The Importance of Soft Skills as a Salesforce Professional

When you’re looking to start your career as a Salesforce Administrator, very few elements of your resume are more important than your Salesforce-specific technical skills. But if you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to highlight your interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, and other intangible traits that may not be apparent on your resume or even during an interview.

The challenge with highlighting soft skills on a resume is that they can be difficult to measure. But it's your ability to show how your work contributes to a company's bottom line that will wow them the most. If you can demonstrate how your job has had a greater bearing on the overall performance of the organization, you will be able to show how valuable an #AwesomeAdmin truly is.

So, what exactly are the specific soft skills that will help you level up as a new Salesforce Admin? Simply put, soft skills are the non-technical skills you bring to the table that amplify the successful application of your Salesforce technical knowledge.

Most Salesforce professionals and hiring managers focus on technical (hard) skills. While those hard skills are necessary, your soft skills will be what sets you apart from your competition when vying for Salesforce Administrative jobs.

Personality, interpersonal skills, and work ethic all fall under the umbrella of "soft skills." Most of the soft skills you possess were not learned or developed in a conscious way. They are the natural results that come from your unique life experiences and the overall development of emotional intelligence.

To become a true Salesforce #AwesomeAdmin, you should either currently have the following soft skills we are going to talk about below or become proactive in developing them.

Leadership and Teamwork Skills

The capacity to cooperate and work in a group context is essential above all else.
Potential employers are less likely to consider "lone wolves" or those with weak communication skills for positions in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Your job as a Salesforce administrator mandates that you improve your emotional intelligence and social awareness. It will be your job to come up with solutions to issues that occur and to guide the team in that direction.

Superior Communication Skills

The ability to communicate effectively and clearly is a soft skill that’s invaluable. You'll be cross-communicating within the organization, so you'll need to be able to communicate on a variety of professional levels if you want to succeed in this position.  Remember to be sincere and courteous at all times.

Keeping a Level Head

As a Salesforce Administrator, you will face some challenging situations – this is when a combination of technical expertise and a personable approach come in helpful. But it's your attitude and how you handle adversity that is noteworthy. A cool head and clear thinking lead to practical solutions to solve problems.

Ability to Speak Comfortably With Different Personalities

As an Admin, you'll be responsible for advising upper-level management and creating solutions to problems that may arise. Salesforce Admins that are able to articulate issues and offer creative solutions to a range of personality types are the most effective and highly valued by employers.

Be Open to Expanding Your Horizons

With any Salesforce project, there will always be a few stumbling obstacles. Patience is important to have, but if you can demonstrate a commitment to tackle the problem with a creative and innovative approach, that’s a significant check mark in your column. You should be open and willing to go down a different road if you have issues. Work to be open to changing your approach and re-aligning your thoughts and ideas.

Having an open mind when it comes to Salesforce is vital - one project could demand a drastically different approach from another, so if you’re not scared to be innovative, this will genuinely enable you to thrive and succeed.

Be Logical, But Be Creative

To understand Salesforce and use it effectively as an Admin, you'll need to be someone who can think a bit like both a computer and a human being. You should have a basic understanding of fields, categories, the software's underlying architecture, and how individual changes affect one another. A successful administrator must have strong logical thinking skills and the ability to break things down into digestible chunks for others. You should also have the creativity to think outside the box in order to come up with unique solutions to the issues you'll run into.

You <3 Technology

Days, if not weeks, will be spent in trial and error; analyzing what works and attempting to figure out how to get the system to do what you need it to do. As a Salesforce Administrator, you should not be afraid of exploring and experimenting with the program. You should be ready and willing to explore the newest technology and solutions to find a answers. Having a natural interest in technology will help you create the most cutting edge solutions for clients and keep your work exciting to dive into each day.

Have a Solid Understanding of the Sales Process

Salesforce is a powerful tool for your sales team, and it should be designed around the team's funnel. In order to ensure that the software achieves its full potential, you must be someone who is knowledgeable with the current sales process and have the strategic skills to use your Salesforce expertise enhance their processes.

Be a True Salesforce Advocate

Most organizations will have at least one skeptic on staff who will push back against the work within Salesforce. Your internal cheerleader must be able to counteract that resistance by demonstrating Salesforce's ability to make everyday processes easier and increase sales at the same time. A true advocate is able to convince the rest of the organization to support the success of your Salesforce infrastructure.

See "The Big Picture" In The Long Run

It takes time, patience, and a lot of vision to build an organization’s Salesforce CRM. Small changes here and there may meet your needs today but may clog up your database for years to come. Functions that are considered unnecessary today may become critical as your company scales to meet its annual goals. A good administrator keeps an eye on the big picture to ensure that today's challenges do not become tomorrow's headaches and roadblocks.

Staying Ahead Of The Curve

Are you a big fan of fantasy football? Do you enjoy cooking? Camping? Golf? Any interest you may have, you have soft skills for them. You keep up with scores, the latest equipment, and who rushed for 145 yards last week. You think of these actions as just a byproduct of your interest. However, if you treat Salesforce the same way you treat the rest of your interests, you’ll gain valuable, intangible skills and abilities. You’ll keep far ahead of the crowd by becoming self-aware of all of the unique soft skills that help you to be successful.

The Bottom Line

Never underestimate the power of soft skills. Inherently, they are the skills (which then lead to ideas of improvement, tweaking Salesforce to perfection, etc.) which you learn as you are exposed to new projects, tasks, and endeavors. Soft skills are invaluable assets to your Salesforce career path, and they genuinely come from a keen interest in what you are doing and learning on a regular basis.

We here at Talent Stacker understand the value of soft skills and will pull back the curtain to show you how they can be learned, fostered, and curated to your own individual needs and aspirations.

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About the Author

Bradley Rice

With over 10 years of experience in the Salesforce space, Bradley has been an internal admin, a consultant with large firms, and for the past 6 years has owned and operated his own independent consulting business, Honest IT. He is also the founder of Talent Stacker, a platform designed to help individuals land Salesforce jobs and advance their Salesforce careers.