Salesforce for Small Business: Explode your Business with World’s Best-Selling CRM & 4 Growth Strategies
“Get the confidence of the public and you will have no difficulty in getting their patronage. Inspire your whole force with the right spirit of service; encourage every sign of the true spirit…” These are the first few sentences from Harry Gordon Selfridge’s quoted thought, an American-British Retail Magnate who founded the London-based department store Selfridges.
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What Harry Gordon stated still rings true when it comes to the fundamentals of starting a Small Business. It is important for your Company to have the trust and confidence of its Customers, and once set, everything else will fall into place. It’s no brainer that a Small Business can become a Unicorn tomorrow. However, amid a large sea of appealing CRM Solutions for your Business Operations, determining what works best for your Company may appear to be a hard process.
Salesforce for Small Business Offering is one of the best CRM Solutions for SMBs (Small and Midsize Businesses). Salesforce Services and CRM Solutions are Cloud-based and your Business doesn’t need to possess costly Server Architecture to use the Platform. Salesforce offers plenty of Learning Resources with an Interactive Dashboard that’s easy to learn and use for every Business Professional regardless of their technical expertise.
Furthermore, Salesforce is an innovative CRM Solution that goes beyond its offerings. Salesforce Subscriptions enable Networking, Investor, Capital and Salesforce Accelerate access which will be covered later in this article.
So buckle up for this all-encompassing guide, where we’ll go over every growth strategy a Small Business should consider, as well as a discussion of the suggested Salesforce Essentials Plan for Small Businesses and how Salesforce Services may help you achieve those objectives. Here’s a quick outline for easy navigation:
Table of Contents
- Salesforce CRM: A Quick Tour
- Salesforce Essentials: The Salesforce for Small Business
- Salesforce for Small Business: Why You Should Choose Salesforce
- Winning Customer Loyalty: Salesforce Infographic
- Conclusion
Salesforce CRM: A Quick Tour
Undoubtedly, the World’s #1 CRM needs no introduction. Salesforce is a Software as a Service (SaaS) offering that comes without the need to install the Software or Server to work on. Founded by Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff, and Frank Dominguez in 1999, Salesforce encompasses the likes of over 150,000 Companies, which includes popular Data Giants like Coca-Cola, Facebook, Sony, Vodafone and L’Oreal.
A top-notch Cloud-based CRM Solution from a Company based out of San Francisco, California, Salesforce is developed to make Organizations function more efficiently and profitably by reducing the cost of managing Hardware Infrastructure. Salesforce is an integrated platform that provides a Single Shared View of each Customer for all the Departments within an Organization, such as Marketing, Sales, Commerce, and Service.
As per Statista Reports, Salesforce CRM Application occupies 19.8% Market Share in the CRM Market. Salesforce has already earned the ranks of the world’s best CRM Application for seven consecutive years by International Data Corporation (IDC) in its latest Worldwide Semiannual Software Tracker.
Salesforce for Small Business aids in the administration of Marketing Activities and integrates the Marketing Team with the Sales Management and Account Management Teams of the firm, ensuring that the whole Organisation is reaching out to Customers in a unified manner that does not confuse or alienate them. Salesforce can manage your Contacts, track Opportunities, generate Custom Reports, automate Marketing Campaigns, and much more, freeing up a lot of your time.
When it comes to Small Businesses, Salesforce Tailor-Made Solutions for Sales, Marketing, and Service Teams makes it easy to deploy the Application with the right tools to help adapt your Business for growing needs.
Salesforce’s Essential Pricing Option is a popular choice for Small Businesses which offers access to In-app Tutorials and Guided Setup for a fast start. With Salesforce for Small Business Essential Offering, you can organise your critical Business Information in one place and connect your Email to automatically capture Customer details.
Let’s take a look at why Salesforce is the prime option for your Small Business by reviewing Salesforce’s recommended pricing plan, the Salesforce Essentials and how Salesforce Essentials can align your Business Growth Tactics with its Service Offerings.
Salesforce Essentials: The Salesforce for Small Business
Every Business today, whether small or large, requires a CRM Solution to handle their everyday Business Operations. Small-scale Businesses differ from Large-scale Businesses in terms of Resources, Needs, and IT Infrastructure requirements.
Salesforce recognises these differences and that’s why Salesforce has a specific offering for Small Business called Salesforce Essentials (amongst the other four Pricing Tiers) which costs as low as $25/month. At such a low price offering Salesforce intends to deliver killer Sales and Service applications to the SMB segment while giving them an equally irresistible pricing system to boot. Salesforce Essentials is a new development specifically built for Small Business that is easy to set up, easy to use and grows with your Business without constraints.
