Salesforce has been a key contributor to the digital transformation wave that’s currently reshaping how organizations do business and relate with their customers in the 21^st century. Likewise, Salesforce careers have been on the rise with lucrative salaries on offer for those with admirable Salesforce skills. For new Salesforce admins, the secret recipe on how to become a successful Salesforce administrator is on everyone’s shopping list.

So, today, we are going to look at eight (8) awesome tips for becoming the best Salesforce admins in the market and taking your career to the top.

Top 8 do’s on how to become a successful Salesforce administrator

With an average salary of about $78,694 for admins with 3-5 years of experience, Salesforce admins have a lucrative future, not only because they are in high demand but also because Salesforce has become such a domineering 21^st century CRM technology. Below are the 8 best tips on how to become a successful Salesforce Administrator.

Certifications are more important than ever before. Get one!

In a survey recently released by Mason Frank, at least 77% of Salesforce professionals had one official certification and another 39% stated that they witnessed an increase in salary after being certified.

Certification is key in Salesforce. You’ll hardly find one Salesforce professional without a certification yet has been working on the platform for at least 2 years.

As the Salesforce ecosystem expands and becomes more competitive certifications and the way to distinguish between amateurs and pros. Certifications will not only boost your chances of getting hired and a pay increase but also boost your profile and ratings.

Salesforce Admin certification exam covers different concepts some of which are included below.

• Managing data, users and security
• Customizing and maintaining Sales Cloud and Service Cloud apps
• Building dashboards, reports and workflows

Because the Salesforce administrator career path is so diverse, the first certification only opens the door for further advancement and certifications. Once certified, you can apply for further certifications in areas such as Service or Sales Cloud Consultant, Advanced Administrator, Platform App Builder, etc.

Educate Yourself

Just like in other careers, learning never stops. As a new Salesforce admin, you need to educate yourself on the Salesforce platform whenever you can. Aim at learning something new at every chance you get.

There are many blogs and communities which you can sign up with to help you learn as a Salesforce Admin. However, the best place to self-train is using Salesforce’s own Trailhead. Besides self-training, you can register for Salesforce certifications like in our own market-driven Salesforce Admin Career Track training.

Other great places to train yourself as a Salesforce Admin include attending in-person events or using online events and webinars organized by Salesforce or Salesforce groups, communities and teams.

If you already working at a company as a Salesforce admin, you need to learn more features and functionalities even though your current company may not be supporting such features. This will help you prepare for your Salesforce administrator certification exam or even benefit you when you change companies. As is the norm, more education and experience lead to more opportunities.

Take advantage of the Trailblazer Community

The Salesforce Trailblazer community is a perfect place to start your learning and connect with other Salesforce experts and administrators. This platform does not only offer opportunities to network but also presents a great avenue to get new ideas and learn best practices. You have the chance to ask questions and get answers from experts within the community.

Take advantage of social channels

Social media platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook give you exposure beyond your normal reach. Just like the Salesforce Trailblazer Community, social channels present an opportunity to learn from those who have gone ahead of you in the profession. Look for Salesforce networking groups on LinkedIn and Facebook and join these groups.

You can also use Twitter to connect with those who are tweeting about cell phones and even cellphones influencers. These places help you learn something new from those who are already experts in the field and also present an opportunity to create your influence once you’ve mastered the art. Log onto Twitter and start following the Salesforce admins Twitter handle.

Use Your Sandbox

If you’re really working in an organization with Sandbox, you can safely create multiple copies of your organization’s data and application and use it for every change you intend to deploy. This way you can test everything before deploying to production and minimize the chances of fatal failures and updates.

For improved efficiency, you can use a full sandbox for onboarding new users so that they learn the features without dumping test data in production.

Learn When to Say No!

Although you can do virtually almost everything with Salesforce by either extending the capabilities through customization or the use of third-party integrations, there are times when you don’t need to say yes to every request from your managers. The guiding principle is whether this new addition should be added or not.

If the request is coming from your managers or supervisors, ask all the questions that you may have to fully understand the request and evaluate if it is something that they need. You need to think strategically to create scalable solutions, but this can only happen after a careful evaluation of every request.

If it doesn’t make sense to go ahead with the implementation or if there are better alternatives that are cheaper yet effective and scalable, just say no and direct the owner of the request to consider such solutions.

Use AppExchange to extend functionality rather than build a new solution at every request

The beauty of Salesforce is how scalable and flexible the platform is. If you need to extend Salesforce functionalities, you can simply use third-party integrations which are available in the AppExchange or build your own custom solution.

There are thousands of solutions within the AppExchange platform that you can simply install in a few clicks to meet the needs of your organization. Some are straightforward while some need minimal customization to fit the exact business needs. Also, some are free while some come at an additional cost.

Consequently, you don’t have to build new solutions from scratch for every request that you receive.

Stay on Top of New Functionality

Just like any technology, Salesforce is constantly evolving. In fact, Salesforce releases three new releases every year with tons of new innovative features. As a Salesforce admin, it is your responsibility to monitor these new releases and plan accordingly.

Verify every new release and test out the features in your sandbox before pushing it to live production. You also need to have a communication strategy to let users who will be affected by the new release get to know way ahead of time. A proactive Salesforce Admin doesn’t just let new releases happen.

If you are an aspiring Salesforce admin or have been dabbling with Salesforce for some time now, use these 8 tips on how to become a successful Salesforce Administrator to master your craft.

Ready to start your Salesforce Admin Journey?

Salesforce Administrators are a vital bridge between business and technology, earning upwards of $107,510 annually. Get your Salesforce career in shape by earning an administrator credential in just 6 months with our flexible, mentor-based training. Click here to enroll or learn more about our Salesforce administrator certification training.