vmartinez

Which of the following is NOT a best practice for stakeholder calls on the topic of platform auditing?

 

• Center the conversation around the business process
• Center the conversation around their specific CRM product
• Ask specific questions to get to technology-business impact
• Conclude with data-supported recommendations

 

 

True or False? It is ideal to have all technology stakeholders and billing owners at your client’s company join your platform conversations.

 

• True

 

• False

 

 

True or False? Proactive conversations are planned ahead of time, allowing you to gather adequate background information and prepare appropriate questions for your platform conversation with your client.

 

• True

 

• False

 

 

True or False? After you’ve performed a few platform or tech stack evaluations, you can skip over the discovery questions and jump to solutions quicker for each subsequent client your firm works with.

 

• True

 

• False

 

Scenario: A client’s Sales VP wants your help to implement Salesforce for their team’s CRM needs, but they already have an instance of HubSpot CRM and Sales professional that one of their Sales divisions is using. The Sales VP is simply unaware of HubSpot’s CRM and sales tools, and hasn’t considered the costs and benefits of getting more HubSpot Sales seats vs. a new Salesforce instance. What should you do?

 

• Remind the Sales VP about the existing HubSpot Sales + CRM instance, and remind her of its capabilities. Ask if there is a specific reason they need Salesforce rather than what they already have, and suggest doing a cost benefit analysis that includes not only the price of both tools, but also how ingrained the existing HubSpot Sales tool is, and what it would cost in terms of time/money to implement Salesforce.
• Remind the Sales VP gently, but remember that your job is to implement what the Sales VP needs in order to maintain a productive business relationship. Don’t linger on the topic and risk offending her. Skip over doing any kind of discovery, and move on towards implementing Salesforce. This is a large company, and it won’t hurt them too much if they have more than one tool for doing the same thing.
• Suggest that the Sales VP forego the CRM idea altogether. Their team is too disorganized to benefit from a CRM, and are better off organizing their process in excel. Don’t mention the limited HubSpot instance their team is already using, because you want to avoid muddying the waters too much with complexity. Focus on Sales consulting, and try and convince the Sales VP to look beyond the need for a CRM.
• Take an educational approach towards consulting them on this issue, rather than pushing for any particular solution aggressively at first. Find out if it makes monetary and temporal sense to expand the existing HubSpot Sales instance vs. implementing Salesforce. Once you’ve made your decision regarding what’s best for their tech stack, remind the client that they’re obligated to follow your recommendations if they wish to retain you as a partner.

 

Scenario: A client’s CEO wants to replace their CMS (Content Management System) within one month because it isn’t meeting all of the organization’s needs. When you interview the day-to-day users, you realize that the CMS is deeply ingrained into the company’s business process, and is being used heavily. You know that it will likely take over 6 months, at the very least, to replatform to a new CMS. What should you tell the client’s CEO?

 

• Be straightforward with the CEO. She may not be satisfied with the CMS, but it’s too deeply ingrained to replace quickly. It will take time and money to properly replace it with a new CMS.
• Decline the project and move on. Let the CEO know you cannot meet their timeline, and therefore they aren’t a good fit for your services. Tell the CEO to buy a HubSpot technical consulting package.
• Tell the CEO to buy a HubSpot technical consulting package.
• Tell the CEO that they should forget about replacing the CMS, and should focus on replacing their CRM system instead.