortable using this excellent CRM.

Courtsey: DigitalMediaThoughts