FoundHQ Team Analysis #39: Great Salesforce Teams Should Not Have A Lot of Admins
A look at the alternative model and how Yelp supports 3,000+ Salesforce users with 5 Salesforce Admins.
In This Edition:
Questioning the Value of Salesforce Admins in Mature Orgs
Complete Salesforce Team Structure at Yelp
Salesloft Didn’t Really Acquire Drift - They Were Merged
Questioning the Role of Salesforce Admins
I’ve been speaking to increasingly more Business Systems Leaders at Fortune 500s with ZERO Salesforce Admins in-house.
It left me asking myself a question I never thought I would ask…
Do you need Salesforce Admins on large, well structured teams?
Typically, a company with 1,000+ Salesforce users has at least 7-10 Admins.
But this is how it works at those Fortune 500s with 0 internal Admins:
Rev Ops has Technical Specialists managing basic user needs and peripheral GTM Tools (Clari, Gong etc)
Business Analysts handle minor config and complex user support
Engineers handle Apex and flows / project-related configuration
Generally, it allows you to keep the team leaner.
And invest more heavily in Salesforce Engineers capable of executing complex development & integration tasks; or Product Managers driving proactive, impactful product strategy.
But it only works if you don’t have a massive, inbound ticket volume.
You can’t crush Developer bandwidth with a backlog of basic Admin tasks.
It also requires proper resourcing within the Revenue Operations team.
Systems Specialists the Salesforce team can trust.
Splitting ‘traditional Admin responsibilities’ across these 3 functions can work.
But only when the broader Salesforce team is structured properly.
It absolutely cannot work in every scenario.
For example, if you’re Databricks:
1,500 users just in Sales
0 Salesforce Admins in-house
3 Salesforce Business Analysts
18 Salesforce Engineers (and growing)
There simply isn’t a mature enough structure to spread out the Admin work.
In these scenarios, it’s impossible for Engineers not to be overloaded.
And without Admins/BSAs, how well can you groom what’s being built.
How Yelp Makes It Work
Yelp support 3,000 users with 5 Salesforce Admins.
1 Admin per 600 users should be chaos!
It’s not.
Because they have an optimal org design in Salesforce & Rev Ops.
The Sales culture at Yelp is known to be epic.
It evolved as a high volume, churn and burn environment.
Yelp has 20MM accounts in Salesforce
At times, adding 3,000 new accounts per day
+250,000 tasks per day
+1MM opportunities per month
Key to a High-Impact Salesforce Team
Separate these 2 functions:
Strategy / Project Delivery
Tactical / Day-to-Day
This is how Yelp does it.
A core Salesforce team of 30
A supporting cast of 18 Revenue Operations Specialist.
50% of these Rev Ops Specialists are ex-Sales people at YelpThey are the day-to-day Salesforce liaison for users.
They exist to focus on the end user experience.
While responding to ad hoc requests from the business.
These Specialists are a key unlock for the team structure.
They take care of the business and respond to their every need.
Meanwhile, the Salesforce team is centralized in Technology.
And they are free to drive strategy and execute on the roadmap.
The structure of this team is even more interesting:
Director of Business Technology
Salesforce Engineering Manager
(2) Salesforce Architects
(13) Business Systems Analysts (!)
(3) CRM Product Owners
(5) Salesforce Administrators
(3) Salesforce Engineers
Summary
The Rev Ops Specialists alleviate the need for an army of Admins.
A whopping 13 Business Analysts allow for proactive roadmap planning and a tight partnership with stakeholders.
The Architects and Product Owners have room to breath and really focus on identifying problems and designing solutions.
The Business remains supported.
And the Salesforce team can focus on real product strategy.
Salesloft Didn’t Acquire Drift
Vista Equity owns a majority stake in both - and effectively MERGED them.
We are about to see a wave of consolidation ahead.
In March 2023, I wrote about Vista Equity Partners.
Specifically, the portfolio of SaaS companies they own.
And how they’re PERFECTLY positioned for the market consolidation ahead.
Some point solutions vendors will exit to bigger players.
We’ve already started to see it:
Clearbit acquired by Hubspot
Spiff acquired by Salesforce
Groove acquired by Clari
But major Private Equity Firms are who we should be watching.
It’s a tough market for PE Firms to sell off their holdings.
And it’s something that NEEDS to be done to return capital to investors.
If they can’t sell off these assets, they can double down.
They do it by merging portfolio companies they own a majority take in.
And Either:
Selling the merged companies for a larger multiple
Building a more complete, established player and taking them public
Don’t overlook the disruption PE Firms will create.
Vista Equity Portfolio
Merged Salesloft & Drift
Sales Automation 🤝 Conversational Marketing
Other Holdings:
Gainsight (CX Platform)
Pipedrive (CRM)
Khoros (Customer Engagement)
Xactly (Compensation)
BlueConic (Data & Analytics)
iCIMS (HR & Recruiting)
Thoma Bravo Portfolio
Previously Merged Apttus + Conga
CPQ 🤝 CLM
Other Holdings:
Anaplan (Business Planning & Forecasting)
Medallia (CX Management)
Pendo (Product Analytics & Experience)
Qlik (Data Analytics)
Starburst (Analytics)
Hellman & Friedman Portfolio
Holdings:
Zendesk
Genesys (Customer Engagement / Omni-Channel)
IRI (Big Data & Predictive Analytics)
UKG (HCM & Workforce Management)
Sprinklr (Customer Experience)
The list goes on and on.
And it’s not only companies PE Firms already own that are up for grabs.
As point solutions get squeezed in their markets, they will have few options.
Companies Like:
Outreach
Zoominfo
Formstack
Lusha
Dooly
Chili Piper
Qualified
Startups that raised during the 2021 boom times are particularly vulnerable.
Unsustainable valuations will make new funding extremely hard.
Expect PE Firms to build new competitors out of thin air via mergers.
And some big players enter new markets with big acquisitions.
There is no better time to audit your GTM Systems Tech Stack in preparation for the moves ahead.
FoundHQ Customer Story
ACV Auctions is a publicly-traded car auction marketplace.
FoundHQ helped ACV experiment with offshore Salesforce Engineers.
First, 2 Salesforce Contractors.
Then, 10 Contractors.
Now, a Development Center in India.