Sales Discovery- The first step in the Salesforce Delivery Pipeline

Sales discovery is the process of meeting with a client, understanding what they need and desire, and articulating this understanding in (hopefully) a winning proposal. Often times we think of Sales discovery—those initial client meetings, the ideation, identifying pain points, the visioning for the project—as being distinct from delivery. In fact, Sales Discovery is the first step in the delivery pipeline.

If we think of delivery as all of the activities, processes, roles and responsibilities, artifacts, tools and deliverables needed to deliver a successful Salesforce implementation, then those initial client meetings are when the stage is set.

Sales Team members may not consider themselves as members of the delivery team, yet they are often the people who capture those initial requirements, craft the initial scope, and present the project concept to the prospective client.

Common Sales-to-Delivery Challenges

Even if you have a stellar Sales team, your organization may face challenges in the Sales-to-Delivery process, including:

• Lack of technical knowledge: The Sales Team may not have the technical depth to accurately architect and scope the initial statement of work.

• Informal documentation: Sales documentation may consist of spreadsheets, personal notes, PPT slides from Sales presentations, or recordings from client meetings. The lack of comprehensive, structured documentation or sales artifacts that is useful to delivery can make it challenging for the delivery team to get the information that they need.

• Missing information: Important information may be missing from sales discovery. For example, sales discovery may miss complex requirements around customizations, data, integrations and other system dependencies, etc.

• Lack of formal handover: In the busy world of sales and delivery, people may not have much time to dedicate to a thorough and timely communication of the requirements, the client’s needs, and the client’s desires. All of these are important for the delivery team to understand and are key to ensuring a successful project.

Formula for Effective Sales Discovery and Handover

These challenges make clear the need to do everything possible to help the Delivery Team get off to a good start. Successful delivery is about doing all you can to increase the odds of project success and decrease the risk of project failure. To that end, I recommend the following:

1. Have Representation from Delivery Team in Sales Discovery Meetings: Always have representation from the delivery team, preferably a project manager and an architect, in key sales discovery meetings. Involving the Delivery Team will help with identifying the breadth and complexity of requirements as well as understanding the timeline, dependencies, and assumptions of the client that will need to be considered in the proposal (and ultimate work plan).

2. Create and Consistently use a Sales Discovery Template: The Sales Team and Delivery Team should work together to create a comprehensive Sales Discovery Template. The Delivery Team will be able to point to information that is critical in actual delivery. Often the process of jointly creating this template will shine a spotlight on current gaps and challenges. This template should include, at a minimum:

• Client Needs/Pain Points

• Client Goals

• High-level requirements (Tasks) that include, for each task: Overview, scope, description of approach, assumptions, dependencies, and exclusions

• Overview of existing data – what is current data structure and what does client expect vendor to do with data

• Overview of existing Integrations, client expectation for integrations

• Tools and technologies – what tools and technologies does the client currently use or expect to have in place for the project? For example, do they or will they have middleware, JIRA, test management software, data enrichment service, etc.?

• Key Stakeholders, roles and responsibilities

• Training needs, expected roles and responsibilities of client and vendor

• Anticipated support needs and structure

• Quality assurance strategy—what does client expect to do vs what they expect from vendor

• Change management needs and adoption strategies

• Any previous systems, prior implementations?

• Any previously failed system(s) and what does the client see as the reason for the failure

• Client’s vision of success- how will you know that you have succeeded?

3. Implement a formal Sales Handover process to ensure sufficient time and knowledge transfer. Identify a standard timeline (ex., 3 weeks prior to project start), activities (ex., Sales-Delivery Knowledge Transfer Workshops), roles and responsibilities of both sales and delivery team members, and a signoff process for the sales handover (ex., the Delivery Director signs off on the Sales Handover, and this becomes a project artifact). This handover process is what you do every time you win a project.

Successful delivery is dependent upon a clear understanding of client needs, requirements, aspirations, technology, stakeholders, culture and history. The more of this information you can get up front, the more competitive your proposal will be, and the better prepared your team will be to deliver. In contrast, going into a project with knowledge gaps in these areas increases risk to successful delivery. It may seem like a lot to gather up front, and it does take time, but it is time well spent.

Want help with implementing this process? Please feel free to reach out: https://letsmeet.io/kloudlaunch/30-minute-initial-consultation