Beth Clements, Author at ProvenWorks

Blog

How to get a job at a Salesforce ISV

by Beth Clements in News

If you’ve stumbled upon this blog and want to find out more about what a Salesforce ISV is and why you should work at one, please check out part 1 of this mini-series: Why work for a Salesforce ISV?

As part of my role, I am directly involved in recruitment at a scale up ISV. In this second part of our mini-series, I’m going to share what I’ve learned along the way through many hiring processes.

We’re going to take a look at some of the key skills you need to work at a Salesforce ISV, regardless of role, as well as a few top tips to give you the edge over the competition. There’ll even be a sneak peak at some real job interview questions!

What skills do I need to work at a Salesforce ISV?

Being adaptable is going to be incredibly important in having a long-lasting career at a Salesforce ISV. Not only do you have to keep up to date with the ISV’s product releases but you also have to be two steps ahead of Salesforce releases too. This goes hand in hand with having to be super organised. If you can prove that you have these two skills, you’re going to go a long way!

Another thing that I look out for is passion. Regardless of relevant experience, if you can show passion and determination to learn and get stuck in, there’s a high chance you will be able to get your foot in the door to begin your career in this industry.

What will give me the edge over other candidates?

Get on Trailhead! It is a FREE online learning platform filled with bitesize modules which are applied to real life scenarios to help users understand every aspect of the Salesforce platform.

Not only will it help you to understand if this industry is right for you but it will also give you the competitive edge. Not sure where to start? I recommend this module to begin with.

What are the interview questions like?

Having interviewed plenty of people here at ProvenWorks, the most common questions I ask for an entry-level role are:

What are the main benefits of using Salesforce?
Can you explain what a CRM is to someone who has never heard of it before?
What is the app store called that has over 5,000 Salesforce applications on it?
What product(s) do we sell?
Why would a customer want to use our product(s)? (This one is crucial: I want to know if you understand the value of our products)

Top tips from Salesforce experts

You’ll find that people who work in the Salesforce ecosystem are always happy to collaborate. So when I reached out to a variety of people that have either worked with ISVs, previously worked at an ISV or currently work at one, they were happy to share their experience.

Ben McCarthy

Ben McCarthy has been in the Salesforce Ecosystem since 2012, and is the founder of SalesforceBen.com, the largest Salesforce news site in the world. He’s spent his career working across end-users, consultancies and ISVs.

ISVs are a great place to thrive as a Salesforce professional, but it can require a mindshift when moving from an end-user or SI.

ISVs sell Salesforce products, and therefore no matter where you are working in the business, sales, marketing or customer success, you need to understand the value the product provides. Even if you are not in sales, employees of an ISV should always be looking for ways to further help their customers, and help them extract more value from the product.

Ensuring you learn about the industry and product of the company you are applying for is a sure fire way to impress your interviewers.

💡 Check out a wide range of ISV opportunities all over the globe at SFB Jobs!

Mike Davis

Mike is currently the Founder of GTM Guides, a consulting company that helps smart teams with great tech become successful companies in the Salesforce ecosystem. Mike has been navigating the Salesforce ecosystem for over a decade and has developed a deep knowledge of what works within it. His experience includes time at Xactly, Conga, and TaskRay. While the majority of his career has focused on the revenue side of the house—specifically in sales and alliances leadership—he has experienced every functional aspect of the Salesforce ecosystem within ISVs.

If you are new to the ecosystem, your most likely entry point into an ISV is going to either as a Support analyst or SDR/BDR in the sales function. I personally started as a support analyst and it gave me a wonderful opportunity to learn the Salesforce platform and customer service skills that served to inform my approach to sales (and all things go-to-market).

When you are applying for any job, know that there are hundreds of others that submit their resume alongside yours – how do you bubble up to the top 10 that get a phone screen?

If you are spending 10 hours per week applying for jobs, I would recommend spending 2.5 hours per job and apply to 4 jobs vs. spending 30 minutes per job applying to 20 jobs as you need to stand out. Someone needs to understand why they are going to take a chance on you as an unproven candidate in the ecosystem. Showing up with “why you and why them” messaging and Trailhead badges completed are two easy ways to stand out.

