💃 SalesforceChaCha's Inferno 🕺

Good morning, Salesforce Nerds! Dante’s Divine Comedy is considered one of the mankind’s greatest works of literature.

“Hold my beer.” - SalesforceChaCha

Inspired by Dante’s masterpiece, specifically the Divine Comedy’s Act 1: The Inferno and it’s 9 levels of Hell 🔥, the ChaCha presents The Five Levels of Problem Solvers 🧠.

LAST WEEK’S POLL RESULTS

The winner of Salesforce Job Interview Assignment poll was 🥁🥁🥁

72% of you said that you would NOT partake in a 2 hour interview assignment!

Most of you like solving problems, just not for free?

WHAT NEXT?

5 Levels of Problem Solving

Level 1 | Problem? What problem?

Ignorance is bliss 🙂.

The first level of problem solver is the inability to identify that a problem exists.

You: Hey intern, you can’t build Flows in Production.

Intern: Yes you can, I do it all the time. Here, let me show you…

🤦

Rarely are these miscues malicious. Rather, it’s ignorance, caused by lack of experience and exposure.

Like a toddler that doesn’t understand chasing the ball into the street is dangerous! They’ll learn. There’s no ill intent.

Level 2 | The Oprah

You get a problem! You get a problem!

This is the worst level of problem solver. It’s the annoying kid in class who’s always calling out everyone, like their own poop don’t stink 💩.

In the office, it’s the worker who complains about everything, but doesn’t know how to solve it.

“This CRM sucks, I can’t find the records that should be in there and I don’t think these reports are accurate.”

“That client doesn’t know what they’re doing, they shouldn’t have built their Flows like this.”

“Where is the documentation for these automations? Like, how did no one document this?!”

You know this type. You may have even been this type. We all have. It’s a natural progression to ⬇️

Level 3 | The Problem Solver

At some point, you threw in the towel.

The good towel.

“No one is gonna fix this 🤬? NO ONE?!? Fine, I’ll do it myself!”

That’s a HUGE mindset shift 😃.

For many Salesforce professionals this was your inflection point and is deeply ingrained in your Salesforce origin story-

🙂 You began solving a problem.

😃 Then some problems.

🧠 Then most of the problems.

😅 And now, ALL THE PROBLEMS!!

This is also the most challenging level. You’ve never had so much responsibility, high stakes…and nice compensation 🤑.

Problems come from change -

↪️ A new product bundle that needs to be sold out of the CRM.

↪️ Replacing Eloqua with Marketing Cloud.

↪️ Updated spam laws that require double opt-in.

Solving for change is hard. And change is constant. And so it goes….

Sometimes you solve it beautifully 🤩. And sometimes you fall flat on your face 🤕. But you learn more in a few years than you had the previous two decades.

Now you must decide if this is enough, or to take it to the next level ⬇️⬇️

Level 4 | The Master Consultant

There’s more than one way to bake a cake 🎂. There’s more than one way to make a Salesforce org hum 🏎️💨.

And a master consultant knows all the ways.

But there’s more-

A master consultant knows the impacts of each way. Impacts to the business and users, revenue and expenses, and the upstream and downstream processes.

A master consultant eloquently and simply presents each option to a leadership team, expertly setting up executives to make good decisions.

And no longer is Salesforce the main thing; it’s merely a component of the holistic solution. People, processes, and profits influence the Salesforce decisions. And the master consultant uses problems to manipulate all the things to great effect.

Watching a Master Consultant at work must’ve been like watching da Vinci paint the Mona Lisa 🧑‍🎨.

Level 5 | The Philosopher

aka post-economic. aka e/acc. aka sandal-wearer.

This is the Peter Thiels and the Paul Grahams of the world. Marc Benioff is on his way.

Those who are post-economic and have solved all the problems they’re willing to solve, and now live in the shadows (Thiel) or in the English countryside (Graham).

And instead of actually solving the big problems (Thiel - a method to exchange money, Graham - a model to grow a mega-business), they theorize on solving big problems.

For example, Thiel wrote the instant classic Zero to One. And Graham is a twitter fixture (much more, actually. Expect a dedicated article, coming soon 👀 !).

Their execution days are over (actually, who knows what Thiel is up to…), but they still think about problems a lot.

Achieving this elevated state is rare air, but is good context for understanding an end of the spectrum .

And the purpose of exposing this end-boss Philosopher level isn’t to remind you of your inferiority. Rather, it’s to show you it’s achievable.

The sub-4 minute mile was impossible! Until it wasn’t…and now the floodgates are open.

Besides Marc Benioff, who in the Salesforce ecosystem will achieve The Philosopher level?

FINAL THOUGHTS

Takeaway

The takeaway is that there are levels to this problem-solver game.

The NBA is the best of the best basketball players (450 players) in the world (8 billion people).

But even within that tiny slice that is the NBA, there is Kevin Durant (champion, MVP, All-NBA) and there is Ish Wainright (you ever heard of him?) - a wide spectrum.

For Salesforce professionals, there are Kevin-Durant-level admins/consultants/developers, and there are plenty of benchwarmers too. And everything in between.

There is power in knowing which level you’re on. And then using the greatest resource of all time to elevate to the level that you desire 💪.

And so, which level are you on?

SOUL FOOD

Today’s Principle

and now....Your Salesforce Memes