Bowling Green Trailblazer Group, Salesforce user group meeting. April 22, 2023
meeting powerpoint and SF career discussion
Presentation by John Lay all about different technology career possibilities around Salesforce CRM and information technology.
1. Welcome to the Trailblazer Community
Let’s succeed together
LEARN
Get help, answers, and
inspiration from your peers
and Community Leaders.
CONNECT
Meet Trailblazers like you and
discover opportunities from
mentorship to employment.
HAVE FUN
Enjoy a warm, welcoming
culture and make friends
from around the world.
GIVE BACK
Inspire and mentor the next
generation while building
your skills and reputation.
2. Welcome
Agenda:
Welcome, greetings and sign in
Re-introduction and purpose
Tabitha’s led discussion
John’s thoughts on a Salesforce career
Wrap up
Bowling Green Trailblazers User Group
3. John Lay, Information Technology Specialist
Career possibilities with Salesforce
Apply your skills in the Salesforce ecosystem
jlay@laysonline.com
@johnlay
4. Welcome
Agenda:
Introduction
Camping Word – Who and how does Camping World use Salesforce
Salesforce – More than just a CRM
My Story with Salesforce at Camping World
Explore Career Options around the Salesforce ecosystem
Wrap up
Career Possibilities with Salesforce
5. Career possibilities with Salesforce
John Lay – Information Technology Specialist
• Over 4 decades in information technology
• Multiple roles and industries
• Full time employee and contract work
• Most recently 19+ years at Camping World
• Started Camping World as contract DBA, then hired on as Development Manager, most recent VP of
Information Technology – Applications
• Salesforce recognized for work with Service Cloud with Golden hoodie
Introductions
6. Career possibilities with Salesforce
Camping World & Good Sam
• Camping World started at Beach Bend Park in 1966
• Grew to Nations Largest Supplier of products and services to enjoy the outdoors
• Largest assets are its people and customers
• Information technology is key to success
• Uses several Salesforce Clouds
• Sales Cloud
• Service Cloud
• Marketing Cloud
• Commerce Cloud
• Platform Cloud
Introductions
7. Career possibilities with Salesforce
According to Salesforce, they are:
Salesforce is the customer company. We make cloud-based software designed to help
businesses connect to their customers in a whole new way, so they can find more prospects,
close more deals, and wow customers with amazing service.
Customer 360, our complete suite of products, unites your sales, service, marketing,
commerce, and IT teams with a single, shared view of customer information, so that your
company can become a customer company, too.
And they do:
It helps teams work better together. Your business may use a single Customer 360 app, or a
combination of many. By improving team communications and productivity, businesses drive
greater success.
What is Salesforce?
8. Career possibilities with Salesforce
Salesforce Clouds… the platform.
Good News… you don’t have to know the
details of each to be successful working
with Salesforce.
Pick one maybe two and specialize.
What is Salesforce?
9. Career possibilities with Salesforce
• Sales Cloud - Classic CRM functionality
• Marketing Cloud - Marketing automation of
Customer communications
• Service Cloud – Manage customer support
• Commerce Cloud - Retail eCommerce
• Custom Cloud – custom integrations
• App Cloud – custom applications
How Camping World uses Salesforce
10. Career possibilities with Salesforce
• Salesforce Administrator
• Salesforce Support Specialist
• Security Administration
• Configuration & Database Administration
• Application development
• Salesforce Developer
• User interface
• Automation
• Back-end services
• Integration
What paths are available?
• Business Analysts
• Product Owner
• Product Manager
• End Users / Specialists with Salesforce
• Sales
• Customer Support Agents
• Marketing
• Content
• Automation
• Product Specialists / SF Power User
Full Time Employee or Contract
11. Career possibilities with Salesforce
Resources
Salesforce has a vast network of resources for learning and assistance.
Trailblazer User Groups https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com/
Online Learning: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/
In Person Events: Dreamforce, THDx, and regional events
Career Possibilities with Salesforce
12. Career possibilities with Salesforce
Summary
Salesforce as a product offers a wide variety of career possibilities
Explore your options, be open to new challenges and adventures
Career Possibilities with Salesforce
15. Some more - but be careful to not dilute your message
Notas do Editor
This can be a screen saver when you are not delivering your awesome preso
Get Slack channel
Consistency
Consider virtual meeting, maybe co-hosted
Just a few details about by background
Thanks to Mrs Gaskins for inviting me to share some information that I hope you fine useful as you plan your career.
I’ve had several roles in my career, all dealing with information technology. From a data entry clerk to corporate technology executive.
