May 20, 2025 • 23 mins
Welcome to the Salesforce Hiring Edge, hosted by Josh Matthews and co-host Josh LeQuire. In this powerful episode, we break down exactly what it takes to hire the right Salesforce SI (System Integrator) partner — and why making the wrong choice could cost you your career.
From uncovering the #1 factor in Salesforce implementation success (spoiler: it’s client engagement), to red flags in partner pitches, to protecting your investment through smart, small-bite projects — this conversation is a goldmine for any leader navigating the Salesforce ecosystem.
👉 Whether you’re running a Fortune 100 or a 5-person startup, this is required listening before you sign another consulting contract.
💼 Links & Resources:
🔗 Ccurrents.com – Proven Salesforce SI partner delivering enterprise results with startup hustle.
🔗 TheSalesforceRecruiter.com – Your source for Salesforce recruiting and talent acquisition across the ecosystem.
Timestamps:
00:00 – Why Client Engagement Trumps Everything
01:00 – Navigating the 2,000+ SI Partners on AppExchange
03:00 – What Salesforce AEs Won’t Tell You
07:00 – Why Most Implementations Fail
10:00 – How to Vet Partners (Questions That Matter)
14:00 – The Power of Weekly Status Reports
18:00 – Root Causes of Technical Debt
21:00 – Bite-Sized Projects to De-Risk Big Decisions
23:00 – Final Thoughts: Protect Your Career First
Listen in, take notes, and remember: a good partner tells their story. A great one tells yours. Subscribe now to never miss a brutally honest take on hiring within the Salesforce ecosystem.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Josh LeQuire (00:01):
The biggest factor of success in a Salesforce
implementation is clientengagement.
That is the one constant,biggest, most heaviest weighted
variable in my experience.
If a client is heavily engaged,providing feedback,
participating even part of theteam sitting in the stand-ups,
the planning, the grooming, yourodds of success and your
(00:25):
implementation go exponentiallyhigher.
Josh Matthews (00:29):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge, the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce.
Josh LeQuire (00:35):
Whether you're building a team or bringing in a
consulting partner.
Josh Matthews (00:38):
We're breaking down what actually works in the
real world.
All right, let's get into it.
Welcome to Salesforce HiringEdge.
I'm Josh Matthews, I'm joinedby my co-host, josh LaQuire, and
today we are talking aboutSalesforce SI partners.
What should you know aboutselecting the right SI partner
(01:00):
for your business?
And, josh, there are literally,I think, like 2000 of them now.
Josh LeQuire (01:06):
Yeah, I think you're right, josh.
If you go to the AppExchangeyou can search for Salesforce
consultants and I think if youjust do an empty search it's
going to return thousands ofresults.
And what's interesting aboutthe market is you have the big
four Accenture, capgemini, allthose and then you have
thousands of small shops,probably anywhere from 10 to 50
(01:28):
employees.
Josh Matthews (01:29):
Josh has actually agreed to, once a month, really
explore how to hire the rightSalesforce partner for your
company and that could be aFortune 100 company or it could
be just you're a mom and popshop and you need a little quick
start.
Let's start at the beginning.
Let's assume someone islistening to this.
(01:49):
They know that they need toselect a partner.
There are really two ways,right, they find the partner on
their own or they callSalesforce.
Maybe you can just give us thequick 101 lesson on what that
looks like.
Josh LeQuire (02:04):
Your Salesforce account executive will likely
have good partners they'veworked with.
You can go to the AppExchange,as I mentioned before, to find a
consultant.
You can do some Googling or youcan have a friend or a referral
and, honestly, a lot of mybusiness at Seacurrents is
referral business.
I get referred by my clients,which I think is the best way.
Sure.
Josh Matthews (02:30):
I mean network network, right?
A quick note on AppExchange.
Everyone's got four or fivestars so it's pretty difficult
to tell.
What would you say for acustomer who has never
implemented any Salesforceproduct?
Is it most likely that they'llcontact Salesforce and then be
introduced to partners?
Josh LeQuire (02:45):
I believe it's safe to say 90% plus of people
implementing Salesforce thefirst time get introduced to
their first partner throughSalesforce.
I think that's a true statementOkay.
Josh Matthews (02:56):
And now I have talked to a lot of account
executives over the years areavice presidents, RVPs leaders.
They are not all built the same.
True, Very true.
Some of these AEs are earnest,kind, they're trying to do the
right thing, but three monthsago they were selling printer
(03:20):
cartridge ink or printer inkcartridges, right, yes.
Or they were selling whatevercell phones at the AT&T store.
What can a potential Salesforcecustomer expect from an AE?
You know, depending on theirsize and on their industry and,
let's face it, how many licensesor how many products they're
(03:42):
going to buy, Can we assume thatthey're going to get a higher
quality AE or even AVP or RVPaccess if they're a larger
client there?
Josh LeQuire (03:52):
are a couple of ways to look at that.
One is Salesforce slices uptheir books of accounts by.
You could call it size of theclient and that's measured in
revenue or number of employees.
They have small business growth, commercial, mid-market
enterprise.
Josh Matthews (04:08):
So what are some of the disadvantages or things
that a new Salesforce customermight need to investigate about
the AE that has been assigned tothem, particularly if they are
on the growth side or a smallerorganization?
