Being a Salesforce consultant means being able to adapt your language based on your audience. We often need to explain what Salesforce is to a non-technical person, but not so often to a techie. So, how would you explain what Salesforce is and how it works to a techie?
Here’s the wording I use:
Salesforce is a cloud platform that has built-in tools that allow you to extend its functionality. It’s like a huge box of Legos. Once you open the box, there is a pre-made greenfield. There are also some basic structures, such as houses and high-rise apartments. These are called the standard objects. Between the structures, there are some roads, which provide basic functionality, such as automation.
Now, you’re provided with basically an unlimited number of additional Lego pieces. With these pieces, you can update existing houses, such as replacing doors or adding a second floor to a house. This means adding custom fields and functionality to the standard objects.
You can also build new houses and condos, which represent custom objects.
And you can build new roads between objects, which is called automation. Or you can build bridges that extend beyond this Lego world into other worlds. These are integrations.
Note that the box doesn’t come with many instructions. There are some general blueprints that you can reference, but each Lego world has specific needs. This means you should know and follow some best practices, but some architects build crazy and unreliable worlds pretty quickly.
The takeaway
I enjoy the visual representation of comparing Salesforce to Lego. It’s tangible enough for anyone to understand the basic building blocks.
Is there anything you would add to this model? Would you refer to it another way? Let me know!