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Home > Salesforce > My Salesforce Blog > Cross the Chasm and Become a Salesforce Consultant. Here is How!
Cross the Chasm and Become a Salesforce Consultant. Here is How!
I get contacted from time to time by friends and connections asking for guidance and career advice on how they can shift their careers to new roles in the Salesforce ecosystem.
They usually get motivated by how well Salesforce, as a company, has been performing and growing since it was founded in 1999 leading the CRM and cloud platform spaces. They get motivated with how Salesforce is positioned with a high rank in every report that has the title ‘Best Companies to Work for’. They also notice where Salesforce is named a leader in almost every analyst report. And last, but definitely not least, when they read that Salesforce Economy is going to create 3.3 million new jobs by 2022.
My friends’ big momentum is the high demand they feel when they see the number of job vacancies that require knowledge of the Salesforce platform. Jobs like Admin, Developer, Consultant, Business Analyst, Architect, etc.) and of course they are all preceded by ‘Salesforce ...’.
For the benefit of the broader audience of my friends and connections and for easy reference, I'm sharing some information and few links that I hope they will help in the learning journey and add some structure to it.
This article is meant for those who have CRM domain experience during their career in products other than Salesforce and they decided to take the leap to Salesforce. For those, especially if they have previously worked as CRM consultants, their transition will be relatively faster. They are aware of the common business challenges in Sales, Service and Marketing, they used to hear the common pain points that customers usually speak about when they describe their objectives and business processes and the limitations of technologies that are used within their organizations. They are aware of the CRM terminology, such as Accounts, Contacts, Leads, Opportunities, Territories, Forecasting, Channel Sales, Activities, Marketing Campaign, Cases, etc.. They know what a Sales Process and a Support Process mean.
If the above describes you to some extent, then with your knowledge from your previous CRM domain experience and, hopefully, with the pointers listed in this article, you will be well equipped to hit the ground running in your journey to become a Salesforce CRM Consultant. You can choose to focus on consulting in the Sales Force Automation (hence you will take the Sales Cloud Consultant route) or you choose to focus on consulting in the Customer Service Automation (hence you will take the Service Cloud Consultant route) or maybe you prefer to be ready to tackle both areas. Two things that I can guarantee are: (1) you will have FUN while learning and mastering any Salesforce product (2) You will definitely increase your chances to get great job opportunities.
If you are planning to target Salesforce Administrator career, you can focus on the following certifications:
Salesforce Certified Administrator
Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator
Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
If you are planning to target Salesforce Project Manager or Engagement Manager kind of job, you can focus on the following certifications:
Salesforce Certified Administrator
Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
The other 3 certificates (Advanced Admin, Sales Consultant and Service Consultant) are nice to have, but usually you work with an amazing delivery team.
If you are planning to target Salesforce Consultant, Salesforce Business Analyst or Customer Success Manager kind of job, you can plan for the following certifications. This is assuming you will tackle both Sales and Service Cloud projects. If you prefer to specialize in one of them then you can choose either of them:
Salesforce Certified Administrator
Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator
Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
Salesforce Certified Sales Cloud Consultant
Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant
Here you can find the exam guide for each certificate mentioned above along with and some links to help you prepare and gain the required knowledge:
(1) Salesforce Certified Administrator:
This is the Starting Point. It’s a prerequisite for almost every other exam, especially the consultant ones.
Prepare for the Exam on Trailhead: (The Salesforce Free eLearning Platform): Trailmix: Prepare for Your Salesforce Administrator Credential - Estimated Time: ~ 45 hrs
(2) Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder
Certification Exam Guide - Salesforce Certified Platform App Builder (PDF)
Prepare for the Exam on Trailhead: Trailmix: Prepare for Your Salesforce Platform App Builder Credential - Estimated Time: ~ 67 hrs
(3) Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator
Certification Exam Guide - Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator (PDF)
Prepare for the Exam on Trailhead: Trailmix: Prepare for Your Salesforce Advanced Administrator Credential - Estimated Time: ~ 51 hrs
(4) Salesforce Certified Sales Cloud Consultant
Certification Exam Guide - Salesforce Certified Sales Cloud Consultant (PDF)
Prepare for the Exam: No Trailmix yet on Trailhead. Search the exam topics in ‘Help & Training’ and Trailhead.
(5) Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant
Certification Exam Guide - Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant (PDF)
Prepare for the Exam: No Trailmix yet on Trailhead. Search the exam topics in ‘Help & Training’ and Trailhead.
The Guide to Certification Path is a great resource to give you an idea about the full list of Salesforce certifications. It also categorizes the certificates by role (e.g. Architect, Admin, Developer, Specialist, Consultant, etc.) - Check it out for now if you are interested in other roles that I will cover in my next articles.
Happy Learning!