Salesforce Experts Offer the #1 Thing You Need To Know About Starting Salesforce in 2023

Jenna Trott

December 15th, 2022

Salesforce is known for a lot of things, like being the #1 CRM provider in the world for the 9th consecutive year and helping users save 109 billion hours every month using Salesforce Flow to automate manual processes. But perhaps the most important thing about Salesforce is the strength of their community. To date, there are over 78,000 Salesforce employees globally and over 150,000 Trailblazers across 1,300 local and virtual community-led groups in 90+ countries. The Salesforce community, who have come to be known affectionately as the “Ohana,” are comprised of everyone from admins, to architects, MVP experts and beyond, and they serve as a valuable touchstone for anyone hoping to learn more about Salesforce. Whether you’re a newcomer in the Salesforce ecosystem or are contemplating beginning your journey in the new year, there is so much knowledge to tap into within the community of Salesforce experts. So without further ado, here are the top things everyone should know about Salesforce before starting in 2023 from the experts themselves!

Leyna Hoffer

Salesforce Practice Lead at MURAL   |   LinkedIn

Leyna’s Salesforce career spans nearly two decades and she’s received a number of accolades along the way. Leyna has been recognized as a Salesforce MVP 9 times, and recently was inducted into the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. Leyna is the former Leader of the Twin Cities Salesforce User Group (2008-2015) and holds several Salesforce Certifications, including, but not limited to: Administrator (one of the first 500 certified), Advanced Administrator, Sales Cloud Consultant, Service Cloud Consultant, Platform AppBuilder and Marketing Email Specialist. Lenya has also delivered invaluable presentations at Salesforce’s annual user conference, Dreamforce from 2010-2018.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

My number one piece of advice to anyone getting started with Salesforce is to get involved with the community: local User Groups, Dreamin’ events, etc. You can be as involved as you’d like to be – there are no expectations. The knowledge you’ll gain and the network you’ll build from just attending these meetings is invaluable.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

I wish I’d known that there was a local User Group that I could attend to learn from other Salesforce customers in the community, as well as share my knowledge with. Getting involved with my local Salesforce community group, and then with regional groups, online groups, etc., has proven to be the “secret sauce.” There is always someone I can turn to with a question or exchange ideas on “how do you handle this.” 20 years after first entering the Salesforce ecosystem, I still turn to the community on a weekly basis. #CommunityLove

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Recently, my favorite feature is Dynamic Forms. No more creating multiple page layouts for different profiles. You can now create an experience that is user centric, making the Lightning Page seemingly come alive. You can move fields around without managing a page layout. You can also use visibility to make those fields appear (or disappear) based on whatever criteria you choose. Dynamic forms are a great way to give that efficiency value add – giving us the ability to surface relevant information at the right place, at the right time, and to the right people!

Jackie Travieso

Founder, Partner and Consultant, T2 Associates, LLC  |   LinkedIn

Jackie has 16-years of experience as a professional Salesforce consultant and is an expert at bridging the gaps between business process, requirements, and Salesforce functionality for deployment and integration management. A 9x Salesforce MVP, Jackie also serves as an important mentor for the Salesforce Ohana. Jackie is the Charlotte Community Group Leader, a Co-organizer of Dreamforce2YOU Florida, as well as a former Co-host of MVP Office Hours and a former Tampa Bay User Group Co-Leader. Not only is Jackie passionate about all things Salesforce, she’s also passionate about helping others achieve their goals within the Salesforce ecosystem.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

My advice is to always surround yourself with those who inspire you, who lift you up, and who are willing to take you with them on their journey. You can find these people at user group meetings, Salesforce Saturdays, networking events, on social media, on the Trailblazer Community and sometimes randomly in an airport or coffee shop while en route to Dreamforce or a regional event. Always keep an eye open for Salesforce wearable gear — that’s the telltale sign! Get to know these people! Don’t be afraid to approach Salesforcers because we welcome conversations and are willing to share our best practices, approaches, solutions, gotchas, successes, and so much more. You’ve found an ecosystem like no other, so leverage it!