Summary

Now you’re all clued up on why you’d want to work for an ISV and how to get a job at an ISV, why not check out our careers page! We look at every CV we’re sent, even if we’re currently not advertising for a specific role.

And remember, even though it can feel really tough at times trying to move into a new sector, there are things you can do to set yourself apart. Keep going, it WILL be worth it!

Why work for a Salesforce ISV?

by Beth Clements in News

If you’re looking to work in software, you might well have heard of Salesforce, but did you know there is a whole ecosystem of jobs around Salesforce?

We’re going to explore the opportunities available in the wider Salesforce ecosystem, focusing on Salesforce ISV partners, and the reasons why you should consider working there.

But first, perhaps it’s worth explaining a few key terms.

What is a Salesforce ISV?

ISV stands for Independent Software Vendor. An ISV is an organisation specialising in making and selling application-specific software – in this case, solutions for Salesforce.

ISV partners create apps that are unique and expand, adjust or supplement the existing functionality that Salesforce offers. You can find a whole range of apps listed on the Salesforce AppExchange.

What is the Salesforce AppExchange?

We’ve all got apps on our phones. The AppExchange is a marketplace exactly like the App or Play store but specifically for Salesforce.

What are the benefits of working at a Salesforce ISV?

So now we know what a Salesforce ISV does, why should you consider working at one?
A few benefits spring to mind:

1. Remote working

The majority of ISVs you come across will offer remote / hybrid working. It’s something that Salesforce pushes heavily so it makes sense that ISVs follow suit.

2. Events

It’s likely everyone you come across in the Software / Tech industry will have heard of Salesforce but not as likely that they will know about every single ISV that exists (there are more than 5,000 apps on the AppExchange to give you some context here!). So naturally, whatever your role at an ISV, you’ll be encouraged to go to events or community-run user groups to get the company’s name out there.

🍕 I’ve not been to an event that hasn’t offered free food yet so what’s not to love!

3. The ISV community

Whilst you will find the first two benefits in most software companies, what makes ISVs unique is their collaborative nature. It’s an incredibly welcoming and friendly ecosystem. There’s even a huge Slack group exclusively for Salesforce ISV partners to share ideas, ask questions and work together! Chances are there will be opportunities for collaboration, co-hosting events, knowledge sharing, and no doubt you’ll make some great friends along the way!

Why work for an ISV?

Working for an ISV is incredibly rewarding because not only are you learning all about the Salesforce platform but you are also learning about the ins and outs of the product the ISV is selling too. One thing to bear in mind is that all ISVs are different. Like with any organisation, there are small ISVs and large ISVs. That’s why I’ve been in touch with a few people from different ISVs (who have different roles within their ISV) to get a few perspectives.

💡 Note: It’s highly likely that anyone you speak to within the Salesforce ecosystem is going to be willing to help you out. So if you want to know more about what it’s like to work at a certain ISV, why not get in touch with them to see if they can give you some insight?

Ruth Cawdron

Ruth Cawdron discovered the Salesforce ecosystem when she joined ProvenWorks, a British ISV, a year and a half ago. Switching industries after five years in the education sector, Ruth brings a keen passion for storytelling and creative collaboration to her role of Marketing Manager.

I think what’s struck me most working for a Salesforce ISV is that I have the best of both worlds. Obviously there are global ISVs out there but I’m lucky enough to work at a scale up. The size of our team means I get to wear lots of different hats and every day I see the direct impact of my contribution and decisions for the business. Equally, as a Salesforce Partner, we’re privileged to attend lots of huge (like REALLY HUGE!) events and gain access to opportunities that smaller software companies in other industries wouldn’t get. Yes, I work at a scale up, but I have potential to tap into the Salesforce’s 150,000-strong customer base and meet 200,000 trailblazers at Dreamforce!

