Salesforce Admins Podcast

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Erik Peterson, Awesome Admin at Tuff Shed. And Juan Ruiz CIO at Tuff Shed.

Join us to learn about how to make time for yourself to keep on learning, how you can get conversations about Salesforce started, and using Trailhead to make code less intimidating and help you troubleshoot problems.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Scott Luikart.

Plan, People, Process

It takes all three. Tuffshed had a great rollout plan, they had great people, and management had a great process. The three were combined to help make their launch of Salesforce successful.

With Lightning they could train once and have the same experience from mobile to desktop.

It's all about Trailhead

For Erik it all started with Trailhead and learning. Going to Trailhead to validate what they had done and where he can learn more about additional features they are looking to implement.

The podcast also helped Erik get inspired about new features and hear inspiring stories about other admins and how they are rolling out Lightning.

Curiosity was key 

As Erik would find features he would bring them to the attention of Juan for exec buy in and rollout. Which helped with adoption. It became a challenge for Erik to find new features they could rollout in Lightning.

How does Erik make time for learning and exploring? Salesforce Saturday! It was a great way for Erik to find time when other family members were busy to stay learning and stay curious. To solve problems Erik takes a Lightning first approach.

How do you hire another Erik?

Erik has a heart for his customer. If you don't have a heart for the customer Juan thinks you will be a poor Admin. You have to be curious. Look for solutions that drive your motivations- like having a heart for the customer. If you are curious then the learning coming naturally.

Links

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

Direct download: BCA-EP-365.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 2:09pm PDT

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re taking a look back at some of the best Lightning Rounds of the past year.

Join us to learn which mascot comes out on top, all the different things people keep on their desk to be productive, and all the different things that let us know when it’s time for… the Lightning Round!

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here’s all the weird and interesting factoids we learned from taking a plunge into the Lightning Round.

It’s Time for… the Lightning Round

After interviewing guest after guest about their amazing stories and all the different ways that people have come to the Admin life and put their skills to good use. While these stories are always amazing, our favorite part of any interview has to be the Lightning Round, where three simple questions get to the heart of what makes someone tick. Here are some highlights from the past year:

  1. Davina Hanchuck talks about the wonderful hiking in Salt Lake City, why Meta Moose is her favorite Trailhead mascot, and why leveraging group knowledge is key for working with a team on Optimizing Lightning.
  2. On the WITness Success episode, Jean Velonis shares her struggles with formulas and documentation, why the Equality and Ally badges are so amazing, and why printing out pictures can make you super productive (if you still have a printer, unlike Mike).
  3. Katherine Clark shares that Codey is her favorite mascot, why gymnastics is her can’t-miss Olympic sport, and the secret behind her productivity (hint, it’s coffee) in the episode about her amazing story, From the USS Reuben James to Salesforce Admin.
  4. It just happened to rain during our conversation with Barry Roberts, which we recorded outside for The Power of Persistence so this was truly a Lightning Round to remember.

Make sure to stick around to the end, where we have an extra special Super Mega Lightning Round within a Lightning Round (total lightning-ception) to learn all about Mike’s love for Crazy Aaron’s Super Thinking Putty.

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

Direct download: The_Best_of_the_Lightning_Round.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 7:27am PDT

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re taking a look back at some of the best Salesforce Things segments we’ve done in past.

Join us to learn about what the heck a WSDL is (and is not), why you should keep your Event Sink stocked with Ajax, and how many different ways Mike can segue into the same segment.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here’s all the wild and woolly Things that we cover.

We Play the Hits

We’ve gone over a lot of terms and had a lot of fun doing in Salesforce Things. Come for the learning, stay for the laughs (or vice versa) as we take you through the best segments of Salesforce Things.

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

Direct download: The_Best_of_Salesforce_Things.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:22am PDT

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Scott Luikart, Awesome Admin Award Winner for Dreamforce 2017.

Join us to learn about how to make time for yourself to keep on learning, how you can get conversations about Salesforce started, and using Trailhead to make code less intimidating and help you troubleshoot problems.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Scott Luikart.

Somehow It Always Starts at a Water Park

Like a lot of our guests, Scott came to Salesforce in a roundabout way. In 2010 he was working for a water park (following in the footsteps of Marcus Torres), but after an acquisition left him without a job he decided to try to get into tech. Through his work with a nonprofit, he was able to land a position at a small startup in Philly, where he was in charge of deploying a new product demo team. They needed a support tool, and Scott implemented Service Cloud, Live Agent, and Communities. It was a huge job and, as Scott says, “Lack of sleep was definitely a thing that I excelled at during that time in my life.”

At the time he was doing all of this, there wasn’t Trailhead the way we know it today. Instead, they had to do a lot of learning by trial and error, making guesses and then figuring out what went wrong. “Our agents were moving from copy and pasting emails into Salesforce cases to using email-to-case and how that changed their behavior.” Obviously, this made for some problems: “I had many wonderful times where I had to go sit down with the IT guy and be like, ‘Hey, can you break into their email? That person called out sick today and I need to know what’s going on with that ticket.’”

When the startup was acquired by a large tech company, Scott’s new boss changed his title from Manager of Support to Products Manager for Salesforce to help him get out the Support organization. After a year of working on the transition, that position helped him apply for other Salesforce jobs and eventually landed him at LegalZoom as the Senior Admin for Salesforce.

Giving Back to the Community

For Scott, Salesforce is special: “I really believe that Salesforce is not just a company— I think that I cry almost everytime I see the 1-1-1 videos at Dreamforce because I think of Salesforce much more as a thing than as a product. They put time and effort into making the world a better place.”

To do his part, Scott manages the Salesforce accounts of some nonprofits, helping to upload data, manage contacts, and more. His favorite work that he does is with Montrose Grace Place in Houston. They provide a drop-in service for homeless LGBT youth, where they started a GoFundMe to get computers. As Scott explains, “People who are homeless are typically not allowed in libraries, because they will be seen as trespassing or loitering and given citations, so I wanted to bring technology to them where they currently experience community.”

Scott’s fundraiser was successful beyond his wildest dreams, so they were able to buy 10 computers and set up a monthly training over the summer spending an hour teaching Trailhead. “At first it was just me, but then I started to get random people from Twitter to volunteer and join me. The community really came together and started showing up to volunteer and help teach Trailhead to these really great kids.”

Making Time for Yourself

Scott has an interesting strategy to make sure that he has time to continue to expanding his knowledge and improving. “The way I continue learning is that I book two hours a week in a conference room in my office and I go sit in there and work on Trailhead. That way people think that I’m on a call and they don’t interrupt me.”

To get others involved, Scott’s simple tip is to just wear Salesforce gear out and about and see who talks to you. If someone makes a comment about his nifty Trailblazer hoodie, he can tell them to check out Trailhead and get started. Like with his kids at Montrose Grace Place, you don’t need to be an Admin or a Dev to benefit from learning about a CRM and being able to put that on your resume.

For more insights, make sure to follow Scott on Twitter (@SLuikartInfo).

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions, support, etc. to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don't head on over to Apple Podcasts and give us a review. It's super easy to do, and it helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

 

Direct download: Using_Salesforce_to_Make_a_Difference_with_Scott_Luikart.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 3:45pm PDT

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