Don't hate your Deal Desk Process

A more technical how-to for taking your Deal Desk Process in Salesforce to the next level!

When salespeople obtain sign-off or prepare to send contracts, internal stakeholders must weigh in to ensure alignment. For many organizations, this becomes “a nightmare of emails, attachments and has a lack of visibility as a whole.” Reporting often doesn’t exist or lives in separate systems, leaving money on the table that better processes could capture sooner.

Fortunately, Salesforce can address this challenge using flows, wizards, and custom objects. The first step is demanding, but following this approach transforms a complicated process into streamlined operations with exceptional visibility.

Define the Deal Desk Process

This foundational work may seem obvious, but several elements deserve attention:

1. Approver Variance: Larger teams with multiple managers mean the opportunity owner, product type, or deal size may determine who receives notification, timing, and required actions.
2. Permissions: You may need to ensure certain groups review contracts before others or restrict specific field access during designated timeframes.
3. SLA’s between Teams/Players: Everyone gains visibility into request progress, making it crucial to establish clear turnaround time expectations and confirm each stakeholder has adequate capacity.
4. Software Access: Not everyone works in Salesforce; you might need APIs connecting third-party tools.
5. Key deliverables at each step: Define what each person must deliver: POCs, financial reviews, or contract conditions.

The Salesforce Build

The most effective deal desk systems serve complex internal users. Often, account executives need guidance on when and whom to approach for approvals as deals evolve, creating unnecessary risk for AEs.

The optimal solution involves creating a custom object linked to opportunities that guides the user experience. A screen flow on the opportunity walks users through completing precisely what they need: only relevant fields appear. The deal desk request sits on the opportunity with statuses showing the rep exactly where it stands. Here’s how to address each section:

1. Approver Variance

   • Simple: Use standard Salesforce approvals when an opportunity needs manager sign-off or multiple sales and finance team layers.
   • Complex: For custom objects on opportunities or quotes, create a flow associating approvers. Custom metadata can control approvers through a more intuitive interface.

2. Permissions: Rely on validation rules, page layouts, and which process screens display to users. Avoid field-level permissions when possible; sometimes automated processes need to update restricted fields with process user capabilities instead.

3. SLA’s between Teams/Players: Track each step using start and end timestamps. Sequential processes simplify matters; allowing status reversals increases complexity.

4. Software Access: Ideally, everyone operates within Salesforce. If not, create external chat users and send automated emails. Connecting to external systems via API presents additional opportunities.

5. Key deliverables at each step: Custom fields and attachment capabilities handle this readily.

Don’t forget to Train

Process training begins before construction starts. Before building, plan the rollout and identify who ensures process adherence. Align your team on procedures and expectations. Identify influential team members to train first.

Whether building to report on delays or address notification problems, measure and highlight performance data. Show users the process impact and significance. Let results demonstrate the value.

This ranks among the most rewarding builds, reminding us that large-scale business transformation succeeds by unifying teams around repeatable processes. At The Sales Nerd, we develop unified strategy before tool implementation using resources like the Sales Nerd App to maintain communication throughout projects. Share interesting builds or discuss revenue operations anytime.