I’ve been an independent consultant for more than 20 years. For the first 19 years, I built a custom web application to manage my accounting.
My primary motivation was cost. I didn’t want to pay an endless subscription fee, when I knew I could build one myself.… Read the rest
Every once in a while, it’s good to slow things down. Work life can get very busy as a Salesforce consultant. So every once in a while, it’s OK to go to your happy place.
Your happy place could be the gym, spending time with friends, a particular destination, meditating, or any number of enjoyable activities.… Read the rest
Towards the end of your Salesforce app development, you’ll start shifting your focus on how to list it. There are two main ways to list an app:
As an unlisted app, you simply need to share a published link with your client.… Read the rest
When starting to build an app, you probably have tons of ideas about which features to include. But once you start talking to prospects and clients, be open to their feedback. It’s not easy to think of every feature your clients need, and if your clients want something, they will let you know.… Read the rest
There are several key differences between consulting and app development. Here are a few for your consideration:
Number of clients
When you do contract work, you are building for just one client. Your focus is entirely based on their particular business needs.… Read the rest
Salesforce consulting is awesome. There are thousands of Salesforce partners that do it, from single person shops to agencies with thousands of employees and/or subcontractors.
You can build an entire career as a consultant and maintain it until you retire.
However, there are some drawbacks.… Read the rest
When I graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering, there was a ceremony. It’s called the iron ring ceremony. It’s only performed in Canada and all students who graduate with an engineering degree attend.
The entire ceremony is secret, but there are a few things I can share with you.… Read the rest
I’m slowly building this email list. The idea is to eventually reduce working on Salesforce projects and focus on coaching. It’s a long term goal, but one I started thinking about two years ago.
To gain readers, do the following:
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Thanks for connecting!… Read the rest
One of the largest challenges when working for yourself is being a complete business. You cannot just be a Salesforce architect. You also need to be a marketing team, a sales team, a finance department, and a support team all in one.… Read the rest
Being an independent Salesforce architect, there’s only so much I can do in a week. This means I spend most of my time advising and consulting clients, rather than doing implementation work. This means clients are usually paying for access to my expertise.… Read the rest
There are three apps that I rely on for everyday work.
The 1st is Workona, which is a Chrome extension. It allows me to create a space for each client. So if I’m working on Client A’s project, and need to quickly switch to Client’s B’s project, it takes me two clicks.… Read the rest
Another reader asked how they can efficiently use labels or turn emails into action items. These are great questions.
I use a label for each client, and a general label called “Clients” for prospects and other client-related emails. I set up Gmail filters to automatically add the label based on the sender or subject.… Read the rest
A number of readers were very interested in more details about the personal and business calendar sync.
Using a Make scenario, only personal events scheduled between M-F from 9am to 5pm are synced to my business calendar. So it’s a one-way sync.… Read the rest
As you may know, I do more than one thing. At the moment, I do the following
Several readers have asked how a single person can multitask so efficiently.… Read the rest
Unsurprisingly, a Salesforce discovery phase is about discovering. But what exactly are you discoverying?
The main objective is clarity. You and your client need to understand how things will look like once the implementation phase is complete. Some of the details will be determined during the build, but at least the main decision points should be clear.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, you usually start working during the design or implementation phase. This means the commercial agreements have been made and sales properly handed off all their detailed documents to you (don’t laugh, this actually happens sometimes).
Your first meeting with the client is hopefully a kick-off meeting.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, you’ll often have to host demos of your work to your client. Demos are only useful with data, so at some point, you’ll need to create some.
Now, I’ve heard of an interesting story with a valuable lesson.… Read the rest
Like Salesforce, MS Access uses a relational database. This means each Access table can represent a single SF object. And once in Access, you have multiple tools at your disposal for data transformation.
The first step is to export data from SF and import it into Access.… Read the rest
A number of readers asked me for more information about the Salesforce data management tool I built.
It’s basically a MS Access database with a Salesforce Dataloader integration. This means it can be used to:
Additional features:
One of my favorite Salesforce activities is cleaning up technical debt. With one of my current clients, we’ve been moving data from custom fields to standard fields and objects.
For example, the contact object had the following:
The account object had:
Today is Thanksgiving in Canada. While it’s not as huge of an event as in the US, it’s still a significant moment.
The origin of the celebration is to give thanks for a good harvest. Since most of us are not farmers anymore, we extended the moment of gratitude to include friends and family.… Read the rest
There’s an well-known anecdote that goes like this:
Albert Einstein was often called to give public lectures on his Theory of Relativity. His chauffeur heard his lectures so many times that he claimed to know it by heart.
At the time, not too many people knew what Einstein looked like.… Read the rest
When allocating time in your day for deep work, consider which day of the week and which hours.
Studies have shown over and over that most people think best in the morning. This is regardless of whether you’re a morning person or a night person.… Read the rest
It starts when a client is explaining their problem. As a Salesforce consultant, it’s easy to want to jump in as early as possible with your solution. However that’s not usually the best approach.
Instead, actively listen to the client’s concerns in full, without designing a solution in your mind.… Read the rest
Deep thinking is about reaching your best thinking performance. But it’s not a race. One way to achieve deep thinking is to actually slow yourself down.
You’ll notice that some of your best thinking sometimes happens when you’re very focused on a problem.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, it’s easy to get distracted while working. It could be a text message, an email alert, a meeting reminder, a colleague tapping your shoulder, or a myriad of other annoyances.
All these interruptions prevent you from being able to achieve deep work.… Read the rest
The other day, a friend told me a funny story. He was asked by a colleague to review their work before merging it into the main development sandbox.
The colleague started by explaining the purpose of the feature they designed and built.… Read the rest
If you haven’t already noticed, Salesforce is really pushing their AI advancements.
Like really pushing.
I believe they started labelling last year’s Dreamforce (their annual conference in San Francisco) as the “largest AI event in the world”. This year was no different.… Read the rest
Continuing from yesterday’s email…
Step 3 – Define the scoring values
Rather than use a typical score of 1-5 or 1-10, this is where things become interesting.
Imagine the following scoring:
Having gaps between the scores allows for more discrete responses.… Read the rest
Let’s say your client has a need, and it cannot be fulfilled by Salesforce. So you provide them with a shortlist of your preferred third-party applications. (Note: you have a shortlist, right?)
How do you help your client decide which of the apps is the best one for their needs?… Read the rest