What is a Salesforce Consulting Partner and How Can It Help You?

Implementing Salesforce solutions, such as Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, or other products, requires highly trained personnel. While in theory any properly prepared team could manage it, sometimes things are a little more complicated. And, in the case of Salesforce, the learning curve is usually steep, taking considerable time to take full advantage of the platform’s full potential . Salesforce Consulting Partners exist precisely for this purpose. They ensure the success of your business goals by guiding you on the right path within the greater Salesforce ecosystem.

What is a Salesforce Consulting Partner?

A Salesforce Consulting Partner is a company authorized by Salesforce to assist clients in everything related to the implementation and optimization of their product portfolio. These companies enter into a partnership model with Salesforce, allowing them to develop and offer customized solutions to customers. They specialize in providing advice on optimizing the use of Salesforce solutions to meet the specific business objectives of each client. In general, among the functions they can perform are the development, distribution, installation, implementation, migration, administration, configuration, customization, and integration of projects and solutions, as well as employee training.

Companies that fill this role have extensive knowledge of Salesforce products and robust experience proven by their portfolios of successful projects. These companies possess the proper training and certification, accrediting them as qualified and reliable to carry out this activity. They are fully capable of marketing Salesforce solutions to meet the needs and demands of diverse customers. In all cases, their work contributes to improving and growing businesses while providing an enriched experience. Hence, around 70% of Salesforce implementations are led by expert consulting partners.

Who can be a Salesforce Consulting Partner?

Any company with motivation, preparation, and commitment to this activity can become a Salesforce consulting partner. From individual consultants to large global consulting organizations. Additionally, these partners often have extensive experience working with various Salesforce clouds and products, as well as notable specializations in working with different industries. However, to become a Salesforce consulting partner, you need to complete a series of steps that make up that process.

What type of Salesforce consulting partner can you be?

Currently, in the fiscal year 2025, the partner program has four categories. Each allows companies to grow in skills and improve their performance, and provide highly specialized service to the clients who hire them.

The four categories available within the Salesforce Partner Program are:

• Consulting Partner: As a partner in this category, services include strategic business consulting services, system design, solution integration, and product implementation. They contribute to business growth and increase efficiency by applying their experience, leading customized practices, and leveraging innovative tools.
• Managed Service Provider Partner (MSP): As a partner in this program, the company is capable of providing continuous, recurring, and post-implementation services, such as administration. This helps drive long-term customer success.
• Reseller partners: This program allows partners to resell or distribute the different Salesforce products in emerging markets (currently only available in EMEA, APAC and LATAM).
• AppExchange Independent Software Vendor (ISV) Partner: As an AppExchange ISV partner you can develop and market software solutions built on or integrated with the Salesforce platform.

How to become a Salesforce consulting partner?

Becoming part of the Salesforce consulting partner family is not difficult, but it requires a high commitment and responsibility with the work you are going to do. Companies that wish to join this work must undergo a fairly demanding initial selection process. They must comply with a series of necessary requirements and provide the requested information. This implies a significant effort in terms of investment, training, certifications, etc.

All of this is structured in several steps, the successful completion of which will allow you to be accredited as a Salesforce consulting partner. The steps to follow in general are as follows:

1. Accept the policies established by the Salesforce Partner Program Agreement (SPPA). This first step gives companies the opportunity to access the Salesforce partner community.
2. Apply to join the Salesforce Partners community.
3. Reception of a welcome email sent by Salesforce establishing the minimum essential requirements for inclusion in the program on a provisional basis. This includes the request for demographic data, next steps, and guidelines for compliance.
4. The candidate sends evidence that proves their company meets these minimum requirements to join the program. This step must be completed within a maximum compliance period of 30 days after receiving the welcome email.
5. Documentation is reviewed by Salesforce. If it is found to be suitable, the company is granted provisional Partner status. You receive an email with the necessary requirements for your inclusion in the Partner Program on a non-provisional basis, including certifications, payment rates, etc. (specified below).
6. The company sends evidence of its compliance with the requirements for inclusion in the partner program on a non-provisional basis.
7. The information is reviewed to determine if the company meets the requirements to belong to the program. If it is suitable, the company is admitted to the program and begins at the “base” level.

