Salesforce Communities for Sales: 10 Questions You Should Ask Yourself

10 Questions to Ask About
Salesforce’s Communities for Sales
Presented by:
-

Jim Somers, CMO

-

Chris Bucholtz, Director of Content Marketing

© Relayware, Inc. All Rights Reserved 2014

Agenda
•

Our Speakers

•

Setting the Stage:
Definitions &
Distinctions

•

10 Questions to Ask
About Your PRM choice

•

Audience Q&A
Collaborate beyond the enterprise.™ © Relayware, Inc. All Rights Reserved 2014

Chris Bucholtz
Director, Content Marketing

Jim Somers
Chief Marketing Officer

2

What is PRM?

partner | relationship | management
Noun

1 a system of methodologies, strategies, software and
web-based capabilities that help a vendor manage partner
relationships. PRM enables vendors to better work with
their partners through the introduction of reliable
systems, processes and procedures for interacting with
them:
“Relayware [Partner Relationship Management] is a
comprehensive, highly configurable platform with strong
mobility.”*

* Source: Forrester Research, Inc.


3

PRM vs. CRM – What’s the Difference?
PRM

CRM

•

A system of
methodologies, strategies, softwa
re and web-based capabilities
that help a vendor manage
partners.
Enables vendors to better work
with their partners through the
introduction of reliable
systems, processes & procedures
for interacting with them.

•

A discipline that deals with the
management of a company’s
interactions with current and
future customers.

•

•

Uses technology to organize,
automate and synchronize sales,
marketing and customer service
and technical support.


4

PRM
•

CRM

Indirect Selling (and marketing,
delivery, support …)
–

Partners

–

Dealers

–

Distributors

–

Agents

–

–

Prospects

–

Customers

–

B2B

–

B2C

VARs

–

Direct Selling

Resellers

–

•

Consultants


5

CRM – It’s Big!

Source: Gartner


6


Company

Direct
Customer


7

Single Tier Distribution
Intermediary

Customer

Two Tier Distribution
Intermediary
Customer

Distributor

Intermediary

Customer

Sub-

Company

Sub-Distributor

Distribution
Customer

Direct
Customer


8

Single Tier Distribution
Intermediary

Customer

Intermediary
Customer

Distributor

Intermediary

Customer

Sub-

Company

Sub-Distributor

Direct

Distribution
Customer

Indirect
Customer


9

What is Salesforce Communities?


10

What is Salesforce Communities?

“… Salesforce Communities is the company's answer to legacy portal software,” said
Anna Rosenman, senior product marketing manager.
“At its heart is Chatter and Salesforce's collaboration tools,” said Rosenman …“plus the
ability to combine a myriad range of data and processes, depending on the design
vision of the users.”
- CRM Buyer, May 3, 2013

11

Before choosing Salesforce.com’s Communities
Sales, make sure it meets your needs for
functionality, integration & affordability


for

12

Before You Make the Jump


13

13

Question No. 1
One way Salesforce bills for Communities is by “unique”
partner log-ins:
-

200 log-ins/mo.

=

$30,000 / yr

-

5,000 log-ins/mo.

=

$420,000 / yr

-

20,000 log-ins/mo.

=

$1,500,000 / yr


14

Question No. 1

(Cont’d)

Our Approach:
A flat fee per month based
on the edition you choose
and number of internal users
at your company.


15

Question No. 1
Salesforce’s alternate billing model is based on the sales
of licenses – not log-ins:
-

20 partners

=

$8,400 / yr

-

100 partners

=

$30,000 / yr

-

5,000 partners

=

$1,530,000 / yr

* Requires at least (1) license to Salesforce’s Enterprise Edition Sales
Cloud ($1,500 per year).


16

(Cont’d)

Question No. 2
Relayware’s flat fee model
eliminates sticker shock
for channel-centric
companies with large
partner ecosystems.


17

"Partner empowerment comes through
education." (VP, worldwide channel sales)*

* “Advice For Improving Your IT Vendor Channel,”M. Speyer, Forrester Research, Inc.

18

(Cont’d)

Salesforce’s Communities enables training through a
portal interface. But not all partners are alike?
WHAT IF your training needs to be tailored by …
-

Partner Geography

-

Partner Type

Fully Customized
- Or -

-

Partner Role

-

Partner Tier

19

(Cont’d)

Relayware allows you to create:
-

Rules-based qualification and compliance

-

Programs targeted at discrete global, regional, company and
role-specific audiences

-

Rules for scoring and accreditation

You can deliver a deeper and more personalized level
of training and foster a deeper and more personalized
engagement between you and your channel partners.

