What is a Salesforce Consultant?
Overview of the Salesforce Consultant Role
Salesforce consultants are experts who help businesses use Salesforce to its full potential. They guide companies through setting up and customizing Salesforce, ensuring it works perfectly for their unique needs. Their role is crucial in ensuring that Salesforce fits the business right now and grows with it. This role could be split into three parts, with the most important one being at the top:
Strategists who pinpoint the client's business needs and pain points.
Architects of client relationships and tailored solutions.
Engineers who leverage Salesforce to meet those needs (Optional)
Core Responsibilities of a Salesforce Consultant
System Customization: They tweak Salesforce to match exactly what a business needs, like adjusting settings and adding features that make daily tasks easier.
Solution Design: Consultants find the best way to solve business challenges using Salesforce. They examine how a company works, find problems, and design a Salesforce setup that fixes these issues, keeping future growth in mind.
Training Users: A crucial part of their job is teaching people how to use Salesforce effectively. This means
Creating training that's easy to understand and helps everyone feel comfortable using the customized Salesforce system in their day-to-day jobs.
Providing ongoing help to solve any issues and keep everyone up to date with new features in Salesforce and custom implementation.
Process Optimization: They're always looking for ways to make Salesforce work better for the business, suggesting improvements based on feedback and the system's performance.
Strategic Advisory: Beyond the setup and technical details, consultants offer advice on how to make the most out of Salesforce to reach business goals, improve customer interactions, and grow the business.
Conversations: Continuous meetings and learning of business pain points and inefficiencies from various stakeholders are needed to:
Tackle present and evolving business landscapes in the near term.
Implement industry-specific best practices.
Anticipate future needs for growth and scalability.
Core Skills of a Salesforce Consultant
I am keeping technical skills regarding Salesforce as a lower priority here, as the first two skills are critical for any consultant to succeed in any technology or platform.
#1 Communication
Good Listener: Ability to listen and converse well with various business stakeholders(primarily non-technical) to correctly prioritize and understand the business pain points.
Story Telling: They must clearly articulate technical details to non-technical stakeholders, ensuring business leaders understand the proposed solutions and their benefits.
Patience & Feedback: This also includes listening to client needs and feedback to adjust solutions accordingly.
Regular Stakeholder Engagement: Instead of going waterfall by delivering implementation in UAT and getting a pile of change requests and frustrations from business stakeholders. A consultant can opt for regular demos, especially of costly and complex features, so that there is more alignment near UAT, and sign-off is easy.
#2 Analytical Skills
Salesforce Consultants must be able to analyze, dissect, and understand complex business processes.
This skill is vital for identifying issues within a business’s current processes and envisioning how Salesforce can solve these problems or enhance efficiency.
Analytical skills help craft tailored solutions that fit the unique needs of each business, ensuring that Salesforce's implementation truly addresses the core objectives and challenges of the company.
Customers and their end users don’t adopt a Salesforce implementation if it doesn't improve efficiency or address their pain points.
#3 Curious - Lifelong learner
Consultants must stay ahead of the curve, continually updating their knowledge with:
New Salesforce releases and features: A customer hates to know later that an existing Salesforce feature could have saved implementation costs.
AppExchange apps, particularly related to their industry and implementation trends.
#4 Leadership
Easier said than done. Consultants are the glue between many teams at times, especially if they are freelancers or depending on the size of Salesforce consultancy.
Consultants often lead projects, guiding their teams and clients toward successful implementation.
Leadership skills involve project management, decision-making, and inspiring and motivating others to embrace change and new technologies.
Technical Skills of a Salesforce Consultant
Deep understanding of the Salesforce platform, including its configuration, customization, and development capabilities.
High-level knowledge of APEX code, Triggers, Flows, and Lightning components is essential. Even if they are a freelancer or working with big Salesforce consulting partner, they might have access to a team of Salesforce developers to cater to coding or debugging requests.
Integrating various Salesforce features into comprehensive solutions.
Project Management: This could also be driven by dedicated PMs, depending on the size of the consultancy.
Agile project management.
Mastery in managing project timelines and resources.
Certifications:
Salesforce offers various certifications validating a consultant's expertise, including Salesforce Administrator, App Builder, Architect, and various consultant certifications (Sales, Service, Community, etc.).
These certifications are crucial in establishing client trust, as they demonstrate a consultant’s proficiency with the platform and commitment to staying updated with Salesforce advancements.
Salesforce Consultant Career Path & Stages
The journey of a Salesforce consultant is marked by continuous learning and specialization, with each level offering new challenges and opportunities.
#1 Entry-Level
Focus: Gaining a foundational understanding of Salesforce configuration and customization.
Certifications:
Salesforce Administrator: Validates the ability to manage and configure Salesforce setups.
Platform App Builder: Demonstrates skills in developing custom applications using the declarative capabilities of the Salesforce Platform.
#2 Mid-Level
Role Expansion: Taking on more complex projects and responsibilities.
Salesforce Sales and Service Cloud Consultants Certification: Among original, oldest and pillars of Salesforce CRM offerings. Validates expertise in designing and implementing business processes for Sales and Customer Service teams.
Platform Developer I (OPTIONAL): For consultants looking to gain more insights into the programmatic side of the platform and, later on, pursue architect-level certifications. It is not required for business-focused consultants who enjoy going deep into industry expertise and strategy and have developers from the client or consulting partner’s team at their disposal.
#3 Senior Consultants' Leadership
Position: Leading large-scale implementations and strategically supporting project management and client success.
Certifications:
Salesforce Advanced Administrator: This is for deep expertise in advanced Salesforce administration features.
Salesforce Certified Application Architect or System Architect: Validates extensive knowledge and skills in architecting scalable solutions on the Salesforce Platform. Requires Platform Dev 1 certification.
Connect with Trailblazer Community
Connect with the local Trailblazer community to learn more about the Salesforce consultant role and opportunities in your geography. I quoted the local community, as they understand your job market and opportunities better than any remote community member.
Find a Salesforce meetup near you via this URL - trailblazercommunitygroups.com
Participate in webinars and virtual events.
Engage with the Salesforce community for insights on product updates and features.
Don’t hesitate to show up, shake hands, and introduce yourself. Discuss your career and aspirations; I’m sure the dots will connect.