Deal Management37% of the exam
Discovering business strategy, goals and initiatives
Customer-centric discovery step by step: research the customer's industry, business and people, experience what their customers experience, share insights and organize challenges with the 3Ls, then frame and scope the solution with yes-if trade-offs.
Determine customer's business strategies, goals, initiatives, and challenges to define the scope of the solution.
~8 min read · 11 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Pick research sources for a customer's goals: public filings for public companies, creative sources for private ones.
- Classify what you learn as a goal, value, initiative, strategy or obstacle.
- Experience the business as its customers do, then run an insights meeting that confirms the challenges.
- Organize challenges into the three levels of issues (3Ls) and analyze each with who, what, where, when, why and how questions.
- Frame and scope the solution around the customer's real concern, and handle scope, time and cost trade-offs with compromises, not sacrifices.
Key terms:
- Initiative: what the business does now to achieve its goals.
- Strategy: what the business plans to do to achieve its goals.
- 3Ls: tactical issues, business consequences and personal impact.
- Challenge framing: defining the focus of the problem and a shared definition of success.
- Triple Constraint: the trade-off between scope, time and cost.
Key facts
Public-company research
- Detail
- Annual reports, earnings, press releases, shareholder letters, investor presentations
Private-company research
- Detail
- About Us page, store, social media, reviews, Glassdoor, LinkedIn
Initiative vs strategy
- Detail
- Initiative is done now; strategy is planned
Be the customer
- Detail
- Visit stores, call service lines, interview the customer's buyers
Meeting request
- Detail
- Include a summary or preview of your insights
3Ls
- Detail
- Tactical or technical, business consequence, personal impact
Whiteboarding
- Detail
- Customer adds and moves ideas; record takeaways and screenshots
Triple Constraint
- Detail
- Scope, time and cost
Summary statement
- Detail
- Starts "Based on what you've told me..." and makes a specific recommendation
Sources for this section (5)
- Know Your Customerstrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- CCD Approachtrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Connect with Customerstrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Frame and Scopetrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Dig Deepertrailhead.salesforce.com (opens in a new tab)
- Where should you look for a public company's goals and strategic priorities?
- Why invite the customer to add and move ideas on the whiteboard?
- When stakeholders want more scope than time and budget allow, what mindset should you keep?
- Why quote something the customer said earlier when raising an area for improvement?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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The free Agentforce Sales Foundations pack includes:
- All 21 lessons of the Agentforce Sales Foundations guide, with reading progress
- Interactive decision walks and step-by-step sequence steppers
- Inline practice questions and one-click topic practice (11 questions for this lesson)
- An official source cited for every claim
- An AI tutor that answers from the guide (uses credits)
- Unlimited timed practice exams
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