💃 SalesforceChaCha Interviews a Salesforce Consultant 🕺

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Let’s hop 🐇 into the interview!

Today’s subject is currently a Salesforce Consultant with 5 years of Salesforce experience and holds the Admin Certification.

Tell us about how your Salesforce journey began? Were you an “accidental admin?” How many years do you have and what has your career progression looked like?

Yes, I was definitely an “accidental admin”!

My Salesforce journey began in my final year of college when I was trying to figure out my next steps.

A friend of mine told me that there was a Salesforce startup in Kingston (the first of its kind in Jamaica that I had heard of) looking for talent.

Having never worked in tech before and never hearing of Salesforce before, I kind of politely declined but he was adamant and said there were opportunities for growth.

After a bit of research, I started putting in the hours on Trailhead and got the hang of it - that’s where the real interest grew.

Eventually, I landed a role as an Admin/BA and never looked back.

I was able to learn key concepts while I worked and studied for my Admin cert which helped me develop a sense of the direction I wanted to grow in as a Salesforce professional.

4 years later, here I am - a full-fledged Salesforce Certified Consultant & Admin!

What was your inflection point? When did you understand that Salesforce was going to be your career?

I knew Salesforce was going to be my career 3 months into my first role as an BA/Admin.

There were a lot of days and (long) nights when I felt clueless but I never stopped wanting to know more which resulted in exponential growth.

It was like a light bulb went off in my head and I saw where my natural curiosity was a perfect fit for a highly-customizable platform that was constantly changing.

What are some of the significant events that have progressed your career? Was it a light bulb that went off for you? A mentor? A twitter thread with wise words?

The most significant event of my career was accepting the task of debugging the largest, most convoluted flow I have ever seen.

The developer who originally built the flow was no longer at the company and there was only one senior developer (who was also the Technical Lead) available to work on those tickets. He asked me if I would be willing to take a few days while he walked me through everything so that I could assist.

That developer-first type of mentorship shaped the way I approach Salesforce configuration and my confidence in automation grew with each passing day.

That superpower has also made me more marketable and has given me the opportunity to simplify complex concepts for colleagues with many more years of experience than me.

The consulting profession has a reputation for being difficult with long hours. How has your personal experience been?

At first, this was a major challenge for me.

When balancing multiple projects, deadlines and client meetings, it’s easy to become overwhelmed.

It took me a while to get a good understanding of time management and learn how to balance the hours along with my personal life.

As a consultant, time literally equals money and with no sick leave, PTO or paid vacations to fall back on, it can really take a toll on your mental and physical health.

There is a sort of pressure to be “on” 24/7 and work as much as you possibly can.

This may sound counterintuitive at first, but the best remedy I’ve found is to plan EVERYTHING to the best of your ability - including down time - and work that into your calendar/availability.

Consulting is a people + relationship business. How do you manage “people problems” - difficult stakeholders, clients, bosses, coworkers?

I’ve found that building and maintaining relationships within the internal project team can go a long way when dealing with difficult clients as you help each other gain clarity and insight on the best way to deal with hiccups or avoid them altogether.

Over-communication, internally and externally, is key in helping build trust and keeping the project on track.

What is your preference between consulting and in-house roles? Why?

I prefer consulting roles because there is more flexibility in setting your own hours and rates and choosing what type of work you take on.

There are also more opportunities for learning and growth because of your exposure to multiple orgs and clients.

You are a non-US resident, residing outside of the US, and have worked extensively with US consulting companies. How were you able to break into this competitive market? What advice do you have for the other international Salesforce professionals who want to work for US companies?

I was in touch with a popular recruitment agency that helped me to get connected with a US company.

Eventually, I was able to register a company in the US and open a company bank account, etc which opened the door for C2C contracts.

Though the pandemic changed the way many US companies perceive the “global workforce” and remote work in general, it’s still challenging as the majority of these companies either don’t have policies to support C2C contracts/international employees or aren’t entirely comfortable with it for some reason or the other.

However, there are companies that are open to it and we’re starting to see more of that in the ecosystem.

My advice would be to obtain marketable skills, be constantly learning and researching, have an open mind, participate in Salesforce communities, remain flexible, and don’t lose hope!

What advice do you have for someone thinking about a career switch into Salesforce? How can they best get prepared to work, and be effective, in this space? How long will this switch take?

I would say you need at least 6 months to fully transition.

There’s a myth that you need a certification to start your career in Salesforce but I’ve found where there are companies willing to hire you in entry-level roles as you study and prepare.

Your certification won’t make you a great Salesforce professional but it helps validate your knowledge!

While you search for roles, take advantage of as many free resources as you can before paying for the fancy “crash courses” and bootcamps. Keep your ears to the ground for Salesforce’s free webinars (where sometimes they give exam vouchers and discounts).

Start by dedicating a couple hours every day to get familiarized with the platform through Trailhead and research/map out which direction you see yourself going in.

Also, utilize LinkedIn and Salesforce forums/websites to help you get connected with other professionals.

How do you stay current with Salesforce releases, news, and other things that impact your role? Any favorite websites or communities?

I follow blogs and Salesforce MVPs on Twitter and LinkedIn - they always have quick reads and in some cases, newsletters, so you can get it straight to your inbox.

For more instructional material like how-to’s and best practices, I like to watch videos on YouTube like “Automate This!” from Salesforce, hosted by the OG Automation Champion & Salesforce Evangelist, Jennifer Lee.

Ohana Slack is also a great international community with lots of info, insight and comic relief in some cases!

What does the next 1-3 years look like for you? What role do you want to be in? What projects do you want to be working on? What do you want your day-to-day to look like?

Over the next 1-3 years, I want to be in a role with minimum client-facing activities where I can focus on configuration and completing tasks for a portion of my day and dedicate the rest of my time to exploring my other passions and endeavors.

I’m gaining a lot of experience with Nonprofit Cloud in my current role which has been quite satisfying and I’d like to keep working with nonprofits and mission-based entities and helping them put a little more good into the world.

What is something new-to-you that has brought value to your role? Whether it be a new Salesforce release functionality, an add-on tool, ChatGPT, etc.

The imminent death of process builder has forced encouraged Salesforce to deliver some long awaited features for Flows!

The Summer ‘23 release was jam-packed with Flow upgrades that I’m sure will enhance my experience going forward. I’m also very interested in EinsteinGPT and what implementation/maintenance will look like from an admin perspective.

What product or tooling do you want to see Salesforce release in the near future?

I would love to see Salesforce release some native tools for data management/cleanup.

Also, ran into an issue the other day with Collaborative Groups created in Experience Cloud sites not being available in Salesforce. Not being able to surface group data easily is pretty inconvenient and moving that data just as challenging.

How do you think AI will impact Salesforce, and Salesforce Professionals like you? And have you seen any impacts already?

I definitely see the potential benefits for admins and developers growing over the next year or so.

Right now, ChatGPT is capable of certain time consuming tasks like writing validation rules (ALMOST to perfection) so I’m expecting to see major improvements as time goes on and be able to test it out myself.

Thanks for taking the time with us. What parting words of wisdom do you have for us?

Whether you are thinking of a career in Salesforce or many years in, there’s always one more thing to learn.

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