Lane Four

Author: Stephanie Damgaard

  • 4 Features You Need for a Contact-Only Assignment Model

    4 Features You Need for a Contact-Only Assignment Model

    Many companies are moving to a contact-only assignment model to streamline their sales processes. It makes sense: when sales has to deal with two different Salesforce objects—leads and contacts—they will inevitably waste time dealing with incomplete data, incorrectly assigned records, and unqualified leads.

    But these issues will also arise when you choose to skip the lead object altogether and work only with contacts. When you skip leads, it’s unavoidable that low quality inbound data will populate the contact and account objects. Therefore, we recommend using the lead object as a place to process inbound prospects from marketing and ensure that bad data can’t get assigned to sales.

    This setup is foundational to a good routing strategy, but it does pose some challenges. Primarily in ensuring a smooth transfer of data from the lead object to the contact object. To solve these challenges, here are four lead management features you’ll need to make a contact-only assignment model work at scale.

    Lead-to-Account Matching

    For most startups, it’s likely that a high percentage of incoming leads will match existing accounts. Therefore, lead-to-account matching is critical for getting inbound leads to the right account owners. It’s also a way to avoid creating duplicate accounts. Lead-to-account matching is important if you plan to aggregate engagement data to get key metrics on target accounts. There are a few options for doing lead-to-account matching in Salesforce.

    Automatic De-Duplication

    When an incoming lead matches an existing lead or contact, it’s important to handle de-duplication prior to assignment. Lane Four allows you to configure auto-merge for duplicates via a range of options on leads and contacts. This feature allows you to merge incoming lead data into an existing record, and prevents the assignment of duplicates.

    Auto-Conversion

    Salesforce’s native point-and-click lead conversion feature may have worked fine in the days of manual lead qualification, but it isn’t sustainable for account-based strategies operating at scale. A tool like Lane Four will function seamlessly in the background of your lead assignment engine, allowing you to convert leads in real time, merge new lead data with matched contact records, and ultimately get new leads at matched accounts to the right owner.

    Auto-Create Accounts

    An auto-create accounts feature supports a data structure in which sales relies on contacts at accounts. When an incoming lead is high in quality but not matched to an account, one can be automatically create and assigned to an owner.

    _

    Are you considering a contact-only model? Are you tempted to skip the lead object? For more information, read our two-part post on Why Leads Matter to Your ABM Strategy: Part 1 and Part 2.

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  • Should SDRs Report to Marketing? Some Pros and Cons

    Should SDRs Report to Marketing? Some Pros and Cons

    For account-based organizations, there’s no doubt that SDR activity is one of the most important tactics (if not the most important) for generating revenue. But as account-based marketing evolves, B2B leaders are asking, “Should SDRs report to marketing or sales?”

    Sales reps function as a bridge between marketing and sales—typically, performing both inbound qualification and outbound prospecting. Ideally, they form a well-oiled machine that hands off the best quality leads to sales. Given that SDRs tend to occupy this in-between space, it makes sense that we’re debating where they should live.

    Most teams still have their SDRs report to sales (roughly 65% according to The Bridge Group’s Sales Development Metrics and Compensation Report). But the thinking around this is shifting, and there are strong arguments both for and against moving (at least some) sales reps under marketing. Here are a few of the pros and cons to having SDRs report to marketing instead of sales.

    Pro: Faster Response Times on Inbound

    To have the best chance at booking a meeting, SDRs must respond quickly to inbound leads. But in reality, this doesn’t always happen. If dropping the ball on inbound leads is a problem for your org, you may want to have a contingent of SDRs report to marketing to handle inbound specifically. This way, you can ensure that your low hanging fruit isn’t plucked by a competitor.

    Pro: Measure Outbound Campaigns Like Marketing Campaigns

    SDR activity is now supported by a ton of automation on sales engagement platforms like Outreach. Often, this activity resembles marketing campaigns more than it does traditional sales. While sales engagement platforms are excellent at providing volume metrics, they aren’t as good at providing conversion metrics. Developing more meaningful, campaign-style metrics for outbound sales sequences may be a task better suited to marketing than to sales.

