How to become an (awesome) Salesforce administrator

Becoming an Administrator is often the first step in our Salesforce career.

It's widespread for Salesforce professionals to start their career as an admin at an end user.

Once you've landed your certification, an entry-level or junior admin role as an end user is readily achievable. You will feel great applying your theoretical knowledge at an actual company.

But how to even start the journey?

We will see numerous ways to fall into the Salesforce world!

As a Salesforce mentor, I regularly guide fresher to get their first Salesforce job.

Being a project manager with a technical background for a decade, here is my perception of the Administrator role.

What is Salesforce?

This is a short intro in case you are not familiar with the world's #1 customer relationship management (CRM) platform and its Cloud Computing service.

The Salesforce software is crafted to make businesses grow by assisting them in understanding the customers better using cloud-based apps built for sales, marketing, and service.

What is a Salesforce administrator, and is it a critical role?

Salesforce Administrators work with stakeholders to define system requirements and customize the platform. Simply put, they enable users to get the most out of Salesforce technology.

A Salesforce Admin best understands how to set the platform to work for their company's needs.

Through my journey, I have met some customers without a dedicated Administrator.

When I pointed out this risk, the answer was, "it's ok; we have someone with Salesforce knowledge."

Well, this situation is common but precarious.

Not having a dedicated Administrator means that you have no one who can have a quick reaction in case of a problem with your Salesforce org.

When we know that the platform is used for a critical part of the business, having someone available to jump into the problem is a good idea.

Also, do not forget that the org is "alive" and constantly evolving.

Maintaining it technically and staying alert to the new update is a full-time job.

Some companies may employ just one admin; some use more than one in this role.

We can rely on the Salesforce Administrator to:

• Maintain the platform
• Make it as easy for users of any technical level to use Salesforce.
• Stay updated on the platform's new features, capabilities, and updates.

Think of Salesforce Administrator as the trusted advisor on all Salesforce things.

They are a vital bridge between business and technology.

Role and responsabilities

Because Salesforce is a platform with many features to master, having someone with an admin certification can ensure the company uses the platform to its fullest potential.

A Salesforce admin has a lot on his plate; here are some examples to give you an idea:

• Manage user profiles and access levels: Salesforce Administrators have responsibility for the organization's data. At the end of the day, if a user sees or modifies data that he wasn't supposed to, be sure that people will come to find you!
• Import new leads, contacts, and data: your users will add leads and other data to Salesforce. But you are the one who sets standards for these processes to ensure data consistency across the organization.
• Create reporting processes: with your users' help, build the perfect KPI dashboard to allow them to make better decisions.
• Setup and run deduplication tools: It is best to avoid any duplicates in your org. But over time, data can be duplicated by users, web form submissions, or imported. So it falls to the Salesforce Admin to run deduplication tools to scrub the data and remove duplicates.
• Testing system updates in the sandbox: you need to ensure the org remains functional whatever the updates you apply. You can also test features that Salesforce will implement during one of the three annual releases.
• Run database maintenance reports: another part of ensuring your organization's health is running tests and reports to ensure it stays in good condition.
• Create and maintain records archives: Best practices recommend that admins keep records for at least 12 months and often much longer. The place to store the archive will depend on the policy and equipment of your company. You can use an in-house system or a specialized application such as OwnBackup.
• Solve issues and challenges as they arise: When problems occur with Salesforce, the admin is responsible for figuring out what's happening and finding a fix for any issues.
• Process setup and optimization: optimizing your org is a never-ending duty. There are infinite ways to improve the life of your users, such as automation, better layout, and validation rules.

Remuneration

So, what do you earn for being responsible for the health of your org and making your users' lives easier?

Of course, it depends on your experience, credentials, and localization. But according to Mason Frank (a principal Salesforce recruitment agency), a Salesforce administrator in the United States earns an average of $117,500 yearly.

In France, where I am based, the average is around €50,125 yearly.

Road to Salesforce Admin

Now, this is the time when you are fired up and wait for the "How to."