How do you make sure thatyou're not being introduced to
(04:30):
the wrong SI partners?
Josh LeQuire (04:33):
I think that's a tough one, josh.
I would say that you can'treally change who your AE is at
unless something egregious orterrible happens at AE,
something very uncouth.
I will say that not all AEs arethe same.
Some come with great experience, some don't.
Some come with years of salesexperience, some are brand new.
(04:56):
It's kind of luck of the drawfor who you might land as your
account executive, and I canalso tell you that account
executives are constantlyvetting partners like Securrent
and like every other partner inthe ecosystem and looking for
good ones.
Some AEs select partners whohelp them sell, some AEs select
(05:17):
partners who help them buildlong-lasting, fruitful client
relationships, or some find bothright.
Good partners can sell and goodpartners can also build trust
with clients and develop longlasting relationships.
Josh Matthews (05:30):
Would you say that this is where the potential
Salesforce customer really mustadvocate for themselves.
We are a nonprofit please, weonly want to talk to companies
that specialize in nonprofit.
Or we are a healthcare devicecompany.
(05:50):
That's different than healthinsurance.
So how does that work?
I mean, do they, do theycommunicate that early on to
Salesforce and then are assignedthe AE?
Josh LeQuire (06:02):
So when you come in through the channels of
Salesforce to eventually land ina conversation with an AE, you
are being very heavily profiledand placed into a combination of
industry and sub-industry andSalesforce, like every large
(06:23):
company, has its matrix ofindustries and sub-industries
and how they view the world andclassify industry.
Then they're also looking forif you're interested in sales,
cloud, service cloud AEsgenerally quarterback, other
they call it core.
You know sales and servicecloud are core but sometimes
they'll bring in a marketingcloud AE.
That's not core.
(06:44):
They'll bring in a experiencecloud specialist or other types
of AEs or engineers that knowproducts, but your AE is the
quarterback effectively.
Josh Matthews (06:54):
Sure and I've experienced that myself with
Salesforce Like well, here's asolutions engineer or a customer
success person who's veryknowledgeable about recruiting
and staffing and headhunting,and so they can bring in a
little bit more technicalguidance around which partners
to consider.
Josh LeQuire (07:12):
Of course yeah, and AEs typically have a network
of other AEs and engineers whocan say I've got a client who
wants to build a customer portalor I've got a client who wants
to pull medical device data thatthey're sending to the cloud
into Salesforce and have thatset off alerts or inform people
(07:33):
when there's something wrong.
Right Partners do.
When I'm a partner pitching AEsat Salesforce, I'm not pitching
the wide array of the universeof what I can do.
I'm usually pitching one veryspecialized thing, like I'm
showing a case study.
For example, you said meddevice earlier.
I've got a med device client andI've had others in the past
where we take readings off thesedevices and put them into
(07:56):
charts in Salesforce.
Or if a device has an issue itsends a message to Salesforce
and that alerts somebody whensomething's gone wrong.
I've pitched that very use caseto Salesforce and I've gotten
calls saying, hey, I got aclient who does that thing and,
candidly, that's actually a goodsales tactic for a partner and
if partners are listening to theshow and taking notes, they
(08:19):
know this.
Right, we're not ever going toget traction with Salesforce
being the jack of all trades.
We're going to show somethingwe do really well, and hope that
that's a niche of a niche of aniche.
Josh Matthews (08:28):
That when you're screening, when you're screening
your partners, you're hiring anentire team, right?
That's different than I'mhiring an architect or I'm
hiring an admin.
There's going to be differentlevels of consideration.
And had a fellow on our showlast night, mike Marochka, and
(08:49):
he was talking about how thevast majority of poor hires are
because, one, the wrong peopleare doing the interviewing, and
he in fact said you know, I'venever met someone who does
interviewing for a company whodidn't think they were great at
it, and that's been myexperience too.
(09:09):
Now there are people out there Imean lots of friends with
companies that have worked inSalesforce and implemented
Salesforce and they tend tothink that they're experts at
determining what vendor is bestfor them or what consulting
partner is best for them.
They've did it three times inthe last five years, right, or
even 10 times in the last twoyears, and they think that
(09:31):
they're pretty awesome.
But the problem is, is a lot ofthese decisions that they've
made, it's going to be another18 months till they realize that
they really screwed up.
Do you know what I mean?
You can hire the wrong personand you can know in three months
like this was not good.
You can know that.
But when a vendor's got a sixmonth project or a 12 month or a
(09:51):
two year project, it'ssometimes really hard to tell
soon enough.
So you've got to arm yourselfwith how to be really good at
investigating this.
What would you tell people todo?
To start?
We've talked about AEs greatbut now they need to really make
sure that these partners aregoing to be aligned with them.
(10:12):
Let's say they have three, thatthey're talking to five,
sometimes it's one.
What are maybe two or threequestions?
Just just to start with that.
They should be asking andvetting the responses to ensure
that this company is alignedwith what their goals are.
Josh LeQuire (10:32):
I think the first most important question to ask
is and to have the candidatepartner respond with the
appropriate responses.
Do you understand what I need tohave done?
