Hanging out with the Canadian Salesforce community
Last month, I had the chance to attend the inaugural True North Dreamin’, the very first Dreamin’ held in Canada. I was super excited to spend time with the local Salesforce community, and I wanted to recap the event (and maybe inspire you to join me next time??). It was an intense two days, so I’ll start with this:
Thank God I wore runners!!
The TND team is committed to bringing Canadian Salesforce users together, and they’re off to a great start: they were expecting 50 people but ended up welcoming more than 200. They also simultaneously hosted satellite events across Canada, and they’re planning to bring TND to a different Canadian city each year.
My Favorite Sessions
All the sessions were fantastic, but these three stood out as favorites:
Admins are Critical Change Agents
Lizz Hellinga, Sales Effectiveness Manager – Silverline
Change Management is HUGE in SFDC Admin work. I didn’t realize the scope until I took the workshop, so if you’re struggling with this at your organization, here’s Lizz’s key takeaway:
Understand why your users need a change, and take steps to educate them. Make sure you know the business case for it, and write a brief paragraph explaining it to your users. The clarification will give them confidence and make adoption much simpler.
Be A Multiplier (BAM!) Workshop: How to Host a Learning Event in your Local Community
Women make up 47% of the workforce, but only 18% of them are in tech (in the US). The major market right now is intelligence, so why are women so underrepresented?
The cost of education is a major factor here. SFDC Trailhead is working to remedy that by offering FREE education. The program leads 1 in 4 users to find a job, thanks to their training, so why not share and work to level the playing field?
This session was SO inspirational (the wicked black and gold “BAM!” shirt they gave me didn’t hurt either), and I definitely found an incredible “tribe” of SFDC users that were just like me. In fact, we were so engaged in bouncing ideas off each other that I completely missed my next session.
In other education news, during the first keynote session, the TND team offered the Admin Certification Prep course to 50 of us at the discounted price of $99 USD (it’s usually $900 USD). It’s awesome to see so many people get to take advantage of this course!
Back from the Dead: From nearly giving up on Salesforce to true customer success
Dominic Ionadi, Salesforce Solutions Architect and Manager, Business Systems – Burgundy Asset Management
Dom shared some key insights on how his company learned from their mistakes and put in the hard work needed to get their instance back on track. His key learnings:
- Data, Data, Data – Make sure your data is clean before you build things out. It might take twice as long to get started, but it will save you a ton of work down the pipeline.
- Also, take a hard look at your data: do you actually need everything you’re asking for? Improve the user experience by minimizing your fields as much as possible and only asking for what you really need.
- Automation is Key – Automate your processes, and then automate some more! Automation allows for easier usage, increased adoption, and fewer errors. Plus, the more you automate, the less time you need to spend on-boarding new users.
- Treat your Users like Customers – Release in sprints and make sure they’re informed of changes. Provide training videos, and host weekly “Office Hours” for anyone who has questions.
Come to Vancouver!
True North Dreamin’ was a great experience. The amazing people and killer swag bag were a definite plus, but the top-notch sessions took it to another level. In fact, I’m already Dreamin’ (see what I did there?) about the next one.
If you want to go too, True North Dreamin’ 2020 will take place April 23 & 24 in Vancouver. It promises to be another fast-paced two days (again, YAY for runners!) full of great speakers and invaluable connection to the Salesforce tribe.