Unfortunately, there is no magic formula, especially for a job whose primary purpose is to support the users.

But let's try to figure a way in together.

If you are new to the Salesforce world, it will help to train yourself on the platform ahead of your job interviews. Here are some possibilities to help you to start:

• Try to get the brand new "Salesforce Associate Certification." Salesforce launched this certification in September 2022 to help propel new Trailblazers to a career in the Salesforce ecosystem.
• Take Salesforce courses, such as the free trailmix that you can find on Trailhead (it will take approx. 70h to complete it)
• Joining an online Salesforce community, such as Trailhead, Salesforce's learning platform, and connecting with other Salesforce professionals
• Apply for the mentorship program: if you are in, Salesforce will connect you directly to a Salesforce mentor to guide your first steps in the ecosystem.
  

Also, industry knowledge will be a huge plus when applying for an open position.

Undoubtedly, your knowledge of the business process and your Admin superpower will make you a superstar in your new organization in no time!

Credential

As a Salesforce Admin, quite a few credentials are available for you. But the Administrator is mandatory. In addition to giving you the skillset, it will unlock your other credential possibilities :

• Salesforce Associate Certification: is designed for beginner/Freshers who wants to kick start their journey with Salesforce with 0-6 months of experience.
• Administrator: your go-to certification! It is the primary credential goal for any admin. It is made for people with Salesforce experience who are continuously looking for ways to assist their companies in getting even more from additional features and capabilities.
• Advanced Administrator: for seasoned Salesforce Administrators who have mastered the ability to utilize advanced Salesforce features and functionality to solve various business problems.
• Business Analyst: This brand-new credential is for Administrators who understand business needs, capture requirements, and collaborate with stakeholders to develop Salesforce solutions that drive business improvements.

What skill do you need?

Trying to list all the skills you will leverage is almost impossible. Still, we can assemble the core skillset you will use for your daily operation:

• Logical Thinking: Since the Flow Builder has become a star feature, a rational mind will help you build powerful automation.
• CRM knowledge: You need to anticipate the impacts of a modification on your end-to-end process.
• Knows Sales Process: Salesforce CRM is the most crucial tool for your Sales team and has to be woven around the sales funnel of the group. It becomes highly critical to thoroughly know the team's sales process and see how to deal with it.
• Communication: Needless to say, any management requires excellent communication skills to be effective. As a Salesforce admin, you will deal with various stakeholders apart from your team. You need to be able to share concerns, explanations, decisions, and even whole processes. Your clients may not be very tech-savvy or may have great expertise in the same. Of course, your communication in both cases calls for different sensitivity levels. It is a skill that you will require very often.
• Strategic Thinker: Only a person with keen foresight can build on the company's vision and mission. The long-term vision and the ability to study the bigger picture differentiate a seasoned Salesforce admin from the fresher. A good admin has to have strategic thinking to see through the challenges of today from becoming roadblocks tomorrow. All the functions that seem useless today may gain relevance in the future.
  

Evolution Career

As we can see, the administrator role is vast, and you will be continually busy with various tasks.

After gaining some hands-on experience, you can leverage all the acquired knowledge to transit to a position you like. It could be a CRM manager, Product Owner, or even Application architect!

Mindset

I like to conclude from the human being's perspective. As a person dedicated to helping others, you will need some of those "soft skills":

• Curiosity: This is natural yet, essential. Remember, many times in the technology field, solutions are not served but have to be found. There will be days when you have to sit for hours or maybe days trying to work around the platform to get the best solution and make the system work as per your requirements. It may be frustrating at times. It would be best if you had a natural curiosity that would fuel how you work around different solutions to find the best one.
• Empathy and kindness: you will support at least one department of your company with the Salesforce org. To make the user experience successful, it needs to help them to accomplish their daily operations smoothly. You must deeply understand their business processes to build a tool that optimizes their time and eliminates their pain points.

Once you've got a handle on what it takes to be a Salesforce administrator, you might be curious about other roles in the Salesforce ecosystem. Find out more in my blog post, "How to become a Salesforce developer?"