💃 How To Go From a Salesforce Consultant to Admin🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds!  The age old question - how does one go from Salesforce Consultant to Salesforce Admin?  Hmmmm 🤔 that is not an age-old question.  In fact, it seems to be backwards from most of the career advancement articles out there.  However, "traditional" is not a SaleforceChaCha strength.  Today, we discuss a path LESS traveled path that needs more consideration 😃 !

Agenda for today includes

• How To Go From a Salesforce Consultant to Admin

• Daily Principle

• All the Memes

How To Go From a Salesforce Consultant to Admin

First, WHY would someone want to go from a Consultant to an Admin?  Consultants are generally thought of as cooler, better looking, can lift more weights, etc.  When you go to a party, you're more likely to go home with that baddie if you tell them you're a consultant.  An admin is going home alone for sure.  All jokes aside, traditionally, consultants are more accomplished, paid better, and have more prestige.  Whether it is deserved or not is absolutely debatable, but that aforementioned party scenario is not far off....

3 Reasons Why Consultants Should Become Admins

1) Pay is Competitive

This is the numero uno reason consultants should consider the switch.  In the Great Fed Money Printing between 2020-2021, Salesforce Admin salaries exploded!  The top end of the salary band is very competitive with even Senior Consultants.  Below that, in the $100k zone, there are some pretty incompetent admins that experienced consultants would run circles around.  

While $110-140k admin positions are not super normalized, they are not especially exceptional anymore. To be fair, this range may put you in an org with tens of thousands of users and high-cycles of defect resolving, but there are talented $80k consultants working 80hr weeks, too.  

2) Work-Life Balance

Consulting can be a grind.  You have multiple bosses (clients, SOWs, and your actual boss).  You may be on the road 3-4 days/week.  You have utilization requirements.  That FTO "perk" - how are you going to take time off when you have 10 clients breathing down your neck, all with your cell phone number?

Admin life does not deal with most of the above.  Sure, it has it's own challenges, like getting bored of one org, or having a scatter-brained Sales Manager who is providing all the business requirements.  But a quality consultant will treat those as opportunities, while getting that work-life balance in place.  

3) Better Benefits

This isn't a sure thing.  Rather, an increase likelihood.  Here's why - most Salesforce Implementation shops are small businesses.  Small businesses do not have the leverage to obtain favorable healthcare & 401k plans, or have large cash reserves to award guaranteed, big raises and bonuses.  

In industry, small to huge companies use Salesforce.  When you start getting into the $1 billion-sized companies, the benefits become much more apparent.  On top of top-tier health insurance and a range of 401k options, you'll have access to leadership classes and other developmental programs, subsidized gym memberships, raffles for box seats to games, and company-issued everything.  

So, How To Go From a Salesforce Consultant to Admin

A decent consultant should also have a decent network that can help identify opportunities.  As well, all the popular resources and communities - LinkedIn, Indeed, Discord, and Slack - are great places to start.  Once you have some interviews here, are 3 tips - 

1. Carve time out for your interviews. That doesn't mean the 1hr of your interview. It means 1.5hrs - 30min to take deep breaths, let your mind wind down and stabilize from your consulting work, and a focus on presenting yourself to your potential new-employer.

2. When the interviewer asks why you are making this non-traditional move, DO NOT tell them you are burned out from consulting. DO tell them you are passionate about developing Salesforce solutions and would prefer to be dedicated to building a single org over a period of time, and that walking away from client's orgs you implemented was hard. Try not to bust out laughing...

3. Do the math - how much salary are you willing to give up for a better work-life balance? That's not to say you are definitely taking a pay cut, but if your total compensation as a consultant is $115,000 and you are working 55hrs/week, would you take $100,000 to work under 40hrs? It is worth it find your inflection point where you would give up money for time.

Daily Principle

and now....Your Daily Memes