Certifications / Career / Sales Cloud

Sales Cloud Consultant Certification Guide & Tips

By Andreea Doroftei

This Sales Cloud certification is designed for consultants who have experience of implementing Salesforce Sales Cloud solutions in a customer-facing role. The exam zones into Salesforce’s most popular and customizable product, taking a deep dive into all the features that make up the Sales Cloud.

This guide will focus on key topics, as well as the best strategy for studying and taking the exam itself. You should be prepared for a heavily scenario-based certification. You can also check out the Trailhead exam guide.

Here’s what you need to know ahead of the exam:

  • Mid-level certification
  • 2-5 years of experience required
  • The Salesforce Administrator certification is a prerequisite
  • $200 fee

Who’s the Ideal Candidate?

This exam is designed for customer-facing consultants with experience of implementing Salesforce from scratch. While consulting experience is nice to have, this Sales Cloud certification is still very much applicable for Salesforce Admins who want to prove their advanced knowledge of the platform — especially those dealing with slightly more complex Salesforce implementations.

This certification might be exactly what you’re looking for if you’re aiming for a promotion, transitioning from an administrative to a consulting role, or you simply want an accreditation to go along with your expertise on the Salesforce platform. 

Note: The Salesforce Administrator certification is a prerequisite — you must obtain this before registering for the Sales Cloud Consultant exam.

Key Topics

Salesforce Exams are made up of different topics, each with different weightings. In comparison with other Salesforce certifications, the Sales Cloud Consultant is one of the more complex options, as it covers ten different categories. 

It’s important to pay attention to these, as just a few sections will most likely take up the majority of the exam, such as the key topics below, which come to a total of 63%. We’ll even throw in some example questions.

1. Application of Product Knowledge (18%)

The largest section on this exam (with over ten questions) is testing the candidate’s way of applying product knowledge in the Salesforce ecosystem. The question topics are sure to cover everything from the Lead stage of the process all the way through to Opportunity management, quoting, and fulfilling the order.

On top of the above, this is the section where out-of-the-box Salesforce features will be covered. Think Enterprise Territory Management or Advanced Currency Management, as well as the appropriate situations for using AppExchange managed packages.

2. Implementation Strategies (13%)

All questions in this section will be scenario-based, and will test your knowledge, not only on the platform, but also on your understanding and translating business requirements into a solution. 

Here is where the consulting experience – for the candidates who have it – comes into play. From gathering requirements through to the production deployment, you should be familiar with (and comfortable applying concepts) that make a consulting engagement successful as well as measurable.

3. Account and Contact Management (11%)

Although you should find Accounts and Contacts a relatively simple concept by the time you decide to take this exam, there are a lot of features surrounding them which extend the functionality for more specific requirements. These include (but are not limited to) Account Hierarchies, Related Contacts, Person Accounts, and Events. 

In addition, you will be expected to determine how ownership on Accounts and Contacts can drive visibility of records such as Opportunities, Cases, and Activities.

READ MORE: Considerations for Converting Leads

4. Sales Practices (11%)

One of the key sections of this exam, here is where your knowledge pertaining to Sales Cloud and related products (such as Einstein products or Salesforce Inbox) will be evaluated, all using – once again – scenario-based questions. 

You also need to be familiar with the implementation considerations, along with sales and marketing specific processes as well as KPI measurement and solving business challenges.

READ MORE: Einstein Lead Scoring

5. Opportunity Management (10%)

This section will cover a wide range of topics, specifically the relationships between a few interconnected features such as Sales Stages, Sales Processes, Forecasts, and Pipeline. Questions will also include the relationships between:

  • Opportunities to assets 
  • Product line items and schedules
  • Price books
  • Quotes
  • Contracts
  • Campaigns

Quite a few questions will be scenario-based, and you will be able to get a few easy points by proposing the most appropriate forecasting solution, as well as knowing the implications of activating advanced currency management.

READ MORE: Understand and Customize Sales Processes and Paths

Study Strategy

The Sales Cloud Certification is a popular follow-on qualification from the Admin exam; as the most popular Salesforce product, it’s often the one that professionals familiarize themselves with first.