The other thing I’d add is that there is a long term career in the Salesforce ISV industry if you want one. The skills you learn at one ISV and, equally as important, the contacts that you make, are completely transferable from one ISV to another regardless of size and industry.

Jack McCurdy

Jack is Salesforce DevOps Advocate at Gearset, guiding and educating Salesforce customers on how they can streamline delivery of their Salesforce applications. Jack spends most of his time in and building the community, with the aim of creating happier, more successful, and empowered professionals.

Working at an ISV gives you so much opportunity to understand how and why Salesforce teams do what they do. With that you can add a lot of colour, and a lot of value, to conversations across the ecosystem with the Salesforce professionals you meet who are looking to overcome the challenges that either you solve, or have spoken with others about.

We are all Salesforce end-users ourselves, or building AppExchange applications. That of course means there are roles in ISVs if building is your thing. But, if you’re looking to expand your horizons, apply your Salesforce knowledge differently, or gain exposure to how organisations work from every angle, then an ISV could be the place for you.

Are there other ways I can get involved in the Salesforce Ecosystem other than at an ISV?

Yes! There are two other main routes:

SI (System Integrator)
End Customer

Want to know more? Here’s a webinar hosted by Salesforce Ben and Hays Technology to tell you everything you need to know! (PS. I was talking on the webinar too!)

Summary

We’ve looked at what a Salesforce ISV is, and how it sells apps on the AppExchange. We’ve taken a dive into some of the key benefits of working at an ISV and heard from different people within the ISV community. Hopefully that’s given you some insight into why you might be interested in working for a Salesforce ISV!

How to get a job at an ISV

If you want to take the next step, stay tuned for Part 2 of this mini series to find out How to get a job at a Salesforce ISV.

How to populate a state value from a US ZIP Code using a Salesforce flow

by Beth Clements in AddressTools Support

Reducing manual data entry results in better user adoption, less friction for prospects and overall a better user experience.

In this example we are going to create a Salesforce flow that will fetch the State value from an entered US ZIP Code and populate the address’ state field. This removes the (often neglected!) requirement for end users to enter a State value at point of record entry. The ZIP Code data is part of AddressTools Premium which is available on the AppExchange.

Follow along with our step-by-step guide by installing a free two-week free trial of AddressTools Premium.

Create a flow to automate State population

Go to Salesforce Setup | Flow.
Select New Flow.
Choose Record-Triggered Flow.
Search and select the object that you are configuring the process for.
Set Trigger the Flow When to A record is created or updated.
Select Done.

Set entry conditions.

Condition requirements All Conditions Are Met (AND)
pw_ccpro__BillingCountryLookup__c Equals United States
BillingState Is Null TRUE
BillingPostalCode Is Null FALSE
When to Run the Flow for Updated Records Every time a record is updated and meets the condition requirements
Optimize the Flow For Fast Field Updates

The flow will now be ready to start adding elements to.

Select Get Records and drag it under the Start element
Label Get ZIP
Object ZIP Code

Set entry conditions.

Condition requirements All Conditions Are Met (AND)
Name Equals {!$Record.BillingPostalCode}
How Many Records to Store Only the first record
How to Store Record Data Automatically store all fields

Add another element.

Select Update Records and drag it under the Get Records element
Label Update Account
How to Find Records to Update and Set Their Values Use the account record that triggered the flow
Set Filter Conditions None-Always Update Record

Set Field Values for the Account Record.

BillingState {!Get_ZIP.pw_ccpro__State__r.Name}

Make sure the elements are connected and Activate your flow.

Before:

After:

How can I run this for my historic data?

If you have existing records in Salesforce that you want to run this logic for check out our guide on how to run a mass update using Salesforce Flows.

AddressTools

Validate, standardize and verify your address data with our award-winning solution. Learn more and book a demo.

Find out more

Salesforce Sales Engagement (High Velocity Sales): save time and stay compliant

by Beth Clements in AddressTools PhoneTools

Sales reps only spend 1/3rd of their time selling

According to the third edition of the Salesforce State of Sales report, inside sales reps spend on average 34% of their days only selling. The rest of the time they’re busy seeking out prospects, planning tasks and entering data. In addition, reps end up using on average 6 different tools to manage their sales activity.

