Connecting Salesforce.com and LinkedInHow combining two popular apps can enable a more powerful mobile sales force.

A cafe moba White Paper April 2013

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Introduction Data is critical to salespeople. Keeping up with cold leads and prospects can alert a salesperson to changes or updates that may signal a shift in the purchasing environment. Has a key contact been promoted or changed companies? Does he or she have new projects, products, or customers? A salesperson armed with timely data is better equipped to make valuable connections that could ultimately lead to a sale. Yet long days on the road often make keeping up to date on such data difficult.

Salesforce is a valuable platform for managing contacts, opportunities, and activities associated with accounts. But from a contact details perspective, Salesforce is a backwards-looking medium; it only reflects information from the time it was entered or last updated. Therefore, Salesforce data is only as good as the effort that goes in to maintaining it.

LinkedIn, however, is a social media platform that, for the most part, is maintained in real time by its own members. LinkedIn actively encourages its members to update, provide details, and inform connections of work/life changes. In fact, while members only spend around 17 minutes a month on LinkedIn, the number of members who updated their profiles doubled in 20121.

Linking Salesforce accounts and LinkedIn profiles can improve a salesperson’s contact data quality and sales productivity. But doing so is not necessarily easy.

1 “LinkedIn Blows Past Expectations; Revenue Soars 81 Percent To $304M, Net Income Up 66 Percent To $11.5M,” TechCrunch.com, February 7, 2013, http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/07/linkedin-blows-past-expectations-revenue-soars-to-304m/

LinkedIn Facts & Figures

As of December 31, 2012, LinkedIn counts executives from all 2012 Fortune 500 companies as members.

LinkedIn members did over 5.7 billion professionally-oriented searches in 2012.

More than 2.7 million companies have LinkedIn company pages.

There are more than 1.3 million unique publishers actively using the LinkedIn Share button on their sites to send content into the LinkedIn platform.

LinkedIn members are sharing insights and knowledge in more than 1.5 million LinkedIn Groups.

In the fourth quarter of 2012, an average of 27 percent of unique visiting members came through mobile apps, versus just 15 percent in 2011.

Source: http://ca.press.linkedin.com/about

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Methods of Connecting LinkedIn and Salesforce Accounts There are three primary ways a mobile sales professional can interact with LinkedIn through their Salesforce account:

Method of Connecting Advantages and Disadvantages

Access Salesforce on a mobile browser and simultaneously open the LinkedIn app; copy the Salesforce contact name; switch to the LinkedIn app and paste the contact name into the LinkedIn search bar; and then switch back and forth between applications for every contact.

• Doesn’treallyconnectthetwoapps—theonlythingtheyhave in common is that they are on the same device

• Market-leadingiPad,forexample,doesnotallowtwoapps(including the browser) to be visible at the same time; not true multi-tasking

• Zeroadditionalcost

Obtain a LinkedIn for Salesforce license • SalesforcecontactsaredirectlyintegratedwithLinkedInmember profiles

• LinkedIninfoisnotshowninadashboard;userisstillforced to shuttle back and forth between windows

• LinkedInforSalesforcelicensecanbeexpensive,potentially doubling monthly Salesforce monthly costs

• MustbeaddedbySalesforceadministrator

• AddsfeaturesfromLinkedInPremiumAccount(like“InMails” and Premium Search Filters) improving overall value

Use a native-built iPad app like cafe moba for Salesforce that connects Salesforce contacts and LinkedIn profiles

• Providesconsiderableconvenienceformobileusers.cafemoba dynamically displays LinkedIn profiles as Salesforce contacts are scrolled through

• IntegrationwithLinkedInisout-of-the-box

• Noswitchingofappsorwindowsrequired,dramaticallyimproving productivity

• NativeiPadgesturesmakesforamorenaturalandenjoyable user experience

• AvailableasafreeappfromtheAppleAppStoreforSalesforce Enterprise or Unlimited licensees

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Additional Benefits of Connecting LinkedIn and Salesforce Accessing up-to-date contact information is not the only reason to link Salesforce and LinkedIn. Because of its real-time, user-generated content, LinkedIn serves as an aggregator of important business information through various sources associated with a member’s profile.

Information Sources via LinkedIn Benefit

Members’ connections may reveal relationships that are either competitive or complementary.

This signals a competing interest for a prospect or customer or a possible advantage to a sales proposition.

Members’ daily updates may provide important insight on interests, challenges, and milestones.

Helps the sales force develop or improve rapport and the overall business relationship.

Members’ daily updates may provide important intelligence on their company’s activities like product introductions, personnel changes, partnerships, or financial performance.

Helps the sales team formulate an approach that will maximize chances of a successful close.

Member’s group discussions may reveal ideas they are considering, problems they are encountering, objections they may have, or alternatives they are seeking related to a specific product or service.

Provides salespeople the opportunity to craft a presentation that closely aligns with the prospect’s or customer’s current thinking.

Members’ recommendations from others may reveal insights into their personalities and working styles.

Allows sales people to anticipate and adapt to the tone of a meeting or negotiations.

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Conclusion: The data experience within a mobile Salesforce deployment can only be improved with the integration of real-time, user-managed contact information updates. Add the business intelligence that comes from status updates and the online social activity of LinkedIn’s 200 million members, and the value to a mobileSalesforceaccountholderbecomesconsiderable—aslongastheinformationisconnectedina way that is familiar, enjoyable, and productive.

About cafe moba: cafe moba is a powerful mobile business platform that provides unified mobile access to and analysis of information sources that include ERP, CRM, Cloud-based apps, and even spreadsheets. cafe moba for Salesforce is available as a free app from the Apple App Store for Salesforce Enterprise or Unlimited licensees.

For more information, visit http://www.cafemoba.com/