I’ve seen lots of changes over the past 40 years and it just keeps getting more exciting. Who is looking forward to or maybe even using ChatGPT?
I see technology as the great enabler and for those making information technology their career, we have the responsibility to use technology to make its use Fun AND productive.
Technology scares a lot of people and it’s IT’s role to support them and remove some of the fear factor. I always want to see technology used to remove the friction of conducting business. Both for our customer but also for our employees. See, if we make it easy for employees to use technology, they have more time and are more focused on making customers happy.
I see Salesforce as the convergence of many different tools and technologies I’ve experienced over the years. I'm excited for the possibilities it provides.
Many of you may have heard of the story of David Gavin and Camping World. His family started Beach Bend Park many decades ago. Mr Garvin saw an opportunity when he noticed visitors to the park and drag strip needed special items for their campers. He started selling RV supplies out of a tobacco barn at the park and then quickly that became a mail order business. He saw the value in his mailing list and created the “President’s Club”. Years later after Camping World grew to over 20 stores across the nation, The Good Sam organization saw the value in the list (over 1 million names) and purchased Camping World from Mr Garvin.
Then a few years later, under the recommendation of Lee Iacoca, Marcus Lemonis invested in Good Sam and Camping World. He then set about to build the nations largest RV network of dealerships.
Camping World now has over 200 locations and a membership of over 2.2 million active accounts.
Camping World and Good Sam have many different applications and technologies in use to run the businesses. Data is one of their prime assets.
Tools like Salesforce help our employees sell and support customers by providing quick and easy access to details necessary to aid customers in their journeys.
First off Salesforce is a company. It has several products all in the Cloud and focused around their “platform”
Yes, at its heart, Salesforce delivers a database with applications, but its more than just that. Salesforce has multiple applications and teams to support them. Then it has a large ecosystem of both users and specialists who use and build on the offering
At the core of the Salesforce platform is a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system which includes a very object-oriented database and programming system. Other custom and business specific applications are built around this. These are built by Salesforce, partner companies and Salesforce users. These applications are possible due to the openness of the system and the wealth of information available about the platform.
First off Salesforce is a company. It has several products all in the Cloud and focused around their “platform”
Technically the cloud in the center of this image, Salesforce Cloud Services is the platform on top all are built, but this is not a perfect representation. As some of the Clouds have their own infrastructure such as Marketing Cloud and Commerce Cloud. But the great thing about clouds, they all work together.
This multi-cloud approach is both very powerful and very complex. Users and technicians who support applications on the platform can quickly become overwhelmed if they don’t limit their scope. So you tend to see technicians specialize in one or a few areas and not a jack or jill of all trades / CLOUDS.
Camping World uses these (checked) Salesforce clouds to help run the business. These help Camping World organize and share data across multiple systems and business groups. Having a cloud-based solution is a huge benefit. Customers and information about each, is key to our business. Using a cloud-based solution helps break down information silos. Each business line still needs to have specific applications for their specialty.
Think about it in your world, so you need to get your car serviced, maybe you go to a car dealership and work with their service department. One of the first things they ask you is about your identity, then about your car and eventually about the issue. Now if you purchased the car at the dealership, you expect them to know you and the details about your car. Camping World and Good Sam are like this dealership, but we also have a retail store, i.e. Auto Zone (or Pep Boys), but also other businesses that sell subscription services such as roadside assistance and extended warranties. Salesforce helps us better understand and communicate with the customer as they do business with each, and hopefully more than one business area.
Ok, so maybe I’ve sold you on the powers of the multi-cloud solution of Salesforce, where do you start?
Ask yourself, what do I enjoy doing. Yeah, we know IT but that is a broad area. If you drill into it, what specific area and tasks do you enjoy? Most folks in IT have a few of common attributes… Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, Finding solutions and helping others. Careers with Salesforce can provide an outlet for these skills and feed the desire to do something technical.
The Salesforce platform is its own IT ecosystem, and the Salesforce administrator is the role that keeps it running for a business. Salesforce developers are also very specialized and can be considered full stack.
You can also be more focused on the business side with roles like Business Analysts, Product Owner and Product Manager. Or fully business focused as an end user of the Salesforce Platform.
Yes, of course, jobs are available for those who wish a full-time position or contract position. Contract or consulting can give you the opportunity to see how Salesforce is used in many different companies across multiple industries.
Look to the Salesforce Community…
User Groups. BG Group is currently inactive but trying to restart. Groups are also in Louisville and Nashville.
Find others at https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com/
The field of Information technology is vast and don't limit your focus on finding a job in an Information Technology department. Skills used in IT can be applied in many ways and across many lines of business.