There are a lot of really goodsalespeople out there who can
talk the talk and sing the songand make you fall in love with
(10:55):
them and you think that they arethe coolest, greatest thing
since sliced bread and they cando anything the coolest,
greatest thing since slicedbread and they can do anything.
But when it comes down to it,you need to be having
conversations with your partnersabout the problems very
specifically you're trying tosolve, the opportunities very
specifically you're trying toachieve, and that partner should
play back to you as if itsounds like they work inside
(11:16):
your business and know yourbusiness through and through,
what those things are.
So it may sound very basic,like oh, just tell me what I
said, right?
Josh Matthews (11:24):
No.
Josh LeQuire (11:25):
I mean when somebody, when you ask somebody,
help me understand.
You know, do you understandwhat problems I'm trying to
solve and explain how you'regoing to solve those, that
response from the partner isgoing to reveal quite a bit
about whether or not theyactually understand what needs
to be done and they actuallyhave the knowledge and expertise
.
Because, especially if you hearthat across three partners,
(11:45):
you're going to see variationsand responses very quickly.
Josh Matthews (11:48):
Isn't it true that there are a lot of
companies out there that don'tactually understand what their
goals are?
They just know that whatthey're working with isn't
working, that they heard there'sthis magic software that if you
spend anywhere from $20,000 to$2 million, or even more, it'll
solve all of your businessproblems?
Josh LeQuire (12:09):
Your consultant should focus on process first.
They're not talking solutionjargon and beating you up with
you know all these things thatdon't make sense, trying to
sound smart.
They talk about your processand what a given context of a
process is trying to achieve.
We're trying to increase leads,we're trying to increase
revenue, we're trying toincrease customer satisfaction.
(12:29):
That partner needs to veryclearly state those objectives
back to you that you've statedto them in your language,
meaning your business, yourneeds, your problems, your
opportunities.
Not in grand statements like ohyeah, we have a thousand
certifications and we know thisproduct.
We're so cool, Look at me, Lookat me.
No, it's not about the partner,it's about you If your
(12:51):
partner's not talking about you.
That's a red flag, that's amajor red flag.
Josh Matthews (12:56):
A good candidate tells their story and a great
one tells yours, and it soundslike that's very similar to what
you're talking about right now.
Josh LeQuire (13:06):
Yeah, that's exactly I would say that's a
huge parallel.
Josh Matthews (13:11):
Yeah.
So let's get granular for thelast few minutes of this little
program until we're back nextweek.
I want you to imagine for amoment that there's someone out
there and they're going to makea decision on a partner this
week or next week.
They've gone through everything.
They like all of them.
This one they feel a littlemore connected with emotionally.
(13:32):
There's a little bit morerapport with the lead person.
They're going to interact withthis other one.
They just seem to know theirindustry just a little bit more
and they need to make a decision.
They can ask a single questionto make the determination.
Let's say the budget's the same.
What's the question that theyshould ask these people to
(13:55):
absolutely and as much aspossible, not have the most fun
on the project but de-risk it sothey're not knocking on your
door or my door in six months ortwo years saying we've got a
nightmare of an instance andnobody's using it.
What's the question they shouldask?
Josh LeQuire (14:16):
How often will I get a status report and what
will it contain?
There you go and what's a goodanswer?
Weekly, you're going to seeyour budget and burn.
We're going to talk aboutmilestones in the project and
whether or not we've achievedthose.
(14:36):
We're going to talk about riskthat we've identified and how
we're managing those.
We're going to talk aboutprioritization of the work and
whether or not we're focusingwhere we need to focus for what
needs to get done.
And we're going to get a pulsecheck from you as a client on
your level of satisfaction.
Josh Matthews (14:53):
I love it.
How critical is it to have aninternal project manager, a
stakeholder, who can help withthis project?
Let's just say a mid-sizedproject, let's just say it's a
100K deal, like our 100 to 200Kproject.
When the CEOs are thestakeholders and they're trying
to run a big company, they neverhave time and then things drag
(15:16):
out and things can get kind ofweird.
How important is it to assignsomeone to really manage this
from the inside, and what kindof background does that person
typically have for a relativelynon-technical company?
Josh LeQuire (15:32):
I'm going to answer that from the perspective
of the client and the vendor.
Okay, First, the client.
It is 1000% important you havesomebody dedicated or allocating
a significant amount of theirtime proportional to the risk
and the size of the project atyour company.
The biggest factor of successin a Salesforce implementation
(15:56):
is client engagement.
That is the one constantbiggest variable in my
experience.
If a client is heavily engaged,providing feedback,
participating even part of theteam, sitting in the standups,
the planning, the grooming, yourodds of success and your
(16:17):
implementation go exponentiallyhigher.
Josh Matthews (16:21):
I'd say 30 to 40% of my clients are Salesforce
customers and about 60 to 70%are Salesforce partners of all
sizes.
When they get clients that havea bad setup, a bad Salesforce
org that needs significantrepair and it needs it
(16:41):
immediately it feels like halfthe work out there is fixing
half the work out there.
Josh LeQuire (16:48):
I can't remember the last time I've gone into one
of my clients' Salesforce orgsand we didn't come across
something significant in termsof technical debt, and technical
debt is not something anybodyever wants to pay for, but it
has to be fixed and done kind ofgetting a little tangential,
(17:14):
but with the technical debt.