    Pro: High-Value Account Prioritization

    Companies are spending a lot on tools that help identify priority accounts, for example, intent tools. But if taking action on the insights provided by these tools is left up to sales, it can be easy to miss the signals and under-utilize this expensive tech. In order to make the most of these tools, SDR processes need to consider all aspects of account prioritization, including buying signals. This is another reason to have some SDRs report to marketing. A process-oriented marketing department may be the most effective choice for handling this.

    Con: SDRs Should Be Managed Like Salespeople, Not Marketers

    No matter how much outbound sales has come to resemble marketing, an SDR position is still, at its core, a sales position. Typically, an SDR works for commission, and there’s a strong emphasis placed on quantitative measures of performance. Marketing may not have the resources and knowledge to get the most from this high pressure, high turnover role.

    Con: The Need to Cultivate a Pool of Sales Talent

    The next step for many high-performing SDRs is a promotion to Account Executive. Companies should be looking to promote their best and brightest sales reps into open AE positions before looking outside of their organization. This process is more effective when sales is in charge of hiring, training, and managing SDRs.

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  • Managing Territories in Salesforce: 3 Options

    Managing Territories in Salesforce: 3 Options

    ­Implementing territory management in Salesforce can be invaluable when working with complex sales territories or large sales teams.  There are several options for managing territories in Salesforce, which will allow you to structure your data to reflect your unique sales territories. As a result, Salesforce users may be granted access to accounts based on criteria such as postal code, industry, revenue, and even custom fields.

    Here are the three options we recommend for setting up territory management in Salesforce.

    Salesforce’s Enterprise Territory Management

    If you’re working with 1,000 territories or fewer, Salesforce’s Enterprise Territory Management may be a viable option. Using this tool, you can set up a highly structured model for assigning accounts to one or more territories. The core components of this feature are your assignment model, territories, and account assignment rules.

    When you’re satisfied with your model, you will activate it, then assign users and accounts. Then, you can roll it out to your organization, run reports to assess its impact, and make adjustments as necessary.

    There are many benefits to choosing this route. Enterprise Territory Management is a highly configurable, Salesforce native option with a simple point-and-click setup. Territories are automatically assigned on account creation, and can be reevaluated on update. Also, unlike with Salesforce roles, a user can be in more than one territory.

    However, there are a number of limitations to note when considering this option:

    • If your org is using Customizable Forecasting, you can’t enable Enterprise Territory Management.
    • If you are using zip-code-level territories, the 1,000 territory limit will be a barrier.
    • There are limits on assignment rule filter length.
    • This feature does not always play well with bulk record processing.
    • Only assigns territories to accounts, not to leads or contacts. (Therefore, it will not automatically grant ownership of accounts to associated leads and contacts.)
    • Does not support assigning to a queue or assigning multiple owner fields or initiate round robin type distribution.

    Custom Solutions

    A custom-built territory management solution typically has two components: fields on the account to indicate the territory attributes, and business logic stored as workflow rules, triggers, and more to automatically assign an account to a territory. A typical organization will apply this setup to leads, contacts, and accounts.

    Building territories yourself is highly flexible to change, which is a major benefit if your model is evolving. This option will also provide clear fields on the account, and will have a limited impact on your existing features. At the same time, this route can be time consuming and costly to set up. A custom solution will not connect to sharing rules or standard Salesforce features. Finally, this option will require further custom development as the model becomes more complex.

    Third-Party Software and Services

    There are several third-party applications on the market that help sales organizations build new territories from zip codes, counties, or states, and balance them by opportunity and workload.

    On the pro side, third party vendors maintain and support their tools, so you don’t have to. Some will also accommodate assigning territories to leads and contacts as well as accounts, and will support assigning to a queue and/or round robin distribution.

    On the con side, many of these solutions are too simplistic, and offer only a narrow set of capabilities. For example, they may define territory structures based on a very limited set of attributes. Therefore, you’ll need to ensure that whichever tool you select to manage territories in Salesforce can accommodate your unique territory needs. In addition, third part software will only be effective if you’re able to integrate it fully with your CRM.

