The 12 Days of Salesforce for 2024 (Day One: Automation)
TL;DR: Here is my list of things you should be considering as you reboot your business for 2024, focusing on Salesforce itself, starting with Automation.
I hope everyone had a lovely holiday of whatever flavor you enjoy.
I spent part of mine thinking about how I can help everyone plan for the New Year by considering ways they can help their Salesforce instance help them better run their businesses.
Of course, the New Year means it’s time to reflect on what has happened and to look ahead to where we want to go. I thought I’d wrap up some thoughts in the form of 12 lovely days of Salesforce, just to stay in the holiday spirit a little longer.
And while the best explanation for why there are 12 Days of Christmas arguably belongs to Bob and Doug McKenzie, bear with me as I publish the daily thoughts for 12 days; I hope you’ll find it worth it.
If you add up the annualized savings from all twelve days for a hypothetical organization with 30 users — conservatively — the savings total is over $150k.
That’s over three times your Salesforce investment alone.
Now do I have your attention?
All of the 12 Days entries are based on a similiar premise and process:
- Conduct an assessment of where you are via real introspection within your company by asking open-ended questions of your user base,
- Decide what outcome you’re expecting, including asking the 5 Whys, for instance, to get to the root issues and solutions,
- and then Develop a detailed plan of attack. Change doesn’t come without effort and feeling uncomfortable, but if you step back, observe honestly and openly, and create a way to make improvements, the results can pay huge dividends.
If you’re unsure of how to address your problems, here are some thoughts about how to find the help that you need.
Day One (of Twelve): Automation of Repetitive Tasks
What you should consider: Implementing workflow rules, process builder, or flows to automate routine tasks, reducing manual effort and minimizing errors.
What you should evaluate: If you estimate your team’s time spent on manual tasks and calculate potential time savings and multiply by the average hourly rate to derive potential cost savings, the numbers add up quickly.
Annual cost savings estimate: $15,000.
How I would approach this day’s thoughts:
Every single organization has elements of rote work that can and should be automated. Are there opportunities to automate responses to emails? Responses to invitations? Meeting summaries generated by AI?
Ask some questions of your user base, including: how do you prepare for update meetings (pipeline, forecast, board, etc.)? What tasks do you consider important but annoying?
You’ll likely find the answers enlightening, and with the right salesforce consultant, you’re bound to figure out a strategy to cash in on the time savings.
This is a part of the 12 Days of Salesforce for 2024 series. Here are links to the other initiatives you should consider, and as always, please reach out to me if you’d like some counsel or my approach via my team at Rule Six Consulting LLC.
Day One: Automation of Repetitive Tasks
Day Two: Data Cleanup & Deduplication
Day Three: Analytics & Reporting
Day Six: User Training & Adoption
Day Seven: Mobile Optimization
Day Eight: Artifical Intelligence
Day Nine: Communities and Portals
Day Eleven: Security & Compliance
Day Twelve (Hooray!): Improvement Cycles & Feedback
I appreciate you spending some time thinking about these topics with me, and I welcome feedback and additions.
