How to Pass Salesforce Sales Representative Exam

6.3 Deal Management: 37% (22 Questions)

Strategic Prospecting
BANT framework: Sales teams will make the call based on the lead’s budget, authority, need and timing.
- Budget: Leads always have a budget. It just might not be allocated to whatever the rep is selling.
- Authority: Sales reps may move away from leads that seem too junior,
- Need: Think of “need” as a spectrum within an individual sales lead.
- Timing: Nobody likes a long sales cycle, particularly those doing the selling.
The Better Way For Sales Teams To Approach The BANT Framework
Sales process is a series of steps that move a sales rep from product and market research through the sales close—and beyond.
Stages of a successful steps sales process:
- Stage 1: Research
  - Build Product Knowledge
  - Research Your Ideal Prospect
- Stage 2: Prospecting
  - Begin Prospecting and Lead Generation
  - Qualify Prospects
  - Analyze a Customer’s Needs
- Stage 3: Sales Call and Close
  - Lead a Sales Call
  - Follow Up and Close the Deal
- Stage 4: Relationship Building
  - Nurture the Relationship and Upsell
Common mistakes to avoid in the sales process:
- Don’t Go in Unprepared
- Don’t Skip the Discovery Call
- Don’t Make a Sales Pitch Before Qualifying a Lead
- Don’t Highlight Product Features, Highlight Value
- Don’t Be Unempathetic
- Don’t Talk Too Much
- Don’t Be Unprepared for Objections
- Don’t Make Sales Calls Too Long
- Don’t Wait Too Long to Follow Up
Different types of sales methodologies:
- Challenger Selling: Challenger-focused sales reps are all about pulling prospects into their world, instead of the other way around.
- Trigger or Signal-Based Selling: This more recent methodology looks for signs of customer need in data trends, then addresses this need with product or service solutions.
- Value-Based Selling: Leans heavily on value-first engagement and a customer-centric sales approach.
- 360-Degree Selling: This holistic approach is focused on long-term relationship-building. Salesforce calls it the Customer 360 Methodology (C360 for short).

Customer-Centric Discovery Strategies
Customer-centric discovery has four steps.
- Know your customer – know their industry, business, and people.
- Be your customer – involves empathy, curiosity, and engagement.
- Connect with your customer- you prepare for your customer meeting, confirm and sharpen your insights with your customer, and organize and visualize your insights through the process of whiteboarding.
- Create with your customer – Review the challenges you confirmed with your customer. Storyboard your customer’s vision for the future. Draft a plan with detailed recommendations for next steps.
Understand more about Customer’s:
- Goals: What they want to achieve.
- Values: What their guiding principles are internally and with their consumers.
- Initiatives: What they do now to achieve their goals.
- Strategies: What they plan to do to achieve their goals.
- Obstacles: What problems they face as they work to achieve their goals.

10 Types of Questions Small Businesses Can Ask to Identify Pain Points
Matching Your Product’s Value with Your Customer’s Values
Pricing Strategies and Sales Proposals
Revenue Model
- Subscription: When the customer subscribes to software as a service, revenue is recognized as services are delivered. That is, revenue is recognized when licenses are activated, which may not be the day the contract was signed.
- On-premises: When the customer buys software outright, revenue is recognized up front for the licenses and equipment necessary to run software on site.
Deal Terms

Term	What It Means
Annual order value (AOV)	Annual value of the contract
Total contract value (TCV)	Total amount a contract is worth
Annual contract value (ACV)	How much the value of a contract has gone up or down compared to last year
Revenue	Money your company earns and can recognize in its financial statements
Deferred Revenue	Cash up front on a subscription contract based on invoice generated. This turns into revenue as you deliver the services.

Deal Terms

Pricing Terms

Pricing Term	What It Is	When to Use It
Worldwide/company price list	List of prices for all product SKUs	When you need to know the price of a product
Discount approval matrix	Hierarchy of approvers for pricing discounts	To get the approvals you’ll need to offer different discounts
Pricing system	Often color-coded, this guidance helps you know if your pricing is great, good, or below average	To make sure your pricing is right for the size of your deal
Percentage-based pricing	List of products with derived pricing	When you need to know the price of a percentage-based product
Approval matrix–quoting	Hierarchy of approvers for contractual terms of a deal	To get the approvals you’ll need for terms in your deal contracts

Pricing Terms

Pricing Strategies
- Cost plus pricing: Take the base cost of production, or cost of doing business (service side), and add to that a markup, or profit for your business.
- Bundle pricing: Combine several products or services to create an incentive to buy “more” at a lower price than buying each individually.
- Value-based pricing: This is pricing based on the customer’s perception of how valuable your product or service is.
- Competitor-based pricing: Price your product or service based on your competitors’ pricing.
- Price skimming: Set a higher price and slowly lower the price as more and more competitors enter the market.