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

I wish I knew that I’d always be in a safe space to ask questions and explore ideas. So many times people don’t speak up because they are fearful of judgment or ridicule. I have found every Salesforce event I’ve attended whether it’s local or regional or national, I have been among people who are willing to answer questions, show me hands-on, connect me with others, or simply sympathize over challenges. It’s a pretty amazing community!

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

The ecosystem is my favorite “feature.” I draw energy, inspiration, and creativity from the Community. It’s constant and always growing with new enthusiasm. Without the enthusiasm of others, we’d become complacent. Connecting with others gives me drive and I love that!

Jacob Brushafer

Salesforce Consultant and Lead Trainer, Penrod   |   LinkedIn

Jacob’s leadership skills do not go unnoticed within the Salesforce community. A co-leader for Milwaukee Dev Group as well as a Salesforce Saturday Leader, Jacob is always willing to help guide fellow Trailblazers. With 23 Salesforce certifications and over 1,000 Salesforce badges, it’s no surprise that the community finds Jacob inspiring, earning him a recent recognition as a Salesforce MVP!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Take your time, getting certified is not easy and most of the time you will need to spend a considerable amount of time actually doing the work. It will help you greatly in passing certifications and plus, now you actually have experience doing the work rather than just memorizing data for the purpose of the exam.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

How vast Salesforce is. When I started, I didn’t know much about it but soon found out it can do just about anything you need. Use your declarative tools and code when needed. Both have their place.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Flow – it can do so many things and it makes citizen developers out of all of us.

Eric Dreshfield

Founder & Event Co-Chair, Midwest Dreamin; and Board Member, NebuLabs   |   LinkedIn

Known affectionately as “The Dresh” or “The Kevin Bacon of the Salesforce Ecosystem,” Eric is a 7x Salesforce MVP, Hall of Famer and an expert on all things Salesforce. In addition to blogging, Eric is also the founder of Midwest Dreamin’, an event he conceptualized back in 2010 with the goal of bringing together the best and brightest Salesforce minds to share knowledge and enlighten other Salesforce community members on how to best utilize the platform. The first event kicked off in 2011 and steadily grew from just 100 people in Louisville, KY in 2012 to over 1,100 people in Minneapolis in 2022, with 6 years in Chicago in between. Having been a part of the Salesforce community since its early days, Eric is one of those people that goes above and beyond to help others in their Salesforce journey.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Don’t worry if you come across a challenge you don’t know how to solve. There’s so much you can do with Salesforce, no one can know it all! And there’s an entire, awesome community of people you can rely on as a sounding board for advice and help. You’ve got this!

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

Pay attention to details…they matter. Details about what your clients and stakeholders need…details about how you document your work. Details about everything you do and touch inside Salesforce is super important – it makes things much easier for those who come after you to understand why things were done the way they were.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Is the Trailblazer Community considered a feature? If so, that! If not, I would go back to my roots and give a big shout out to reporting and analytics. I’m a data geek at heart.

Jocelyn Fennewald

Chief Strategy Officer & Co-Founder, OpMentors   |   LinkedIn

Jocelyn’s Salesforce journey began back in 2011 and since then, she’s been awarded the coveted Salesforce MVP title and co-founded OpMentors, an organization that serves to help companies optimize and implement cloud-based business applications (such as Salesforce and FinancialForce). Additionally, Jocelyn is the Co-Leader of Chicago WIT User Group and has become a key mentor for the Salesforce community. When Jocelyn is not blazing trails, she can be found volunteering at her local Animal Shelter!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Take it slow. Salesforce is an extremely deep and wide product. There is no one person that knows everything about Salesforce. Being able to start with Trailhead and learn the basics is invaluable. After mastering the basics, expanding into the different clouds that are of interest to someone is best.

I often feel as though people will get very excited about learning and get overwhelmed very quickly. Starting with the basics and growing from there is a great way to get started.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

There are so many things I wish I knew. When I started with Salesforce in 2010, Trailhead did not exist. I learned mainly through trial and error. Having Trailhead would have been the #1 resource for me back then.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Reporting! I have always loved reporting and now with Analytics, reporting is even more powerful.