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  • Why and How to Use Salesforce’s Native Duplicate Management

    Why and How to Use Salesforce’s Native Duplicate Management

    Monitoring and preventing duplicate records is a fundamental need for Salesforce admins. So, it’s no surprise that duplicate management was one of the top 5 ideas of all time on the Salesforce IdeaExchange, earning a whopping 67,260 points.

    Despite Salesforce’s delivering on this request in the Spring ’15 release, many admins still turn to paid third party tools to manage duplicates. But, having leveraged this functionality for several major projects, including our own lead routing tool, we believe there is a strong case for using Salesforce’s native duplicate management.

    Given that you’re already paying for duplicate management in Salesforce, there’s no compelling reason to invest in a custom or third party application. Learning how to use this native functionality in Salesforce will save you time and money, relieve strain on your system, and allow you to apply duplicate management to unique use cases using custom Apex, flows, and clicks.

    Setting Up Duplicate Management

    There are two basic components you’ll need to configure to manage duplicates in Salesforce: matching rules and duplicate rules.

    Step 1: Set Up Matching Rules

    Matching rules are configured first and are applied to the object you want to match against. Matching criteria determines which fields you want to compare, and how you want to do it. Common matching criteria includes fields like account name, email, contact email address, or a combination of these. Matching criteria can also be based on a combination of fuzzy operators, which comes in handy for processes like lead-to-account matching (check out this resource for more details on fuzzy operators).

    Step 2: Set Up Duplicate Rules

    Next, you’ll create a duplicate rule on an object. A duplicate rule allows you to invoke the matching rule(s) you’ve configured. A traditional duplicate rule is usually applied to something like a contact email address, so that when the email address field is populated or changed, it is then checked against other contacts in the system.

    Duplicate rules work across multiple objects and can match against any object in the system. This is what gives native duplicate management much of its power. For example, a duplicate rule on a lead can check the matching rule on a contact (or on any other standard or custom object).

    Taking Action on Duplicates

    There are three ways to take action on duplicates identified in Salesforce: blocking, alerting, and reporting. You can configure these actions to take place upon the creation of a record and/or when a record is edited.

    Blocking is your first line of defense for duplicates. This blocks the user from saving a duplicate record, with no ability to override. This method is recommended for hard and fast duplicate rules that don’t require review.

    The second option is alerting. Alerting issues an error message to the user, which they can choose to override with a click. Note: be cautious in how you apply alerting. Because alerts happen behind the scenes via the API, this method can cause API integrations to fail.

    The final option is reporting, which creates duplicate records sets and duplicate record items that can then be reported on. This method takes place behind the scenes, and is not seen by the user. Reporting can function as a passive monitoring system for duplicate management, and is best applied when working with more relaxed or non-traditional duplicate rules.

    Monitoring Duplicates with Reporting Data

    To monitor duplicates identified via reporting, you’ll need to set up two custom report types.

    The “duplicate record sets and items” report type will tell you the number of records that meet a particular duplicate rule. You can then click into these rules and view the record sets. But you won’t see any fields or information about what Salesforce has matched.

    Secondly, you can create custom reports for accounts/contacts/leads (or other objects) with duplicate record items. This report type allows you to see the specific fields that are duplicates of each other. You can then take action or share the report with users to determine whether action is needed.

    Eliminating Duplicates Manually

    Duplicates identified with reporting data are typically handled in a couple of ways.

    In Lightning (and only in Lightning) there is a “Compare and Merge” option on the duplicate record set. This function will compare and merge all of the duplicates within the set at the click of a button.

    You can also initiate a merge from the find duplicates component on the lead or contact. This component shows a list of potential duplicates on the object layout, which users can then select and merge manually. Note: This component functions only based on the reported data. It will identify duplicates based on what you have configured, and only from that point forward (not historically).

    Extending Duplicate Management in Apex

    We’ve talked about how you can invoke duplicate management via the duplicate rule itself at the user level. But you can also call duplicate management from Apex via match methods, which allows you to extend this functionality.

    For example, Lane Four’s lead-to-account matching product is built on this functionality. When a user creates or edits a lead, Lane Four calls match methods, and Salesforce provides a table of what it has matched. Lane Four then parses and takes intelligent action based on these matches.