Josh Matthews (17:14):
How much of the technical debt was the fault of
the implementer or the SIpartner versus a lack of
maintenance, updating, training,requiring teams to utilize it?
How much of it is the customer,how much of it is the
implementation?
Josh LeQuire (17:27):
There are two root causes of technical debt.
One is lack of clientengagement in building the
solution.
So sometimes it's not even thetechnical team at all, it's the
client not paying attention,signing off on things and
realizing once the solution isdeployed and live, it's not
going to work because theydidn't tell the team what to
build, they didn't test, theydidn't train and they don't want
(17:50):
to spend any more money andthey think it's you know, if you
build it they will come fieldof dreams.
Now I'll say, the majority ofthe time it is an implementation
partner following terriblepractices, and by terrible
practices I mean clicking andconfiguring everything you know
under the sun, when a lot ofthat shouldn't be click and
configure, when a lot of thatshouldn't be click and configure
(18:11):
.
Following bad what we callDevOps development operations,
not doing a good job, justmanaging changes in Salesforce
in general and just notunderstanding the platform.
There are consultants out therewho have an admin certification
but don't know a lot more thanthat and portend to know a whole
lot more.
Josh Matthews (18:30):
There appears to be a significant lack of
responsibility on the part of alot of Salesforce customers that
, just you know, they bought thefig tree and never watered it
and they wonder where the fruitis.
Josh LeQuire (18:46):
It is rampant.
I can't begin to tell you howmany firefighting rescue
missions I've been on.
I'll never forget flying downto Houston, texas, to meet with
a client and he had a terribleSalesforce implementation and he
said this was the CEO of a verylarge company looked at me
straight in the face and saysSalesforce is nothing but a
bullshit pipe dream.
(19:07):
I hate it and it's like it'snot.
You just had a really badpartner and implementation and
betters in implementation canreally just.
I mean, he was looking atgetting off the platform Fast
forward.
We came in and made someimprovements.
He was very happy with thechanges, but not without a
significant investment.
He paid the licenses the firstimplementation, the second
(19:30):
implementation and then thethird for me to clean it up and
he still needs to make it.
That's a lot of money.
Josh Matthews (19:37):
Oh, it's a lot.
This is the Salesforce hiringedge.
That includes hiringconsultants, hiring contractors,
hiring SI partners, employingISV partners for managed
packages where and whennecessary, like all that stuff.
Plan is to cover that on thisshow, but it's a little segment
(19:59):
so we can't cover it all, andwhat we're going to be doing is,
at least once a month, joshLaQuire and I are going to have
a conversation specifically forthose of you out there who need
to make decisions about do Ikeep the partner that I'm
working with?
How do I hire a new partner?
Should I do this on my own?
We're going to be exploring allof these things and helping you
develop, over the course of thenext year, a really broad and
hopefully a deep understandingof how you can protect your
(20:21):
company, protect your investmentand I'm just going to say this
as the Salesforce recruiterprotect your freaking career,
because you start makingbonehead decisions.
If you're the person who andyou're not the owner, but you're
the person who rubber stamped aterrible implementation, if
you're the person that nevereven asked for those status
reports and you keep rubberstamping every add-on and the
(20:44):
budget goes to hell and then theproduct doesn't work, it's not
going to reflect very kindly onyou when it comes to promotion
time, getting a raise,potentially getting a pink slip
and advancing your career.
If you want to protect yourcareer, you actually have to do
a really incredibly good job atleast better than 50% of the
world minimum, ideally betterthan 90% and we believe if you
(21:09):
continue to listen to thisprogram and explore some of the
past episodes that we'vedeveloped over the last three
years, you will absolutelyprotect your career, make better
hiring decisions and truly havea fighting chance at having the
career that you really want asa leader, as a manager and
somehow inside the ecosystem ofSalesforce.
(21:30):
Josh, any final words for ourguests before we bail.
Josh LeQuire (21:34):
Yeah, there was something you said earlier from
a previous interview andsomething I think that's going
to help people to find the rightpartner.
Actually, two things I'd liketo say.
Your partner should be talkingfrom the first moment you meet
him or her or them, about whatvalue we are driving with an
implementation.
What's that metric we want tochange right?
(21:56):
That revenue metric, that costmetric, that effectiveness
metric, that customersatisfaction.
That needs to be front seat ofthe conversation.
That's one thing I didn'tmention.
I wish I'd said earlier in theconversation.
I think the other piece thatgoes in line with that too is
bite off small chunks of aproject.
Don't go for the gold-platedmillion-dollar project out of
(22:19):
the gates if you're trying tovet a new partner we had talked
about this last night, about newhires and it's something like
the one-month project or theone-month hire I think we talked
about Do the same with yourconsultant.
Bite off a.
You know, if you're not sureyou got three, josh, you'd asked
me earlier.
I have three partners.
They look the same, same budget, everything else You're still
not sure.
Pick one, do a small piece andif it works, do another one, and
(22:41):
if that works, continue to go.
I do that with my clientsbecause I know it's hard to pick
a partner.
And I tell them look, startsmall.