Megan Tuano

Associate Consultant E&O Team, Slalom   |  LinkedIn

Megan wears many hats when it comes to the Salesforce ecosystem! In addition to being an expert author at Salesforce Ben, Megan is also a content creator for Focus on Force, creates Salesforce content on her YouTube channel, hosts a podcast called Tech Untangled and is the founder of the Salesforce Professionals Discord Server. Megan’s passion to empower others and create inspiring yet informational content has earned her 5 Salesforce certifications and a spot as a Dreamforce ‘22 speaker!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Build community and be a part of it: There is a global Trailblazer community of Salesforce experts out there, so it’s well worth taking some time to explore. It’s a great way to meet and learn from others with similar interests, but also broadens your own knowledge.

Get hands on whenever possible: Nothing beats hands-on experience. If you can apply your recent certification or knowledge and put that learning to the test to create something, you’re just amplifying your knowledge. Create when you can!
Be active on LinkedIn: Don’t underestimate the power of LinkedIn. As a tech professional you should be present, active, and engaged. Learn from others, share your knowledge and grow together.
Don’t be hard on yourself: Being online, we sometimes only see the best of people. Understand you learn differently from another, and their journey, like yours, will be different. Take time off when you need, reset and come back strong.
Focus on your physical and mental health: Prioritize work life balance by stretching, walking and taking time with your family. If you’ve started your journey, keep at it. You’ve got this.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

People make this ecosystem, so networking is important. Their stories, journeys, experiences, and advice can encourage you to take your next life adventure. The community keeps you going and genuinely wants you to succeed. So make sure to connect with people, attend your local or online user groups! You learn best from other people, so don’t do this alone, enjoy the journey with friends!

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

As somebody who worked in customer service prior to Salesforce, creating a trusted and individualized relationship with a prospect is very important, especially in a highly digital world. My favorite feature is within Pardot; I love Engagement Studio because this automation helps you find strong candidates for your business. Overall, it helps teams personalize a candidate’s journey and interaction, it ultimately helps that individual trust your business and continue working with you.

Jordan Nelson

Salesforce Consultant, Simple Salesforce   |    LinkedIn

Jordan began as someone who taught himself Salesforce without having a technical background and has since become a force to be reckoned with within the Salesforce ecosystem. In addition to being an author at Apex Hours, Jordan is an expert author at Salesforce Ben, and has ​​helped build three Salesforce orgs for three different $3B+ tech unicorns as a Senior Salesforce Administrator. Jordan is a certified Salesforce expert and has amassed more than 260 badges and four superbadges with Salesforce! Passionate about helping others succeed with Salesforce, Jordan often shares free guides on his website here!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

There are 2 parts to your Salesforce journey.

1. Learning the skills
2. Marketing yourself online

One doesn’t work well without the other, they are both needed. Learn how to do both to make your journey easier and remember that better known beats best.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

How many possibilities there are in your career journey. Just because you are a Salesforce admin now doesn’t mean you can’t be a developer, architect, consultant, or business analyst later. Step one should be spent focusing on getting into the industry so you can start gaining hands-on experience. Step two should focus more on what you like and don’t like and gear your learning towards the path that makes sense for you.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

As a beginner I always appreciated Salesforce optimizer. It shows you by priority what needs to be cleaned up inside of your Salesforce org and the steps you need to take to make that happen.

Chris Gardner

Global Technical Success Architect, Salesforce   |    LinkedIn

If having nearly 600 badges, 11 superbadges and 26 Salesforce certifications aren’t enough to explain how much of an expert Chris is, we don’t know what else will! Chris works hard to help organizations develop performant solutions on the Salesforce platform, and maintain complex interconnected systems. In addition to having been a Salt Lake City B2B Marketing User Group Co-Leader, Chris also works hard to contribute to the Salesforce community with nearly 800 answers, of which 167 have been top picks by the community! Chris also has a website where he posts study guides and practice questions for those looking to get certified and is also a published author, with a book dedicated to helping people become strong Salesforce professionals.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

