Adoption is one of the most important criterias for a successful Salesforce implementation.
Given this, here are a few ways to improve adoption.
Find your champions
Champions are future users that will influence others to your cause. It helps to have a combination of positive champions and negative champions.… Read the rest
After years of experience working on Salesforce projects, I’ve come to realize that one of the most important factors for a successful project has nothing to do about technology.
As an architect or consultant, this may seem counterintuitive. But upon further examination, this fact is rather easy to accept.… Read the rest
There’s a recent article from BusinessInsider that makes some interesting points about leaving a major city.
The context is that since the pandemic, people have been moving out of metropolitan cities and moving to the suburbs or the countryside. The trend continued until at least mid-2023.… Read the rest
During a typical day, how do you know what to do next?
You may have multiple projects to work on, or multiple elements of a single project, in addition to personal things that need your attention, meetings to book, etc.
For me, I track things in a to-do list.… Read the rest
As a human being and a Salesforce consultant, it’s sometimes challenging not to be emotional.
A demanding client, a stressful project, frustrating developers. The list of possible aggravations doesn’t end.
Most often, these emotional moments and your reactions to them won’t help you.… Read the rest
Looking at the other side of yesterday’s coin, there are some drawbacks to being an independent Salesforce consultant.
Here are a few for your consideration.
You need to be a one-person business
Instead of entirely focusing on discovery, design, or implementation, you need to manage every aspect of your business.… Read the rest
There are all sorts of reasons why people go independent. In the Salesforce ecosystem, here are three positive ones.
Autonomy
The lifestyle generally allows you to be in control. You choose your clients, how hard you work, how long you work, when to take breaks, and so on.… Read the rest
Now that spring is right around the corner, it’s important to remember to take time to recharge your batteries during weekends.
As a Salesforce consultant, your weeks are probably pretty stressful. Allow yourself to rebalance and step away from the screen.… Read the rest
The other day I was reading an article from fs.blog. It’s a fascinating blog about thinking, mental models, how we learn and think, and all kinds of brain activities.
In the article, “How not to be stupid”, Adam Robinson discusses seven factors that lead to stupidity.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, you’ll make tons of project decisions.
Some of these decisions are easy to follow-through and complete. No one really questions the choice, and the result is a smashing success.
Other times, the decision is not optimal and course-correction is needed.… Read the rest
OK, you’ve set up your one-person shop, hung your “we’re open” sign on your website, and now sit back and wait for clients to stroll in by the hundreds.
Several weeks later, and you don’t have a single client.
This is obviously a very bad way to start, as you should already have 1-3 clients lined up before becoming an independent consultant.… Read the rest
A fellow reader recently shared a story and asked for help. Here’s a summary of the situation:
Imagine you’re an in-house consultant. You were hired to onboard the sales team to Salesforce, but the stakeholder who hired you isn’t dedicating time to define requirements or approve the project launch.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, you probably don’t spend much time in in-person meetings with clients. This applies to independent consultants and those working with agencies.
Apps like Zoom have become so prolific, that it’s unnecessary to meet your client face-to-face. And yet, when we do, it’s magical.… Read the rest
I’ve been at a client’s location for a handful of days this week. It’s great to see so many people in-person and in 3D, rather than the 2D we see through Zoom.
Last night, once all the productive working sessions were done, and the office small-talk ended, a few of us headed out for dinner.… Read the rest
In a typical Salesforce implementation project, you’re usually asked to provide a work estimate fairly early in the sales process.
The biggest problem with this is, you’re providing a number in a moment when you know the least about the client and the project.… Read the rest
Another problem with hourly billing as a Salesforce consultant is your incentives are in the wrong direction.
Imagine you have a house and are presented with two options:
Are you an independent Salesforce consultant that still charges by the hour?
Have you noticed the market limits your maximum hourly rate?
For example, the expected hourly rate for an experienced consultant is about $150 to $200 an hour, which results in an income ceiling of about $200k to $250k a year.… Read the rest
We now have definite evidence that says traditional work, defined as Monday-to-Friday, and from 9-to-5, is over for remote-capable employees. This includes Salesforce consultants.
The new “hot” models are:
Hybrid
This means you’re in the office perhaps 2 or 3 times a week, and you decide which are those days.… Read the rest
As an independent Salesforce consultant, one of the best ways to set yourself up for success and happiness is to have good clients.
Imagine a situation in which the Salesforce project implementation isn’t going well.
We’ve all been there, even the best of us. In a recent case, I worked with a subcontractor that was.. less than ideal.
As the upcoming deadline loomed, the client started getting nervous.… Read the rest
I’m currently managing a subcontractor’s work and a client’s expectations for a Raiser’s Edge to Salesforce migration. It’s not going well, and I wanted to share some lessons learned with you.
This was mentioned before, but it’s recommended to do at least 3 rounds of data migration, which includes
With smaller clients or projects, sometimes you can merge the Dev and Test into one instance.… Read the rest
Over the weekend, I spent some of my downtime at a cottage with an old friend. I’ve noticed that spending time in the country, close to nature and to water, really relaxes and rejuvenates me.
My friend’s father is close to 83 years old, and sadly he suffers from dementia.… Read the rest
Josh Matthews’ recently invited me to his show, JoshForce. Josh is also the co-host of “The Salesforce Career Show”, a popular show available on all podcasting apps.
The topic of our discussion was, “How to Become a Digital Nomad”.
We discuss the ups and downs of being nomadic while working in the Salesforce ecosystem.… Read the rest
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve partnered with iATS to provide payment to receipting capabilities for Canadian nonprofits using Salesforce.
Brickwork by iATS is a free, Salesforce-native app that connects with the Nonprofit Success Pack (NPSP) to track and manage donations.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce perfectionist, it’s sometimes really hard to stop refining and optimizing things.
Each time I open a medium or complex flow, I can find ways to make things just a little bit better. And when multiple flows have similar behavior, it’s hard to not modify them to be more consistent with each other.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant working with a delivery team, you’re bound to have different opinions.
The solution architect will try to push their opinion because they understand the end goal.
The technical architect will say that’s not technically possible and offer alternatives.… Read the rest
Filler words are when you add words such as, “umm”, “err”, “humm”, “like”, “you know” in the middle of sentences. Most people often don’t realize how often they use them until they hear a recording of themselves.
In a casual conversation, these words are normal and accepted.… Read the rest
As an independent Salesforce consultant, have you ever eaten time to keep a client happy? Do you dream of taking a vacation but are concerned about lost revenue? Have you hit an income ceiling because there are only so many hours during the week?… Read the rest
One of the most important steps in a Salesforce implementation project is User Acceptance Testing (UAT).
This is the moment in which the client and end users can finally test the build and raise issues or concerns as needed.
Nothing is built perfectly, so there will always be some bugs or concerns.… Read the rest
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, project management was in its infancy.
The popular methodology at the time was called “waterfall”, which visually symbolized various stages: sales, discovery, design, build, test, deploy. The subsequent stage was started only once the previous stage was completed.… Read the rest