Imagine a client hands you a .csv file that needs to be loaded into Salesforce. So, what’s your process?
Here are the steps I usually follow:
As a Salesforce consultant, you’re normally not responsible for managing others.
Buf if you work in a team, you may need to delegate tasks to others, you may need to resolve conflicts, and you may need to coach new recruits.
Given this, let’s take a look at each of them.… Read the rest
Just over a month ago, I made the prediction that Marc Benioff will rename Salesforce (the product) to Agentforce.
A few days ago, it was obvious he’s clearly thinking about it. But not just the product. He’s entertaining the idea of renaming the entire company.… Read the rest
Let’s say you have 13 tasks split across 5 clients, where do you start?
I follow (and recommend) a simplified version of David Allan’s Get Things Done (GTD) approach.
In the original version, there are 5 steps to this approach:
Step 1.… Read the rest
A fellow long-time reader recently asked (shared with permission):
… Read the restAs I interview for roles, including subcontracting, I’m asked about my ‘Project Management’ skills. By this, I don’t think they’re asking about PM skills as a PM – i.e. managing other peoples’ work.
For the 2025 “Good Enough” Consultant anniversary giveaway, there were 6 people that referred 9 new readers.
They were entered into a winner wheel (for each new reader) and the results are in the video below:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1sHswGcAgSfi3s9tPRJG9MvrnFLDnIIyL/view?usp=sharing
And this year, the winner is jtxxxx@ixxx.com!… Read the rest
In initial sales calls with potential clients, there are many threads to observe and ask questions about.
Most Salesforce consultants have a checklist of questions such as:
When you’re an independent Salesforce consultant, the best way to get leads is from referrals. Nothing else comes close.
These referrals can be from current or former colleagues, clients, and friends.
Having a connection in common is crazy effective, as it effectively eliminates uncertainty.… Read the rest
Your reputation as a Salesforce consultant is paramount. It takes years to build and can tumble within moments.
Given this critical importance, let’s take a closer look at it.
A good reputation includes (but is not limited to):
The takeaway
Do these activities today, and again tomorrow.… Read the rest
You may not have known this, but I’ve been a podcast host for almost 4 years.
It’s called Agents of Nonprofit and the 1st episode was published on Feb 28, 2022. It was a weekly show where I interviewed everyday “superheroes” in the nonprofit community.… Read the rest
Once you’ve identified your ideal client and their expensive problem, the next step is to market to them.
The main theme is to use their words. This means if your clients are
Once you’ve identified your ideal client (also known as ICP: Ideal Client Profile), the next step is to understand their problems.
There are two parts to this phase.
The first is for your client’s to acknowledge they have a problem that’s actually worth solving.… Read the rest
Let’s face facts: you cannot help everyone.
You cannot even help a fraction of all possible clients. This has nothing to do with your talent, this has to do with having limited time and resources.
So you need to decide which clients to help, and which ones to leave behind.… Read the rest
If you were driving down the road in your car, and saw a neon sign with the message, “We help people solve problems”, would you pull over?
I doubt it.
What if the sign read, “We help independent Salesforce consultants build a healthy pipeline so they can achieve their desired lifestyle”?… Read the rest
As an independent Salesforce consultant, clients are your lifeblood.
Notice the “s” in “clients”. While one client at a time may be sufficient for your lifestyle, usually a project only lasts for so long. And then you’ll need to find another client.… Read the rest
I cannot remember the last business day that passed where I didn’t use AI.
Whether it’s to
It’s part of my daily toolkit.… Read the rest
This week, I used AI to perform some address cleanup. Cities are notoriously known for being spelled incorrectly.
In the province of Quebec, things can get particularly interesting. For example, the following are actually all the same city:
I attached an .csv… Read the rest
This weekend, I visited my friends at their home north of the city. Being in the countryside is wonderful for the soul and I was happy to see them and break bread with them.
At one point, I showed their young daughter how easy it is to take a picture of something and have AI generate another picture from it.… Read the rest
A recent article on Business Insider confirms something we already had a feeling about.
Salesforce is a marketing company. It’s not a tech company, an AI company, or a family. And it does marketing really well.
Agentforce was announced at last year’s Dreamforce by showing how it was being used by retailer Saks Fifth Avenue (SFA).… Read the rest
As you may know, the original way of creating automation in Salesforce was workflows. Then came processes. Both were superseded by flows.
While you can technically still create workflows and processes today, they are legacy. Eventually they will be fully deprecated.… Read the rest
In case you’re not overly techie, I’ll start from the beginning.
Salesforce is mostly built from .xml files. These are structured text files that tell SF what to do. Every field, object, flow, apex, etc. is composed of .xml files that are executed almost instantly when you use SF.… Read the rest
Today was the in-person event I co-hosted with Salesforce.
The goal was to show nonprofits how to use Slack as a sidekick that helps them manage and interact with their contacts, all without leaving Slack.
Of course, these were specific use cases for nonprofits, but the functionality and UI can be used by any organization.… Read the rest
In Salesforce, it’s generally not recommended for a parent record to have more than 10,000 child records.
Beyond this threshold, skew occurs. While Salesforce can technically store more records, it starts to run into significant, transaction-breaking problems.
Here are some concerns, and ways to mitigate them.… Read the rest
A while ago, I lived in a townhouse with an old and crappy fence separating my backyard from my neighbours.
While doing major renovations to the house, I inquired to the city about replacing the fence. They said the only option, as per the bylaws, would be to replace it with a steel picket fence.… Read the rest
It sounds laughable, but I’ve seen small Salesforce orgs in which all users were System Administrators.
On the other side, I’ve seen a single admin for an org with more than 200 users.
The general recommendation is 1 admin per 75–100 users, and some suggest 1 admin per 50–75 users.… Read the rest
Speaking of passwords, do you use a password manager?
It’s amazing to me to see so many Salesforce consultants either reuse the same password in all their client orgs, or use a very basic way of creating a password per client.… Read the rest
While training for my User Experience certification, I learned a valuable lesson about passwords.
In Salesforce, the default setting for “User passwords expire in” is 90 days. That means every 90 days, users need to think of a new password.
However people aren’t good at creating passwords.… Read the rest
Congratulations! You’re the proud owner of an existing Salesforce org! OK, but now what?
Peering behind the curtains of an org that’s new to you can be both daunting and exhilarating. What surprises will you find?!
Here’s a 15-step checklist I follow to get a high-level view of things.… Read the rest
In an email last week, I wrote, “Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Salesforce changes all of their products to include “Agentforce” (“Agentforce Sales Cloud”, “Agentforce Slack”, etc.)”
Well, this is actually happening!
Although there wasn’t an official announcement, Salesforce has quietly renamed their cloud products to include the word Agentforce.… Read the rest
David Giller recently posted how the most recent Dreamforce may have “cancelled” Salesforce Administrators.
A summary of his thoughts: Previous Dreamforces talked in length about the pivotal role of admins. However in this year’s keynote, the word “admin” was never mentioned.… Read the rest