Salesforce State of Sales Report (3rd edition)

With this in mind, it’s clear that something needs to change.

Sales Engagement: less admin, more selling!

Two of the main benefits of selling with Sales Engagement are the Lightning Sales Console and Work Queues. With these tools you have highly tailored and centralized workspaces which enable your sales reps to view everything on one screen.

Reps can see and manage their work queue in one place whilst simultaneously viewing all of the relevant information related to the lead or contact. Viewing and interacting with tasks efficiently means more time selling!

See everything in one place with Sales Engagement

How do sales reps know if they can call a prospect?

If you’re cold calling as part of your sales strategy, you need to be careful. The country you’re operating in might have a registry of numbers it is illegal to call. For example, the USA has the ‘Do Not Call’ registry and the UK has the ‘Telephone Preference Service (TPS)’. You can get hit with hefty fines for noncompliance.

If you don’t know about the Telephone Preference Service (and corporate equivalent), then don’t worry! Ruth, our Marketing Director, wrote up this really handy guide to tell you everything you need to know.

If you are up to speed, then ask yourself how efficient is your process? Your reps could be wasting a lot of time using an external service to screen numbers. And can you really trust that a process involving extra manual effort is actually being done?

PhoneTools provides manual and automated TPS and CTPS screening right from within Salesforce. This means sales reps can see at a glance whether the number is safe to call or not.

How do sales reps know when to call a prospect?

Having all of your sales information in one place is great, but it’s what your reps do with it that counts. This is where a nifty piece of AddressTools functionality comes in.

Reaching out to a prospect at 2am or scheduling a meeting without considering their timezone frustrates the client and leaves your sales reps feeling unproductive.

AddressTools is great for making sure your address data is verified, validated and standardized, but it also displays the current time to the sales rep. Best of all, it’s right there within Salesforce so no extra windows or manual effort for your sales team! This small piece of functionality can make a huge difference for both the sales rep and client experience.

Sales Engagement: optimizing your sales process

In this article you’ve learned the importance of:

taking the time to review your sales process
cutting down on the number of different tools you need
keeping everything at your sales reps’ fingertips in Salesforce

What’s left? Make those changes and watch how you save time, stay compliant and ultimately sell more!

PhoneTools

Screen against the UK TPS and CTPS databases to stay compliant and avoid fines.

Learn more

AddressTools

The award-winning package for address standardization, validation and verification.

Learn more

ProvenWorks wins 2021 Salesforce Partner Innovation Award! 🎉

by Beth Clements in News

Salesforce announced ProvenWorks as the winner of the 2021 Partner Innovation Award in the Nonprofit Award category for our work with Malala Fund.

With over 400 partner success stories submitted for consideration, we are delighted to have been recognized for our transformative impact as a Salesforce ISV Partner.

ProvenWorks win Nonprofit award for work with Malala Fund

Malala Fund is working for a world where all girls can learn and lead. Malala Fund advocates for resources and policy changes needed to give all girls a secondary education, investing in local education leaders and amplifying the voices of girls fighting for change.

ProvenWorks win Salesforce Partner Innovation Award with customer Malala Fund

“We at Malala Fund are thrilled to be recognized as a forward-thinking, innovative nonprofit by Salesforce. We are grateful for ProvenWork’s support in implementing AddressTools to help us better manage our donor data and are excited to continue refining our systems in partnership with ProvenWorks and Salesforce!”

– Lena Alfi, Chief Development Officer @ Malala Fund

Read the success story

Time to celebrate!

We’re delighted to be recognised for this award as a small but mighty UK-based Salesforce ISV Partner. We’re excited for everything that is to come over the next year. Watch this space!

“It’s a huge team effort. We’d be nowhere without our Development team creating these valuable solutions, our Sales team ensuring our products are the best fit for our inspiring clients, and finally our diligent Customer Success team who won’t stop until our clients experience impact that is truly transformative.”

