Learn Salesforce: Importance, Skills, and Training Paths
Customer relationship management is vital to the success of companies and organizations around the world. While companies have a number of choices for CRM software, Salesforce is among the most popular and in demand.
With over 150,000 businesses using Salesforce, according to the company, learning the skills and knowledge required to take advantage of its many features can be an important step for individuals interested in a career in technology.
Salesforce is a cloud-based platform that integrates an organization’s systems to streamline processes, allowing teams to work together on a single platform while completing a multitude of different tasks. Salesforce offers a suite of products used by sales, marketing, service, commerce, and IT departments to meet customer needs and drive revenue.
For individuals looking to make the transition into a rewarding career in technology, pursuing a training program that provides associates with the opportunity to learn Salesforce and other in-demand tech skills can open the door to a number of career opportunities.
Why Learn Salesforce
Skilled technology professionals are in high demand. A recent study by Korn Ferry predicts that by 2030 there will be a global human talent shortage of over 85 million people, with skilled jobs such as those in the tech industry ranking as some of the most difficult to fill. Additionally, respondent organizations in a Gartner survey cited a lack of tech talent as the main barrier to adoption of 64% of emerging technologies.
Making the transition to a cloud-based system such as Salesforce can improve an organization’s productivity and efficiency. However, without skilled professionals who are capable of taking advantage of its many features, companies either cannot move forward with its integration or are unable to use Salesforce to its fullest potential.
The Value of Salesforce
For those wondering why learning Salesforce is so valuable, researchers at eMarketing predict that online shopping sales revenues will grow to over $5.5 trillion by the end of 2022. With so many competitors, however, companies must make the online shopping experience as enjoyable and user friendly as possible, making CRM a valuable investment. E-commerce is just one example of how companies can leverage CRM to inform strategic decisions.
Salesforce training can enable individuals to help their organizations capitalize on emerging market opportunities and better serve customers. With an understanding of how Salesforce works, administrators and developers can tailor the system to their organization, ensuring that it functions intuitively and integrates seamlessly into company processes.
Every day, millions of companies rely on technology to help drive sales and improve their bottom lines. Salesforce training can help prepare prospective technology professionals for a valuable and in-demand career in tech, providing them with skills in areas such as marketing, commerce, service, and information technology.
Salesforce Career Paths
The versatile and integrated nature of Salesforce offers candidates the opportunity to build a foundation in tech that can be applied to a number of career paths. While learning Salesforce, individuals can gain knowledge and experience to apply toward many roles within the CRM environment. Potential careers include:
- Salesforce administrator
- Salesforce developer
- Salesforce architect
- Salesforce consultant
- Marketing cloud manager
- Sales manager
What makes Salesforce so effective for many organizations is that it integrates customer processes and monitoring systems in one place. Salesforce training provides individuals with the opportunity to build practical and versatile skills that can be both useful and transferable among a variety of roles, making them valuable and in-demand team members.
Salesforce Skills
The knowledge and skills required to find success as a Salesforce administrator or developer span multiple topics. As individuals progress in their training, they learn how to enhance their organization’s productivity and efficiency by assimilating Salesforce into sales, marketing, and customer service processes. Building skills such as an understanding of the coding languages behind Salesforce is essential to that progression.
As Salesforce is customer relationship management software, it thrives on teamwork and is designed to make the customer journey as efficient as possible. Focusing on building soft skills and improving communication between team members can make all the difference in the success of an organization, allowing team members to work together to improve idea generation and platform development.
For future tech professionals looking to take full advantage of Salesforce and its many features, creating a balance between learning technical skills and learning interpersonal skills can be instrumental to their success, preparing them to be both a productive and an engaging member of their team.
Interpersonal Skills
Whether managing a team or working as a member of one, professionals using Salesforce need to build strong leadership and communication skills to succeed. Dealing with a CRM platform means that Salesforce administrators and developers are constantly adapting to meet the needs of both sales, marketing, and customer service team members and the customers they are catering to. Doing so requires multiple interpersonal skills, including:
- Leadership and Communication: Vital to the success of a team and its projects is a leader’s ability to communicate effectively with the team and delegate when needed. When leaders promote and model open and honest conversation among team members and with clients, teams are better able to find solutions, build a healthy work environment, and meet clients’ needs.
- Creative Problem-Solving: For every hurdle there is a solution. Those solutions, however, may not be something that has already been tried. Learning to work together as a team to find an innovative solution to an issue can be the key to moving a project along efficiently.
- Conflict Resolution and Resourcefulness: With every project or team effort there will be obstacles. Leaders who have the ability to quickly and effectively resolve those issues can greatly improve the bottom line of an organization by minimizing technical debt.
- Time Management and Organization: Ensuring a project is completed properly and within a budget and deadline requires attention to detail and strong organizational skills.
Creating positive customer experiences requires an understanding and empathy for people. Taking the time to learn Salesforce means more than simply learning how to code. It involves building the interpersonal skills required to relate to both team members and customers, growing lasting relationships and laying the foundation for success.
Basic Salesforce Topics
When technology professionals begin the process of learning Salesforce, they work on basic skills that will allow them to perform the duties of a Salesforce administrator. Essentially, the process begins with learning how to use the platform itself prior to gaining the skills to expand and develop it for their organization.
Salesforce training for beginners starts with candidates learning how cloud programs function and ensuring they do it in a way that protects data security. This may include basics such as:
- Configuring and managing sales and services
- Configuring user interfaces
- Implementing automation or system maintenance
- Reporting data or aiding in business analysis
Building these basic Salesforce skills can allow entry-level administrators to work as a liaison between customers and more senior developers, providing them with the chance to be immersed in Salesforce and begin learning advanced skills before taking on high-risk projects.