As we mentioned, among the requirements requested to endorse Salesforce consulting partners are:

• Certifications: To register for the program, a partner needs at least two certifications. It can be one person with 2 or more credentials, or two people with at least one credential each.
• Payment Fees: For fiscal year 2025 (FY25), there are no annual program fees.

Salesforce Consulting Partner Performance Rating Levels

As you can imagine, although many people or companies have the ability to do something, some do it better than others. Some even specialize in a particular portion of something, rather than the whole thing. Well, knowing the existence of these differences, even if they are subtle, when you look for a consultant, you want to find the one who best does what you want to implement. And it is then that we fall into the dilemma, if there are so many consultants, how to choose the most appropriate one for what I want in my company?

Even the best can make mistakes, but we can always reduce that probability by choosing the one with the most stable and successful performance. And precisely to evaluate and measure the performance of these consulting partners, there is a classification into levels based on the Trailblazer score achieved. The maximum possible is 1000 points, and it will depend on how well each partner performs. The classification levels are:

• Base (0-249)
• Ridge (250-449)
• Crest (500-749)
• Summit (750-1000)

The qualification that each partner obtains at the beginning of the year (effective from March) will be maintained throughout that fiscal year. If a partner obtains a higher level in the next quarterly evaluations, their level is updated accordingly. In any case, the highest level achieved during the fiscal year will always be retained, regardless of the quarter in which it was obtained. Thus, when starting a new fiscal year, the company will begin with that highest level obtained from the previous year. In subsequent assessments, if a partner fails to obtain a score high enough to maintain or exceed their current level during the fiscal year, they will be demoted in level at the end of that year.

How is the assignment of points to achieve the different levels as a Salesforce consulting partner carried out?

The assignment of the score is established depending on the performance of each consulting partner in 4 key areas. These measure a partner’s contribution against the goals set by Salesforce. These items are broken down below:

Likewise, a bonus for responses to the Pledge 1% partner impact survey will also be taken into account for the score. Yes, the simple act of responding to the survey will earn your company a bonus that will be added to your total score.

This process happens in each quarter of the fiscal year. During each quarter partners can submit data and evidence for a relevant score; accepted until the last day of the quarter. During the month immediately after each quarter, evaluations are carried out, and during the month following that, each member is notified of the level achieved.

What are the benefits offered by the Salesforce Consulting Partner Program?

The Salesforce Consulting Partner Program provides partner companies with a series of benefits to facilitate the performance of their role. These involve access to a range of resources, training and ongoing certification; tools to develop greater expertise in specific business functions, product areas and industries; as well as participation in events and collaboration opportunities with other Salesforce partners and customers. With these possibilities they can better serve their clients and improve their practices.

For fiscal year 2025, access to benefits will depend on the highest level of consulting partner the company has achieved in the current year. The benefits you can access are grouped into the following categories:

1- Technical (Technologies and tools to help you develop skills and drive customer success):

• Unlimited access to technical support through the Partner Community.
• Certification vouchers for the Trailhead and Accredited Professional exams.
• Discounts on instructor-led courses.
• Discounts on certification exams.

2- Sales and alliances (support to drive the growth and productivity of your training and stimulate relationships with Salesforce):

• Partners can earn incentives when a referred lead is submitted through the Partner Community.
• Access to an internal production organization with Sales and Service Cloud Enterprise Edition licenses.
• Access to Sales, Service and Marketing Cloud demo organizations for training, solution development, etc. These organizations are based on a standard Salesforce environment, but have more user licenses and storage.
• Consulting meetings with advisors.

3- Marketing (Resources to generate brand awareness and create omnichannel marketing plans):

• Availability of the Marketing Cloud Account Engagement Plus License (previously called Pardot Plus) for internal use for lead generation.
• Possibility of using “Salesforce” to promote ads on Google (Google Ads).

How do you know if you need a Salesforce consulting partner?

