Getting Executive Buy-In for a Salesforce Managed Services Investment

Why Salesforce Managed Services 

If you’re reading this article, then chances are you are a nonprofit organization on Salesforce. Not only that, but there’s also a good chance you understand what Salesforce Managed Services are and how they can be a valuable way for your organization to optimize, streamline, and increase efficiency with your system. To recap for anyone who’s unclear on the specifics, the term Salesforce Managed Services refers to a suite of professional services geared towards strategically improving an organization’s Salesforce instance, usually o nan ongoing basis. For us at The Fresh Perspective Group, we support clients with a range of Salesforce services to address their most urgent, pressing needs, continually optimize and streamline their system, and help them establish a strategic long-term technology roadmap. (And more!) A big challenge for many nonprofit organizations on Salesforce is having the internal capacity on an ongoing basis to help optimize the system, manage updates, or align their technology to achieve mission-related goals. A managed services partner can provide strategic guidance to give your organization the support it needs to fully leverage the Salesforce platform, both today and into the future. This all sounds ideal, but how do you get your executive or board’s buy-in for a strategic investment in Salesforce Managed Services? Read on as we share a few practical tips! 

Be Clear on Your Why 

When making any appeal to leadership for a strategic budget investment, clearly presenting tangible data will show that you have deeply considered the situation before making your request. You could share metrics relating to data hygiene issues in your system (for example, the number of duplicate records), show examples of automations or flows that need cleanup, list integrations that require review or updates, or share feature releases that haven’t been explored. In fact, Hubbl Technologies offers AI-powered diagnostic tools to help you gain critical visibility to your Salesforce environment as part of this data-gathering process. If there are manual processes involved in generating reports or moving data between systems, consider documenting how much time this takes your team members and how it’s holding them back from other important work. Assess your internal user base and identify what specialized Salesforce knowledge or expertise is lacking. In short, provide clear evidence backed by real-life data that shows why working with a managed services partner will help relieve some of this pain and set you on a strong path for the future. 

The Gap Between Where You Are and Where You Want to Be 

Most nonprofit organizations have a strategic planning cycle that involves setting multi-year, annual, and quarterly goals. (Want to read about our take on strategic goal setting for nonprofits? Check out our guide here.) In an ideal world, your organization’s tech systems would fully support achieving those goals, increasing efficiency and effectiveness so your hardworking staff can do more of the work that matters. Sadly, there is often a gap between the intention of the technology systems to support achieving those goals and the reality of the day-to-day grind of working at a mission-focused nonprofit. When you’re presenting to the executive team to secure their approval for a Salesforce Managed Services engagement, it’s critical to align this investment to the vision of achieving mission-related goals. If possible, show the gap from where you are today to where you need to be to realistically achieve the objectives. If you have a goal to increase donor retention from 45% to 60% but struggle with personalizing donor communications because of complex data hygiene issues in your system, make sure that’s clearly documented. Your executive team will appreciate understanding how a managed services investment will ultimately get your organization closer to achieving your mission. 

Stay Focused on Outcomes 

If step one for securing approval for a managed services engagement is doing your due diligence with real-life data and step two is aligning your request to achieving mission-related goals, then step three is establishing and communicating clear objectives for the investment. Your executive team will probably want clarity on what the result of a managed services partnership would be and how it will benefit your organization as a whole. Paint them a picture of a future state where your Salesforce environment is optimized, staff are happier, there are less points of technology friction, and achieving mission-related goals with the support of technology feels totally doable. We suggest identifying a few priority areas to focus on for the managed services engagement (likely identified in step one) and building some S.M.A.R.T. goals relating to those priority areas. Clearly showing your leadership what you hope to achieve and how it will help your organization will go a long way towards getting their approval and buy-in for the request.   

Be Prepared for Objections 

This is the cornerstone of making any big request of a leadership or executive team. There is certainly a component of emotional intelligence involved, where you need to see the situation from their eyes and empathize with how they might be feeling about it. The key to handling objections from your leadership team is strategic preparation. Anticipate their concerns or objections and use real-life data to address them. Where possible, show specific examples of the time that’s wasted due to inefficient systems and how it’s taking time away from important mission-related work. Additionally, it’s important to break down costs transparently so they understand exactly where the budget is going and the impact you expect the investment to have. Speaking of impact, a big part of getting executives on board for a Salesforce Managed Services investment is aligning the effort to achieving mission-related goals. Consider speaking to the cost of inaction (ie: doing nothing or maintaining the status quo) and aim to paint a compelling picture of why it’s important to move forward now.  

You Secured Their Approval! Now What? 

Congratulations! You theoretically have your leadership team on board with the concept of moving forward with a Salesforce Managed Services investment. You have a vision of how your organization will progress confidently towards achieving mission-related goals with the help of technology. Now it’s time to dig in and truly understand how managed services can benefit your organization and what options are out there for your organization’s unique needs. Check out our detailed guide, Maximizing Value: The Nonprofit’s Guide to Salesforce Managed Services, and learn more about the options that are out there, how to find the right partner, and why managed services truly matter. Download our guide today. Thanks for reading!