Luckily for you, this means there is an abundance of resources out there to help you revise for this exam. As previously stated, this exam is heavily scenario-focussed, as it’s designed for a consulting role that takes business requirements and translates them into a Salesforce solution. This means you need to understand the technical side, as well as the business side.

Trailhead is a great way to get this experience, as most modules will follow a scenario, giving you exposure to the consulting skills you will need. If you want to take this a step further, try completing the Superbadges available on Trailhead, as these go through complex use cases that result in a complex solution touching multiple topics.

Here’s another way to keep things interesting while studying the key concepts and features. Try inventing a business with its own requirements and challenges; spin up a new Salesforce developer edition org and pretend you are a B2B Company with a complex sales process and reporting requirements, as well as Opportunities in multiple currencies. This way, you can test out everything you need to know and learn to implement from the inside out.

Exam Strategy

Ready for when ‘exam day’ finally hits, there are a bunch of tips we gathered over the years to give you the best chance of passing with flying colors.

Firstly, if there are any concepts you are struggling to get to grips with, then print off a cheat sheet and try to memorize it before you take the exam — this will keep everything fresh in your memory. You could also write down the key points, depending on your learning style. 

When taking the exam, pay particular attention to the question, and read it through a few times. For scenario-based questions, the answer options will give you huge clues as to what the correct answer actually is. If you are taking the exam in a test center, make use of the pen and paper provided to draw out a data schema, role hierarchy, or any other diagram that will help you visualize the answer. Please note, this is not allowed during online proctored exams. 

When deciding on the answer, be sure to use the process of elimination to get rid of the answers that are definitely incorrect. Salesforce likes to throw in answers that are made up of different features or just plain incorrect. They also like to throw in curveballs — features that appear to be correct but aren’t best practice. You can often work these out by focussing on standard Salesforce features that accomplish a task. For example, you could build a custom approval process with a process builder, but why do this when there is a standard feature that could be used instead?

You also have a great tool at your disposal, the “Mark for review” checkbox that appears below each question. This is great if you can’t think of an answer right at that moment, or if you are doubtful about your answer. At the end of the exam, you will have a chance to review the questions marked for review (as well as all others), which will give you a pretty good idea of how likely you are to have passed the test. I would always recommend going through every question if time permits. I do this on every exam and often spot mistakes I’ve made, or even find the answer to another question I hadn’t yet completed. 

Even if you don’t pass the exam on your first attempt, be sure to write down the topics you found most challenging – this will allow you to study further and test again. It is recommended that you schedule the retake as soon as possible to avoid disrupting the flow and prevent you from forgetting the things you don’t work with day in, day out. Similar to all other Salesforce exams, the Sales Cloud Certification retake fee is half price and you can have up to three attempts per release – as this is subject to change, make sure you check out the retake policy.

Resources

Tips

  • Bookmark the official Trailhead Exam Guide and use this as your master revision list.
  • Ensure you not only read about the features and concepts, but thoroughly test them out in a Developer Org or a Trailhead Playground. This will ensure you cover all functionalities, preparing you for some very detailed questions.
  • Once you feel confident with some of the modules, book your exam to give you a date to aim towards. This will give you the motivation to invest time, revise all topics, and pass the exam.
  • Try out our mock exams to practise for the real thing, and test for any gaps in your knowledge.
  • Download our Top 10 Salesforce Certification Tips eBook.

Final Thoughts

The Sales Cloud Consultant certification is great if you’re looking for a more advanced qualification that can be applied in the real world. Sales Cloud is the most popular Salesforce product. As a result, there are a lot of resources available, as well as guidance within the wider Salesforce community. And of course, companies are always looking for qualified individuals to help them get the most out of their purchase. 

If you are looking to switch roles and join a Salesforce consultancy from another background, this certification will inspire confidence. Employers will know that you have advanced knowledge of a product they will be implementing, and can seamlessly translate any business requirements thrown your way into scalable technical solutions.