And guess what?
I'm still vetting my clientswithin the first month or two of
the project.
Do I want to work with them.
Josh Matthews (22:56):
Look, you fire clients every year.
I fire clients every year, andit's not just about is it a good
fit, it's like are you sane ornot?
This is the help me, help you,jerry Maguire thing all day long
.
The customer is not alwaysright, but they are always in
control, and the more you armyourself with really good
(23:18):
knowledge, the better decisionsyou're going to make and you're
going to get what you want.
Arm yourself enough so that youcan tell good from bad and
guess what?
Ai is your friend, and so isthis show.
Josh, thanks for those finalwords.
Thank you, we'll be back nextweek.
Thanks everybody for joining us.
Have a wonderful, wonderful,wonderful week.
Bye for now.
The biggest factor of success in a Salesforce
implementation is clientengagement.
That is the one constant,biggest, most heaviest weighted
variable in my experience.
If a client is heavily engaged,providing feedback,
participating even part of theteam sitting in the stand-ups,
the planning, the grooming, yourodds of success and your
(00:25):
implementation go exponentiallyhigher.
Josh Matthews (00:29):
Welcome to Salesforce Hiring Edge, the show
for leaders who want to hiresmarter and scale faster with
Salesforce.
Josh LeQuire (00:35):
Whether you're building a team or bringing in a
consulting partner.
Josh Matthews (00:38):
We're breaking down what actually works in the
real world.
All right, let's get into it.
Welcome to Salesforce HiringEdge.
I'm Josh Matthews, I'm joinedby my co-host, josh LaQuire, and
today we are talking aboutSalesforce SI partners.
What should you know aboutselecting the right SI partner
(01:00):
for your business?
And, josh, there are literally,I think, like 2000 of them now.
Josh LeQuire (01:06):
Yeah, I think you're right, josh.
If you go to the AppExchangeyou can search for Salesforce
consultants and I think if youjust do an empty search it's
going to return thousands ofresults.
And what's interesting aboutthe market is you have the big
four Accenture, capgemini, allthose and then you have
thousands of small shops,probably anywhere from 10 to 50
(01:28):
employees.
Josh Matthews (01:29):
Josh has actually agreed to, once a month, really
explore how to hire the rightSalesforce partner for your
company and that could be aFortune 100 company or it could
be just you're a mom and popshop and you need a little quick
start.
Let's start at the beginning.
Let's assume someone islistening to this.
(01:49):
They know that they need toselect a partner.
There are really two ways,right, they find the partner on
their own or they callSalesforce.
Maybe you can just give us thequick 101 lesson on what that
looks like.
Josh LeQuire (02:04):
Your Salesforce account executive will likely
have good partners they'veworked with.
You can go to the AppExchange,as I mentioned before, to find a
consultant.
You can do some Googling or youcan have a friend or a referral
and, honestly, a lot of mybusiness at Seacurrents is
referral business.
I get referred by my clients,which I think is the best way.
Sure.
Josh Matthews (02:30):
I mean network network, right?
A quick note on AppExchange.
Everyone's got four or fivestars so it's pretty difficult
to tell.
What would you say for acustomer who has never
implemented any Salesforceproduct?
Is it most likely that they'llcontact Salesforce and then be
introduced to partners?
Josh LeQuire (02:45):
I believe it's safe to say 90% plus of people
implementing Salesforce thefirst time get introduced to
their first partner throughSalesforce.
I think that's a true statementOkay.
Josh Matthews (02:56):
And now I have talked to a lot of account
executives over the years areavice presidents, RVPs leaders.
They are not all built the same.
True, Very true.
Some of these AEs are earnest,kind, they're trying to do the
right thing, but three monthsago they were selling printer
(03:20):
cartridge ink or printer inkcartridges, right, yes.
Or they were selling whatevercell phones at the AT&T store.
What can a potential Salesforcecustomer expect from an AE?
You know, depending on theirsize and on their industry and,
let's face it, how many licensesor how many products they're
(03:42):
going to buy, Can we assume thatthey're going to get a higher
quality AE or even AVP or RVPaccess if they're a larger
client there?
Josh LeQuire (03:52):
are a couple of ways to look at that.
One is Salesforce slices uptheir books of accounts by.
You could call it size of theclient and that's measured in
revenue or number of employees.
They have small business growth, commercial, mid-market
enterprise.
Josh Matthews (04:08):
So what are some of the disadvantages or things
that a new Salesforce customermight need to investigate about
the AE that has been assigned tothem, particularly if they are
on the growth side or a smallerorganization?
How do you make sure thatyou're not being introduced to
(04:30):
the wrong SI partners?
Josh LeQuire (04:33):
I think that's a tough one, josh.
I would say that you can'treally change who your AE is at
unless something egregious orterrible happens at AE,
something very uncouth.
I will say that not all AEs arethe same.
Some come with great experience, some don't.
Some come with years of salesexperience, some are brand new.
(04:56):
It's kind of luck of the drawfor who you might land as your
account executive, and I canalso tell you that account
executives are constantlyvetting partners like Securrent
and like every other partner inthe ecosystem and looking for
good ones.
Some AEs select partners whohelp them sell, some AEs select
(05:17):
partners who help them buildlong-lasting, fruitful client
relationships, or some find bothright.
