The right time to hire a Salesforce expert? Yesterday

Your peers are burning millions on failed Salesforce implementations, not because the platform is flawed, but because they delayed bringing in expertise when it actually mattered. 

70% of Salesforce implementations fail to meet their objectives, costing organizations an average of $1.8 million per failed implementation. Complete re-implementations? Those run $4.2 million in direct costs, plus opportunity costs and competitive damage.​

Waiting to hire expertise doesn’t save money. It multiplies costs exponentially. 

In over a decade as certified SFMC experts, we’ve watched businesses pay the price for waiting. Our mission is to ensure our clients never do. Working with a Salesforce consultant for startups or large organizations ensures scalable architecture and sustainable foundations. Take a moment to understand how one of the most underrated Salesforce hiring mistakes is hiring too late.

Salesforce implementation delay cost

There’s no shortage of reasons why companies hesitate to bring in a Salesforce expert. Yet, three persistent myths continue to shape most CTOs’ decisions.

1. “We’ll figure it out ourselves!”

Here’s what delayed expertise actually costs your organization:

• 10-20% of your technology budget gets diverted to resolving accumulated tech debt​. In fact, technical debt can represent 20-40% of your organization’s technology estate value before depreciation.
  
• Seven out of ten software projects face budget overruns.
  
• Organizations that attempt DIY implementations and fail spend an average of $150 billion annually on failed CRM implementations globally.
  
• Sales team productivity has been known to decline 23% from pre-implementation levels when implementations go wrong.

The contrast of a Salesforce expert vs DIY setup becomes painfully clear when failures multiply and recovery costs skyrocket.

2. “We’ll hire someone when we need them.”

By the time you realize you need expertise, you’re already deep in technical debt. Organizations typically take 18-24 months before recognizing project failure. Those months compound costs daily through poor user adoption, data quality issues, and operational inefficiencies.​

Such a Salesforce project failure due to delay often traces back to underestimating complexity during the initial setup and delaying architectural oversight.

3. “An admin can handle this…”

Admins are critical for maintenance, but they’re NOT solution architects. Complex enterprise projects require architectural oversight that understands integration strategies, platform limits, license constraints, and enterprise landscapes. Treating Salesforce like a tactical tool instead of a strategic project is why 90% of projects suffer from poor project management. 

Failure costs money; delay costs credibility. Each month of backlog erodes user trust, fuels shadow IT, and stalls organizational momentum. The only way to avoid costly Salesforce mistakes is to align expertise early—before technical debt spirals out of control. But it’s not just about the cost; poor Salesforce implementation timing has other consequences too.

Impact of late Salesforce consulting beyond cost

Delaying Salesforce expertise doesn’t just add cost, it creates chaos. Here’s what happens when “we’ll fix it later” becomes the default approach:

• Poor configurations create overlapping automations, unused fields proliferating across objects, and brittle systems that collapse under their own complexity.
  
• Custom fields multiply until pages resemble cluttered spreadsheets—some organizations end up with 347+ custom fields on single objects, with over half unused.
  
• Workflows overlap and fire contradictorily, creating errors administrators can’t trace​.
  
• Users actively avoid the system because it’s too complex to navigate​. New hires can’t onboard efficiently because the system is too convoluted.
  
• Failed implementations damage employee morale and increase turnover. Teams forced to work with broken systems experience burnout and disengagement​.
  
• Competitors with optimized CRM systems move faster, serve their customers better, and capture market share while you’re stuck in implementation hell.

Without a proactive Salesforce adoption strategy, even the best technology investments lose momentum and fail to deliver long-term ROI.

Salesforce CRM consulting benefits

Bringing in Salesforce expertise early is about setting the foundation for lasting ROI, scalability, and alignment between technology and business goals. 

Here’s what a skilled Salesforce CRM consultant brings to the table:

• Controlled costs: Consultants prevent budget overruns through precise scoping, use native capabilities instead of costly custom code, and help you avoid re-implementation.
  
