Why You Need an Independent Advisor for Your Salesforce Implementation (Not a Vendor)
What I'm going tell you might save you $20,000 and months of frustration.
If you're thinking about implementing Salesforce, your first instinct is probably to find a Salesforce consultant or implementation partner/vendor. You need someone who knows Salesforce, so you look for a Salesforce expert. Totally natural.
I have close relationships with several Salesforce vendors, and this has nothing to do with integrity—the ones I work with are genuinely good people. The problem is structural: misaligned incentives.
If they tell you 'Salesforce is overkill for your needs' or 'you're not ready yet,' it hits them in the wallet. No matter how much integrity someone has, that's a hard position to be in.
The Vendor Problem
You've decided your business needs Salesforce. So you start googling "Salesforce implementation consultant."
You get 10,000 results.
You reach out to three firms. One quotes you $25,000. Another says $40,000. The third says $35,000 but includes "advanced features."
Now you're stuck. Why is there such a range? What's included in one quote that isn't in another? Are those "advanced features" things you actually need, or just upsells?
You don't know. And that's the real problem.
You're Not Equipped to Evaluate This
You're running a growing business. You're good at what you do. But Salesforce implementation? This isn't your expertise.
When a vendor says, "You'll definitely want the Service Cloud add-on," you don't know if that's genuinely necessary or padding the quote.
When the contract arrives with terms like "not to exceed 120 configuration hours" and "additional API development billed at $175/hour," you don't know if you're getting a fair deal.
This is deeply uncomfortable. You're about to spend $30,000-$50,000 and you can't even tell if you're comparing apples to apples across the three proposals on your desk.
The Cascading Decisions You Can't See
Every decision during implementation creates ripple effects you won't understand until it's too late.
The vendor asks: "Do you want to track opportunities by product line or by sales rep?"
You think that's a simple preference question. You say, "By sales rep."
What you didn't know: That decision just determined how your reporting works, how commissions get tracked, how forecasting rolls up, and whether your future marketing automation can segment properly.
Six months later, you want to see revenue by product line. "Can't you just pull that report?" Nope. You'd have to restructure the entire data model. That'll be another $8,000 and two weeks of downtime.
The vendor didn't tell you this was a critical decision, or you just didn’t understand the implications. To them, it was just another configuration choice. They checked the box and moved on.
The Emotional Toll Nobody Talks About
Here's what's really happening: You feel like you’re in over your head.
You're a successful business owner. You make hard decisions every day. But when a consultant starts throwing around terms like "custom Lightning components" and "Process Builder versus Flow," you feel lost.
You don't want to keep asking "dumb questions." So you nod. You say, "That makes sense." You sign the proposal.
And you hope for the best.
Then three months in, you realize it's not going the way you thought. But you're already $20,000 deep. The vendor says what you're asking for now is "out of scope" and will cost extra.
You feel trapped. You're frustrated with the vendor, but you're also mad at yourself for not understanding what you were signing up for.
This happens to 60-70% of CRM implementations, according to Harvard Business Review and Salesforce's own articles!
Your Other Options Aren't Much Better
Maybe you're thinking, "Okay, so I won't hire a traditional vendor. What about other options?"
DIY it yourself? Unless you have someone on your team with Salesforce expertise and project management experience, you're looking at the same 60-70% failure rate. Plus months of your time you should be spending running your business.
Hire a big consulting firm? Sure, if you want to pay $150-250/hour and deal with consultants who are used to working with Fortune 500 companies. They'll bring enterprise-level complexity to a problem that needs small business practicality.
Find an offshore developer directly? Good luck. There are thousands of qualified developers, but how do you find and evaluate them? How do you manage communication across time zones? How do you ensure quality when you don't know what good looks like?
This is why most businesses default back to the vendor option and cross their fingers.
But there's a fifth option most people don't know exists.
The Independent Advisor Alternative
You hire someone who doesn't make money by implementing Salesforce. They make money by making sure you make smart decisions about Salesforce.
This is an independent advisor.
1. They'll Tell You If You're Not Ready
A vendor will never tell you to wait. That's lost revenue.
An independent advisor will look at your operation and say, "Your processes are too messy right now. If we implement Salesforce today, we'll just automate chaos. Let's spend a month documenting workflows first. You'll save $20,000 in rework."
Or: "Honestly, Salesforce is overkill for what you need. Have you looked at HubSpot? It's half the price and will do everything you actually need."
They can say this because they're not trying to sell you implementation.
2. They Translate and Protect You
When a vendor proposes something, the advisor translates it into business terms you understand.
Vendor says: "We'll build custom objects with lookup relationships and roll-up summary fields."