The Author

Andreea Doroftei

Andreea is a Salesforce Technical Instructor at Salesforce Ben. She is an 18x certified Salesforce Professional with a passion for User Experience and Automation. 

Comments:

    amit
    December 06, 2014 9:08 am
    Thanks Ben for the detailed information. I hope this will help lot of people to opt a process to prepare for exam.
    Geetanjali Rawat
    December 09, 2014 7:14 pm
    This is what I was looking for....Some tips for my salescloud cert which is real soon! :) Thanks! Hope you manage to post the quiz soon. Eagerly waiting!
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    December 09, 2014 8:49 pm
    Thanks Amit, I hope so too!
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    December 09, 2014 8:50 pm
    Great, good luck Geetanjali! Just for you I will try and get the questions published tomorrow :)
    Geetanjali Rawat
    December 10, 2014 3:49 pm
    :) :) Thankyou Ben! Your are a man of his word !! :) Here I go to practice your quiz bank! Thanks a ton!
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    December 10, 2014 3:51 pm
    No problem at all! I'm sure you will pass with flying colours!
    Geetanjali Rawat
    December 30, 2014 2:53 am
    Hey Ben, Just got back with the sales cloud cert!! :) Thanks for your help!!! A ton!
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    December 30, 2014 8:49 am
    Woo! Im glad to have helped you out!
    Reda
    January 05, 2015 3:48 pm
    Hi Ben, Great blog! Very useful, but I don't find the link to the Sales Cloud Quiz? Thanks for your help ;)
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    January 05, 2015 4:05 pm
    Hi Reda, Thanks! I'm afraid I've had to take it down for some maintenance. It should be up in a couple of weeks though. Ben
    Mayank Srivastava
    January 05, 2015 10:01 pm
    Hey Ben, I will be going through the material on your site for the next 2 weeks and then attempting the exam. Any chance that you will have the quiz up and running before January 17th? Thanks! Mayank
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    January 05, 2015 10:04 pm
    Hi Mayank, Im afraid it might be a bit longer than that. Apologies for any inconvinence.
    Reda
    January 06, 2015 5:57 pm
    Thanks Ben!
    Nick Johnson
    January 14, 2015 7:05 pm
    Hi Ben, Thanks so much for putting this together. After passing Admin and Dev on the first try within a quick two-week succession, I signed up for Sales Cloud with high confidence. Unfortunately, I did not pass. Now I'm back for round 2, and thankfully I have found this, which helps. I have a few general questions if you could help out: - How to you recommend doing some exercises on territory management? I read through the territory mgmt. guides, but as the test was scenario based, I want to actually use it. Unfortunately, you must contact SFDC to enable, so I'm unsure how I could do this? - I was stumped on questions regarding the Partner Portal. Through my studies, I was under the impression the Partner Portal was replaced by Communities. So that's what I studied and did exercises on. Where did I go wrong? - Any idea where to find a practice exam similar in format to the actual exam until yours comes back up? I think I may have studied that exact Quizlet, or a similar one, but it would be nice to have something that mimics testing environment. Thanks for the help! Nick
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    January 14, 2015 8:27 pm
    Hi Nick! No problem and thanks for reading. I was in a similar situation to you, I passed ADM and DEV thinking they were pretty easy and went into Sales Cloud with limited revision and failed. The second time I did it properly and confidently and passed! I'm sure you will do it the second time. With territory management I didn't actually test any features myself, I learned the core components e.g. prerequisites (Sandbox and Customizable reports, Accounts can be in multiple territories etc...and I was ok with that. I do like to test out some features though so I would advise contacting Salesforce under support which is usually how I get extra features activated. I'm not sure if you can get a sandbox with a Dev environment though? That's a bit strange that questions on the Partner Portal came up? I too thought it had all been replaced by Communities. What questions came up? I'm afraid not. I did have one on this site as you've probably seen but I've had to remove it, the Quizlet one is pretty good though. Thanks! Ben
    Mayank Srivastava
    January 14, 2015 8:30 pm