With Salesforce for Small Business Essentials, your Business can get access to the very best of Salesforce, including Trailhead, Einstein, Lightning and AppExchange, Small Business Growth Kit, Tableau and Webinar Access. The following is a description of these offerings:
- Trailhead: Trailhead is a Salesforce Online Gamified Platform where employees can learn in-demand Tech Skills, Business Skills, and Soft Skills from Live and On-demand Training Over Videos hosted by Salesforce Professionals.
- Einstein: Einstein is Salesforce’ Artificial Intelligence (AI) Technology that will help your employees work smarter and faster by automatically adding emails and calendar invites to the appropriate records.
- Salesforce Lightning: Salesforce Lightning is a modern User Experience and App Development Platform that enables users to become more productive by allowing them to spend more time selling and providing excellent Customer Support.
- Salesforce AppExchange: Salesforce AppExchange is a leading Enterprise Cloud Marketplace with ready to install Apps like Dropbox for Business, MailChimp, Slack and GetFeedback which employees can deploy to increase Salesforce functionality with just a few clicks.
- Tableau: Tableau is a leading interactive Data Visualization Software that helps people see and retrieve data insights from Customer Data. Tableau is a part of Salesforce Analytics Solutions and comes as a free three-month subscription trial for Small Businesses.
Salesforce Essentials expands along with your Business. Salesforce will grow with your company, no matter how large it becomes—it’s the same CRM technology that powers 83 percent of Fortune 500 Companies, now adapted for Small Businesses.
After reviewing Salesforce Essentials, let’s look at how Salesforce Essentials may help you match your Business Growth Tactics with its Service Offerings in the upcoming section.
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- Connectors: Hevo supports 100+ integrations to SaaS platforms such as Salesforce, files, databases, analytics, and BI tools. It supports various destinations including Salesforce CRM, Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Firebolt, Snowflake Data Warehouses; Amazon S3 Data Lakes; and MySQL, MongoDB, TokuDB, DynamoDB, PostgreSQL databases to name a few.
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- Schema Management: Hevo takes away the tedious task of schema management & automatically detects the schema of incoming data and maps it to the destination schema.
- Live Monitoring: Hevo allows you to monitor the data flow so you can check where your data is at a particular point in time.
Salesforce for Small Business: Why You Should Choose Salesforce
We’ve already established our understanding of Salesforce CRM. Salesforce for Small Business helps in
- Lead & Contact Management
- Sales Opportunity Management
- Workflow Rules & Automation
- Customizable Reports & Dashboards
- Mobile Application
But the real question is how can Salesforce as a SaaS Platform assist in aligning Small Business Growth Strategies, and what are the benefits to your Business?
Let’s take a closer look.
Salesforce for Small Business Advantage: Ease of Use and Customisation
Small Business Growth Strategy #1
Use CRM Solutions that are approachable for everyone who will be using them—Salespeople, Marketing, the Office Manager, and all the way up to the CEO. It should also not need outside assistance for Setup or continuous Administration.
How Salesforce for Small Business Helps
Salesforce Essentials is extremely simple to use and explore. Salesforce will provide your Sales, Marketing, and Customer Support Teams with improved insight into Accounts, Opportunities, Contacts, and Tasks all in one location, without the need for external Administration.
Salesforce offers a comprehensive perspective of the Customer, which allows your Teams to complete sales more quickly and make smarter Business Decisions. It’s simple to switch between modules, and you can even collaborate with your peers.
Salesforce Customisation refers to the addition of strong functionality to your CRM Platform through unique programming and coding. This customization includes Apex Classes, Apex Triggers, various third-party Connectors, Visual Force Emails, utilising CSS to change the Page Layout, and constructing Visual Force Pages.
In addition, a wide variety of additional Apps may be downloaded and connected into your current Salesforce Ecosystem via the Salesforce AppExchange. MailChimp, Dropbox, Gmail, and many more Apps fall under this category.
Salesforce for Small Business Advantage: Customer Trust
Small Business Growth Strategy #2
With each and every Customer Interaction, Small Businesses must prove themselves as trustworthy. That trust forms the foundation for Customer Loyalty.
How Salesforce for Small Business Helps
Salesforce Essentials enables your Company to learn where your Customers prefer to interact. Salesforce Essentials can quickly build an experience that makes it simple to integrate Social Channels, whether it’s Social Media Channels, Blogs, or Email Communications. With just a few clicks, you’ll be up and running in no time. With direct access to your Social Media Accounts, you can connect with every Customer on their preferred Channel directly from Salesforce. This allows you to respond to Consumer demands swiftly and avoid negative brand ratings.
