Continuous Learning and Continuing Education in Salesforce

One of the biggest challenges I’ve heard from our consultants is keeping up with the relentless pace of technology. The technology hamster wheel is moving faster than ever, and Salesforce is no exception. Just look at the number of updates that come out each quarter. If you aren’t keeping up daily or weekly, it can feel like you are getting left behind. Carving out time in your busy schedule isn’t easy, but it’s achievable with proper planning and implementing deliberate practices.
Time is the biggest challenge that most people face. How can you possibly steal hours away from your already-packed day? Sometimes it’s about putting dead time to use or doing more with the time you have. If you commute to work or spend significant time in the car, that time is ripe for repurposing. Catching up on your favorite KZbin channels, or podcasts, or listening to your certification prep notes can help move dead time over to productive. Next, what manual Salesforce tasks do you do every day? Thirty minutes a day of manual tasks translates into two and a half hours a week or ten hours per month. Take time to see what you can automate through building out Flows. Resist the temptation to take on more tasks when you free up time through automation. Use some of that time to invest in yourself. Your learning journey also benefits your employer. Asking your manager for dedicated time daily or weekly should translate to exponential returns to the business. Start small. Timebox that learning window at 30 minutes a day, and block it off on your calendar, treating that time like a meeting. As a last resort, look at your time outside of work. Most of us have small pockets of time in the morning, evening, or at lunch where we could squeeze in time for learning. Again, we want to prioritize repurposing dead time or idle work time before we dig into personal. If you do find yourself here, you should ask what this professional growth means to you. What is the motivation behind it, and where can it take you?
Salesforce is an expansive beast. It can be hard to narrow down where to focus your growth efforts. Ask yourself two questions. First, what makes me more effective in what I do today? What areas can you dig deeper into that will grow your daily value? Is it shoring up your knowledge of Salesforce fundamentals? Is it getting up to speed on new aspects of an upcoming project? The second question is what do I need to learn to take me to where I want to be? This one requires a bit of soul-searching. Where do you want to be in your career a year from now? How about five? It can be helpful to research job trends in Salesforce to understand where the market is heading. I don’t care how much you love your job, change may be suddenly thrust upon you one day, and you need to be ready to navigate it. Artificial Intelligence and niche skills like CPQ, OmniStudio, and DataCloud seem to be the most in-demand areas in 2024. More traditional Salesforce disciplines are seeing saturation as Salesforce is hit with growth challenges and experiencing an influx of entry-level talent. Regardless of your focus, map out the necessary steps to convert that dream into a reality.
There is a great quote from James Clear’s book “Atomic Habits” - “Goals are good for setting a direction, but systems are best for making progress.” Imagine we had a goal to master Salesforce automation this year. That’s a rather abstract goal, but if we broke it down into SMART goals, we could make it real. The acronym behind SMART goals means specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time bound. A good initial SMART goal might be to:
• Go through the Flow modules on Trailhead. This will give you a base-level understanding of the buttons and actions necessary to apply to your specific use cases.
• Take it up a notch by completing the Flow Superbadges modules in Trailhead. Superbadges allow you to apply your knowledge to real-world situations so we can take advantage of the power of experiential learning.
• Lastly, fire up the sandbox, and start playing around with some of your internal use cases.
This would be a great initial step that we’d take over the first 90 days. We’d set up deliberate practices and establish milestones within that period to ensure we are following through and staying on track. Once completed, we could build on this success to take on more challenging tasks on our path to mastery. It’s important to recruit an accountability partner to help you along the way. A mentor can be a great addition to your journey. Study groups are also great at helping keep you on track and reinforcing accountability.
This video is brought to you by Improving. We are an IT consulting firm serving North America. If you need help with challenges within Salesforce, consider reaching out to us at improving.com. Our team of Salesforce experts can help you overcome challenges and get the most out of your CRM environment.
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