    Hey Nick/Ben, A few of my friends who recently appeared for the exam encountered similar issues with the Partner Portal related questions. Even I thought that I shouldn't be focusing on Portals anymore since it's being phased out by Communities, but with all these post exam reviews from people, i feel it would be wise to go prepared with the Portal related content. Same thing with salesforce to salesforce related topic. It's not even in the study guide and my friends told me to be well prepared with it.
    Nick Johnson
    January 15, 2015 3:33 pm
    Thanks Ben and Mayank for the responses. From my experience of having taken the exam, the study guide does not cover all topics on the exam. Additionally, I think it is very important to keep in mind to pick the best answer. Having worked as a SFDC consultant, I can recall projects where how we solved a particular business case might not be the "SFDC way". I recall one question that asked how would x most likely be set up in a y industry. From experience, the y industry sets up x in a multitude of ways, but after thinking over the question, I think I know what the answer should be.
    Mayank Srivastava
    January 16, 2015 8:29 pm
    Hey Ben, Can the Apex data loader be used to export field history data? Also, can it be used to export configuration data?
    Nick Johnson
    January 24, 2015 1:21 am
    Wanted to report back that I passed Sales Cloud today! Second time around was much easier, was very confident as I pressed submit. Now I'm off to the cocktail bar to celebrate! Thanks again Ben for helping with the resources you posted. - Nick
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    January 26, 2015 8:14 am
    Thanks for letting me know Nick! It's great to know that I've helped you out. Have one on me! Ben
    Chittaranjan
    February 04, 2015 9:52 am
    Hey Ben, thanks coming out such a nice tips and techniques about sales cloud exam.
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    February 04, 2015 9:59 am
    No problem at all - I hope it helps you out!
    Harsh Raghuvanshi
    March 09, 2015 12:40 pm
    Hi Ben, You article is very helpful for Certification point of view,it provides a great help to prepare. Can u please post some more Quiz ?
    Harsh Raghuvanshi
    March 09, 2015 12:42 pm
    Hi Ben, This is the superb article to get certified in sales cloud certification. But can u please post some more quiz to get some more confidence before attending the exam.?
    ben@ben-mccarthy.com
    March 09, 2015 12:54 pm
    Thanks Harsh! I'm afraid thats something I've had to put on hold for the time being, but will try my best to get something up soon and notify all of my subscribers!
    Prajakta Rane
    April 13, 2015 6:43 pm
    Hi Ben, Thats a very nice and informative article. To give my background, I have around 8 years of experience in web application development and looking for startup roles in Salesforce. Can you guide me how to find right roles or hiring agencies? Also, many people told me that its good to have SAles CLoud Certification. I dont have experience in Sales or Service Cloud. What is your personal experience? Thanks Ben
    Ben McCarthy
    April 14, 2015 8:27 am
    Hi Prajakta, You've chosen a good road to go down! There are a lot of hiring agencies around, all you have to do is type in your city and "salesforce recruitment" into google and I'm sure you will find loads. In terms of Certifications it is always best to start with your Administrator exam (You cannot take sales cloud without it). I have an introduction to certifications here you may find useful - https://www.salesforceben.com/introduction-salesforce-certifications/ Good luck!
    Anush
    April 16, 2015 4:06 am
    Hi Ben, Thanks for sharing useful resources! It will be really helpful if you can share quiz/mock exam. Thanks again
    Ben McCarthy
    April 21, 2015 1:28 pm
    Hi Yana, Thank you for your kind words! I too would say A and B. The reason being is that using an Account called Consumer is very bad practise and Person accounts should be used. I'm not too sure about A but I think that it is definitely not C or D. I'm not even too sure what "Add an index" means! Also Account assignment rules are used for territories which do not really apply here. Which other answers do you get from resources?
    Yana
    April 22, 2015 10:39 am
    Hi Ben, One of the sets of flashcards I use says the correct answers are A and C. I cannot really understand what does this INDEX mean. But there are some indexed fields which improve performance.
    Ben McCarthy
    April 22, 2015 11:20 am
