It’s no secret that the Salesforce industry is growing rapidly. The demand for administrators, developers, architects, and the like is enormous. Many consumers are making the transition into the Salesforce ecosystem for the first time and need help navigating the ins and outs of it all.
When I first started working for Uptima, I didn’t have a background in Salesforce, but I made progress throughout my career. Below are 10 tips I wish someone could have given me when I was starting out.
Salesforce gives you unlimited options to learn and practice on development playgrounds. Using Trailhead, you can learn and play with Salesforce/Pardot futures at your own pace. There are projects and exercises to work on that will level up your skill. My suggestion is, whenever you have free time, use it to learn. There are also exam certifications you can take to verify your knowledge.
Having a mentor is a great idea at any stage of your career, however, having one when you start your role as a consultant is essential. Try finding a mentor that understands your workflow. A mentor is supposed to be someone to bounce ideas off, ask questions, and get insider tips.
When you start a project, try to understand the business you’re implementing and your customer’s business. For example, if you’re working on implementing sales cloud processes, try thinking about what the salesperson will gain from this. This helps you ask the right questions to implement the processes needed 2correctly.
As consultants, we always present our work to our customers during the build phase. As you may know, that first time can be stressful. My suggestion? Try finding an easy process to demo that can be shown off to customers. This will help improve your confidence in the process you are building and implementing. Showing off an easier process will help prepare you for harder demos down the line.
The are many add-ons that have been developed to make using Salesforce easier. The add-ons are free, save you time, and help your workflow. Some of the add-ons I use/suggest are; One Click (for passwords), Salesforce inspector (to see and master data), Quick Login (to log in as a different user)
Drawing a diagram of the process you’re working on will help you and your customer understand what you’re building. This diagram also helps you build the processes and flows more efficiently. Visualization is key.
When you are starting out as a consultant, it’s better to ask questions instead of making assumptions. More likely than not, one of your colleagues has dealt with a similar situation and can give you advice. This will save you time and help your understanding of the process.
As junior consultants, we want to finish our work quickly and make progress in our configuration tasks. However, in our haste, we can forget to test our work. Think of all scenarios that can break your processes. Testing often and work at a slower pace will save you from getting errors and redos.
When you start working within Salesforce you’ll notice there are many programs you can learn. I recommend casting a wide net in order to understand the basic salesforce configuration that is needed for any project. (ie. – fields creation, layout updates, process automation, etc.) Knowing basic configuration will help you understand what area you might want to focus on during your career.
There are many Salesforce online communities that you can join and I highly recommend them! These online forums give you a chance to see issues that others are experiencing, give you ideas for your projects, and helps give a sense of belonging.
Starting out in Salesforce can be overwhelming, but I hope these tips will help you on your journey.
Written by Hadar Har-gil, Consulting Manager