What set Salesforce apart from its competitors when it first launched was the way their product was delivered. By going cloud based, rather than the traditional on-premise tools, they offered customers frequent updates, rapid development and improvements. They continue to capitalize on that promise with 3 annual releases and frequent product launches and acquisitions. This constantly evolving ecosystem is exciting and dynamic, but can also be overwhelming. So my biggest piece of advice for anyone getting started is to focus on a core set of features and functionality. You don’t need to know everything about every cloud. Try to dive deep, rather than develop shallow knowledge on the breadth of the platform. Diving deep helps differentiate you. Employers and customers look for focused expertise, and there is less competition within focused domains.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

It took me some time to learn that technology and business can work together, or can work against each other. Sometimes business processes need to change, rather than customize Salesforce to make it fit. An unwillingness to adapt or simplify the way your business works often leads to technical debt, and long term scalability problems.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

I’m a huge fan of Slack. I use it constantly to collaborate with people, and I don’t know how I’d function without it.

Meighan Brodkey

Director of Product, LunaYou   |   LinkedIn 

Meighan’s journey with Salesforce began as a Customer Success Manager on a pilot project, where she worked with customers on how to get the most out of Salesforce. Since then, Meighan has accomplished a lot. She has presented at Salesforce’s epic Dreamforce event over 7 times, has won the Admin Royal Rumble Champion at Accelerate, been a speaker at over 10 user group events, presented with Salesforce at Connections, has been honored with MVP status 5 times, led sessions in 11 countries, and founded the uber-popular #OhanaSlack for the Salesforce community to connect for real time help 24/7. Meighan is a Salesforce expert through and through and this truly only begins to scratch the surface of all that she has accomplished!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Don’t be alone, get in sync with the community and don’t just watch, ask questions, say hello, make friends! You should go to that user group event! Yes, definitely check out that local community event and mingle! Being part of the community will change your work and your life – don’t be scared and don’t wait. Say hi today on Twitter or Slack. All questions are welcome (just make sure you Google it first, and yes it’s a skill, the Ohana will help you get there 😉).

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

You are going to fail and that’s okay, you can’t know everything. Just know what you know, and know when to say you don’t (that applies outside of Salesforce too, they should have taught that in school…).

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Collaboration! Specifically Slack, it changed my life. Using channels for projects with the entire team in one place and keeping all relevant project information there with visibility for all made projects easier, smoother, faster, more accurate, less stress, more fun and makes the team a better team with a better connection. It’s amazing what talking can do and keeping EVERYONE in the loop. No isolated decisions means no isolated random work that won’t fit. This means we all keep a build in sync and a team in rhythm. If you aren’t using Slack, your work isn’t half of what it could be and your team isn’t at it’s full potential either.

Divs Chauhan

Kcloud Technologies, Salesforce Solutions Architect   |    LinkedIn

There’s simply no denying Divs’ expertise with Salesforce! With over 8 years of experience, Divs has accumulated nearly 1,300 badges, 15 superbadges and 25 Salesforce certifications! She’s also a 3x Dreamforce Hackathon coding challenge winner and has completed 250 successful salesforce implementations to date. Divs is also the founder of the Divya Edu Trust, an NGO dedicated to providing Salesforce training to students from rural areas. Divs’ personal mantra is “to learn every day, connect with the salesforce community, and become inspired by industry experts.”

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Become an expert in Salesforce admin and practice as much as you can in your initial months. Salesforce admin will make your base strong and you can manage all customizations and implementations easily after that.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

One should be a multiplier. Multipliers use their intelligence to bring out the intelligence and ability of everyone else. If you help others to learn and help them understand the concepts of Salesforce, you will soon become an expert yourself.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Point and click features of Salesforce, if you’re not a strong coder you can still be successful in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Bill Powell

Salesforce Advanced Administrator (CPQ), CrowdStrike   |    LinkedIn

Bill had been using Salesforce for 5 years before realizing “the puddle that [he] had thought was Salesforce was actually an ocean of possibility.” Since then, Bill has been awarded MVP status, has obtained nearly 500 badges, has collected 13 superbadges and 13 Salesforce certifications. Bill will be the first to tell you that the journey is not always easy, but it is absolutely worth it. He gives back to the community through volunteering as a Salesforce Community Group Leader and by offering words of wisdom through his blog posts on Medium.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

The admin certification is the most important one, and also can be the hardest. Coming from a non-technical background, I had a hard time with the Admin exam and had to take it twice. Even now, as I’m mentoring new Admins, I am reminded how much new Admins need to know just to start out, and it’s a lot. Don’t get discouraged, take it one day at a time, one subject at a time. Nothing worth doing is ever easy.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

How important it was to take it one day at a time and it’s okay to not learn ALL the things at once.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Flow Builder. Flow Builder is a versatile and powerful tool that I can do a lot with, and it has bailed me out of a lot of complex scenarios that I didn’t think I’d be able to pull off.