    Hi Yana, This does make sense but its kind of getting into the developer realm that I don't think Sales Cloud exam would focus on. See this link.. https://success.salesforce.com/answers?id=90630000000gj2kAAA
    UST
    May 23, 2015 12:34 am
    If 2 answers must be chosen, I think the answer is A and C. If you choose A and B, then B does not apply when A is implemented as contact objects does not make sense when Person Account is used. Therefore logically A will go with C, as both limiting 10000 records as well as using index will improve query performance drastically. If the question would have been a set of radio buttons, then I would definitely go with B as the single best answer.
    O
    June 19, 2015 12:29 am
    Hi, Hi Ben, Thanks for the information and guidance! I just came back from taking the Sales Cloud and unfortunately failed. I got stumped with the same questions about Partner Portals, I remember the questions being about permissions, list views and related lists. A bit disappointed since according to the documentation you can't enable a Partner Portal anymore, you'd have to use Communities. I was more prepared to answer more questions about Communities and Sites, but did not see a single one, Yikes! I did find an old copy, 2008, Partner Portal Implementation on Scribd. I'm back to the drawing board, :-( Best, O
    Ben McCarthy
    June 19, 2015 12:22 pm
    Hi O, No problem and unlucky this time around. It's partly luck of the draw. The question about Partner Portals could if possibly be talking about existing implementations? As I'm guessing if you have a partner portal and don't want to upgrade then its fine to have this. Good luck the next time around! Ben
    Mike Fuchs
    July 25, 2015 7:19 pm
    Just passed the Sales Cloud Exam this morning...my 4th Salesforce Certification in the last 5 weeks! Next up to round them out in Service Cloud!
    Ben McCarthy
    July 25, 2015 7:21 pm
    Congrats Mike, I achieved my four over 2 years! Good luck with the service cloud, that's my next one up too.
    Cody
    August 13, 2015 8:47 pm
    Based on that article, A and C somewhat contradict as an index is most efficient when the count is greater than 10k. I'm going with B & C
    Cody
    August 13, 2015 9:56 pm
    Disregard my previous comment... Looking at this again, it says add index to 'Account' field on the 'Contact' object... you would want to add the index on the Account object for the Contacts, as the Contacts only have one Account. Enable person accounts to move them all (can get rid of Consumer account) then make sure no other accounts have more than 10k contacts on them so they are optimized. A & B
    Andy
    September 18, 2015 7:12 am
    Hi Ben, Congratulations on all your certs and for putting together this wonderful blog/website. I am preparing for the Sales Cloud Cert and is planning to take it the next couple of weeks. Do you still have the link to the Quiz? If you could please share that with me, I will be grateful. Have a good one, mate!
    Kshitij Shah
    January 09, 2016 12:12 pm
    Hi Ben, Thanks for sharing these useful tips and information. Hopefully, this helps me in the preparation and I get certified next week. If possible could you please share the link of the quiz,that will be really grateful. Thanks.
    Traci Whetzel
    January 13, 2016 5:48 pm
    Hi there - Is there a timeline for the mock exam for Sales Cloud Consultant?
    Zakaria ELMALKI
    January 20, 2016 1:25 pm
    Hello, Thank you for your help Ben, can you please tell me if there is a timeline for the Sales Cloud quiz? Thabk you in advance. Regards,
    Ali A
    March 31, 2016 8:05 pm
    'B' talks about migrating the data, where as the question reports the problem related to Mass Update rather than insert (migrate) data, hence B may not be the appropriate answer. In my opinion A and C can be the right answers. Refer below link in my support for the option 'C': https://developer.salesforce.com/blogs/engineering/2012/04/avoid-account-data-skew-for-peak-performance.html
    Lino Serafico
    April 15, 2016 3:51 am
    Awesome work as usual, Ben. Waiting for the mock exam. :)
    Ben McCarthy
    May 20, 2016 9:16 am
    Hi Hybin, as far as I am aware, the Sales cloud exam hasn't been changed too much since I wrote this. You should be absolutely fine revising with the premier support plus some of your own revision and testing in a dev org. good luck!
    Mark Smith
    June 26, 2016 3:13 pm
    Hi Ben. I recently passed Admin and I think seems to be a natural progression as some topics already overlap. I have access to Premier Support and wanted to know which of the courses I should be looking at? Regards Mark
    Allison McBrayer
