Another popular concern some consultants have with charging a monthly rate for support is what happens during busy months.
Let’s say in one month, lots of support tickets are created. In the following month, only a handful of tickets. Is that fair?… Read the rest
There was lots of feedback and interest regarding the monthly support package, so let’s dive deeper.
When you have an open-buffet style of support, you may be concerned about being overwhelmed.
One way to avoid being overwhelmed is to artificially create a funnel.… Read the rest
The most common support service is for the client to buy a bucket of hours. Support tickets are priced by the hour, and once the bucket reaches 0, more hours are purchased.
While this approach technically works, you’re trading time for money.… Read the rest
I have a wonderful client that I’ve been working with for over a year.
As per my usual MO, the projects were always fixed price. This means I worked towards obtaining the project’s goal, and never submitted change orders.
As with all my projects, I offer a lifetime bug-free guarantee.… Read the rest
The world is a random place. One moment you could be working hard on a feature, and the next moment, the client asks you to drop everything and work on something else.
When I grew up, the boy scouts had the motto, “Be prepared”.… Read the rest
Yay, it’s Friday!
That means we can eat, drink alcohol, and party all night, right? I mean, we have all day tomorrow to recover, right? Right?
While it is tempting to “let loose” on Fridays, it’s actually not very good for your overall health.… Read the rest
One of the best routines I’ve adopted in recent years is meditation. It’s now a regular part of my morning routine.
The routine begins with waking up and is followed by
In the pursuit of stoicism, you often bump against Alan Watts.
Alan Watts was a British writer, speaker, and self-proclaimed “philosophical entertainer”. He was known for popularising Buddhist, Taoist, and Hindu philosophy for a Western audience.
Here are some excerpts of Alan’s thoughts about not taking life too seriously.… Read the rest
Here are some practical ways you can apply stoicism in your work.
Focus on what you control and accept change
If a project start is delayed, redirect your energy to tasks you can influence instead of dwelling on the delay.
Keep your emotions in check
During disagreements with colleagues, create space between what they say and how you reply.… Read the rest
There are many ways to introduce calmness in your life. And the calmer you are on the inside, the better consultant you can be on the outside.
One of these effective ways is stoicism.
Stoicism is an ancient Greek philosophy that teaches you to focus on what you can control and accept what you cannot.… Read the rest
If the soon and inevitable arrival of AGI causes an existential threat, congratulations, you’re human.
You’re probably asking tons of questions, including
There was a big ruckus recently about Marc Benoiff’s comment about using Agentforce to reduce headcount.
He’s quoted as saying, “I’ve reduced it [company headcount] from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because I need less heads”.
Some are interpreting this as he fired 4000 people.… Read the rest
As AI becomes more and more adept at writing code (I’m looking at you, Claude Code), it begs the question: can it be used for more than just proof of concepts?
Taking this idea to the extreme, a non-developer can prompt their way and build a project.… Read the rest
Yesterday and today is/was a two-day session called Fundraising.AI Global Summit 2025: Amplify Impact. While not Salesforce specific, it did connect the dots between AI and nonprofits.
Nonprofits are generally slow to adopt technology. They are usually risk-averse, as they don’t have the deep pockets to be able to easily pivot if things go wrong.… Read the rest
Last month I wrote about how to connect AI directly to Salesforce. Since then, I’ve actually followed the instructions in that email. The results were better than I expected.
Using this approach, your AI understands your entire project. So you can ask it questions and have it perform tasks for you.… Read the rest
While studying Engineering at McGill University, I learned about the law of friction. Loosely defined, this law says it takes a larger force to initially move a stationary object than it does to keep the object moving once in motion.
This is because in order to move a stationary object, you need to apply sufficient force to overcome the static friction of the object.… Read the rest
Research has shown the tone of your voice changes depending on who you are talking with.
When you talk to a child or loved one, it’s usually softer. When you talk with a stranger or enemy, it’s usually harder. Your tone even changes slightly between two people you are equally close to.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, influencing your teammates and clients is an important soft skill to cultivate. After all, if you have a great idea, you need to be able to successfully communicate it with others. Not everyone will be receptive to your attempts.… Read the rest
While at Northeast Dreamin’ in Boston last week, the keynote speaker, Steve Baines, spoke about being a Salesforce architect.
One of his points was, “if you’re building trust and clarity – you’re an architect”.
The overall theme is, being an architect is more of a mindset than an official title. … Read the rest
I recently read a post on LinkedIn from someone who said, “‘good enough’ isn’t good enough”. This leads me to believe there are multiple definitions of “good enough”.
When he uses these words, I believe he’s using a bottom-up approach. That is, something starts as awful, then bad, then good enough, then decent, then very good, then excellent.… Read the rest
Last week, I was almost able to fully disconnect and unplug. It was a nearly magical experience.
Here’s the week captured in a single photo.
This week, I’m driving down to Boston for Northeast Dreamin’, and my “good vibes” mood continues.… Read the rest
This summer has been full of transitions and milestones. So much so that it’s taken its toll.
As a result, I’m listening to myself and taking some more personal time.
Here’s the plan for the coming 2 weeks:
This Sunday, I will join my parents at a lake-site cottage that they’ve rented.… Read the rest
One of the largest advantages of being an independent Salesforce consultant is working from home. And of course, “home” doesn’t necessarily mean your residence.
It’s been a while since I went full digital nomad, so it’s time to change that! Starting in November, I’ll spend about 2 months in South America.… Read the rest
Let’s dive a little deeper into user adoption, specifically monitoring.
One great way to keep track of whether users are actually using Salesforce is to build a bunch of reports.
Here are some for your consideration
There are two moments when you can improve user adoption: before adoption actually begins, and after.
The best way to solve a problem is to avoid it completely.
This principle definitely applies to user adoption. If you can perform a “good enough” job with change management, then user adoption begins strong.… Read the rest
There are more and more posts on LinkedIn about how the traditional CRM (including Salesforce) is slowly dying.
The posts have similar themes:
Some posts sarcastically suggest you to vibe code your own CRM (BTW, the term “vibe coding” means using AI to develop).… Read the rest
On Sept 3, 2025, Northeast Dreamin will be held.
I went in 2023 and had a blast. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it to 2024, but I’m definitely going this year.
Unlike the previous two years, it’s being held in Boston, MA instead of Manchester, NH.… Read the rest
With each passing week, AI gets smarter and smarter.
Apex coding, formula building, general searching, and troubleshooting are currently well positioned to be completely superseded by AI.
However there’s one important thing that hasn’t been replaced just yet; your humanity.
As a Salesforce consultant, your career isn’t completely technical.… Read the rest
The recent examples provided on using AI and Salesforce are disconnected.
That is, you need to do something in Salesforce, so you provide all relevant information to an AI. It gives you an answer, and you implement it. But the AI doesn’t “see” your Salesforce instance and understand the entire context.… Read the rest
Years ago, Google became a household name. It started as a noun and turned into a verb. You “googled” something when you wanted to search for it on the internet.
Fun fact #1: Google’s name comes from the word “googol”, which is the number 1 followed by 100 zeros
Fun fact #2: I used AI for this fact, not Google
Today, AI is overtaking, or already has overtaken, google searches.… Read the rest