Salesforce has quickly grown to become one of the most in-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solutions. Currently, more than 150,000 businesses use the program to keep close ties with customers.

As a result, the Salesforce administrator position, the primary role in any Salesforce environment, is now one of the jobs with the brightest outlook. This makes it a critical step for all who want to be Salesforce admins to learn the basic Salesforce administrator skills for success as discussed below.

As every organization that implements Salesforce needs a Salesforce admin and as adoption of the CRM continues, the demand for admins will similarly increase.

Therefore, if you’re trying to find a new career path, perhaps after finishing college or to fulfill your wish to change careers, you should strongly consider becoming a Salesforce administrator.

6 Powerful Salesforce administrator skills for success 

Although a promising career, you need a few basic Salesforce administrator skills for success to become the best in your job. If you’re serious about becoming one, you should evaluate whether you possess the following six skills and hone them as appropriate.

Salesforce skills

Top of the list of Salesforce administrator skills for success is the ability to use Salesforce itself. For one, you need excellent user management skills. User management involves being a champion for your users and taking time to understand their needs.

You also need strong data management skills. The best Salesforce admins assess and improve data quality using pre-defined validation rules, proactively track and remove instances of duplication, and ensure that the final data is actionable and beneficial to end-users.

Beyond user management and data management skills, you also need data security skills and the ability to report actionably. A regular Salesforce health check will help you improve your organization’s overall security while creating actionable reports and dashboards is critical for the organization’s growth.

Business analysis skills

Salesforce admins pretty much double up as business analysts for their organizations. This means business analysis is a critical skill among Salesforce administrator skills for success that you must possess.

You’ll be tasked with processing analyses and documentation to help create transparency in your company’s business processes. You’ll also constantly work with the people, processes, and information within the organization to derive solutions in line with business objectives.

So, what skills does a business analyst need? It depends on the hiring organization. However, you must be a good communicator, with excellent speaking and listening skills.

You also need analytical skills to interpret business needs into application and operational requirements.

The best business analysts are also good problem solvers. Issues arise all the time in the work environment. When things get tough or circumstances change, the Salesforce admin must give direction.

Leadership skills

Salesforce administrators are also team leaders. As the admin for your organization, you’ll be tasked with leading other Salesforce employees in your department to pursue business objectives.

In many cases, you’ll also answer directly to the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and may have to occasionally present findings to the board. Other leadership duties bestowed on the Salesforce admin include;

• Writing business cases
• Creating training material
• Demonstrating new features to executives
• Building and delivering workshop materials

All these duties demand leadership skills from the Salesforce admin. You should have motivation skills (as all leaders do) to rally your troops to deliver on time.

You must also have the resilience to work long hours to meet business needs.

The best team leaders also need conflict resolution skills. Why? Because disagreements aren’t uncommon among teams. You should be able to resolve arising issues swiftly and with totality.

Technical skills

Besides leadership, business analysis, and Salesforce skills, technical capabilities form part of the Salesforce administrator skills for success in your career.

Technical skills generally refer to specialized knowledge and expertise needed to accomplish complex actions and tasks relating to computational and physical technology.

In specific reference to Salesforce, it refers to the ability to perform tasks that require the use of certain tools, whether tangible or intangible.

For instance, a Salesforce admin needs to be generally knowledgeable about databases. The individual must understand the different databases and be familiar with database management tools and query languages.

So, at the most basic, you need a fundamental knowledge of Excel and MySQL.

The right candidate for the Salesforce administrator position is also familiar with compliance.

Since Salesforce management involves handling customer data and private information, the admin must understand what constitutes a data breach and how best to handle customer data without exposing the organization to attacks and lawsuits.

Project management skills

An effective Salesforce administrator is a great project manager. Why? Because a big part of the admin’s job involves organizing overall project flow. In fact, the Salesforce admin may as well be called a Salesforce project manager.

Thus, having sufficient knowledge about developing end-user training is critical. You must have the capacity to create resourceful training material that imparts the required knowledge.

You must also be able to keep trainees focuses throughout workshops. In addition, the Salesforce admin must be able to handle the following aspects of project management;

• Understanding the Project Charter and Statement of work
• Planning, executing, and establishing quality control levels
• Establishing communication paths within the execution team
• Communicating with key stakeholders

Having the skills to build custom dashboards will make you a much more versatile and useful addition to the hiring organization.

Industry skills

To complete the list of Salesforce administrator skills for success, a Salesforce admin must also have a good understanding of the industry in which they’re getting hired to work.

Keep in mind that Salesforce admins don’t always work for Salesforce. Indeed, the majority of Salesforce administrators work for small and medium enterprises in diverse industries, including healthcare, automotive, education, and hotel and tourism.

These organizations have very different regulations that the admin must know.

For example, Salesforce admins working in healthcare must be aware of HIPAA regulations. Otherwise, you’d put the employer at grave risk. Hospital data must remain completely private and encryption is needed at every step to ensure maximum data safety.

HIPAA also requires that institutions implement activity logs and audit controls. You’ll be a lot more valuable to your organization if you understand these industry-specific best practices.

Want to become a salesforce administrator? Sign up for our Salesforce Administrator Career Track Training today.

Salesforce administrators are an indispensable cog in a Salesforce environment, which points to strong job growth as Salesforce adoption grows.

However, to be ready for the role, you need to prep accordingly to ensure you have the right Salesforce administrator skills for success.

And if you are looking to join this industry and not sure where to begin, sign up for our Salesforce Administrator Career Track Training today.