Leverage project templates earlier in the sales process to improve your CPQ bookings and delivery

With Salesforce CPQ (configure, price, quote), sales reps can create accurate quotes for their customers, going beyond rudimentary Opportunities Products and Quotes. CPQ is a perfect solution to efficiently sell complex product sets and bundles, think Netflix subscriptions. By providing a great level of customizations, salespeople can generate proposals and quotes fast, reach their targets, and avoid errors and delays. Under the right configuration, CPQ increases the odds of winning engagements and overall efficiency of your sales team. 

200 hrs/rep/yr
Time spent creating quotes and getting approvals.

Source: State of Sales

Julian Ricciardi leading a Q&A session on best practices for securing CPQ engagements.

Why is CPQ a lucrative niche for Salesforce Consulting Partners?

CPQ is a complex product to deploy. Because of the extensive array of features, potential use cases, and the complexities involved in implementing Salesforce CPQ, mastering CPQ may entail a challenging learning curve. Given the scarcity of qualified implementation resources, CPQ configuration projects can quickly evolve into lucrative opportunities for Salesforce Consulting Partners, potentially becoming a profitable niche expertise and avenue for revenue growth.

A fast-evolving product line

CPQ, also known as Revenue Cloud, is expected to mix with the new Revenue Lifecycle Management, promising to deliver capabilities beyond Salesforce CPQ, Products and Pricebooks. Salesforce customers can leverage this transition by working with experienced partners familiar with the fast-paced evolution of this product line.

Leverage project templates for repeatable success

Salesforce Consulting Partners can also drive massive gains when selling CPQ solutions by leveraging project plans early in their opportunity phase. By linking deployment recipes, proposal templates and project structures early, consulting partners can secure and deliver CPQ engagements more efficiently, all while collaborating frictionlessly with both internal and external stakeholders.

1. STREAMLINE SALES TO DELIVERY
PSA and Project Management frameworks will help partners win profitable gigs faster. By aligning with their Professional Services teams earlier on (Opportunity stage), sales teams can confirm that their firm’s offerings are aligned with customers needs and best practices. Breaking down silos + building on a common thread is the perfect runway to delivering high CPQ value to customers.

2. IMPROVE FORECASTING WITH CLEAR BENCHMARKS
Another significant benefit Ss’ could expect when championing this approach is a direct improvement of the way sales teams forecast revenues, bench, and estimate efforts to deliver engagements. Existing baselines are helpful for estimating outcomes because they provide precious reference points for predicting and managing outcomes more effectively.

3. FOSTER PRODUCTIVE COLLABORATION
Under these ideal circumstances, sharing project documentation, timelines, and deliverables internally and externally becomes fluent. Moreover, improving communication and stronger business relations will also nurture trust within projects. Improved collaboration through repeatable frameworks fosters a more dynamic and adaptable business environment, leading to improved decision-making, efficiency, and ultimately, better sales and project outcomes.

🚀 BONUS TRACK: CPQ Certification advice from Salesforce expert Omar Sameh.

Salesforce consultant Omar Sameh shared with our readers the following tips on how to leverage training and certifications to elevate your team’s CPQ game!

Learning CPQ and passing the CPQ specialist certification might not be as straightforward as other more popular certifications. However, there’s more than enough resources online and here’s how I did it in four easy steps:

1– Start by completing the exam preparation on Trailhead. After that, take on a bigger challenge, get hands-on and complete the Billing Specialist Super Set, one of seven super sets available on Trailhead!

2- The popular Apex Hours offers a great free series on Youtube, that covers all the basics of CPQ. Watch it while tackling step 3.

3- Get Hands-on! Find a product that you love so much, like configuring your next tropical experience travel package, or that you use on a daily basis, like your mobile phone service and try to replicate the functionality in CPQ. This step will give you a great understanding of the capability of the platform and how things could be done.

4- Unfortunately, Focus on Force has not blessed us with a CPQ course, yet! Nonetheless, there are more than enough questions that a quick Google search would be able to answer. Take your time to understand each question and validate the result!

You liked this Klient Tip? Share it with your team!