Om Prakash

Founder & Technical Architect, AppyCrown Private Limited   |    LinkedIn

For Om, success is more than what is earned for yourself, success includes the ability to share your knowledge and inspire other Trailblazer Community members. A Salesforce MVP title holder with 402 badges, 10 superbadges and 12 certifications, Om has achieved a lot in his journey throughout the Salesforce ecosystem. As a well-seasoned Salesforce certified professional, experienced developer, and architect, Om loves to build, connect, and manage solutions on the Salesforce Platform and help the next generation of Salesforce professionals succeed!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Invest the initial 4-5 years of your career toward learning, exploring, and getting valued experience. Explore the free learning resources available in the Trailblazer Community. Join Trailblazer Community Groups to learn from others and extend your connections with professionals. Find trusted mentors and follow the guidelines from your trusted mentors.
Have a mindset of learning together, and succeeding together. Helping others succeed will give you an opportunity to learn more, and explore more.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

Before starting my career with Salesforce in 2014, I had no idea that there is the best community within Salesforce. It’s an extended global family known as the Trailblazer Community that can impact your life positively and it will give you the freedom to learn and connect in the world of professionals from your industry, allowing you to learn and grow together.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Well, many features are my favorites and here I want to suggest that every Salesforce professional get familiar with my favorite automation tool, Salesforce Flow, to keep your users happy! If you are a developer or an aspiring developer, then learn Lightning Web Components and help your business grow with fully customized solutions on the Salesforce Platform.

Vanessa Grant

Senior Consultant, Simplus   |   LinkedIn

Vanessa has over a decade of Salesforce experience, and considers herself to be a professional problem solver. With nearly 160 Salesforce badges, 3 superbadges and 9 Salesforce certifications, Vanessa helps to make people’s jobs easier by cleaning up messes, creating scalable, optimized systems and implementing processes to prevent future messes. When Vanessa isn’t helping others improve their work processes, she can be found writing about the importance of quality business analysis, design, and devops for Salesforce Ben. Vanessa was also a speaker at Salesforce’s Annual 2022 Dreamforce event! Truly passionate about helping others, Vanessa coaches potential Trailblazers as they explore new career paths, practice their skills, and prepare themselves to launch a career in the Salesforce ecosystem.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

A career in Salesforce is a continuous journey of learning. Finding that first job is the hardest — but the ones that don’t make it are the ones that give up. If you love Salesforce and really feel like a career working with it is what’s best for you, then keep going. Then, after you get that first job, still keep going because the learning never stops.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

It took me over a decade before immersing myself in the Salesforce community and I wish I could go back. The Salesforce “Ohana” provides information, friendship, news, networking, and opportunities. Not taking advantage of the robust Salesforce community is a huge mistake.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

There are so many, but lately I’ve really enjoyed using In-App Guidance in Lightning Experience. It’s free, easy to set up, and a great way to encourage user adoption. I am surprised at how underutilized it is. What is the point of building something if the users don’t adopt it?

Grissell Cabrera

Partner Alliance Manager at Xertica   |    LinkedIn

Grissell has more than 13 years of experience in the IT industry which has led her to obtain over 120 Salesforce badges and 10 certifications! In addition to being a Salesforce MVP, Grissell serves as one of the directors of Women Who Code MTY and leads the Salesforce Administrators community in Monterrey, Mexico. She’s truly passionate about helping empower people through technology to shift toward a more digital future.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Working in the Salesforce ecosystem is an excellent opportunity to change your life and work with great companies and different industries, but the options are enormous. You’ll need to be patient, focus on your goal step by step, and don’t be shy to ask for help.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

It would be great to know more about Trailhead and Trailblazer communities; there is so much knowledge and people with experience willing to guide and help you, so you don’t have to start from scratch.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

I like many features of Salesforce, but Reports & Dashboards are the most fantastic thing because the users can create them quickly and get the indicators needed with beautiful graphics.

