How I Got My Yes and Fulfilled My Dream of Becoming a Salesforce Administrator!

Since I posted my blog post last month on “All it takes is one yes”, the most common question I’ve gotten is how I went about getting my yes and how I was able to really make the jump from secretary to full-time Salesforce Administrator.  In honor of Administrative Professionals Day I thought today would be a great day to share this story.

When I had made the decision that I was ready to move-on from my company the first thing I did was get a resume ready.  I spent most of a weekend working on it.  I spent a Saturday afternoon in the Library reading books on Resume and Cover Letter writing.  I took out two books from the library that I thought would be useful guides for me.  I spent about 2-3 hours writing up my Resume and Cover Letter.  Once I had these written up I posted them on Monster and Careerbuilder.  I was sure I had a good resume and cover letter and that someone would contact me.  About two weeks had gone by and no real bites.  I had also applied to a few jobs on both sites with very little to no response back.  It was very frustrating.

I decided to reach out to a few friends from the NYC Salesforce User Group and send them my resume to see what they thought.  One of my friends got back to me and told me that I wasn’t highlighting my Salesforce Experience enough.  The way my resume was set up was that I had an objective then talked about my work experience under each job I had.  Listed in two bullet points under my secretarial role that I was doing Salesforce Administration and explaining what I had done.  

My friend sent me a copy of his resume and the first thing I noticed at the top was under the objective there was a skills section listing out in three columns his experience.  Each column was for a different overall skill set and then listing out the specifics.  Underneath that there was a list of different project accomplishments relating to both Salesforce and a few other systems he had worked on.  Then underneath that was his overall job experience where he listed his title, company worked for and duration of the position.  All of the meat and potatoes was as at the top of the resume.  I really liked this format and I knew this format could call out my specific Salesforce skill sets without hiding them underneath a secretary title.  I spent another weekend updating my resume to look like my friend’s resume.  It was definitely time well spent.  

That weekend I updated my resume on both monster and careerbuilder and applied to some open positions.  My friend’s suggestions worked!  That week I heard back from two of the companies I applied with and got a few calls from recruiters about open positions.  I had two interviews setup!  Hooray!

I would love to tell you that one of those two interviews lead to a job, but they didn’t.  I completely bombed my first interview.  I was no nervous.  The person interviewing me was asking me extremely technical questions that I didn’t even understand.  When I didn’t understand what he was talking about I would like down and say “no I don’t know how to do that, or no I’ve never seen that or dealt with that.”  The person interviewing me told me to get a few more years of experience under my belt and then reach out to him.  I felt like a complete failure.  I started to second-guess myself and wonder if I was ready to move into a full-time Salesforce Admin role.  I decided that I would go for the next interview a few days later and see how that went.

The second company I interviewed with went a lot better.  The role was for a salesforce administrator but instead of reporting into technology the role was reporting into sales operations.  I understood all of the questions being asked and was able to respond to all of them.  The person interviewing me told me that she really liked me and was going to set up a second interview for me with her boss and two of her colleagues.   The second interview I had went great as well.  I was able to answer questions and even call on my own Salesforce experience when they were talking about some of the challenges they were having.  After following up a few times after my interviews the hiring manager told me they put the position on hold.  She did tell me that if they hadn’t put the position on hold that I would have been their first choice.  That made me feel really good and helped me to keep going.

I went through another round of applying for jobs on every job site I could possibly find.  I also started applying for all Salesforce Admin jobs.  Even if they said they wanted five years of experience I applied anyway.  I decided it was better to get my resume out there even if I didn’t fit their qualifications exactly.  That was one of the best decisions I ever made.  I got more interviews this way.  Let’s face it, in 2005, Salesforce had only been around for six years so not many people had five years of Salesforce experience.  

It was coming towards the end of the Summer and I was still interviewing and applying for jobs.  I had interviewed with about 8 different companies and no offer yet.  I learned something new during each interview, something that would make me better for my next.  I learned how to answer questions better so I became more confident.  I learned that it was ok to say “no I haven’t dealt with that situation exactly, but I know I can learn.”  I was searching one evening on Monster when I saw a job for a Field Operations Manager/Salesforce Administrator for a start-up company in the NYC suburbs.  They were looking for someone with 1-2 years of work experience and 1-2 years of Salesforce experience.  I applied for the job.

A few days after I applied for the position at the start-up I got a call from their operations manager. He wanted to bring me in the following week for an interview.  That weekend, I was at a family barbeque telling my family of my upcoming interview and my Mom told me she had a really good feeling about this one.  I did too.  A friend of the family gave me some advice, she told me to walk in there like I owned the place, like the job was already mine.  I decided to do just that.  I was going to be confident, poised and knowledgeable on this interview.  I decided that I was going to ask them what their biggest Salesforce challenge was and see if I could solve it for them.  