If you would like to explore more on Social Media Content Management right from your Salesforce, you can check out our guide on Salesforce Social Studio: The Convenient Social Media Management Tool.
Furthermore, with the assistance of adding a Chat Box function to your Website, Small Business Owners may manage Prospect and Customer discussions from the Web and receive Real-time Notifications as well as any important Customer Information.
Salesforce for Small Business Advantage: Investor and Capital Access
Small Business Growth Strategy #3
Find a balance between Outside Investing & Reinvesting in your Business.
How Salesforce for Small Business Helps
One of the most difficult hurdles for Small Business Owners is managing the reality that their net worth is tied up in a single Small Company—their own Business. Small Company Owners should strike a balance between their own diversified Portfolio Investments and outside Investments from Investors for Capital Acquisition in order to ensure the long-term viability of their Businesses.
Salesforce has its own Venture Capital and Investment Arm, called Salesforce Ventures, which solves this challenge.
The firm has also established the AI Innovation Fund, which will invest $50 million in Entrepreneurs that utilise AI to connect their Products with Salesforce.
Salesforce for Entrepreneurs gives Startups access to the Salesforce Technology, Tools, and Expertise they need to grow into strong Customer and Community-focused Businesses. Salesforce helps Entrepreneurs develop, grow, and give back through the AppExchange Partner Program, Salesforce Ventures, Pledge 1 percent, Customer-focused Solutions, and much more.
Furthermore, for Startups that need to establish a more solid footing, Salesforce Accelerate provides the insights, learning and support that Startups need.
Salesforce for Small Business Advantage: Dreamforce Community
Small Business Growth Strategy #4
Utilise Networking to build Contacts with Individuals in similar or related areas who will assist your Business discover new Clients and Partners.
How Salesforce for Small Business Helps
Dreamforce is Salesforce’s annual and largest Software Conference. It is held in San Francisco every year and draws about 170,000 people. This event has over 2,700 Seminars and Workshops, as well as Keynotes presented by outstanding speakers from famous Companies. This spectacular attracts thousands of Salesforce Trailblazers from around the world and is an experience like no other.
At Dreamforce, you can meet and learn firsthand how Salesforce is an incredible road ahead for your Small Business by engaging with thousands of other Small Business Owners.
Dreamforce 2021 will be held virtually from September 21-23, 2021. You may sign up using this link to get free access to Dreamforce via Salesforce+, their new streaming service.
Winning Customer Loyalty: Salesforce Infographic
Good Business habits foster Customer Loyalty, which enhances Customer Lifetime Value and Word-of-Mouth for your Brand. Salesforce has provided some insights on how your Small Business may earn more Customer Loyalty, Trust, and Love in the following Salesforce Infographic. We are grateful to Salesforce 360 Blog for condensing such useful information into a single image.
Conclusion
Overall, we offered a slew of reasons why Small Businesses should use Salesforce Essentials. While there are other top CRM Tools on the market, Salesforce is a very distinct one-of-a-kind SaaS Application that will undoubtedly streamline your Business Operations and give perks such as Funding, Massive Mentor and Expert Communities that are far too appealing to refuse.
To summarise, the benefits of using Salesforce for Small Businesses include:
- Salesforce, as an excellent tool for Small Businesses to manage their Present Clients.
- Salesforce makes it easier to find new Clients by providing a variety of options.
- Salesforce makes it simple to handle Social Media Marketing and Digital Marketing.
- Salesforce enables Small Companies to manage Sales while also providing delightful Customer Service.
- Salesforce’s Cloud access enables real-time access to Customer information, from any device.
- Employee activities such as tasks done, weekly/monthly productivity, and so on are simple to measure.
- Salesforce is compatible with all major browsers, including Chrome, Opera, and Firefox.
As a matter of fact, being a Small Business Owner and a recurring Salesforce CRM User, you are most likely working with a large number of Customer Datasets, Having all of this data in one location like Data Warehouse facilitates analysis and speeds up the decision-making process, so you can spend more time on the important.
Hevo Data is one super powering Application that can load your aggregated Data from various data sources such as Salesforce (Free Source Connector with Hevo), HubSpot, and various other SaaS applications into Data Warehouses like Snowflake, Redshift, Google BigQuery and Firebolt (Integration Coming Soon!), in a completely hassle-free & automated manner.
Visit our Website to Explore HevoWould you like to take Hevo for a test?
Sign Up for a 14-day free trial and experience the feature-rich Hevo suite first hand. You can also have a look at the unbeatable pricing that will help you choose the right plan for your business needs.
Also, please share your Salesforce for Small Business learning experience in the comments section below. We would be delighted to hear from you!
