Salesforce Sales Cloud Consultant cheat sheet

BANT qualifies Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline; MEDDIC adds Metrics, Economic buyer, Decision criteria, Decision process, Identify pain, and Champion; SPIN uses Situation, Problem, Implication, and Need-payoff.

Win rate = Closed Won opportunities divided by (Closed Won + Closed Lost opportunities); open opportunities are excluded from the denominator.

Pipeline coverage = total open pipeline value divided by the sales quota for the same period; a common target range is 3x to 4x.

Average sales cycle length = sum of days from Opportunity Created Date to Closed Won Date divided by the number of closed-won opportunities.

Forecast categories commonly include Pipeline, Best Case, Commit, Omitted, and Closed; forecast rollups use the category assigned to each opportunity.

Customer acquisition cost = total sales and marketing spend divided by the number of new customers acquired in the period.

A typical B2B sales funnel moves from prospecting and qualification to needs analysis, value proposition, decision-maker validation, proposal, negotiation, and close.

Prefer standard objects and declarative automation before custom code; custom code increases maintenance, testing, and upgrade risk.

Master-detail: child requires a parent, inherits parent sharing, supports roll-up summary fields, and is cascade-deleted with the parent.

Lookup: parent is optional, cascade delete is off by default, the child can be re-parented, and roll-up summaries require an alternative such as Flow.

Org-wide default options include Private, Public Read Only, Public Read/Write, and Controlled by Parent for detail objects.

Record types combine with page layouts and picklist values to present different business processes to different user groups.

Permission sets grant additional access without creating a new profile; permission set groups bundle multiple permission sets for a job role.

Field-level security controls field visibility and editability across page layouts, reports, list views, and APIs.

For large data volumes, use selective queries, indexed fields, and skinny tables to reduce performance risk.

Typical project phases are Discover, Design, Build, Test, Deploy, and Adopt, with explicit exit criteria for each phase.

Sandbox types are Developer, Developer Pro, Partial Copy, and Full Copy; Full Copy includes all metadata and data and supports load testing.

Change sets move metadata between related orgs; unlocked packages and DevOps pipelines automate and version deployments.

Data migration follows extract, profile and cleanse, map, load, validate, and reconcile record counts.

External ID fields enable upsert matching so loads can update existing records instead of creating duplicates.

UAT should use realistic profiles, permission sets, record types, and data volumes to validate end-to-end business processes.

MoSCoW prioritization classifies requirements as Must have, Should have, Could have, and Won't have.

Adoption risk rises when users lack training, data quality is poor, or the solution adds steps without clear business value.

A sales process is a set of opportunity stages assigned to a record type; different record types can use different sales processes.

Opportunity stage values map to probability and forecast category; closed stages should be marked Closed Won or Closed Lost.

Path shows stage-specific guidance, key fields, and success messages to guide reps through the sales process.

Lead conversion creates an Account and Contact and optionally an Opportunity; configured field mappings control value transfer.

Lead assignment rules route new leads to users or queues; auto-response rules send immediate replies to lead submitters.

Validation rules can require fields such as Amount or Close Date before an opportunity advances to a later stage.

Opportunity History records changes to stage, amount, close date, and probability and supports pipeline and cycle-time reporting.

Approval processes can enforce review for discounts, non-standard terms, or quote exceptions before closing.

Account hierarchy uses the Parent Account field to model corporate structures; roll-up summaries require a master-detail relationship.

Person Accounts combine account and contact fields for individual consumers and must be enabled by Salesforce Support.

Opportunity contact roles identify stakeholders such as Decision Maker, Economic Buyer, Evaluator, Influencer, and Technical Buyer.

Account teams let multiple users collaborate on an account and can grant record access through account team sharing.

Contact org-wide default is commonly Controlled by Parent, so contact access follows the related account.

Duplicate rules and matching rules detect duplicate accounts and contacts during create, edit, and import.