20

-

Oh! But it costs extra …
… and it wasn’t really
designed with the
channel in mind.


21

21

(Cont’d)

Relayware has robust marketing capabilities built
into the core product, which include:
-

Tools to enable joint marketing with
channel partners

-

Customizable marketing materials and
marketing tools kits and marketing stores

-

Rich-media content libraries and support
for incentive and loyalty programs.

-

These are not generic marketing tools –
they’re tools created to help you court,
close and keep channel partners.

22

22

Salesforce Communities
stores data and provides
reports about that
data, but lacks channelcentric fields. Scorecarding and detailed
profile-matching are
difficult to perform.


23

(Cont’d)

-

Relayware’s flexible data structure accommodates roll-up
hierarchies of contacts, local branches & parent organizations.

-

Customers can tailor the data structure to fit their specific
needs with unlimited custom fields and objects.

-

Result: You can group partners in any way your business needs
to: globally, regionally, locally, by company or by contact.


24

only offers basic MDF
program support.
It gives its users tools for
portal-based fund
requests with only basic
fund management and an
approvals workflow at the
back end.

25

(Cont’d)

With Relayware, every
interaction through
every application in
the system is traced
and measured to
understand how well
MDF is paying off.


26


27

“55% to 65% of channel partners are already
involved in social media marketing — the
cornerstones being Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube …”*

* “The 10 Most Innovative Partner Co-Marketing Tactics,” Jonathan Silber, Forrester Research, Inc.


28

“55% to 65% of channel partners are already
involved in social media marketing — the
cornerstones being Facebook, Twitter, and
YouTube …”*
Salesforce Communities was designed as a very
“social” way to manage channel programs. And it is –
if the only people whose input you care about are the
partners you already have.
* “The 10 Most Innovative Partner Co-Marketing Tactics,” Jonathan Silber, Forrester Research, Inc.


29

(Cont’d)

Relayware supports communities, groups, sub-groups
and discussions, and you can accept all participants or
just the participants you approve. Every interaction
triggers a live update to your records.
Stay engaged
with the partners
you have now …

… and the ones
you may bring to
your side in the
future.


30

Salesforce Communities has
list-management and email
capabilities, which are useful
for marketing to potential
new partners.
But after you’ve marketed to
your list, the rest of the
complex task of recruitment
is left up to you.


31

(Cont’d)

Relayware gives the ability to build scored and weighted
target lists and multi-channel recruitment campaigns that
include social media and instant messaging.
-

Has an on-boarding process that uses time or eventtriggered on-boarding communications to accelerate
new registrants to profitable partners.


32

attempts to provide ways to
motivate customers, but the
basic nature of Salesforce
prevents tracking connected
interactions in personal
incentive and loyalty
programs.


33

(Cont’d)

Relayware’s approach:
–

Manage both personal and
company incentives.

–

Incent partners not just around
sales numbers but around other
activities that help them become
increasingly better and more
engaged partners.

–

Includes training and
compliance, lead acceptance and
closures and participation in joint
marketing campaigns.

34

Choosing Communities ties you into Salesforce
as your CRM application – or at least it does
without a major investment in integration
Would you rather
make a “forklift
upgrade” - or - a
faster and less costly
integration?


35

(Cont’d)

Relayware doesn’t force you into a CRM decision.
It works seamlessly with Salesforce!
–

Pre-built integration with
Salesforce.com

–

Uses a REST-ful API that makes
integration with SFDC and most
other CRM apps easy


36


37

You Owe it to Yourself to Ask …
-

Why should I be punished for my own success?

-

Are all my partners alike?

-

Why can’t I have a flexible solution that adjusts to my
specific needs (without programming)?

-

How loyal are my partners - do they need to be
better engaged, rewarded and incented?

-

Does Salesforce really understand the critical needs
of my channel partners?

38

For More Information
Download Whitepaper
• www.relayware.com/salesforce-PRM

Join the Conversation
• #channelchoices

General Questions
• Email us at research@relayware.com


39

Salesforce Communities for Sales: 10 Questions You Should Ask Yourself

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