💃 Holding Your Salesforce Stakeholders Accountable🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerd! You’re accountable for the Salesforce org.

What about your stakeholders and clients? This is a two-way street, you’re not the only one who is making Salesforce decisions!

Of course you hold yourself accountable for your items 🫡, but what do you do when your stakeholders skip out on their accountability?

Let’s jump into stakeholder accountability 👇

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WHAT

What Your Salesforce Stakeholders are Accountable For

Your stakeholders are accountable for seemingly basic things-

👉 Making business decisions. “The salespeople should write contracts in the CRM, not the ERP.”

👉 Providing business requirements. “Before a salesperson can send the customer a contract, a sales manager needs to approve the contract terms.”

👉 Validations. Like signing off on designs and performing UAT.

But you’ve experienced that one (or many!) stakeholder who eschewed accountability. When you delivered exactly what they asked for and then they said “This is not right, why did you build this?”

😡😡

WHY

Why Stakeholders Skip Out On Accountability

Why do stakeholders eschew accountability? Stakes is the main reason. Which is hilariously ironic because, you know…STAKEholder and all 🤷🏻.

But when there’s money on the line, and eyeballs on that money, then some people just don’t have the integrity or humility to take the L. They’d throw their grandma under the bus before being held accountable.

Here are 3 more reasons your stakeholders lack accountability -

🤷🏻 Priorities. If the VP of Sales is the primary stakeholder, that role is heavily allocated to selling, managing a sales team, and driving revenue. Sadly, an overworked Sales executive has much higher priorities than Salesforce.

🤷🏻 Fear of Mistakes. Similar to a deer in headlights - the shock of a high-stakes situation is too much for some people to handle. They’ll do nothing, knowing it’s certain death ☠️, before they take accountability.

🤷🏻 Wrong Expectations. YOU are the Salesforce expert. Why do the stakeholders have to do anything at all if you are the expert in these matters? You, of course, know this is a misplaced perspective, but many stakeholders are unaware of their duties.

However, stakeholders hold the stakes. They’re need to contribute is unavoidable, and. at the end of the day, they will be held accountable. Here’s why -

🧑‍💼 Stakeholders know the business best. Yes, you know Salesforce best, but Salesforce merely serves the business 🫡. You will be held accountable to a humming Salesforce org, and the stakeholders are to be held accountable to providing you the business details that you need to make Salesforce hum.

🧑‍💼 Executive Stakeholder = Decision Makers. All those 0’s in their salary are based on their responsibility to make decisions that are best for the company and presuming they’re able to do so. Salesforce professionals decide on Salesforce design. Executive stakeholders decide on the business motions that Salesforce supports.

🧑‍💼 Your users. Their team. You love your Salesforce users 🙄. But for the business stakeholders, they’re teammates. They’re the frontline. They’re the salespeople who are executing the plan the stakeholder has implemented. It’s like the coach and their players, versus the equipment manager who certainly cares about the team’s success, but is just handing out the shoes.

HOW TO

How To Hold Your Stakeholders Accountable

There are many tools and techniques available for you to hold your stakeholders accountable. You’ll definitely need more than one, and you’ll need to use them more than once 😅.

Here are 8 ways to hold your stakeholders accountable

📃 SOW or Project Charter - Your stakeholder’s role may be defined for them, if you’re so lucky 🍀. Nothing is more gospel than an SOW. Wave it in their face and enjoy the compliance 🙂.

📆 Due Dates - Assigning tasks and applying a due date is low-key powerful. Then, sending out meeting notes with the owner and due date for all to see *chef’s kiss

🔁 Feedback Loops - consistent, persistent communication can be annoying…to people avoiding accountability. It’s perfectly welcome for the accountable 😉.

👍 Positive Reinforcement - “Incredible, thank you so much for providing these requirements! And earlier than we expected, that will give us more time to design and build. Thanks for setting us up for success, accountable stakeholder!!”

💥 Impact Assessment - “If you do not provide business requirements by March 3, then the project will not be completed by the CEO’s desired due date….and you’ll be hung out to dry.”

👫 Same Team - You’re not competing against your stakeholders. You’re on the same team! Support them. Remove their blockers. Set them up for success!

🙌 Confirm Priorities - Perhaps there’s a misalignment on priorities, rather than accountability. As mentioned, a VP of Sales has a ton of responsibilities. Is Salesforce low on their list? Ask the question - what is higher priority than this? And be open to their response.

🔁 Summary Communications - Let the report be the bad guy. If you have a weekly summary report you’re sending out, include who is accountable for what, and leave that on the report, WoW, MoM, so that there is paper trail of the accountable person. Be sure to include that impact assessment, too 💯.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Takeaway

A big chunk part of your job is ensuring your stakeholder are held accountable 💯.

Not because it’s easier for us, but because it’s essential for them. When they’re engaged, informed, and proactive, then the odds of project success skyrocket 🚀.

Understand what may be preventing your stakeholders from feeling accountable. And use these tips and tricks to nudge them to where they need to be 🙂.

SOUL FOOD

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