#StrongerTogether: Leveraging Collaboration to Drive Sales
The key to success in today’s sales environment is the ability to empathetically connect with customers. By leveraging insights gained through collaboration with clients, teams are able to tailor solutions that fit clients’ changing and specific needs. With that in mind, I met with Principal Functional Consultant, Jolanda Porter, to learn about her success with post-sales implementations. Jolanda is part of Salesforce’s strategic services team that focuses on advisory and implementation projects. She has worked on Salesforce’s solutions that are designed for nonprofits and educational institutions and her job is to go to the customers first, do discovery, work with them to decide what the implementation will look like, and execute the build. Q: How do you establish a trusting client relationship? A: One of the first things I do is meet with the major stakeholders in a project to make sure we’re on the same page. I want to ensure that what was originally outlined in the sales process is accurate and aligns with what is being done. I ask the customer questions like “What does your organization need? Why do you need it? Who will be using it? What obstacles might you face and what can I do to help?” Establishing a connection is a huge part of having successful engagements. Before coming to Salesforce, I was in the nonprofit space for fifteen years and worked closely with consultants. I know what it’s like to have consultants come in and feel like they don’t understand what you’re looking for. And I know what it’s like when a topline manager makes a decision for end-users without getting the users’ input. My goal is to ensure customers are delighted with the implementation process and that we’re working toward their goals. Q: What role do you play in the sales cycle? A: I am often solutioning. One of the things that happens when you focus on solutioning is that you establish trust with a customer. You can help customers understand that your objective is to make their job easier by taking their organization or business to the next level. When that conversation happens, other ideas emerge organically from that process. Frequently, when we’re doing an implementation, we’ll identify new requirements or a different perspective to a pain point that can be helpful for the customer. Many times, this can lead to the introduction of a new solution and product. When you’re actively listening to a customer during an implementation, you’re getting much more detail than you would otherwise. Also, it is as important to listen to what they’re not telling you as much as what they are. It is our job to see the problems and the missing pieces. It’s common that we’ll discover new solutions that will help further our clients’ goals throughout the process. Q: How did you make the shift from the nonprofit space to tech implementations? A: I was in the nonprofit space for quite a long time. Anybody who knows the nonprofit world knows that you wear a thousand hats and there are never enough people. When we were introduced to Salesforce in 2008, we needed someone to be the administrator, and I was already tech-savvy, so I volunteered. I am the kind of person who is going to learn a skill if nobody else in the office knows it. Through this initial introduction to Salesforce, my interest in the connections between leadership, technology, and data grew, and over time I became the Director of Evaluation. I quickly became a person that other nonprofits came to with questions about Salesforce and data because I didn’t just understand the product, but I also understood what it was like to be the organization using the product. Fast forward to 2016, I was a Deputy Director reaching the point in my nonprofit career where I’d probably become an executive director (ED), but I didn’t want to be an ED. I liked collaboration. I liked technology. I really liked Salesforce, and I really liked data, so I decided to go back to school to bridge the gap between my nonprofit background and the business world. After graduating from NYU’s Stern School of Business with my master’s in business analytics, I decided I was ready to make the switch to tech. Many of my classmates took jobs at Google, Facebook, and Twitter, but I had a nonprofit heart. I was looking for a tech company with a social impact vision. My peers discouraged this saying, “There’s no way you’re going to be doing socially good work and technology without going into the corporate space.” And then RoundCorner found me. RoundCorner was the first Salesforce.org Platinum App Partner for the nonprofit market in North America. It provided fundraising solutions and industry expertise to meet the needs of the largest global organizations in the social sector. My first projects were with the ACLU and National Geographic – I was getting to work with some of the world’s most influential nonprofits. Ironically, soon after I was hired, RoundCorner was acquired by Salesforce.org and I haven’t looked back. Today, I am thankful to work for a company that believes in and encourages mission-driven work while providing cutting-edge technology. Q: That’s a big career change! Tell me about what it took to successfully make this shift. A: It took drive and knowing my own talents, as well as learning how to be okay with being uncomfortable. When people think of technology, sometimes they are intimidated, especially when there’s no one who looks like you. You think, “What skill can I bring to the table?” Yes, there are going to be baseline technical skills, but that’s something you can gain. I wanted to be more experienced in data analytics, so I got a master’s degree, and I specifically put myself in a program where I was surrounded by computer scientists. I knew I had the talent to succeed, but I had to get comfortable being uncomfortable and learning what I did not know. Today I use Trailhead as my go-to resource for