• Strategic alignment: Experienced architects tie your Salesforce roadmap directly to business strategy, ensuring the platform supports measurable growth instead of becoming another disconnected system.
  
• Data & integration excellence: Consultants optimize data models and integration flows, creating a unified source of truth that strengthens reporting accuracy, decision-making, and customer visibility.
  
• Long-term scalability: By minimizing architectural complexity and enforcing Salesforce best practices early, consultants build foundations that adapt seamlessly as your business and tech stack evolve.

But how can you know when to hire a Salesforce expert? Stay with us.

When to hire a Salesforce expert

Timing is everything in Salesforce expertise. 

Hire too late, and you’re paying cleanup costs three times over. Hire at the wrong phase, and you’re overspending on junior consultants when architects are needed.

Below are a few starting points for hiring a Salesforce expert at just the right time:

• During design and architecture: This is the inflection point where experts turn business goals into scalable data models, integration blueprints, and governance frameworks.
  
• During build and customization: Salesforce specialists accelerate timelines, enforce best practices, and prevent automation chaos. This is when complex flows, Apex logic, and integrations with legacy systems demand hands-on expertise.
  
• Pre-launch (testing, migration, cutover): Bring in experts 8–12 weeks before go-live to design UAT strategies, validate data, and manage cutover. Launch week is no time for surprises—specialists ensure smooth data migration, system stability, and 24/7 hypercare support.
  
• Post-launch (optimization and evolution): Most failures occur within a year due to poor adoption and underfunded support. Experts evolve your roadmap, integrate Salesforce’s tri-annual updates, and align every phase with business growth.

Understanding Salesforce optimization delay risks helps you plan expertise needs before they escalate into full-scale reimplementation efforts.

Hire a Specialist When

Bring in Salesforce specialists for defined project phases like discovery, architecture, or data migration—especially when you’re running a 1–2 year implementation and don’t need a full-time headcount. They provide niche expertise such as integration architecture or Apex development that your team may lack.

Strategic Salesforce partner selection ensures you bring in the right talent for each phase rather than overspending on generalists. 

Hire Full-Time When

Add an in-house expert once you need ongoing platform administration, continuous optimization, or multi-cloud support across business units.

Discover how hiring a Salesforce Marketing Cloud expert from Mavlers can elevate your marketing performance.

Salesforce hiring mistakes

Even if you don’t go for us, it is critical to realize that hiring for Salesforce roles can be tricky. The ecosystem’s high demand and lucrative pay attract both genuine talent and opportunistic candidates. To safeguard your team and projects, watch out for these common hiring pitfalls:

• Hidden dual employment: Some candidates secretly juggle two full-time roles, leading to low Salesforce activity, missed meetings, delayed deliverables, inconsistent output, and no record of your company on their LinkedIn profile.
  
• Fake or inflated experience: Beware of resumes padded with unverifiable or recently earned certifications, implausible Salesforce product usage, or experience timelines that don’t align with product release dates. Candidates may speak confidently about their latest role but stumble when asked about older ones.
  
• Implausible project claims: Details that don’t add up—like claiming to work on projects in regions or offices that never existed—often indicate fabricated experience. Evasiveness or abrupt disengagement during verification is another red flag.
  
• Questionable social footprint: Candidates lacking LinkedIn ties to listed employers or offering references from ex-employees (instead of current ones with company emails) may be masking false credentials.

Hence, for long-term success, make it a point to only hire certified Salesforce consultants who combine technical expertise with proven delivery experience.

The bottom line for CTOs

Either way, you’re making a bet. Betting on “We’ll figure it out” risks costly delays, rework, and months lost to discovering what went wrong. Betting on early expertise means investing upfront for faster results, sustainable ROI, and a smoother path to long-term success. 

Your architecture decisions made today determine whether Salesforce becomes your competitive advantage or your most expensive regret. 

Still on the fence? Schedule a free, no-obligation call with our SFMC team.