Many times, we believe that we are capable enough to do anything on our own. However, on many occasions we find ourselves engaging in professional intrusion when we do not have the real necessary skills for it. One of those cases could perfectly be the implementation of a Salesforce product, due to the mistaken idea of considering it something simple. Then, when difficulties appear, we suffer the consequences.

Therefore, if you need to carry out any action that involves something related to Salesforce, the best advice is to have a consulting partner. An entity with this role can advise you on the structuring and migration of your database, implementation, introduction of updates, integration by systems, departments and development of customized applications, among others. Salesforce Consulting Partners are highly trained to lead the innovation phase and help companies connect with their customers in new ways.

Why Hire a Salesforce consulting partner?

Hiring a Salesforce Consulting Partner can help you maximize the performance of your solution, as well as ensure successful implementation and ongoing support. Accumulated experience and knowledge can make the difference in the success of your Salesforce investment. In the long term, the benefits of hiring a consulting partner far outweigh the costs. Some of those benefits are:

Implement Salesforce effectively (before, during and after)

When a Salesforce Consulting Partner accesses an organization, they perform a diagnostic to identify issues that are or may impact the implementation process. This is an advantage because, knowing the problems, they can be addressed immediately to project solutions that positively impact the organization.
If you trust an expert for the Salesforce implementation, everything will be easier. This means that you will have at your side a partner who masters the features and potential of the platform, the necessary changes to be made depending on the type of organization, new functionalities, etc. There’s no point in using Salesforce in your business if you’re not going to get the most out of it.

Guarantee to meet customization needs

Not all organizations are the same, they differ in billing, number of workers, objectives, territorial distribution, etc. The ability of a Salesforce consulting partner to make effective configurations and customizations plays a critical role here. The extensive knowledge they have in the use of the platform allows them to adapt a suit to each organization. Recommends and executes, with the client’s approval, what best suits them according to their characteristics.

Achieve your goals efficiently

It is part of the basic job of a consulting partner to be up to date with all the news that Salesforce offers in its three annual releases. They demonstrate their interest and commitment by keeping their certifications renewed and obtaining new ones. Salesforce consulting partners support their experience and commitment to each of their clients by showing portfolios of successful projects. The accumulated knowledge and experience gained allow them to help you achieve the maximum benefit from a Salesforce implementation based on the objectives you have set.

Save and optimize investment in time and money

Organizations often decide to go through the implementation process on their own, and when they hit a dead end, they turn to a Salesforce consulting partner. By that point, they have already invested time and various resources, which might be wasted as the intended objective may not have been achieved.

It’s wise to hire a consulting partner from the outset to handle Salesforce implementation, including updates with each release. They will be able to help you with integrations by systems, departments and third-party applications. Regardless of whether you opt for part-time or full-time service, you’ll save considerable time and money.

Partnering with a Salesforce consultant will help you meet deadlines to complete tasks while minimizing setbacks. You can dedicate yourself to other high-impact activities while delegating responsibilities to your consulting partner.

Helps improve your business decisions

Making the right decisions is more complex than it seems. Sometimes we don’t have the information necessary to do this. A Salesforce Consulting Partner can help you enrich the information you need to make the right decisions. You will work together with your management team to meet the proposed objectives.

Increase return on investment

With the support of a Salesforce Consulting Partner, your business will go from strength to strength. This means that, with their help, your objectives will be met as planned, increasing the efficiency and profitability of your business. You will obtain greater productivity from your workers, time savings in unnecessary activities, good implementation practices and a wide range of opportunities that will make your business more efficient.

If you’re thinking about hiring a Salesforce consulting partner or at least exploring that possibility, you’ve come to the right place. At SkyPlanner we have more than 100 Salesforce certifications and we can help you in that regard. We offer Salesforce consulting services aimed at driving the growth of your business, whether implementing a new custom solution or improving an existing implementation. Our experts have placed us among the top 20 consulting partners worldwide. If you need help, feel free to email us at hello@skyplanner.com. Our team will guide you to the results you want.