Salesforce is one of the most popular CRM services for businesses of all sizes. But just as businesses vary in basically every aspect, the way they use Salesforce can also be very different. To really make the most of the platform, consulting companies like SkyPlanner provide expertise.
The company, which is a small business itself, understands the needs of different businesses and works with them to come up with an effective use of the platform. Read more about the company in this week’s Small Business Spotlight.
What the Business Does
Salesforce customization and consulting services.
Rene R. Garcia, managing director and co-founder of SkyPlanner explains:
“Our customers come to us with a common need: a CRM with which to better organize, track and generally run their businesses. We work with them to analyze their business processes to discover how to best adapt Salesforce’s native capabilities to their needs. Once our projects are completed, our customers have a unique system of Salesforce applications augmented with various coding languages and integration with third party apps, and which can also accessed on mobile devices.”
Business Niche
Having in-house Salesforce certified talent.
Garcia says:
“We are able to do all of our work at our offices in Miami or our satellite office in Colombia, so we don’t have to outsource or subcontract any work to third-party providers. This ability to do things in-house allows for quicker turnaround of projects, immediate resolution of pressing emergencies (not that there’s many of them), and a heightened level of transparency with our customers.”
How the Business Got Started
Because of a void in the market.
Garcia and his fellow founders all understood the great value that Salesforce offered businesses, but noticed a lack of Salesfoce consultants in the South Florida area. He says:
“Jumping on this opportunity the three founded SkyPlanner with the goal of filling this void by providing the best possible service for customers while maintaining a high level of integrity and transparency.”
Biggest Win
Partnering with LifeConEx.
SkyPlanner formed a partnership with the company to revamp its cold-chain shipping logistics system LifeTrack in 2011. And the partnership has had a ripple effect for the business. Garcia explains:
“The partnership with LifeConEx gave SkyPlanner the credibility and cache it needed to win new clients.”
Biggest Risk
Breaking away from a partnership with another consulting company.
Garcia says:
“The other firm handled marketing and sales and outsourced their development needs to SkyPlanner. Eventually, we decided to part ways despite our then relative inexperience in marketing and sales so that we could claim our successful development solutions under the SkyPlanner name, knowing the quality of the end-products would help us through the growing pains.”
How They’d Spend an Extra $100,000
Taking care of employees and expanding.
Garcia says:
“We would start by increasing the salaries and benefits for current employees, who are by far the greatest asset at SkyPlanner. The remaining money would be used to move into a bigger office to facilitate expansion as we continue hiring more expert developers to tackle the challenges of our continually expanding roster of clients.”
Favorite Team Activity
Cultural Fridays.
Garcia explains:
“The last Friday of every month is Cultural Friday at SkyPlanner. The team goes to lunch together (as we do everyFriday) but instead of returning to the office the team takes a break from work and engages in a fun teambuilding activity. Past activities have included go-kart racing, laser tag, and a speedboat tour of Miami.”
If the Business Were a Book
“The Three Musketeers,” by Alexandre Dumas.
Garcia explains:
“Much like the title characters in the French classic the three friends who founded SkyPlanner have always been bound by similar values and attributes: friendship, ambition and loyalty with just a little splash of cockiness and pomp. Even though we’d have to rework the title to be The 18 Musketeers now, the culture of our company hasn’t changed much.”
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Find out more about the Small Biz Spotlight program.
Images: SkyPlanner
Aira Bongco
Amazing how you can create a business on just helping other businesses. Good work. Salesforce is important for most businesses but integration can be a chore especially if they don’t know where to begin. This helps them get things started.
Annie Pilon
Absolutely – if it’s a big enough tool then there will assuredly be different ways to customize it (and thus, create opportunities for new businesses)
Addie Addison
Thanks for sharing these information!
but i used OneCRM software.I would recommend all folks to go for OneCRM, try OneCRM once, its really prodigious.