    You can also create merge scripts that take the duplicate record sets and duplicate record items created by duplicate management and merge the records. Historically, it’s been hard to create merge scripts because flagging the dupes has been very difficult. But now duplicates are more easily identified, making mass merge scripts a viable option.

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  • Opportunity Contact Roles Finally Get New Customization Features

    Opportunity Contact Roles Finally Get New Customization Features

    A major change we’ve all been waiting for is finally here! New customization options on the Opportunity Contact Role object are coming with the Winter ‘20 Release. Previously, this object had frustrating limitations. The addition of custom fields and page layouts, validation rules, and Apex triggers will address many of these complaints.

    The ability to track more specific, custom data on the Opportunity Contact Role will enable more precise ROI and revenue attribution. For example, Opportunities can now be tracked back to things like lead conversion, campaigns, contact roles and more, as well as to specific roles, titles, and individuals.

    These enhancements will also make it significantly easier to perform automation based on the contacts associated with an opportunity, which until now has required difficult workarounds in code. For example, it will now be possible to create a rollup summary field for Opportunity Contact Role and to automate things like Contact Status updates.

    For more details on these changes, check out the Winter ’20 Release Notes.

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  • Lane Four Places #195 in “Canada’s Top Growing Companies” by The Globe and Mail

    Lane Four Places #195 in “Canada’s Top Growing Companies” by The Globe and Mail

    Lane Four is pleased to announce a placement of #195 in the inaugural Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies.

    Canada’s Top Growing Companies ranks Canadian companies on three-year revenue growth. Lane Four earned its spot with three-year growth of 182%.

    Over the last three years, Lane Four has grown an impressive client roster—and has worked closely with nearly 100 SaaS startups to optimize sales operations processes while scaling rapidly.

    Five Lane Four clients have had IPOs, ten have received more than $100 million in funding, and several have participated in high-profile acquisitions. Collectively, Lane Four clients have raised more than $4.5 billion in funding. This year, three Lane Four clients were named in the “50 Next Unicorns” list by the New York Times.

    Launched in 2019, the Canada’s Top Growing Companies ranking program aims to celebrate entrepreneurial achievement in Canada by identifying and amplifying the success of growth-minded, independent businesses in Canada. It is a voluntary program; companies had to complete an in-depth application process in order to qualify. In total, 400 companies made the ranking this year.

    “The 400 companies on the inaugural Report on Business ranking of Canada’s Top Growing Companies ranking demonstrate ambition, innovation and tremendous business acumen,” says Phillip Crawley, Publisher and CEO of The Globe and Mail. “Their contributions to the economy help to make Canada a better place, and warrant commendation.”

    To view the complete list, visit Canada’s Top Growing Companies.

    About The Globe and Mail

    The Globe and Mail is Canada’s foremost news media company, leading the national discussion and causing policy change through brave and independent journalism since 1844. The Globe and Mail newspaper reaches 6.6 million readers every week in print or digital formats, and Report on Business magazine reaches 1.8 million readers in print and digital every issue.

    About Lane Four

    Lane Four is a Salesforce.com partner and boutique Salesforce consulting firm. We also offer a suite of account-based lead routing tools on the Salesforce AppExchange, which allows customers to rapidly scale their processes.

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  • Monitor Salesforce Setup Changes with a Slack Integration

    Monitor Salesforce Setup Changes with a Slack Integration

    Most admins tend to be reactive when it comes to monitoring Salesforce setup changes. They will look to the Setup Audit Trail only when a problem is detected in the org, which involves manually combing through the audit trail history, and then fixing the damage.

    But monitoring setup changes in real-time can minimize problems within Salesforce—and make them easier to fix.

    A Salesforce-Slack integration is a simple piece of tech that allows you to proactively monitor your Setup Audit Trail, and other Salesforce changes, in real-time. For any organization with multiple administrators, a Salesforce-Slack integration is a great way to mitigate major issues spreading in your org.

    What does a Salesforce-Slack integration do?

    The integration allows you to choose exactly what kind of notifications you want to receive in Slack, based on Salesforce Action Types. We recently configured one integration for a client that notifies them when record type is activated or deactivated, and when users make changes to fields and objects.

