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Hey, Jennifer Schneider here! QSM and Solution Architects at Qualified. I am so excited to share my newest blog, 'Why Solution Architects Love Qualified.' Inside the blog, I share with you my three personal keystones for Solution Architects success, and how Qualified ticks every box. Thanks for your time. I hope you enjoy and I look forward to your comments and thoughts.

The MarTech space—in all its wonder—can be the biggest playground and pain point to a Solutions Architect.

Every year we discover new platforms that will help both our marketing and sales tech stacks. As a Qualified Solutions Architect, I'm excited to talk about how our platform ties both worlds together.

In my years as a solution architect and consultant, I've created a couple of keystones that help me make the best decisions to advise my client's orgs. No matter how shiny, beautiful, and sleek a new product is, it's my responsibility to do my due diligence on any tool I add to a stack.

I have a few keystones that drive my diligence process and have helped my clients see massive success over the years. I'd also be remiss to not mention that Qualified checks the box on each keystone.

Let’s take a look at each of these a little closer.

Keystone #1: Integration into your core CRM platform

The integration piece is a large one, and requires some focus. I start out with some of the following questions and I invite you to use these as well when vetting a new platform:

• Is there integration documentation that I can view prior to sale?
• Do I have to set up a custom API or is there a plug-in?
• What are the pros and cons of each? Pro tip: think features and limitations‍
• How many API calls does that plug-in generate?
• What kind of information will it be pulling from my core systems and what kind of information will it be pushing to my core systems?
• From a data security and sensitivity standpoint, what field data is shared? How can it be controlled, monitored, and enriched?
  

As an architect, admin, or business analyst in this situation, you want to enable your teams to own their product, platform, and process; but you can't expect them to understand the full capacity of how that integration works. It's OUR job to integrate, educate, and empower. We do this by practicing thorough scoping prior to sale. 

Why else is Keystone #1 so important?

One of the most difficult things companies face is the inner-connectivity between marketing and sales. Even with the social buzz and countless conferences talking about the breaking down of silos, we are still disjointed in method, process, and KPIs. 

In addition to at least one CRM platform, we may have additional databases of information, different taxonomy across departments, and siloed metrics for each. From an operations standpoint, that alone could be another blog… 

As a solution architect, I am frequently asked about how we connect the information we’re gathering into a dashboard in one place. It's the dream that we all dream about—and keeps us up most nights.

Qualified is a magical beast. If you think it's just another chatbot conversation platform, it simply isn't so. Qualified has the capability to connect the dots, enrich, automate, and enhance your customer journey. It connects digital marketing, web design, engagement, marketing automation, sales enablement, and enrichment within your Salesforce. 

Before joining the Qualified team, I first started using the platform with my customers a few years ago. As a consultant, it was my job to onboard new technology into my customer's tech stack. Timing is extremely important when purchasing new tools. Just because a platform ticks the boxes of the things that we want to do—and perhaps aligns with the agenda the CMO has in place— it doesn't necessarily mean that our people, our process, and our data are ready to take on a new platform. 

Since Qualified is built on the Sales Cloud platform, it natively supports the declarative process in which the platform is to be used.  All I have to do now is work with my sales, ops, marketing, and leadership teams to customize it to fit my business process. With Qualified, I'm able to sleep peacefully at night knowing everything sits together in one place.

Keystone #2: Functional support for business processes, yet customizable and built for scale

I always look for tools that can support my current business process as well as give me room to scale. Admins, architects, MarTech leaders, and business analysts are fully aware of the business processes that we have today; whether broken or buttoned up, we understand the complexities of things like routing territory management,  permissions, automation and segmentation.

You need a platform for today AND for tomorrow. That's Qualified in a nutshell.‍

Keystone #3: Alignment with other platforms in your tech stack 

Think back to keystone #1 (seamless CRM integration), it's critical that tools also interact well with other platforms that you're using. If a tool has the ability to connect multiple platforms that I'm currently using AND can push and pull into my core system...this is a double bonus. Enter stage right…. the all powerful Oz of conversational sales and marketing: Qualified.

Qualified creates unique, on-platform user routing, that mimics your Salesforce assignment rules. In terms of marketing automation, Qualified supports all major marketing platforms like Pardot, Marketo, Eloqua, and HubSpot. Through Qualified Live View,  you can understand how people are actually navigating and using your site—is this not a web designer's dream!?

Qualified is more than just conversational sales and marketing. Our power stems from our capability to decipher who is on the site, who needs to be nurtured, and who should be routed to a SDR,  BDR, or an Account Executive STAT!

Data Enrichment tools may help—and Qualified  integrates with multiple enrichment and ABM platforms like 6Sense, Clearbit, and Demandbase to name a few.  

Qualified inspires and is leading the charge in changing the way we market and sell. It comes from years of listening to what we need in the industry and it is built to deliver. 

I would love to hear your questions from a technical and strategic perspective. Why not see for yourself how Qualified can tie together your Marketing and Sales tech stack? Click here to set up some time to chat with me directly, and/or get a custom demo scheduled. 

Thanks for tuning in to this three part blog series.  In the coming weeks we will look at Qualified from the perspectives of both sales and marketing.

Until next time, Stay hydrated Ohana…