Talking about specialization or lack thereof, here’s a real world use case about how NOT to advertise you’re available for work.
Below is a post from LinkedIn that appeared in my feed today. I removed the person’s name to keep them anonymous.… Read the rest
Given how Salesforce certifications have lost most of their value, another question logically follows. How do you convey knowledge without them?
Here are three steps to get you going.
1. Specialize
If you’re a generalist, it’s difficult to distinguish yourself from your competition.… Read the rest
There’s a lot of recent chatter on social media about Salesforce certifications. Some consultants are asking whether certs still have any value or not.
Back in the day, certs were a great way to distinguish yourself from competition. And partners shared the total number of certs from their employees as a vanity metric.… Read the rest
It is with great pleasure to announce that I’ll be attending Montréal Dreamin’ this year.
The event takes place on June 5 and 6, 2025 at the Double Tree Hilton. Once again, I’ll be a speaker and a sponsor.
The speech is the same one I did at True North Dreamin (TND), called “Free yourself from hourly billing and unlock your full value”.… Read the rest
Another key point with an advisory retainer is making yourself available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
To be clear, “being available” doesn’t mean “being responsive”. It simply means the client can contact you anytime. You can make a best effort to respond ASAP, and even answer after 5pm.… Read the rest
Regarding advisory retainers, here is the exact template I use for quotes.
Feel free to copy+paste and adjust as needed.
This is an advisory role, assisting with strategy and best practices without hands-on involvement. I will meet regularly with the team to review progress, answer any questions, and generally advise the team as needed.… Read the rest
Before we begin, this is not an email about bragging.
This is about showing you the art of the possible. If I can do it, so can you. I don’t have any magical powers that you don’t have. I simply don’t limit myself to common perceptions.… Read the rest
As a solo Salesforce consultant, the market dictates your maximum hourly rate.
The hourly rate for an experienced consultant is usually between $150 to $200 an hour, which results in approximately $200k to $250k a year.
FYI, I know a Certified Technical Architect (CTA) that charges $300 an hour, which is the highest I’ve seen for a solo consultant.… Read the rest
Over the years, I’ve become aware of just how important it is to speak.
Speak not just to your team, or your clients. But to your audience.
This means getting up on stage or on a podcast, and sharing your thoughts.… Read the rest
True North Dreamin (TND) wrapped up today, after two days of keynotes, sessions, and workshops. It was quite a fun event, and especially meeting people in real life that I’ve only spoken to on Zoom or chatted with on LinkedIn.
Here are some thoughts.… Read the rest
Let’s review yesterday’s scenario, in which my role was Solution Architect, and my responsibilities were:
For this work, I billed by the hour, up to an agreed upon maximum of 20 hours per week.… Read the rest
About 6 months ago, I chose to work with a Salesforce agency that billed by the hour. At the time, I needed the opportunity and it was a fun project, so I accepted a reasonable hourly rate.
Fast forward to today, and it turns out I’m not compatible with hourly billing anymore, and the agency let me go.… Read the rest
I recall an article from several years ago about mobile phone usage. The article basically said that low-income families now have access to the same information as high-income families.
That is to say, they both have a mobile phone capable of accessing this information.… Read the rest
When I started writing these emails, about 2.5 years ago, I was inspired by my business coach. He’s been writing 7 emails a week for years, and I figured if he can do it, so can I.
For me however, 7 is too much, as I appreciate having some down time.… Read the rest
You have numerous advantages as a Salesforce digital nomad. Most importantly, you can choose where and when you live. And when given that optionality, warmer weather is usually beneficial.
Neuroscientists have discovered that sunlight, temperature, and seasonal cues can change your memory, sleep patterns, appetite, and even risk tolerance.… Read the rest
As a reminder, I’ll be attending True North Dreamin 2025 in Vancouver. The event takes place on April 24-25, 2025 at The Nest at UBC.
I’m attending as a sponsor and a speaker.
As a sponsor, I’ll be demoing two editions of Dryad Receipting for Salesforce, one for NPSP and one for Industries.… Read the rest
Everyone once in a while, your Salesforce project will go sideways. The solution isn’t working, the deadline is looming, and your client is frustrated.
So it’s all hands on deck. Time to get organized as a team and solve all remaining issues.… Read the rest
While at DreamOle last week, a term was used that I’ve never heard before. To paraphrase, the person said, “Product owners want AI-first products”.
There are several prominent “first” terms.
For example, the term “mobile-first products” is familiar to most. If not, at a certain moment in the past, there was a big shift to ensure all new websites and applications were responsive.… Read the rest
Formulas in Salesforce flows are really cool. They are a unique type of variable, one that has multiple purposes.
Here’s one of my favorite methods to show just how cool they are: formulas are only evaluated at the moment they are used.… Read the rest
Here are my takeaways from this year’s Dream Ole in Zaragoza, Spain.
It’s all about Agentforce
Apparently you cannot escape it. It’s not just prevalent in North America, but in Europe too. The opening keynote speaker was a product manager of Agentforce and we had a chance to chat after her presentation.… Read the rest
It’s a little late to mention, but I’m attending DreamOle in Zaragoza, Spain tomorrow.
If you’re also attending, look out for me and I’ll be happy to meet you.
Here are the sessions in my agenda:
They are offering an Agentforce Certification Bootcamp, in which you can obtain an Agentforce cert, but that hasn’t piqued my interest.… Read the rest
When creating custom fields, there are two settings most people ignore: External Id and Unique. When used properly, these boolean settings can be useful.
By setting a field as an External Id, you’re telling Salesforce that this field represents an Id field from a system outside of Salesforce.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, sometimes you play the role of architect. That is to say, not only are you implementing the project, you’re also designing it.
The moment you shift into this role, your role increases dramatically.
The main one being, whatever you design, you are responsible for.… Read the rest
There probably isn’t a single Salesforce project that has ever gone perfectly to plan.
Just like the sayings, “If you don’t make any mistakes, you’re probably don’t make anything”, and Mike Tyson’s popular one, “Everyone has a plan until you get punched in the face”.… Read the rest
It’s not uncommon for one of your projects to involve a migration from a legacy system to Salesforce. After all, Salesforce is still the coolest kid on the block.
During the discovery phase of such a project, the client typically demos the legacy system.… Read the rest
As a Salesforce consultant, it’s important to listen more than you speak.
Sure, you may be more knowledgeable about Salesforce than your peers, or everyone on the call. But that doesn’t mean you need to show off.
We all have something to learn from others.… Read the rest
Let’s say you have a record-triggered flow that calls a subflow. Sometimes you need to pass variables to the subflow.
If you need to pass a record to the subflow, you have two options:
While both get the job done, I usually recommend option 1.… Read the rest
A LinkedIn article was published yesterday about hardcoding URLs in flows. The author is trying to solve a problem involving URLs that change depending on the environment.
For example, let’s say you have a screen flow that creates an account, and you want to display a link to the newly created account in the last step.… Read the rest
As an independent Salesforce consultant, working with the “right” clients is critical.
So when meeting clients for the first time, I quickly try to assess how well we would work together. There are a few approaches on how this can be done.… Read the rest
Every once in a while, when debugging flows, you may come across an error such as “Unable to obtain exclusive access to this record or 1 records: 003OL00000EMzT8YAL”
At face value, this error message doesn’t seem to tell you very much.… Read the rest