I am asked many questions about what I do from friends, family and neighbors but the most popular question of late is “What steps can I take to pursue a career as a Salesforce.com Consultant?”
Here is my answer:
- Go to https://developer.salesforce.com/, click the “Sign-up” button and get your own Developer Org – it is free and it is Employer agnostic…it is just yours. You CANNOT run a business out of it, but it gives you a username/password for the Success Community and a place to try out new features and learn without worrying about breaking anything for a real customer
- Once in, make sure to go to Help & Training and take the time to go through the online free training – there is a whole link for free online Training in Help and most people never go through it
- Login to the Success Community with your Developer Org credentials and get to know the Ecosystem, especially in Answers, Collaboration and Ideas. Be an active part of the Community, add your picture and a quick “About Me” and make sure you have a real Name, not “Evaluation User” nor “System Admin” – we can all learn from each other!
- Check out the Group in the Success Community called “Job Postings” – this is where we are trying to keep all Job Posts focused and centralized so that we do not have Job Postings nor Sales Pitches in the User Groups
- Search locally – you would be surprised how many local businesses have Salesforce, even if it is only Professional Edition, it is still experience and practice and a foot in the door – do some local searches for various newspapers’ online Classifieds and see if there is any mention of “CRM” or something similar
- Support Non-profits by helping out with Salesforce.com Projects through the Salesforce Foundation and their Partners such as Taproot Foundation
- Join the local Salesforce User Group (I am the Leader for the Chicago Suburban User Group). It is a great way to network and a great environment to learn from others who have gone before you
- Follow and/or connect with Salesforce folks on LinkedIn and Twitter
We cannot wait to Get to Know You!
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[…] Here’s a “short-n-sweet” post from MVP Jen Nelson “How to Become a Salesforce.com Consultant”. She sparked some great conversation on the community, so be sure to read through the entire thread, not just her blog post! […]
Excellent post Jen!
Thank you, Eric and John!
Great post, Jen. Have you thought about adding information about becoming a salesforce consulting partner? Excellent point about taproot. Many folks don’t even know it exists.
Hi, Jessica – thank you! That is a really great idea! That will be next. If you or anyone following/reading the blog has tips/pointers you would like to add to the next blog on becoming a salesforce.com Consulting Partner, please DM me via Twitter (@jnelson509), LinkedIn (http://linkd.in/1kkM8xN) or Success Community (http://sforce.co/1rB4NEl) and I will include them with your name.
[…] A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on How to Become a Salesforce.com Consultant and one of the Readers suggested that a great follow-up would be tips on how to become a […]
thanks Jen! great article. I was wondering if it is reasonable to try the administrator’s exam by diligently working through the online training materials, rather than taking the $4200 prep class? I’m new to SF (but not software in general, implementations, project management and business analysis). I think adding SF credentials to my resume and perhaps becoming a consulting partner is the next great step for my career
Hi, Jen – yes, I do believe that there is a time and place for the paid training, but there are many more resources online (from free to varying paid amounts) and I also *highly* recommend you check out Trailhead (https://developer.salesforce.com/trailhead) – get a free Developer Org on https://developer.salesforce.com and then you can log in to Trailhead with your Developer Username/password. It is amazing and, besides giving you a lot of knowledge, it also allows you to connect your Dev Org to the Trailhead Challenges so that the LMS can check your work!
Hi Jenne, This is wonderful insight! I just recently joined Cloudchillies as a Salesforce developer and I am hoping I can be a good consultant very soon!
Hi, Julie – many apologies for the delay. Welcome to the #Ohana!