During the interview I was able to answer all of their questions and at the conclusion of the interview the operations manager asked me if I had any questions.  I decided to go for it.  I asked “What’s your biggest challenge with Salesforce?”  

He looked at me and I think was a bit taken back by my question.  He turned the computer screen around on his desk and showed me the Administrator profile.  They had 50 users and 28 were administrators because they couldn’t figure out why when they moved a user into a service role and profile they could no longer see accounts owned by sales managers.  He then showed me his dashboard which had all of these error messages on it where reports weren’t rendering.  He also told me that because there were so many system admins that they had duplicate fields, duplicate (similar) picklist values and a big giant mess.  Essentially they had Salesforce for just over a year but the person who started the project of implementing it had moved on before they could finish so they had a lot of stuff that wasn’t working, people had too much access and they weren’t really sure what it could do.  

I spoke to him briefly about his first issue with visibility, I explained org wide defaults for objects, sharing, roles and profiles.  He seemed to get it.  Unfortunately he had another meeting but he told me he did want to continue the conversation and bring me in for a second interview with his boss, the COO and a few others the following week.

Instead of sending a generic thank you for interviewing me email, I decided to send a plan over on how he could fix his Salesforce org and some things he could do right away to move people out of the admin role and eliminate so much risk.  I also offered to take a day off from my current job and work with them so they could “try me out.”

The next day the Operations Manager called me.  He couldn’t believe that I sent him everything I sent him in just a few hours after our meeting.  He took me up on bringing me in the following week.  I took a personal day from my current secretarial job and arrived at what I knew would be my next employer ready to get started on fixing their Salesforce org.

I spent a good part of the morning fixing their role hierarchy, creating sharing rules and moving users out of the administrator profile.  By noon I had moved over 20 people out of the Administrator profile and you know what they didn’t even notice because they were able to see the correct Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities.   After lunch I spent the remainder of the day fixing reports and dashboards so they would run correctly.  I also added some more charts to the dashboard for some key metrics I thought they’d want to see.  I also made a list of duplicate fields and ran reports on usage and sent them to the Operations Manager so he could let me know which fields could be merged.  I also told him about the data loader and that once he made that decision that I could easily load the data on the back-end to the surviving field so no data would be lost on purging fields.

At the end of the day the Operations Manager called me into his office.  In his office was the COO and the CFO of the company.  He was showing them everything I did in one day.  They couldn’t believe it.  The COO was so happy that her dashboards were running.  The CFO was so happy that she could see all of the correct opportunities and didn’t have to be in an admin profile anymore.  We spent the next 15 minutes going through my plan of how we could clean up the duplicate fields and picklist values.  At the end of the conversation the Operations Manager got up and picked up a piece of paper off of his printer and handed it to me.  It was an offer letter!  The CFO went back to her office and came back with a check.  Not only were they offering me a job, they were going to pay me for the day.  I of course signed the offer letter right then and there.  

Sometimes all it takes is a little thinking outside the box to get your Yes.  If you’re reading this blog and still waiting for your Yes.  I’m here to tell you that I believe in you.  I know you can do it.  

I was so excited when I started this job.  On my first day, they gave me business cards!  I don’t know why that was so special to me, but it was.  It was like you know you’ve made it when...you have your own business card.  My first few months were spent re-implementing their org and fixing their issues.  After that was complete I worked on some cool projects regarding routing and invoicing.  You can see more about that on Button Click Admin!  

As always thanks for reading and Happy Administrative Professionals Day!

Cheryl

The Salesforce Community & The Best $200 I Never Spent

I can't remember exactly how I found out about Salesforce User Groups, but I definitely remember the first one I ever attended. It was sometime in early 2005 and I was still working as a secretary as well as doing the Salesforce Administration work. I was trying to get myself promoted within my company to just do Salesforce configuration and administration. My new manager seemed open to it, but only if I could complete a project. The project was for Sales to track more information and have additional reporting and metrics.

I had been working on this project for two weeks with the hope of getting a promotion and a raise. I had about 90% of the work done but I was stuck on two formula fields. I just couldn't get them to work correctly. I had one that I couldn't save because I was getting a syntax error and another that wasn't displaying the proper result. After about two days of being completely frustrated I found myself on my way to my first User Group meeting. On my way to the meeting I stopped at an ATM and withdrew $200.00 for the purpose of potentially paying someone to help me get my formulas in working order. I wasn't sure what the going rate for a Salesforce consultant was, but I figured the $200.00 would be sufficient and an investment in my own career and future.