    August 14, 2016 11:28 pm
    Hi Bhanu, I have some thoughts about a few of your questions. Q2 - I think this is a generic sales & marketing and not specifically Salesforce mapping. Q3 - is strictly for usability and adoption by the end user. The Solution being able to easily change has no impact on the end user. Q4 - The question is not so much about what Salesforce can do but as a consultant what should you recommend to the client. For this reason, I think the AppExchange is the best option. This is my interpretation of the questions. I would be interested in your thoughts. Allison
    Rick Upton
    September 14, 2016 4:33 am
    Regarding "D. removes the account assignment for all objects" I think "objects" is supposed to be "contacts". When you go to the Contact tab in Salesforce and click New, you'll see the following message at the top of the page: "Contacts not associated with accounts are private and cannot be viewed by other users or included in reports." I think option D is talking about the possibility of removing the account associated with each of the 500,000 contacts. The problem with this is that doing so could break a lot of functionality.
    Rick Upton
    September 14, 2016 4:37 am
    Regarding "C. Add an index to the account field on the contact object" check out https://help.salesforce.com/apex/HTViewSolution?id=000006007&language=en_US which says the following: The following fields are indexed by default: Primary keys (Id, Name and Owner fields). Foreign keys (lookup or master-detail relationship fields). Given the above, there should already be an index set up by default for the account field on the contact object. I think A and B are the correct answers.
    Mokrane
    October 23, 2016 4:08 pm
    Hi Ranvijay Kumar i'am trying to prepare for the sales cloud exam but i've some trouble to find valuable docs about topics like Implementation Strategies or Industry Knowledge. How did you manage to prépare your self ? Thanks
    Mokrane
    October 23, 2016 4:14 pm
    Hi Ben thanks a lot for this amazing blog i’am trying to prepare for the sales cloud exam but i’ve some trouble to find valuable docs about topics like Implementation Strategies, Industry Knowledge or Integration and Data Management could you please give some guidance please ? i have no acces to premier support, sadely ! Thanks
    Mannya
    December 24, 2018 9:10 am
    Hi Ben, your article is very helpful to clear the salesforce certification. Our team also follow your tips to clear their certifications. Best regards, Mannya(https://www.mannyats.com/).
    Philipp Ruttimann
    January 07, 2022 7:34 pm
    Hello great guide!! I am currently studying for this exam and was wondering what the passing score is? On Trailhead it was 68% but I have seen 62% and also heard 65%?
    Andreea D
    January 08, 2022 11:35 am
    Hello Philipp, Thank you for going through the guide! The source of truth when it comes to certification related information (such as the cost and passing score) is the official exam guide, found on Trailhead. Today, the passing score for the Sales Cloud Consultant certification mentioned in the guide is 68%. My recommendation is to always check out the Trailhead exam guide for any certification exam you are planning on taking so that you have the most up to date information regarding the passing score. Good luck on your exam!
    Hardeep Kumar
    June 29, 2022 5:06 pm
    I am an MBA graduate in marketing, and HR I have working experience in sales & operations. But I want to shift my career in technology along with business marketing like business analyst, sales\marketing cloud, and Salesforce administration. I thoroughly read your blog post, but I am still confused, about where to start, should I do CRT101 certification? Or should I start with something else? I would be glad if you help me to solve my problem. I already mailed you about this.
    Andreea D
    August 09, 2022 8:43 am
    Hello Hardeep! Happy yo hear you're looking forward to starting in the Salesforce ecosystem! I'd say that the first step is certainly working towards the Salesforce Administrator certification and of course the overall administration knowledge you will gather along the way. There are great resource on our website to help with that, varying from blog posts to actual practice exams. Also, after becoming more familiar with Salesforce and different available careers you should decide on the career path you are looking forward to taking, such as Admin, Consultant, Architect, etc. Good luck on your journey!
    iolk
    May 01, 2023 3:46 am
    good

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