Joel Mansford, Managing Director @ ProvenWorks

Interested to learn more about our solution?

We’d love to show you around AddressTools

Book a demo

The Salesforce Ben review of AddressTools is live 🚀

by Beth Clements in AddressTools News

Andreea Doroftei talks through the key features of AddressTools as well as ideal use cases, setup effort, and how this app could be a great addition to your Salesforce org.

AddressTools is the ultimate package for address validation, standardization & verification.

Check out this in-depth review of AddressTools for Salesforce by Andreea for Salesforce Ben.

Read the Salesforce Ben article

Interested in seeing it for yourself?

If you’re interested in finding out more about AddressTools, use the scheduler below to book a call with our team.

AddressTools Premium: Understanding standardization in AddressTools

by Beth Clements in Support

What is address standardization?

Standardization is the process of converting multiple known values to a single predetermined format. For example, “United States”, “USA”, “US”, and “United States of America” can each be standardized to “US”.

The same behaviour can also be applied to states. For example, “TX” can be standardized to “Texas”. Standardization is a crucial piece of functionality for organizations running reports on country and state data, or relying on duplicate rules where these field values are compared.

What address fields can be standardized in AddressTools?

Standardization is available for the following fields:

Country
State

What formats are acceptable for country standardization?

There are five formats available for country standardization, an example for Egypt is provided below:

Full name – Egypt
ISO-2 – EG
ISO-3– EGY
Local name (Latin characters) – Miṣr
Local name (Native characters) – مِصر‎

This data is stored on the Countries object installed with the package.

An additional object “Alternative Country Names” is also installed with AddressTools. This allows you to store additional common names and/or misspellings of countries that will then be standardized to the parent country record during upsert. Some are installed by default such as “England”, “Scotland”, “Wales”, and “Northern Ireland” which belong to “United Kingdom”.

What formats are acceptable for state standardization?

There are two formats available for state standardization, an example for Texas is provided below

Full name – Texas
Sub-code value – TX

An additional object “Alternative State Names” is also installed with AddressTools. This allows you to store additional common names and/or misspellings for states that will then be standardized to the parent state record during upsert. Some are installed by default.

Back to the AddressTools Premium installation walkthrough

Improving location analysis with quality address data

by Beth Clements in AddressTools

Salesforce is one of the best CRM platforms out there, and with the acquisition of MapAnything, we’re pleased to see a focus on the importance of location-based use cases. But there’s STILL a problem… These solutions are only as good as the data you put into them. Whilst Salesforce offers a fantastic backbone for storing, organizing and reporting on your data, and MapAnything allows for advanced location analysis, what happens if the address data is invalid?

Many of our customers initially reach out to us with the low quality of their address data dragging down their mapping solutions. Whether it be data missing entirely, or incorrect values, poor data cripples the effectiveness and value of their mapping.

On average, 5% of deliveries will fail. Each failure carries not only the monetary cost of administration, re-handling and re-sending, but also the hidden costs of customer dissatisfaction. Marketing mailing is worthless if the copy never reaches the prospective client. Site visits can be delayed, or flummoxed entirely by an incorrect street or postal code.

So we understand the problem, how can we solve it?

At ProvenWorks, we provide an address quality solution called AddressTools which battles bad address data at the point of entry, both interactively and automatically.

Whether ensuring that spellings are correct or standardized, or that values are entered for certain countries, or fully verifying the address to the exact premise internationally, it all gets handled in Salesforce. Records are automatically flagged to notify the user whether or not an address is valid and deliverable.

Got questions? Chat to us!

Do you want to learn more about how AddressTools could be a great addition to your Salesforce org? We’d love to chat! Use the scheduler to book a free call with our team and start your journey to better address data.

What is the impact of poor quality data?

by Beth Clements in Data Management

Data is an incredibly important asset to any business. Bad quality data is not just a time sink to remedy, it can also cause active damage to an organization. Starting with good quality data is key, especially in Salesforce where qualifying leads, assigning key accounts, and ensuring cases are routed to the correct queues are paramount.