Advanced Salesforce Topics
As candidates improve their skills and gain experience with the Salesforce platform, they can take on larger, more time-intensive, or higher-risk projects for clients and organizations. This experience can allow them to qualify for roles as developers, architects, business analysts, or marketing cloud specialists. These advanced Salesforce roles and topics can allow tech professionals to expand and develop the Salesforce platform, tailoring it to their organization’s or customers’ needs.
Some of the skills or responsibilities required of advanced Salesforce professionals include:
- Managing security and access
- Content management and process automation
- Extending custom objects and applications
- Analytics, reporting, and auditing and monitoring programs
- Managing service and sales cloud applications
Gaining a thorough knowledge of the coding languages behind Salesforce as well as the ways in which they can further integrate Salesforce into company processes can prepare candidates to take on a more influential role within their organization. With these increased responsibilities come increased job autonomy and the opportunity to earn a higher salary.
How to Learn Salesforce
Beginning a new career can be both challenging and exciting. For individuals looking to make the transition into a career in technology, researching how to learn Salesforce can be helpful. Salesforce training for beginners comes in a variety of forms. From online or in-person courses to programs that employ associates as they learn, a number of options are available that can fit different schedules, personal responsibilities, and learning preferences.
Some of these options include:
- Salesforce Trailhead — Salesforce’s proprietary training program
- Third-party online training programs
- Online tutorials and how-to guides found on YouTube or in blogs
- Programs that provide on-the-job training
Valuable on its own or as an addition to prior education and experience, Salesforce training can enable future tech professionals to help their organization take control of its sales and business models, allowing multiple departments to work together to reach their goals. With the option to pursue a certification in Salesforce, candidates can demonstrate that they take the future of technology and their career in it seriously, investing in their own learning and tech innovation.
Salesforce Exercises and Quizzes
Becoming a Salesforce administrator or manager does not require formal training in the form of a bachelor’s or associate degree. Careers using Salesforce are open to candidates who build their skills and knowledge through any of a number of other forms of learning, from online or in-person programs to tutorials or on-the-job-training.
To help support an individual’s Salesforce training path, resources that offer exercises and quizzes can help ensure that they have a solid grasp on various Salesforce topics prior to applying for jobs. Among these resources are:
- Salesforce’s Administrator Practice Test — The official Trailhead practice test for the Salesforce Administrator exam
- ITExams Hub — An online database of Salesforce exams and quizzes on multiple topics and at many skills levels
Candidates who are seeking reassurance that they have honed their knowledge and skills enough to make a marketable difference in an organization can use these exams and quizzes to get a realistic idea of where they stand and how they can improve.
Salesforce Syllabus
Salesforce training courses for beginners cover a lot of ground and touch on a multitude of different topics. Tasks for professionals using Salesforce can include data management and security, cloud integration or computing, basic programing, or database management, along with many others.
Most courses begin with training on how to use cloud technology and familiarizing candidates with the Salesforce suite of programs prior to expanding on methods of building and developing the programs themselves.
These are some of the Salesforce subjects individuals may encounter in their training.
Platform Development
Tailoring Salesforce to an organization’s needs begins with a thorough understanding of how the Salesforce platform functions and the coding languages behind its systems. Learning how to code and how to develop or extend Salesforce’s functions is vital to properly integrating it into a company’s processes and taking advantage of the system’s capabilities.
Data Management and Modeling
Data is at the heart of online sales and technology. Informing organizations of what does and does not work, allowing them to adapt based on findings, and monitoring the progress of those adaptations are crucial steps in customer relationship management and for steering an organization in the right direction. Through Salesforce courses that teach how to import and export data, understand the relationship between data points, and gain experience in programs such as Schema Builder, candidates can learn how to make data work for them.
Data Security
One of an online CRM platform’s or organization’s most valuable assets is its data. Any Salesforce training program would be incomplete without a module that focuses on how to monitor and protect the security of that data.
Understanding the importance of data security and how to control access to an organization’s data can have crucial and long-term effects on a company’s success, allowing it to protect both their own and their customers’ information.
Formulas and Salesforce Flow
Ease of use can be a deciding factor in whether or not a customer makes a purchase or invests time on a company’s website. The more difficult a platform is to navigate or the more steps required to perform functions within an app, the less likely a customer is to engage.
Gaining familiarity with the ways in which different Salesforce functions can streamline processes can allow candidates to make a website more intuitive, increasing its ease of use and positively affecting an organization’s bottom line.
Apex
The main programming language behind Salesforce, Apex, is an object-oriented program language that allows developers to execute flow and transaction control statements on Salesforce servers. Essentially, it is a back-end program that allows developers to add business logic to a system, using tools such as buttons or triggers to control actions throughout a process.
A thorough understanding of Apex is essential for any candidate looking to have a well-rounded knowledge of Salesforce topics and processes, making coding proficiency a key component of future career advancement and finding success.
Design a Bright Future In a Tech Career
Building a long-lasting and successful brand relies on an organization’s relationships with its customers. By making the jump to Salesforce, companies can evolve with the next generation of online platforms, taking advantage of CRM software that integrates the entire customer journey into the cloud. Individuals who learn Salesforce can be a part of that evolution, building the knowledge and skills required to take on an in-demand job as a tech professional.
Pursuing a path to learn new skills or transition careers can be challenging. For many candidates, the ability to continue to earn income while learning new skills is vital to their success. Programs such as those offered by Revature can be the key to striking a balance between building valuable new skills and remaining in the workforce. Revature pays associates during on-the-job training and then places associates in a position with a leading company. Discover how you can begin an exciting new career in technology with Revature.
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