Contacts to Multiple Accounts uses Account Contact Relationships to link one contact to several accounts.

Account and contact record types can vary page layouts and picklist values by business segment or region.

Lead status values represent lifecycle stages such as New, Working, Nurturing, Qualified, and Unqualified.

Web-to-Lead and Email-to-Lead create leads automatically; assignment rules then route them to owners or queues.

Lead conversion field mapping is configured in Lead Settings and maps lead fields to account, contact, and opportunity fields.

Opportunity Amount, Close Date, Stage, and Probability are core fields for pipeline and forecast reporting.

Opportunity products require a price book; PricebookEntry links Product2 to a price book, and OpportunityLineItem stores the selected product.

Quotes are created from opportunities and contain QuoteLineItems; syncing a quote updates opportunity product quantities and prices.

Collaborative Forecasts roll up opportunity amounts by forecast category, forecast period, and role hierarchy.

Opportunity splits allocate revenue or overlay credit across users or territories when opportunity splits are enabled.

Big deal alerts notify selected users when an opportunity amount exceeds a configured threshold.

Adoption metrics include active user percentage, login frequency, records created, activities logged, and report or dashboard usage.

Lightning Experience provides Kanban views, Path, activity timeline, and customizable record pages to reduce user clicks.

Salesforce Mobile App supports field sales with mobile cards, compact layouts, and offline access for selected objects.

Email integration options include Outlook and Gmail integrations, Email to Salesforce, and Einstein Activity Capture.

Einstein Activity Capture syncs email and calendar events but does not store them as standard Task or Event records by default.

Sales Engagement cadences automate sequences of calls, emails, and tasks; reps work from a prioritized work queue.

In-app guidance and Trailhead modules support onboarding and just-in-time training.

Executive sponsorship and visible dashboards are strong predictors of sustained user adoption.

Report formats are Tabular, Summary, Matrix, and Joined; Summary and Matrix support grouping and summary formulas.

Custom report types define which objects and fields users can report on and which relationships are available.

Bucket fields group numeric or picklist values into named ranges without creating a custom field.

Summary formulas calculate at the group level, row-level formulas calculate per row, and cross-block formulas work in joined reports.

Historical trending tracks changes to selected fields on objects such as Opportunities over time.

Reporting snapshots copy report results into a custom object on a schedule for trend analysis.

Dashboards display report data through components such as charts, gauges, metrics, and tables; dashboard filters apply source report filters.

CRM Analytics is used for advanced data blending, predictive analytics, and large data sets beyond standard reporting limits.

Data Loader performs insert, update, upsert, delete, hard delete, and export operations using CSV files.

Import Wizard supports accounts, contacts, leads, solutions, and custom objects but not opportunities.

Matching rules identify duplicate candidates; duplicate rules block saves or allow them with an alert.

External ID fields store unique identifiers from another system and are used to match records during upsert.

Validation rules enforce data quality at save time; required fields enforce completeness on page layouts.

Ownership skew occurs when one user owns a large percentage of records and can slow sharing calculations.

Lookup skew occurs when many records reference one parent record and can slow record access.

Weekly export and third-party backup tools protect against data loss; Salesforce does not automatically back up all data.

Integration patterns include request-reply, fire-and-forget, batch data sync, publish-subscribe, and remote call-in.

REST API is lightweight and synchronous; SOAP API is used for metadata and enterprise integrations with strict contracts.

Bulk API is optimized for large data volumes and asynchronous processing; Bulk API 2.0 simplifies job creation.

Platform Events and Change Data Capture enable event-driven integrations without polling.

OAuth 2.0 flows include web server, user-agent, JWT bearer, and device flow; connected apps store client credentials.

Named Credentials store endpoint URLs and authentication so Apex callouts do not hard-code secrets.

Governor limits apply per transaction, including SOQL queries, DML statements, and callouts; bulkification reduces limit risk.

Salesforce Connect maps external objects to external data sources such as OData without copying data into Salesforce.