Good partners can sell and goodpartners can also build trust
with clients and develop longlasting relationships.
Josh Matthews (05:30):
Would you say that this is where the potential
Salesforce customer really mustadvocate for themselves.
We are a nonprofit please, weonly want to talk to companies
that specialize in nonprofit.
Or we are a healthcare devicecompany.
(05:50):
That's different than healthinsurance.
So how does that work?
I mean, do they, do theycommunicate that early on to
Salesforce and then are assignedthe AE?
Josh LeQuire (06:02):
So when you come in through the channels of
Salesforce to eventually land ina conversation with an AE, you
are being very heavily profiledand placed into a combination of
industry and sub-industry andSalesforce, like every large
(06:23):
company, has its matrix ofindustries and sub-industries
and how they view the world andclassify industry.
Then they're also looking forif you're interested in sales,
cloud, service cloud AEsgenerally quarterback, other
they call it core.
You know sales and servicecloud are core but sometimes
they'll bring in a marketingcloud AE.
That's not core.
(06:44):
They'll bring in a experiencecloud specialist or other types
of AEs or engineers that knowproducts, but your AE is the
quarterback effectively.
Josh Matthews (06:54):
Sure and I've experienced that myself with
Salesforce Like well, here's asolutions engineer or a customer
success person who's veryknowledgeable about recruiting
and staffing and headhunting,and so they can bring in a
little bit more technicalguidance around which partners
to consider.
Josh LeQuire (07:12):
Of course yeah, and AEs typically have a network
of other AEs and engineers whocan say I've got a client who
wants to build a customer portalor I've got a client who wants
to pull medical device data thatthey're sending to the cloud
into Salesforce and have thatset off alerts or inform people
(07:33):
when there's something wrong.
Right Partners do.
When I'm a partner pitching AEsat Salesforce, I'm not pitching
the wide array of the universeof what I can do.
I'm usually pitching one veryspecialized thing, like I'm
showing a case study.
For example, you said meddevice earlier.
I've got a med device client andI've had others in the past
where we take readings off thesedevices and put them into
(07:56):
charts in Salesforce.
Or if a device has an issue itsends a message to Salesforce
and that alerts somebody whensomething's gone wrong.
I've pitched that very use caseto Salesforce and I've gotten
calls saying, hey, I got aclient who does that thing and,
candidly, that's actually a goodsales tactic for a partner and
if partners are listening to theshow and taking notes, they
(08:19):
know this.
Right, we're not ever going toget traction with Salesforce
being the jack of all trades.
We're going to show somethingwe do really well, and hope that
that's a niche of a niche of aniche.
Josh Matthews (08:28):
That when you're screening, when you're screening
your partners, you're hiring anentire team, right?
That's different than I'mhiring an architect or I'm
hiring an admin.
There's going to be differentlevels of consideration.
And had a fellow on our showlast night, mike Marochka, and
(08:49):
he was talking about how thevast majority of poor hires are
because, one, the wrong peopleare doing the interviewing, and
he in fact said you know, I'venever met someone who does
interviewing for a company whodidn't think they were great at
it, and that's been myexperience too.
(09:09):
Now there are people out there Imean lots of friends with
companies that have worked inSalesforce and implemented
Salesforce and they tend tothink that they're experts at
determining what vendor is bestfor them or what consulting
partner is best for them.
They've did it three times inthe last five years, right, or
even 10 times in the last twoyears, and they think that
(09:31):
they're pretty awesome.
But the problem is, is a lot ofthese decisions that they've
made, it's going to be another18 months till they realize that
they really screwed up.
Do you know what I mean?
You can hire the wrong personand you can know in three months
like this was not good.
You can know that.
But when a vendor's got a sixmonth project or a 12 month or a
(09:51):
two year project, it'ssometimes really hard to tell
soon enough.
So you've got to arm yourselfwith how to be really good at
investigating this.
What would you tell people todo?
To start?
We've talked about AEs greatbut now they need to really make
sure that these partners aregoing to be aligned with them.
(10:12):
Let's say they have three, thatthey're talking to five,
sometimes it's one.
What are maybe two or threequestions?
Just just to start with that.
They should be asking andvetting the responses to ensure
that this company is alignedwith what their goals are.
Josh LeQuire (10:32):
I think the first most important question to ask
is and to have the candidatepartner respond with the
appropriate responses.
Do you understand what I need tohave done?
There are a lot of really goodsalespeople out there who can
talk the talk and sing the songand make you fall in love with
(10:55):
them and you think that they arethe coolest, greatest thing
since sliced bread and they cando anything the coolest,
greatest thing since slicedbread and they can do anything.
But when it comes down to it,you need to be having
conversations with your partnersabout the problems very
specifically you're trying tosolve, the opportunities very
specifically you're trying toachieve, and that partner should
play back to you as if itsounds like they work inside
(11:16):
your business and know yourbusiness through and through,
what those things are.
So it may sound very basic,like oh, just tell me what I
said, right?
Josh Matthews (11:24):
No.
Josh LeQuire (11:25):
I mean when somebody, when you ask somebody,
help me understand.
