(an update to AEs are Salespeople)
In my most recent post I noted that AE's are Salespeople and called out some of the ethical lapses I've seen. In response to that post one of my close friends, who is a senior consultant at a medium sized Salesforce partner reached out to ask if I could update my post to add a bit of information:
Upgrading to Unlimited Edition means that you lose the P10 donated licenses.
That is a very big deal! Let me restate it: If your organization chooses to either upgrade an existing Enterprise Edition or starts your new implementation on Unlimited Edition, you will not get any licenses free.
Under the Power of Us Program all nonprofits get ten donated licenses, known as the "P10." These are licenses for an Enterprise Edition org (or "EE").
Unlimited Edition ("UE") is the next tier up, coming with more data storage and some other potential benefits. (That you don't need. Watch for a future post on this topic!) UE licenses, of course, cost more. They are $864/year, exactly twice the price of EE. So naturally AEs would be incentivized to sell Unlimited!
But the P10 grant does not apply to UE licenses. So whereas the first ten EE licenses are free and then the 11th (if you ever grow that large) costs $432, on UE you pay $864 for every license, even your first. Thus the AE that talks a small nonprofit into UE has just garnered themself commission, even for a nonprofit that should pay zero dollars. This is a problem on so many levels.
Plus. my friend told me that they have seen "increasingly sleazy" tactics from AEs pushing Unlimited Edition. I've heard that from other people as well, I just hadn't put together the cost difference. Just think about the math for an org with 20 users, which is not that many employees:
20 users on Enterprise Edition = 10 free+10 paid licenses = $4,320/year = 💰
20 users on Unlimited Edition = 20 paid licenses = $17,280/year = 💰💰💰💰
A lot of nonprofits won't realize that until it's too late that they have now signed a contract that gets rid of their donated licenses.
It's Hard to Speak Out
The person that came to me with this information asked me not to include their name. They told me that they've already had "an AE get cranky" when they pointed out that a particular thing the AE was trying to add to a contract was not worthwhile. This is someone that often is very forthright with their opinions, including in public forums. But they felt that pointing out this sales tactic problem could hurt them and their coworkers.
Not The Last Word On This
I've made an edit to yesterday's post to mention this particular information.
I started this blog in order to give nonprofits the straight information on pricing and value. You'll definitely be hearing more about Unlimited Edition, AE sales tactics, and the like.