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If you are a Salesforce enthusiast, you would have heard about the real visionary behind the powerful community or blog Salesforce Ben! Yes, we are talking about none other than driven, inspiring, and talented Salesforce MVP - Ben McCarthy.
Our team got a chance to speak and interview this innovator of the leading Salesforce community who pens down great research, resources, and thoughts on Salesforce technology, Salesforce career path, Salesforce certifications, Salesforce Salary, and every latest update happening around this revolutionizing CRM.
Read on to gather some motivation and words of wisdom from the real Salesforce Influencer- Ben McCarthy!
Q1. Hi Ben, let’s start with a conventional question – Who is Ben? What’s his story?
Ans:- Hey everyone! I’m Ben McCarthy, originally from London and I’m the founder at SalesforceBen.com, the largest Salesforce news site in the world. I’ve been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 10 years, and have worked across end-users, ISV’s, as well as co-founded a Salesforce Consultancy here in London.
I currently work full-time at Salesforce Ben, writing content, and facilitating Salesforce thought leaders around the world to get their message out there.
Q2. Tell us about those initial days when you started learning things about the world of Salesforce. Which part of your entire journey in salesforce gave you the most important lessons?
Ans:- I’ve been lucky enough to spread my career across the 3 main different types of companies you get in the Salesforce ecosystem. This has helped me in understanding what is important for these businesses, but also what’s important for the end-users of Salesforce.
By far the role that provided me with the most important lessons was working for a consultancy. Over my 4 years running the consultancy as Managing Director, I worked with over 100 different businesses. This exposes you to so many personalities, industries, and implementations of Salesforce.
This gives you the perfect platform to learn, make mistakes, and grow. Whilst working in a consultancy isn’t for everyone, in my opinion, it’s one of the best places to learn.
Q3. Give our audience a little glimpse of your future plans in this industry.
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Ans:- My mission at the moment is to help others advance their Salesforce careers. This is what we’ve been doing at Salesforce Ben over the past 8 years, but as I’ve mostly been running the site in the evenings, working full-time gives me the chance to work on a lot of exciting projects.
In 2022 we will be focussing on more video content, so watch this space and sign up to our YouTube channel!
Q4. If you could give one piece of advice to another Salesforce admin and three pieces of advice to individuals considering a career related to the Salesforce environment, what would those be?
Ans:- My advice to admins would be to start specializing. As the Salesforce ecosystem grows in lots of different directions, it provides the perfect platform to stand out from the crowd and focus down on a niche. Currently, some of the hottest niches are Industry Cloud products, Marketing Cloud, DevOps products, as well as Flow.
My advice to new individuals starting a career would be the following…
Q5. If you could ask just one change from the ecosystem of salesforce, what would it be?
Ans:- Honestly, I can’t think of anything. I much prefer to focus on the positives than anything that is missing. –
Q6. What are the three resources you used the most to build upon your current knowledge and experience in Salesforce and what do you like about them?
Q7. Consider a situation where you are a total fresher in the salesforce industry and are looking forward to learning A to Z about it online, link some best online courses you’ll start your journey with.
Ans:- At SalesforceBen.com we’ve just launched our own course designed for freshers to learn about Salesforce from the ground up. We’ve designed the course in the same format as the Salesforce Admin exam, whilst also providing real business scenarios along the way.
Q8. If you had to describe your current job role to a friend who knew nothing about salesforce, how would you do that?
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Ans:- This is a conversation I have to have quite regularly. If someone understands Salesforce, then it's fairly easy to explain that I have a blog/news site that we publish content on.
If not…I’ll explain that Salesforce is a CRM, what is a CRM? A CRM is simply a database of your customers, your interactions with them, and what you are currently selling or have previously sold them. Salesforce is simply a cloud-based CRM that can also connect to a multitude of other systems such as Analytics and Marketing Automation.
Q9. Describe your initial and current impression of Salesforce?
Ans:- After graduating in Information Systems, and understanding IT systems pretty well, but not knowing how to code, Salesforce was a godsend. I got to grips with it instantly, creating tables, fields, automation etc..I was never very academic and didn’t have high hopes for myself as an individual in the “real world”, but I was lucky enough to find Salesforce which was a perfect match for my skills.
Whilst my initial impressions were that this was a seriously clever platform. My impression has shifted to now mainly be, wow, what a fantastic opportunity for anyone that wants to start a career in Tech.
The tech world has always been the innovative, high-paying industry that has been inaccessible to most people without a computer science degree. But Salesforce has completely democratized the tech market. Now anyone who wants to put the work in can get a lucrative career in technology.
Q10. What do you love the most about your career?
Ans:- I’ve only ever known the world of Salesforce, and I can safely say over the past 10 years I’ve been very happy in my roles, no matter what type of company I’ve been working for.
But over the past 10 years I’ve narrowed down my skills, and what I’m actually passionate about, and I’m putting all that energy into Salesforce Ben. Specifically, I love the fact that I get to work with so many members of the Salesforce community. I get to meet people, chat with them, talk about their ideas for content, and work with them to bring their ideas to life.
Q11. Tell us about a time when you faced an unexpected Salesforce issue and how you addressed it.
Ans:- Great question…there are too many instances to think of specifically, but I’ve been in many situations where a problem has arisen and I just think “How on earth am I going to solve this?”, and panic ensues.
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This has happened many times, especially when I was running a Salesforce consultancy, as ultimately I’m the one that has to be responsible for everything.
But over my 10-year career, there is very little that can’t be solved with Salesforce. This is a mindset that I’ve managed to accept over the past few years, which means instead of panicking, I can focus on the solution that I know is out there.
One of the best aspects about Salesforce is the number of channels Salesforce professionals are active on. You’ve got the Trailblazer Community, Twitter, LinkedIn & Slack groups to name a few. Got an issue? Just hop onto one of these platforms and ask people.
While it’s true that everyone in Salesforce is very helpful and selfless, it’s also true that people LOVE to solutionize. Give a member of the Salesforce community a problem and they will try and solve it alongside you. Trailblazers always need to be solutionizing!
Summing Up
It was a pleasure to talk to and experience the words of wisdom from the real Salesforce MVP Ben. His words reflect nothing but his dedicated journey of hard work, persistence, and determination to grow together in this Salesforce ecosystem. Our JanBask Training team was fortunate enough to have had a candid chat with Ben to understand his journey and piece of solicited advice he would like to give to young entrants in this ecosystem.
If Ben’s words have stirred some interest in pursuing Salesforce as a career option, then what’s the wait for!!! Explore our all-inclusive, industry-driven, flexible Salesforce Training classes to make your way up to high-paying careers of Salesforce Consultant, Salesforce Administrator, Salesforce BA, and many more.
If you like this interview with Ben, please do share it on your Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn accounts. And in case you have any questions for Ben that we missed asking during the interview, please ask using the comments section.
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