I’m not the type of person who enjoys tedious processes; I would much rather be involved in conversations addressing specific questions and needs from clients and customers. In my opinion, that’s the best part of working in sales. It follows, then, that the worst part involves all the time spent manually working data for lead generation.
So much outbound lead generation involves manual processes, even with the use of systems like Salesforce. Prospecting is critical when it comes to attaining sales goals, and we, like most, utilize a system for tracking leads that require the compilation of contacts and data from different records, systems, and formats. Whether leads are obtained using social media or tools like generator entities that send spreadsheets of contacts, effectively tracking leads requires the generation of records in multiple systems. Going back and forth between systems is time-consuming, to say the least.
For a little while, I had been spending a majority of my days compiling data on the social media site and then manually entering that data on our Salesforce instance. I had begun to look into streamlining this process with the use of adapters provided on both sides, but then I had an epiphany.
“LARRY, YOU WORK FOR AN INTEGRATION SOLUTION PROVIDER! USE YOUR OWN PRODUCT!”
Adeptia Connect has PRE-BUILT connectors for Salesforce (and Adeptia is also an approved provider on Salesforce App Exchange). I created one lead generation form, imported it to Adeptia Connect, mapped the data to the “Create a Lead” template within SFDC and hit the send button. Voila.
Just like that, I generated 70+ leads in Salesforce in a few minutes. Now, there’s no more time-consuming data entry, which means that I get to spend more time doing what I love about sales — talking to potential customers. Suffice to say, I’m a little embarrassed I didn’t streamline sooner using our own product to increase internal efficiency. I can only hope that my CEO, Lou Ennuso, isn’t going to ask me for my credit card number in our next team meeting. Even if he did, though, I’d say it would still be worth it.
For further reading, check out:
Adeptia On SalesForce AppExchange
The Dark Side of Custom Coding
8 Commonly Made Mistakes In Salesforce Integration