It was late December 2019 when I joined the Salesforce ecosystem. My current job as a fine wine sales consultant required long hours and seven day workweeks. This was taking me away from my family and friends and I began looking for a new career path, one that afforded me a better quality of life.
My job search began like many; check the job listings at the area’s top companies. Many of the postings I read contained one sentence that stuck with me. “Must have Salesforce Experience.” A quick google search answered my question, “what is salesforce?”
Over the holidays I was discussing salesforce with one of our friends and the cost of local salesforce training programs. “You should just get on trailhead,” he replied. Our friend had built his company’s website on Salesforce and recommended trailhead for training.
I downloaded the app on my phone and completed the first ‘introduction’ trail in a few minutes. My entry into the ecosystem was complete and I fell in love! This was the most intuitive CRM, software I had ever encountered.
Since my days in journalism I embraced digital solutions. As a multimedia journalist I championed digital storytelling as well as new ways to gather and deliver news I discovered Salesforce at a time I was restarting my digital media company. My dilemma was this; do I spend my time learning new multimedia solutions for an ultra-competitive ecosystem with shrinking opportunities or do I learn what is considered one of the top skills among hiring companies? Given the number of opportunities in the Salesforce ecosystem, the decision was simple.
Over the next 2 months I worked on trailhead in my spare time. I tried to spend at least an hour a day on trailhead. In March of 2020 I went into quarantine with the rest of the world.
At this time my livelihood depended on selling fine wine to and hosting events at restaurants and bars. The pandemic left me with no customers to sell to. Two weeks later, along with the entire on-premise staff for the company I was furloughed.
At this point I’ve lived through two “once in a lifetime” recessions and four layoffs. So this was nothing new. Was I stressed about this sudden change? Yes, but I saw an opportunity I’ve never had before, time.
I spent twice as much time on trailhead. The minute kids were done with schoolwork, I started on trailhead for two plus hours a day. I focused more on learning and less on job hunting. With a recommendation from a family friend in May 2020 I got my first Salesforce job. On June 1st 2020 I began my Salesforce career and have loved every minute of it!
No comments:
Post a Comment