CRM stands for Customer Relationship Management and is the collection of technologies that help companies figure out ways to serve their customers better and more efficiently by using automation to communicate, promote, and support them in an optimal way.  

CRM does this by collecting an array of information about each person that chooses to do business with that company, such as contact information, purchase history, and a log of customer support encounters.  

Most businesses start by keeping up with their contacts in an Excel spreadsheet or a Google sheet. Eventually this list becomes very long and difficult to manage, so they buy a tool that helps them email those people more efficiently. 

Then they buy another tool to host their website, and a third tool to process payments. 

By the time they have a full company running, there are probably 10 to 15 different tools or platforms that may not work with each other, and all with different log–in credentials.  

It may take up to 40 hours a week just to get the system to work together. 

What Salesforce does is it brings all of that together into one platform, so that a company’s employees can log into Salesforce and see everything about their customers in one place, in a fraction of the time. 

With Salesforce, a company’s team can look at all the information they have collected, and make informed decisions about what they can do next to serve customers better and grow their business. 

Salesforce presents important information about customer behavior and preferences in a modern, intuitive user interface that makes it easy for any employee in sales, marketing, customer support, logistics and product development to get more done in less time. 

Plus, Salesforce is not just an app, it is an entire platform.  

There are thousands of third parties developing apps on the Salesforce platform, each built to bring amazing functionality to meet the needs of companies using Salesforce in hundreds of different industries and parts of the world.  

These third–party developers are constantly creating cutting–edge technologies to meet the needs of a company, which makes the Salesforce platform infinitely innovative.  

Salesforce administrators are currently the most sought-after CRM professionals in the market, and they will continue to be in demand well into the next 10 years and beyond.  

The reason for this persistence in demand is that once a company uses the Salesforce platform, it almost never leaves.  

Here’s why. 

First of all, any CRM takes weeks and months to get completely set up, and once it is set up, it will become core to that company’s operation almost immediately. If a company has already picked the Salesforce platform, it would risk sacrificing its business operations if it switched Salesforce off. 

Second, it would take months and several hundreds of thousands of dollars to do a migration, and there is no guarantee that there would be any tangible benefit. Instead, companies prefer to work with a third-party Salesforce developer to create the specific functionality that is needed. 

In essence, it is always more effective and efficient to work within the Salesforce ecosystem, than to migrate to another system.  

Over time, if a company is innovative and using Salesforce to its fullest potential, it is constantly adding onto it with more automations, and bringing in more employees to use this tool and into other processes of the business. 

The fact that a company already has Salesforce that works so well for it, and have put so much time, energy and resource hours into making Salesforce its one-stop shop, is the reason companies are unlikely to quit Salesforce. 

And that means Salesforce professionals will continue to be the most sought-after CRM resource well into the future.  

That’s why Salesforce created a free training platform called Trailhead, because they need to lower the barrier of entry as low as possible to get new resources trained and to meet the demand for Salesforce professionals. 

Entry-level Salesforce professionals can expect to make between $55,000 to $70,000 a year, even if they have never heard of Salesforce prior to getting certified. 

If they have a sales background, or maybe they have worked in a marketing department or have some other kind of relevant skill, they may earn around $65,000 to $80,000. 

College has some bearing to getting a job as a Salesforce professional, but it is a secondary or even tertiary consideration. 

More important to recruiters than a college degree are the Salesforce certifications that you have earned, as well as any previous Salesforce experience you may have, such as volunteering with a non-profit. 

At that point, it is Salesforce expertise that is more interesting to a company, and how a candidate can use that expertise to increase the revenue for the business. 

A Salesforce career is one that is fast-moving because there isn’t enough Salesforce talent to meet the needs of an ever-growing demand.  

A junior person within the ranks of Salesforce professionals is usually someone who has less than 3 years of experience. 

From year 3 and on, a Salesforce professional becomes an intermediate or even expert–level resource, and once they get past year 5, it’s as good as getting tenure. 

So, a new person can expect around $55,000 – $70,000 a year, even without technical expertise or a college degree. 

Then, in the second year, that amount goes up to between $80,000 to $90,000, and in the third year, it will likely be at least $100,000 a year. 

Around year 5, you’ll probably tap out at about $130,000 to $150,000 as a full-time individual.  

But if this person leaves the company and joins a Salesforce consulting firm, they can push the income up to the $150,000 to $180,000 range.  

And if they go into business for themselves and do freelance Salesforce consulting, that amount can go up to $200,000 to $300,000. 

The first thing to consider is whether this is even something you want to be doing, something that you would even mildly enjoy.  

Does the idea of thinking about the way a business works appeal to you?  

How a business targets new leads, and how it nurtures that relationship whenever a form is filled, a call is made, an email is sent? How a business figures out if the lead is a good fit for its product or service? How that product or service is sold, and how support is provided after the sale? 

If you think getting a better understanding or getting involved in that process could be even slightly fun or interesting, then you are great fit for a Salesforce career. 

The other thing is, you need to make sure you understand the career path, and that you want to be involved in the tech space in general. 

Then, join the free 5-Day Salesforce Challenge, where you’re going to get walked through exactly how to get set up on the free Trailhead training site by Salesforce, and how to dip your toes in and figure out your first steps.  

And by the time you get to Day 5 of the Challenge, you will have a really good idea if you have a future in Salesforce. 

On top of knowing whether or not Salesforce is for you, you’re also going to understand how to position yourself for any career path by using tools like LinkedIn to build your personal branding online in 1-2 hours, so that you can showcase your current skills and your interests to attract potential employers globally.  

Additionally, you will know how to get real-world experience in pretty much any industry by being a volunteer for companies and non-profit organizations that need your skills. That is something that we include as well in the 5-Day Challenge. 

On every single day, we are going to take you through a short video of no more than 10 minutes that is going to talk you through exactly what you need to be doing, and how to complete the task for that day. 

We’re going to have a task list for you, so you know step-by-step exactly what you need to do and why you’re doing it. 

On top of that, we’re going to have tips and strategies to make these tasks easier for you and to help you be more efficient in completing them.  

We will hold your hand and walk you through this process to make sure that you get full value out of this free course.

It is a high return, no-risk way to decide if Salesforce is something you want to build a career in.

The way that the challenge works is the day that you sign up, you are going to get the first email of the challenge. And then for the next 4 days, you’re going to get one email a day. 

You can choose to do all days over a weekend, if you want. Or do one every other day and make it a 10-Day Challenge.  

We made this very flexible because we understand that people have kids, lives, obligations and full-time jobs and everything else going on. 

All you have to do is hold onto those emails as they land in your inbox, and make sure you go through them in order of Days 1 through 5. As long as you go through them in order and make sure you finish one before starting the other, you can take it 100% at your own pace. 

The alternative really is just getting on Facebook or LinkedIn groups and asking the questions of other people in the Salesforce communities. It would probably lead you down rabbit holes, and likely spending 40 hours on Trailhead (the free Salesforce certification training platform), trying to figure out the most optimal path to get started. 

You’re going to read a few hours of blog articles, maybe watch a few hours of YouTube videos. And then what you’ll probably do is circle back to the free 5-Day Challenge and go, “Why didn’t I just do this? I could have saved so much time!”