I wasn't sure what to expect out of the User Group as I really had never been to anything like this before. When I arrived, there were nice people to greet me and tell me where to go. I sat down and was delighted to find out there was going to be a presentation on reporting as well as a partner presentation. I was surprised how much I learned in just a few minutes of listening to someone talk about some key metrics and reports admins should create for their organizations. I couldn't believe that this whole thing was free. I felt like I hit the jackpot.

After the presentations ended they had a networking session with snacks and drinks. I approached two people that were quite active in the discussions during the presentation and introduced myself and told them of my formula woes. They walked me over to an area where we could get an internet connection and I setup my laptop. I showed them what I was trying to accomplish and my error message. Within 2 minutes they helped me save my formula formula and correct my syntax error! Hallelujah! Within another 5 minutes they walked me through how to properly use one of the formula functions to get the correct result in my formula. Hooray! I was in business and could move forward with my project!

After my formulas were saved, I pulled out my wallet and asked how much I owed them. I was secretly praying and hoping that it wasn't more than $200.00. They looked at me really funny and explained to me the purpose of the User Group. My new heroes explained that the User Groups were about helping each other and their payment was to see me grow my skill-set. I couldn't believe it I only had two more small pieces to do on the project and then I would have completed my first Salesforce project!

It would be hard for me to articulate in words how my first User Group experience made me feel. I have never forgotten that feeling, the two people that helped me or the purpose of the User Groups. If you are reading this and have never attended your local user group, I highly encourage it. The User Group program has evolved so much since I first attended in 2005. There are so many groups in various cities as well as groups specific to non-profits, developers and verticals. I promise, it will be worth your time.

For those of you wondering, I did finish my project and the Sales teams loved it. Unfortunately, my manager didn't think it was enough to warrant a promotion. I did eventually end up spending that $200. I purchased a new suit that I could use for job interviews. If you read my previous blog, then you know what happened next. Onwards and upwards as they say!

I would like to dedicate this post to those in the community leading user groups, answering questions, writing blogs, training people and helping others. I have built my career on Salesforce not only because its a great platform but because of the great community surrounding it. Thank you. I wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for all of you.

See you at a User Group meeting Soon :)


Cheryl

The Best Thing I Built on Salesforce: My Career

Dear Mr. Benioff,

During the Q&A session on the last day of Dreamforce, I really wanted to ask you a question but I was too shy.  I wanted to ask, “Did you know that you were going to change my life?”

A few hours after Dreamforce ended I was still thinking about this question and more so the question of where would I be if Salesforce wasn’t invented?  I was having a late night breakfast with some new Dreamforce friends at Denny’s and looked up and asked everyone sitting at the table with me,  “What do you think you would be doing if Salesforce didn’t exist?”

My new friends went around the table, each telling their story. Everyone had some great ideas of cool stuff they might be doing in or out of the technology world.  They turned to me waiting for me to speak and my answer was, “Probably a hair dresser, makeup artist and/or a secretary.” It was one of the first times I said it out loud. I never said it before because I was afraid or embarrassed of what people would think of me.  I was concerned that they might think I wasn’t good enough to be the Lead BA at a large financial services company because I used to play with hair and makeup for a living.  In the past, I would start telling my story at the part where I ended up on a Salesforce project in 2004, but not the part about how I ended up on the project in the first place. One of my new friends looked at me and encouraged me to share further.

My story really starts back in 2001. I was working at a top salon in my area blowing out hair 10-12 hours a day.  I was known for my blow outs. I would have people booking me weekly to get their thick, curly, unruly hair blown out smooth for a special event or just for the weekend. I was also working part time as a makeup artist on the side, which was my real passion, but the blow outs paid the bills. I would take any chance I could get to put makeup on someone. I loved that feeling when I would put makeup on a woman who didn’t feel good about herself who suddenly realized that she was beautiful.  It wasn’t the makeup, it was that she saw herself, really saw herself.  That was and still is my favorite part of makeup. I always tell women “I didn’t make you beautiful, I just made you look in the mirror.”

It was a hot day in June when I was blowing out one of my regular clients on a Friday afternoon when I felt pain like no other in my right shoulder.  I finished my blow out and let the salon manager know that I needed to cancel the rest of my appointments and head to the doctor.  I knew something was really wrong.  I was right. I had severe inflammation and a slight tear in my right rotator cuff.  My doctor told me the repetitive motion of the blow drying had caused the injury and that I should probably look for a new career.   I was devastated.  I went back and spoke to my salon manager the next day who offered to give me an office job temporarily until I could find new work.  