You know, do you understandwhat problems I'm trying to
solve and explain how you'regoing to solve those, that
response from the partner isgoing to reveal quite a bit
about whether or not theyactually understand what needs
to be done and they actuallyhave the knowledge and expertise
.
Because, especially if you hearthat across three partners,
(11:45):
you're going to see variationsand responses very quickly.
Josh Matthews (11:48):
Isn't it true that there are a lot of
companies out there that don'tactually understand what their
goals are?
They just know that whatthey're working with isn't
working, that they heard there'sthis magic software that if you
spend anywhere from $20,000 to$2 million, or even more, it'll
solve all of your businessproblems?
Josh LeQuire (12:09):
Your consultant should focus on process first.
They're not talking solutionjargon and beating you up with
you know all these things thatdon't make sense, trying to
sound smart.
They talk about your processand what a given context of a
process is trying to achieve.
We're trying to increase leads,we're trying to increase
revenue, we're trying toincrease customer satisfaction.
(12:29):
That partner needs to veryclearly state those objectives
back to you that you've statedto them in your language,
meaning your business, yourneeds, your problems, your
opportunities.
Not in grand statements like ohyeah, we have a thousand
certifications and we know thisproduct.
We're so cool, Look at me, Lookat me.
No, it's not about the partner,it's about you If your
(12:51):
partner's not talking about you.
That's a red flag, that's amajor red flag.
Josh Matthews (12:56):
A good candidate tells their story and a great
one tells yours, and it soundslike that's very similar to what
you're talking about right now.
Josh LeQuire (13:06):
Yeah, that's exactly I would say that's a
huge parallel.
Josh Matthews (13:11):
Yeah.
So let's get granular for thelast few minutes of this little
program until we're back nextweek.
I want you to imagine for amoment that there's someone out
there and they're going to makea decision on a partner this
week or next week.
They've gone through everything.
They like all of them.
This one they feel a littlemore connected with emotionally.
(13:32):
There's a little bit morerapport with the lead person.
They're going to interact withthis other one.
They just seem to know theirindustry just a little bit more
and they need to make a decision.
They can ask a single questionto make the determination.
Let's say the budget's the same.
What's the question that theyshould ask these people to
(13:55):
absolutely and as much aspossible, not have the most fun
on the project but de-risk it sothey're not knocking on your
door or my door in six months ortwo years saying we've got a
nightmare of an instance andnobody's using it.
What's the question they shouldask?
Josh LeQuire (14:16):
How often will I get a status report and what
will it contain?
There you go and what's a goodanswer?
Weekly, you're going to seeyour budget and burn.
We're going to talk aboutmilestones in the project and
whether or not we've achievedthose.
(14:36):
We're going to talk about riskthat we've identified and how
we're managing those.
We're going to talk aboutprioritization of the work and
whether or not we're focusingwhere we need to focus for what
needs to get done.
And we're going to get a pulsecheck from you as a client on
your level of satisfaction.
Josh Matthews (14:53):
I love it.
How critical is it to have aninternal project manager, a
stakeholder, who can help withthis project?
Let's just say a mid-sizedproject, let's just say it's a
100K deal, like our 100 to 200Kproject.
When the CEOs are thestakeholders and they're trying
to run a big company, they neverhave time and then things drag
(15:16):
out and things can get kind ofweird.
How important is it to assignsomeone to really manage this
from the inside, and what kindof background does that person
typically have for a relativelynon-technical company?
Josh LeQuire (15:32):
I'm going to answer that from the perspective
of the client and the vendor.
Okay, First, the client.
It is 1000% important you havesomebody dedicated or allocating
a significant amount of theirtime proportional to the risk
and the size of the project atyour company.
The biggest factor of successin a Salesforce implementation
(15:56):
is client engagement.
That is the one constantbiggest variable in my
experience.
If a client is heavily engaged,providing feedback,
participating even part of theteam, sitting in the standups,
the planning, the grooming, yourodds of success and your
(16:17):
implementation go exponentiallyhigher.
Josh Matthews (16:21):
I'd say 30 to 40% of my clients are Salesforce
customers and about 60 to 70%are Salesforce partners of all
sizes.
When they get clients that havea bad setup, a bad Salesforce
org that needs significantrepair and it needs it
(16:41):
immediately it feels like halfthe work out there is fixing
half the work out there.
Josh LeQuire (16:48):
I can't remember the last time I've gone into one
of my clients' Salesforce orgsand we didn't come across
something significant in termsof technical debt, and technical
debt is not something anybodyever wants to pay for, but it
has to be fixed and done kind ofgetting a little tangential,
(17:14):
but with the technical debt.
Josh Matthews (17:14):
How much of the technical debt was the fault of
the implementer or the SIpartner versus a lack of
maintenance, updating, training,requiring teams to utilize it?
How much of it is the customer,how much of it is the
implementation?
Josh LeQuire (17:27):
There are two root causes of technical debt.
One is lack of clientengagement in building the
solution.
So sometimes it's not even thetechnical team at all, it's the
client not paying attention,signing off on things and
realizing once the solution isdeployed and live, it's not
going to work because theydidn't tell the team what to
build, they didn't test, theydidn't train and they don't want
(17:50):
to spend any more money andthey think it's you know, if you
build it they will come fieldof dreams.