A sales proposal is a document you create to show the value of your product or service. When you use a sales proposal, you show your prospect why they should invest in you and how you can help their business.
The most important elements in a sales proposal are:
- A description of the product or service
- A list of customer needs and challenges
- An explanation of how your product or service will benefit them, and why they need it
- The return on investment, or what the customer will get in return for their business if they buy your product or service
Elements to include in Sales proposal.
- Title page
- Introduction (about your company)
- Challenges they might be trying to solve
- Solutions you can provide for your customer
- Selling proposition and benefits
- Pricing
- Timeline
- Case studies
- Client testimonials
- Terms and conditions of working together
- Next steps
An objection is a statement or question that indicates a barrier in the buying process.
Objections can be great because they:
- Give you clues to what customers really care about.
- Help you determine whether to move forward in the sales process. This is called qualification.
- Show you that customers want to hear more—if customers are completely uninterested, they won’t bother to object.
Types of objections

Objection type	What it sounds like
Product or Feature: An objection that relates to a specific product or feature	“I need this feature that you don’t provide.”
Price: A cost-based objection	“Your product is more expensive than other vendors’.”
Business: An authority-based objection that prevents the customer from making a decision	“I don’t have the authority to purchase your product.”
Implementation or Integration: An objection that’s specific to how the customer’s business operates	“I’m not sure our current system will work with your product.”
Hidden: An objection you have to ask more questions about to uncover—it can be any of the other objection types	“Your company isn’t right for our business.”
Stalling: An objection customers use to block progress in the sales process before revealing their real objection	“I’m too busy to make a decision right now.”

Types of objections

There are three steps for handling objects: Defuse, Discover, Deliver (3 Ds).
- Defuse—acknowledge the objection and address the emotion behind it.
- Discover—ask questions to get more details about what’s really going on.
- Deliver—respond to the objection.
7 Winning Steps for Effective Objection Handling
How to Close Sales Like an Absolute Pro
A sales contract is an agreement between a buyer and a seller. The seller agrees to deliver a product or service for a set price that the buyer agrees to pay. The contract outlines the transaction terms and also specifies the details of the products or services being offered.
Sales contracts often include the following items.
- Sales agreements: Sales agreements define what is being purchased and the terms of the sale.
- Order forms: These are forms that buyers fill out with their specific needs and then return to the seller.
- Change order forms: These forms allow a buyer to make changes to an existing order. These additions to existing contracts will adjust the terms and conditions.
- Master service agreements: MSAs are meant for long-term agreements, and outlines the terms and conditions for all future agreements.
- Statement of work: SOWs are often used for contracted work and services. They cover what the contractor provides, and includes deadlines, payment details, and requirements for the relationship.
- Terms of service: These are a collection of clauses that define how users interact with offerings such as digital products, websites, mobile apps, software, or online stores.
- Renewal and upsell agreements: A renewal is a contract where a customer chooses to renew a previous contract. An upsell contract is the same as a renewal but also includes additional products or services.

6.4 Pipeline Management: 12% (7 Questions)

Sales Pipeline is is a summary of available and upcoming sales opportunities managers can use to better determine the revenue they will generate, the bottlenecks in their sales funnel, and projected cash flow.
The Seven Main Sales Pipeline Stages:
- Prospecting. Through ads, public relations, and other promotional activities, potential customers discover that your business exists.
- Lead qualification. To move leads downstream, offer an e-book, white paper, webinar, or another type of lead magnet to determine if the prospect is interested in learning more about your products and services.
- Demo or meeting. Afterward, schedule a demo or meeting to introduce potential buyers to your offerings and solutions.
- Proposal. Make your case by summarizing how your company can help address the potential customer’s needs. Demonstrate how the prices you propose deliver more than enough value to offset the engagement cost.
- Negotiation and commitment. Discuss expanding or shrinking the scope of work, adjusting pricing, and managing expectations to come to agreement on a mutually beneficial partnership.
- Opportunity won. Finally, you close the sale and move toward order fulfillment.
- Post-purchase. In business, the sale should be considered closed at the first contract signing. Instead, your reps should invest in providing exceptional service during onboarding and regularly monitoring the account’s progress.