Advisor translates: "They're creating a way to track projects and automatically calculate totals. That's fine, but it'll be hard to change later. Are you sure your project structure won't evolve? Maybe we should keep this simpler."
The advisor also negotiates on your behalf. They know what's reasonable, what's padded, and what you can push back on. They review contracts and catch the gotchas.
You're not doing this alone anymore.
3. They Manage the Vendor So You Don't Have To
Here's something nobody tells you: Implementing Salesforce isn't a "set it and forget it" project.
Once you sign a contract, you become the project manager whether you want to or not. You're the one fielding questions: "Should we use a custom field or a formula field here?" "Do you want email notifications for this workflow?" "How should we handle duplicate records?"
You don't have time for this. You're running a business.
And you definitely don't have the technical knowledge to answer these questions confidently. So you make your best guess, the vendor builds what you said, and six months later you realize you answered wrong.
An independent advisor manages the vendor for you. They:
Attend all vendor calls (so you don't have to)
Answer technical questions based on your business needs
Review work in progress before you see it
Catch mistakes before they're built
Handle change requests and scope discussions
Keep the project on track without you chasing status updates
You get a weekly Project-Sponsor call with your advisor. They tell you what's happening, what decisions need your input, and what they're handling on your behalf.
That's it. You're not drowning in project management. You're running your business while someone you trust makes sure your implementation succeeds.
4. They Look Around Corners You Can't See
I've been running business operations for 25 years. I've lived with these systems. I've fixed what vendors got wrong.
Here's what I know: The problems that kill implementations aren't technical. They're organizational.
An independent advisor asks annoying questions that prevent disasters:
"Your sales team and customer service team don't talk to each other. If they can't see each other's notes in the new system, they'll keep using email."
"Your accounting system doesn't play nice with Salesforce. If we don't design the integration right, someone will manually re-enter invoice data forever."
"You're planning to add a second product line next year. Should we design for that now or plan for it later?"
A vendor doesn't think about this. They think about Salesforce features.
An advisor thinks about your complete business operation.
5. They Work FOR You, Not As Your Vendor
Here's the crucial difference:
A vendor says: "We'll implement Salesforce for you. Sign here."
An independent advisor says: "Let's figure out if Salesforce is right, design how it should work, then I'll help you find the best people to build it."
The vendor is the builder. The advisor is your representative making sure the builder does it right.
We design it. We document it. We help you pick the right vendor to build it (often for 40-60% less than US consultants charge). We oversee the build. We stick around after launch.
But Don't You Still Need a Vendor?
Yes! Someone has to actually configure Salesforce, write the integrations, migrate your data, build your reports.
But here's the thing: That technical work is a commodity. There are thousands of qualified Salesforce developers.
What's NOT a commodity is the strategic thinking:
Should you even implement Salesforce?
How should it integrate with your other systems?
What workflows will your team actually use?
What organizational changes need to happen first?
How do you phase this so you see value quickly?
An independent advisor brings the strategy. The vendor brings the execution.
You're not trusting the person who profits from selling you more services to also be the person telling you what you need.
The Economics Actually Work Better
Typical vendor path:
Implementation: $45,000
Fixes after launch: $15,000
Features they sold you that you don't use: $8,000
Total: $68,000
Independent advisor path:
Planning and Oversight with advisor: $15,000
Implementation by vetted off-shore partner: $27,000
Post-launch optimization: $3,000
Total: $45,000
You save money AND get a better result because the planning prevents expensive mistakes, the offshore execution is cheaper, and you only build what you actually need.
How to Find an Independent Advisor
They should:
Have deep operational experience (not just technical certifications)
Be willing to tell you if you're not ready
Start with discovery and planning, not jump to implementation
Charge for advisory work separately from implementation
Stick around after launch
Red flags:
They don’t dedicate significant effort to understanding your business
They're primarily an implementation firm offering "strategy" as an add-on
They push you to sign quickly
They dismiss your concerns about readiness
They guarantee success without understanding your business first
The Bottom Line
You have two choices when implementing Salesforce:
Option 1: Hire a vendor who makes money by implementing Salesforce. Hope they ask the right questions. Hope their template fits. Hope your team adopts it.
Option 2: Hire an independent advisor who makes sure you succeed. They help you figure out if you're ready, design the right solution, connect you with affordable execution, and oversee quality.
One is a bet. The other is a plan.
After 25 years managing business operations, I can tell you: The plan wins every time.
Want to See If You're Ready?
Take our free 3-minute Operations Readiness Assessment. You'll get a clear picture of your gaps before implementing any new system.
Or book a 30-minute consultation. I'll tell you honestly whether you're ready for Salesforce, and if not, what to tackle first.
No sales pitch. Just straight talk about what will actually work for your business.
Thanks for reading,
Justin