Peter Lyons

Manager, TCRM Architect, Huron   |  LinkedIn

Peter is a firm believer in Googling what you don’t know…and that’s taken him to unimaginable heights! Peter has obtained several Salesforce certifications, including but not limited to: Advanced Administrator, Analytics Cloud Black Belt, and Certified Platform App Builder. Peter is also a Salesforce MVP, a Tableau CRM Ambassador (fka Analytics Champion), and a Buffalo User Group Co-lead Specialist in Tableau CRM, Flow. Peter works hard to give back to the Salesforce community and can often be found helping guide other Salesforce professionals to success!

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

Be patient and don’t be afraid to google anything you don’t know!

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

Never fill in the sender address when you’re angry. You can spell out all the reasons your boss is wrong, but there is no “unsend” button.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

Flows! Clicks that rival codes for the visual learner empowers orgs that don’t have direct access to a developer to own the implementation of their own workflows declaratively.

Skye Tyler

Solutions Architect, Exponent Partners   |   LinkedIn

Skye is passionate about using the best technologies to help nonprofits meet their missions, which she has been excelling at for nearly a decade now! Skye has also been implementing and improving Salesforce instances for over five years. Skye is a true Salesforce fanatic with nearly 400 Salesforce badges, 2 superbadges and 13 Salesforce certifications! When she’s not blazing trails on Trailhead, you can find her hiking, kayaking, gardening, or making art.

What’s your #1 piece of advice for anyone getting started in Salesforce?

There are so many different ways to build a Salesforce career and it can feel a bit overwhelming! Some people put a lot of effort into building their personal brand, some apply for every job that has “Salesforce” in the title, some stay at their first employer for years while others take any job offer that comes their way and hop from company to company. Before you get too far down the job-search process, I suggest making a list of your Dream Job. What industries would you want to work in? What kind of company culture would be a good fit? In-office, remote or hybrid? What kind of tasks or responsibilities get you really excited? Once you have your list, take the time to review and prioritize the items. This will help focus your learning plan and job search. If you don’t know what you want, it’s easy to get distracted by what other people say you should want. But when you’re really clear about what you want it’s easy to say “no, thank you” to the things that aren’t a good match so you can focus on what is! Be prepared to review this list every few years, or when you start a new job search, because priorities can (and will) change over time.

What’s one thing you wish you knew before starting with Salesforce?

How amazing this community is! I was working on the platform for over two years before I learned about Trailhead, the Trailblazer Community, or Dreamforce. There are so many amazing people who are willing to share knowledge, make connections, and lift each other up. Attend a Trailblazer Community Group meeting, get on the chat board and ask questions, attend conferences, connect with folks on LinkedIn or other social channels. At first you may feel like a newbie and not sure where you fit, but keep learning and growing and before long you’ll be the one answering questions, presenting at conferences, and making introductions.

What’s your favorite Salesforce feature and why?

I used to dread Salesforce reports, but now I love them! There are so many ways to use the data that is collected, and a well built report can provide the information needed to drive powerful change. When you start any design process with the question “How do you plan to use the data?” you’re better able to build a solution that is going to do what you need it to do.

Making the decision to enter the world of Salesforce, in whatever capacity, is one that can do wonders for your professional identity. But when you’re just starting out, it can feel incredibly overwhelming at the sheer number of opportunities and information available. This can make it hard to even decide to take that first step. We hope this list helps Salesforce newcomers feel a bit more confident before making that leap. Just remember, always be open to learning and don’t be afraid to lean on the Salesforce community for support!

Check out these helpful guides for Salesforce beginners:

Everything You Need To Know About Salesforce’s Trailhead
Top 5 Salesforce Certifications for Beginners
Top Trailheads for Salesforce Newcomers
AGG’s Salesforce Certification Guide for 2022: Administrators
Why Salesforce?