I ended up being really good at “office work” so my salon manager came to me and said that she couldn’t afford to keep a full time office manager but her husband was looking for a full-time secretary.  She handed me an application and told me I should apply.  I saw the name of the company on the application and remember thinking, “Corporate America brace yourselves, here I come.”

My corporate life started in August of 2001.  I started out answering phones, taking messages, keeping calendars, setting up meetings and arranging large dinners and travel. All pretty standard secretarial stuff.  My manager started giving me more things to do, including database entry and putting together metrics for inventory, cost of goods sold, and customer service.  I loved the metrics piece.  It was almost like I was telling our company’s weekly story in an excel spreadsheet.  I prided myself on those reports.  It was my favorite thing to do every week.  

By 2003 I was handling a lot of the sales and operations metrics for the company.  The metrics came in various formats in which I had to scrub the data. The process would take me 3 days to put together the weekly reports for Friday’s review.  So every review, we were viewing data from the week before.  

It was sometime in late 2003 that I said to my manager, “Wouldn’t it be great if all of this stuff was in one system where we could just run reports?”  My boss turned to me and said  they were implementing something called ‘Salesforce.’ “You should be on that project,” he said.  It wasn’t until I first logged into Salesforce.com in early 2004 that I realized the power of the platform.  No one in my company showed much interest in it, but I immediately loved it! By clicking a few checkboxes I could add fields to reports, and alleviate helpdesk tickets that could take 3 weeks for a response!  Within 3 days time I taught myself how to update report criteria and how to run my own reports.  

I would spend hours each night reading about Salesforce. I immersed myself in the guide that we were given from our Salesforce implementation.  In 2004, I convinced some disinterested people in IT to grant me Administrative access to our org. With that new authority, I created my first formula field that allowed us to drill further down into our contacts for information that we needed.  That is the moment that opened my eyes to the power of what someone with little technology skills could do with Salesforce.

I knew this is what I wanted to do: I wanted to play with Salesforce all day and all night.  But how could I do that?  How could I make Salesforce my career?  I searched Monster that night for Salesforce.com and there it was, my dream job.  A start up company was looking for a Sales and Field operations manager to do reporting and manage their Salesforce org.  Bingo!  I applied, and I got the job!

By early 2006 I was doing all sorts of crazy formulas, validation rules, workflow rules, data mining and building business processes in Salesforce.  Even more importantly improving business processes by using Salesforce.  I learned everything about each piece of our business: marketing, sales, client support, finance and how to make each team more efficient with Salesforce always at the center of the equation.  

It was a cold rainy November day in 2007 when my big break came.  A recruiter from a huge financial services company called me. A mutual friend had shared examples of some cool stuff I was doing in Salesforce.  The recruiter wanted me to apply and interview for a job they had open.  I did so, and I got the job!  I was astonished!  Me, a hairdresser/makeup artist/secretary was going to Wall Street to work on a large team to do Salesforce Administration.  

Just over 6 years have passed since that phone call.  I’m currently the lead BA on all Salesforce projects at a top Financial Services company in New York City.  In addition, I run day to day operations, make sure issues are handled appropriately, and support our end users’ needs.

At the conclusion of fully recounting this whole story at Denny’s, everyone encouraged me to share it, with the emphasis to give encouragement to those out there who want more themselves, and are wondering if they can make Salesforce a career. I hesitated to commit to writing my story down, as I wasn’t sure if I should.  

I made up my mind to give an account of my Salesforce experience while attending the NYC Salesforce1 tour.  I found myself telling it again at the developer meetup. A Salesforce.com employee overheard me and told me that there was someone who was working in an office manager role, that wanted to make Salesforce his career. This person struggled with understanding how to accomplish that dream.  The Salesforce.com employee asked if I’d mentor this aspiring office manager, since I came from a similar place in life.  Of course I agreed.  I now realize that I need to tell my story. It’s not about ‘getting it off my chest’ or to impress anyone, but to help others.  

If someone loves Salesforce, and is passionate in a similar way that I’ve been, if they want to make it a career but are not sure if they can, I’m here to say: If I can do it, they can do it!

You may have started reading this thinking that it is one of your numerous contributions to the non-profit world that changed my life. But no, it is not.  It’s the fact that you started Salesforce.com. Salesforce changed my life. I could give you a giant list of things I’ve built on the platform, but what I really built on Salesforce.com was my career.  

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

All the best in 2014, see you at my birthday party, I mean Dreamforce.

Cheryl Feldman