Now I'll say, the majority ofthe time it is an implementation
partner following terriblepractices, and by terrible
practices I mean clicking andconfiguring everything you know
under the sun, when a lot ofthat shouldn't be click and
configure, when a lot of thatshouldn't be click and configure
(18:11):
.
Following bad what we callDevOps development operations,
not doing a good job, justmanaging changes in Salesforce
in general and just notunderstanding the platform.
There are consultants out therewho have an admin certification
but don't know a lot more thanthat and portend to know a whole
lot more.
Josh Matthews (18:30):
There appears to be a significant lack of
responsibility on the part of alot of Salesforce customers that
, just you know, they bought thefig tree and never watered it
and they wonder where the fruitis.
Josh LeQuire (18:46):
It is rampant.
I can't begin to tell you howmany firefighting rescue
missions I've been on.
I'll never forget flying downto Houston, texas, to meet with
a client and he had a terribleSalesforce implementation and he
said this was the CEO of a verylarge company looked at me
straight in the face and saysSalesforce is nothing but a
bullshit pipe dream.
(19:07):
I hate it and it's like it'snot.
You just had a really badpartner and implementation and
betters in implementation canreally just.
I mean, he was looking atgetting off the platform Fast
forward.
We came in and made someimprovements.
He was very happy with thechanges, but not without a
significant investment.
He paid the licenses the firstimplementation, the second
(19:30):
implementation and then thethird for me to clean it up and
he still needs to make it.
That's a lot of money.
Josh Matthews (19:37):
Oh, it's a lot.
This is the Salesforce hiringedge.
That includes hiringconsultants, hiring contractors,
hiring SI partners, employingISV partners for managed
packages where and whennecessary, like all that stuff.
Plan is to cover that on thisshow, but it's a little segment
(19:59):
so we can't cover it all, andwhat we're going to be doing is,
at least once a month, joshLaQuire and I are going to have
a conversation specifically forthose of you out there who need
to make decisions about do Ikeep the partner that I'm
working with?
How do I hire a new partner?
Should I do this on my own?
We're going to be exploring allof these things and helping you
develop, over the course of thenext year, a really broad and
hopefully a deep understandingof how you can protect your
(20:21):
company, protect your investmentand I'm just going to say this
as the Salesforce recruiterprotect your freaking career,
because you start makingbonehead decisions.
If you're the person who andyou're not the owner, but you're
the person who rubber stamped aterrible implementation, if
you're the person that nevereven asked for those status
reports and you keep rubberstamping every add-on and the
(20:44):
budget goes to hell and then theproduct doesn't work, it's not
going to reflect very kindly onyou when it comes to promotion
time, getting a raise,potentially getting a pink slip
and advancing your career.
If you want to protect yourcareer, you actually have to do
a really incredibly good job atleast better than 50% of the
world minimum, ideally betterthan 90% and we believe if you
(21:09):
continue to listen to thisprogram and explore some of the
past episodes that we'vedeveloped over the last three
years, you will absolutelyprotect your career, make better
hiring decisions and truly havea fighting chance at having the
career that you really want asa leader, as a manager and
somehow inside the ecosystem ofSalesforce.
(21:30):
Josh, any final words for ourguests before we bail.
Josh LeQuire (21:34):
Yeah, there was something you said earlier from
a previous interview andsomething I think that's going
to help people to find the rightpartner.
Actually, two things I'd liketo say.
Your partner should be talkingfrom the first moment you meet
him or her or them, about whatvalue we are driving with an
implementation.
What's that metric we want tochange right?
(21:56):
That revenue metric, that costmetric, that effectiveness
metric, that customersatisfaction.
That needs to be front seat ofthe conversation.
That's one thing I didn'tmention.
I wish I'd said earlier in theconversation.
I think the other piece thatgoes in line with that too is
bite off small chunks of aproject.
Don't go for the gold-platedmillion-dollar project out of
(22:19):
the gates if you're trying tovet a new partner we had talked
about this last night, about newhires and it's something like
the one-month project or theone-month hire I think we talked
about Do the same with yourconsultant.
Bite off a.
You know, if you're not sureyou got three, josh, you'd asked
me earlier.
I have three partners.
They look the same, same budget, everything else You're still
not sure.
Pick one, do a small piece andif it works, do another one, and
(22:41):
if that works, continue to go.
I do that with my clientsbecause I know it's hard to pick
a partner.
And I tell them look, startsmall.
And guess what?
I'm still vetting my clientswithin the first month or two of
the project.
Do I want to work with them.
Josh Matthews (22:56):
Look, you fire clients every year.
I fire clients every year, andit's not just about is it a good
fit, it's like are you sane ornot?
This is the help me, help you,jerry Maguire thing all day long
.
The customer is not alwaysright, but they are always in
control, and the more you armyourself with really good
(23:18):
knowledge, the better decisionsyou're going to make and you're
going to get what you want.
Arm yourself enough so that youcan tell good from bad and
guess what?
Ai is your friend, and so isthis show.
Josh, thanks for those finalwords.
Thank you, we'll be back nextweek.
Thanks everybody for joining us.
Have a wonderful, wonderful,wonderful week.
Bye for now.
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