What are the consequences of bad data?

Damage to relationships with clients and partners
Lowered credibility
Poor productivity
Poor decision making
Lost revenue

How can I get accurate data in my Salesforce Organization?

Salesforce provides various ways to keep data accurate such as validation rules, required fields, workflow rules, and duplicate management rules. We believe that good data is the basis of success. This means correct data at the point of entry, and where that’s not possible, it means having the ability to highlight and intelligently cleanse poor data.

We offer a range of solutions for the Salesforce CRM platform to promote and assist accurate data entry, to provide methods to cleanse your data, integrate it, and help keep your business compliant with GDPR.

AddressTools

AddressTools can verify address data both at the point of entry, or as a clean up task. With the data being verified against local postal authorities in over 240+ countries, you can rely on AddressTools to ensure that Salesforce is your master source of knowledge. Ensure that users in your Salesforce Organization are spending their time efficiently, rather than fixing the issues caused by poor quality address data.

IndustryComplete

IndustryComplete uses NAICS, SIC and iSIC classification systems to verify industries in Salesforce. With an easy-to-use component, users can search for an industry using keywords which will populate the standard Salesforce industry field. Having an interactive and easy to use component to enter in industry data not only saves users time, but ensures accurate data is entered.

SimpleImport

The Managed Import component from SimpleImport allows users to import data into Salesforce directly, but safely into predefined fields, mapped by an administrator. Standard users are empowered with streamlined import functionality, but with strict, customizable controls to ensure security and data integrity.

PhoneTools

PhoneTools allows you to screen against UK TPS and CTPS lists to assist with PECR compliance, all within Salesforce with no coding required. Manually check numbers when you need them or automate screening to keep you up-to-date.

For more information on our products discussed above please check out our AppExchange listings for AddressTools, IndustryComplete, SimpleImport and PhoneTools.

Known bug with ‘Enable Secure Static Resources for Lightning Components’ forces delay to Summer’21

by Beth Clements in IndustryComplete

Update: 10/MAY/2021

Salesforce have now postponed the enforcement of the Release Update ‘Enable Secure Static Resources for Lightning Components’ indefinitely. Due to a number of issues that were introduced, their advice is now “Don’t enable it”. We recommend all organizations should follow this advise.

Update: 13/JAN/2021

The initial issue has been resolved however another issue has been introduced which has caused a further delay to the forced enablement of this Release Update. Full information on the issue is logged via this known issue.

Original post:

An issue has been introduced by Salesforce with their latest Release Update ‘Enable Secure Static Resources for Lightning Components’ which has resulted in Salesforce having to delay the forced enablement to Summer’21. When enabled, Aura components provided within managed packages that make reference to static resources also packaged with the solution result in Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) issues.

A quick way to check whether this affects you is by analyzing the browser console for CORS errors when you try to use your Aura component once the Release Update is enabled (example below displaying the AddressTools override when the Release Update is enabled).

Salesforce have officially acknowledged that this is not desired behavior and have delayed the enforcement of this Release Update until Summer’21 with the aim to have a fix completed and available in Spring’21. The official Salesforce release notes have been updated to reflect this.

You can also track the known issue. By using the This Issue Affects me, you will receive updates from Salesforce as they work on resolving the problem.

This Release Update affects AddressTools & IndustryComplete. We suggest disabling this Release Update until Salesforce have released the update resolving the issue. For more information, contact support@provenworks.com.

What is AddressTools?

We’re glad you asked! AddressTools is our 5* app for Salesforce which takes the worry out of bad address data by keeping all of your addresses validated, verified, corrected, and standardized. Like the sound of it? Try it for yourself on the AppExchange!

What is IndustryComplete?

Another great question! IndustryComplete is the ultimate industry code search tool for Salesforce. Look up NAICS, SIC and ISIC data without ever leaving your org to improve your industry data. You can even attach multiple industries to your accounts. Want to try out IndustryComplete? It’s on the AppExchange!