.How to Create Your Sales Pipeline:
- Lead source. Determine how your prospects find out about your business.
- Industry. Find the industry that your product is more popular among buyers in which you can target more often.
- Decision makers involved. Always count the number of client-side contacts you need to liaise with. Apply different strategies when you interact with the CEO versus the finance director, or even the CTO.
- Deal size. Some buyers are ready to spend $100,000 on your product, while others can budget $5,000. Segment them accordingly and personalize your pitches.
- Probability to close. Estimate how likely each lead is to convert into a customer based on your team’s conversations with them, their current stage in the sales pipeline, and other criteria that signal their eagerness to strike a deal.

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Via Salesforce

Key Sales Pipeline Metrics:
- Conversion rate: The percentage of leads that convert to opportunities
- Sales velocity: How much revenue does your team generate each day?
- Sales pipeline value: Tally up the dollar value of every deal in your pipeline. This number helps you determine the return on investment of your team’s efforts.
- Sales cycle length: How much time passes between a rep qualifying a lead and then closing that deal? This allows you to estimate how many opportunities might close in a given time period.

6.5 Forecasting: 6% (3 Questions)

5 Sales Forecasting Techniques I Wish I Knew About Earlier in My Career
Sales forecasting should be based on five simple questions:
- Who: Sales teams should make forecasts based on their prospects. Depending on if the prospects are the decision-makers or just influencers, the forecast will be more or less exact.
- What: Forecasts should be based on exactly what solutions you plan to sell. Base them on problems your prospects have voiced, which your company can uniquely solve.
- Where: In what location is the prospect making their buying decision, and where will they use the actual products? Sales teams see better accuracy when they get closer (at least for a visit) to the center of the action.
- Why: Why is the prospect or existing customer considering new services? Is there a big event making them consider it now? Without a forcing function, the deal may stall.
- How: How does this prospect make purchasing decisions? If you’re not accounting for how they’ve done it in the past, it may be fuzzy math.

A sales forecast is an expression of expected sales revenue. A sales forecast estimates how much your company plans to sell within a certain time period (like quarter or year).
Teams usually responsible for sales forecast:
- Product leaders: They put a stake in the ground for what products will be available to sell when.
- Sales leaders: They promise the numbers that their teams will deliver. Depending on the seniority of the leader, how they forecast varies.
- Sales reps: The report their own numbers to their managers.
Objectives of sales forecasting
- Smooth internal operations: When the forecast is met, the friction inside the organization – about all the things revenue funds – melts away.
- Smooth external operations: When forecasts are met and internal operations are flowing as they should be, your company can continue funding external marketing events, staffing ample customer service touchpoints, investing in its community, and more.
Sales forecasting plan focuses on three primary activities:
- Calculating number and time period: Your plan should explain how you’ll calculate the estimated monetary amount and what the timeframes will be.
- Reviewing and revising: You should also plan to review the forecast at key milestones and revise it if necessary.
- Breaking the patterns: Breaking your patterns can help you find new ways of crafting even more accurate forecasting.
The Complete Guide to Building a Sales Forecast

6.6 Customer Success: 9% (6 Questions)

Why You Want Value Realization, Not Value Creation
The Top 5 Factors Driving Customer Success Growth
1. Demand for improved B2B experiences
2. Need to accelerate embedded customer base growth
3. Opportunity to create shared risks and shared Accountability
4. Discover hidden customer needs
5. Innovate together
There are four steps to value selling.
- Do your discovery: Get to know your customer.
- Build a value hypothesis: Turn your customer’s pains into gains with Salesforce solutions.
- Create a cost-benefit analysis: Show how the benefits of an investment in Salesforce outweigh the costs.
- Build your business case: Bring it all together in executive-ready form, built around a value map.
Six differentiators that set Salesforce apart from his competition.
- Intelligence
- Speed with the platform
- Mobility
- Productivity
- Connectivity
- Customer success