    Another popular use case for this integration is receiving alerts when records change. For example, when an Opportunity is closed or when a new lead is created.

    This integration is highly customizable. You can control the frequency of alerts—for example, every 5 minutes if you want real-time updates, or to once daily for regular monitoring. You can also select exactly which of your Slack channels you’d like notifications to appear on. And finally, you can control the content of the text in your alerts.

    How can I set up a Salesforce-Slack integration?

    You will need to set up most of the customization above using code in Salesforce. But the basic setups steps are as follows:

    1. Visit Slack API, and log into the Slack community in which you want to receive alerts.
    2. Create a new App for each integration you want. (You will need a separate App for each Slack channel you want to configure.)
    3. Activate an incoming Webhook. This is the URL you will call with messages from Salesforce.
    4. Select the Slack channel you want to post the messages to from Salesforce.
    5. In Salesforce, add a new Named Credential using the URL you created in Slack API.
    6. Create a Process Builder to pass your desired information (message) to the Slack Channel.

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  • The Top 4 Takeaways from “Building a Revenue Ops Team” in Toronto

    The Top 4 Takeaways from “Building a Revenue Ops Team” in Toronto

    Some of Toronto’s best and brightest sales leaders gathered last night for our Modern Sales Professionals salon, “Building a Revenue Ops Team.” We spent the evening discussing key questions about what revenue ops means in 2019, why it’s important, and what companies are doing to make it happen. In the spirit of knowledge-sharing that makes MSP such a great community, we wanted to pass along our top insights from the evening.

    #1 Company-Wide Communication is a Must

    Last night, numerous leaders said that company-wide communication is critical for revenue ops success. Too often, while revenue operations teams work hard to create meaningful metrics as efficiently as possible, siloed departments are doing back-of-the-napkin calculations on their own. But it’s not just about how reports are generated. Revenue operations is based on an overall strategic vision. The best rev ops teams do active internal research—determining what questions to ask sales, marketing, and customer success, gathering the information they need, and executing on what they find. Not only do executives need to buy in to the revenue ops agenda—they also need to ensure that everyone in the company understands its value, purpose, and responsibilities.

    #2 Toronto Companies are Taking a Different Approach to Rev Ops Teams

    When we held our San Francisco salon on this same topic, most companies in the room followed a cookie-cutter revenue operations structure from early on, with many hiring a C-level role by the time they’d reached $8-10 million in annual revenue. In contrast, companies in last night’s Toronto crowd seemed to take a different approach. Most leaders we talked to reported bootstrapping operations until annual revenue well exceeds $10 million. A common approach among those present was assigning administrative operations responsibilities to a high-achieving SDR for a portion of their role until the company grows.

    #3 Defining Success Metrics is at the Heart of Revenue Operations

    There was widespread agreement that the key role of revenue operations is to define how success will be measured throughout the sales and marketing pipeline. The job of revenue operations is, leaders said, to ask questions about the funnel as a whole. How are the different pieces of our funnel working, from awareness all the way to renewal? Where are the bottlenecks? How can we create processes that allow us to repeat what is working, and improve on what isn’t? But you don’t need a formal revenue ops team to reap the benefits of this approach. Even small startups can adopt a revenue ops ethos to determine their KPIs. Determining key metrics throughout the end-to-end pipeline is something any savvy CEO can do—especially with some outside help.

    #4 Outsourcing is a Game Changer

    One leader said that looking for the perfect revenue ops hire feels like “looking for a unicorn.” And it’s true. Finding someone with both technical proficiency and sharp strategic skills is near impossible. This is why many of our leaders reported outsourcing key aspects of revenue ops to get things off the ground. Most commonly, leaders spoke of outsourcing Salesforce CRM administrative, architectural, and development work. (In other words—cleaning up the system and simply “getting it to work.”) One of the biggest stumbling blocks our leaders said they face is poor integration of core tools, such as sales engagement, with the core CRM. A poorly integrated stack causes major headaches and can stop even the most sophisticated rev ops machine in its tracks. Using a consultancy or freelancer is a great way to get moving without committing to a new hire.

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