Jim Vineyard knew nothing about CRM before he explored Salesforce, as part of an account he took on for Customer Service. Working with his son in the same company, doing the same job, he navigated through Salesforce and learned a whole new world of custom CRM, and Customer Service functionalities, never before possible for him, in the last decade of his career. I began with Salesforce as a result of the… Read More
Author Archives: Martin Gessner
Our Top 10 Salesforce Certification Exam Prep Tips
Salesforce is fast becoming the business platform of choice for many companies. With around twenty-seven (27) certifications and counting, you’d know there’s a real – and rather lucrative – career path with Salesforce. It’s true that It takes a lot of work to climb the Salesforce Certification Pyramid, but we all think it’s worth the effort. And If you keep consistent with a system that works for you, you will be… Read More
Focus on People: Donna Hudson – Never Too Late for Salesforce
Donna chanced upon Salesforce only AFTER RETIRING from her career in higher education. In this interview, she talked about the steps she took to keep up with this all-new, fast-paced tech career as Salesforce Business Analyst. She tells us about her all-women ‘Ohana’ and the benefits of doing non-profit work, to become a better Salesforce professional. I’m not your typical early starter for Salesforce. I’ve been in the work world… Read More
Lightning Replacement to JavaScript Buttons
Prior to the release of Lightning, Javascript buttons got users pretty far with their large variety of use cases. Today, in Lighting, however, Javascript buttons are a thing of the past. Below I am going to walk through several different use cases that, may have been previously handled with Javascript, using one of the Lightning ready ways.Before we begin, here are the Use Cases and the tools in Lightning we… Read More
Focus on People: Mark Hilmer – Secret to Exams is Being ‘Fast and Curious’
Mark Hilmer built a consulting business out of the Salesforce knowledge he gained through the past 6 years. He specializes in helping medium-sized businesses to improve their customer service.Combined with hands on experience, he shares in this interview his strategic approach to preparing for the certifications. He thinks through which certification he needs to get, determines the right timing for his actual exam schedule and tells us his secret for… Read More
Top 10 Best Practices to Follow as a Salesforce Business Analyst
In the Salesforce hemisphere, there are many different roles one could hold. One of those roles is that of a Business Analyst. Though it can seem to be a confusing and vague title, it is a significant role in the successful delivery of any Salesforce project. Generally speaking, a Salesforce Business Analyst is someone who will help run a project from start to finish and will take on tasks like… Read More
Focus on People: Adam Schoolsky – From Employee to Consultant
Adam was a Salesforce user, then worked on Salesforce projects internally in his company and even worked for Salesforce itself. He quit Salesforce to fix motorcycles (which he loved) because he just couldn’t stand the pressure. Coming back to Salesforce after a few years, in a different environment – as a consultant outside of organizations, doing contract work and shifting gradually to the more advanced Developer side, he found a better,… Read More
Focus on People: Frederique Mermoz Mounier – Stay at Home Mom turned Salesforce Professional
Frédérique Mounier quit working for 4 years to be a stay-at-home-mom. When she decided to go back to work, she discovered Salesforce through a program directed specifically towards women wanting to get back into the workforce.Amidst a busy schedule (to keep up her thriving family life), she gained 4 certifications in her first 7 months of working on Salesforce. Read the story of how she achieved this superhuman (or should… Read More
Before and After a Salesforce Exam
With the study guides and the practice exams, we try our best to give you the most comprehensive view of what the exams might cover, to prepare you mentally for the exam. In this story, we give you a glimpse of what it might be like, psychologically and emotionally for actual people taking the exams. We have rounded up 3 participants in the last Australian Trailhead Bootcamp, who took their first… Read More
How to Stand Out as a Salesforce Developer
It isn’t news that the Salesforce ecosystem is growing. Last year, there were more than 5 acquisitions, 50 major enhancements and new features to the Salesforce multi-cloud, and the company itself issued revenue guidance of $13.23-13.24 billion. For those working in the ecosystem, this translated to a prediction that 3.3 million jobs would be created in the Salesforce economy by 2022. That works out at over one million jobs a year… Read More
Focus on People: Olivier Baelde – Advancing in Salesforce
“It’s a platform where you have to really keep current with what is new, what are the new things coming, and what features you can use in a particular project,” said Olivier in this interview for our Focus on Force community. Olivier Baelde is an experienced learner and user of Salesforce platform. He shares his thoughts about the platform and gives useful advice on how to keep moving forward in the Salesforce… Read More
Trailhead Takes It to the Beach
First Down UnderThe first Australian Trailhead Bootcamp was held from July 22 – July 25 at the Gold Coast in sunny Queensland. For people attending from the southern states of Australia, it was a welcome break from the cooler temperatures to the warmer blue skies of the sunshine state for 4 days of non-stop Salesforce learning! The Trailhead Bootcamp is unique in that it combines expert-led training, onsite help from instructors… Read More
Jumpstart for Non-profits
Salesforce has been solving an ever growing number of operational and technical problems for thousands of businesses all over the world. Much like it works for businesses, Non-profits can greatly benefit from using the platform. Salesforce recognized this, so they developed a system for the use of the Salesforce platform in the Not for Profit sector: The Non-Profit Success Pack (NPSP).Through the Salesforce Foundation, Salesforce donates 10 licenses for their… Read More
Focus on People: Richard Hone – Midlife Career Change Towards Salesforce
In today’s interview, we have Richard Hone, a Salesforce learner who is working with a Nonprofit Success Pack partner. From an electrical engineer with more than 20 years experience, he is now a successful Salesforce developer. He shared that exploring Salesforce for Nonprofit is one of the biggest decisions he made midlife. He went into detail as to how he prepared for his certification: going through the study guides, practice… Read More