Admin Inspiration from Down Under with Mark Tossell

Today on the ButtonClick Admin podcast, we’re speaking to Mark Tossell, a brand new admin based in Sydney, Australia. In May of 2016, Mark left his previous career where he didn’t have any CRM experience to take a job as a Salesforce admin. We’re very excited to share Mark’s inspirational story in our last episode of 2016.

More on Mark’s session: Join us as Mark shares his journey as a brand new admin. We’ll learn about some of the challenges he’s faced and how he’s overcome them with the help of Trailhead, Premiere Plus Support, and the Salesforce community.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Mark Tossell.

Make Trailhead your best friend.

“It seemed to be the right fit at the right time. I love technology; I love changing the way things work and solving problems,” says Mark when asked why he decided to take a position as a Salesforce admin.

To prepare, Mark says, “I spent a week furiously watching YouTube videos, many of which were from Dreamforce, until I met my new best friend which is Trailhead. I spend 40-50 hours a week going through Trailhead.”

Know how to visualize a process and implement it in the system.

When asked what his biggest challenge has been as a brand new admin, Mark says,

“Being able to accurately picture a process in the system that will work in the business.” You need to be able to imagine how the process can be done in Salesforce and then create it in the system.

“The second challenge for me has been the people side of things: convince people the benefits of the system, get them using it, get them active in the system, enforcing data integrity and all of those adoption issues,” says Mark.

Salesforce in a Day helps with adoption.

Adoption is something every admin struggles with. A Salesforce in a Day training session can help. “I put together a program which began with an overview of Salesforce: what it is, what it does, what it can do. Then I just touched on the basics: navigation, leads, context, reports, chatter,” says Mark.

“By the end of the day, I felt that people had a good overview of the system. I thought it was very helpful in our organization,” he says.

Use Trailhead and Premiere Plus Support to prepare for admin certification.

Since beginning work as an admin in June, Mark has received his Salesforce admin certification. “I took it for the first time on Saturday, and I’m really excited I passed!” he says.

When asked what helped him prepare, he says, “once again, Trailhead was a massive help. Also we have the Premiere Plus Support, so because of that, we have videos from the Salesforce University that are made available to us. Those were really helpful.”

Documentation is key.

If he could go back and do anything different, Mark says, “I would have better documentation, not only concerning changes I’ve made to the system but also documenting conversations I’ve had with staff and management concerning their requirements, responses to questions that I have asked because sometimes those things come back later on and it’s good to have a paper trail.”

Mark also says, “Salesforce can do so much, and there are so many aspects of it that sometimes I am trying to achieve ten objectives at once. Once thing I’m learning to do is become more focused and concentrate on one or two key objectives at a time. I believe if I had done that earlier on, I’d be further along in the project than I am now,” he says.

Harness the Power of Community.

The community has had a huge impact on his journey. “The broader Salesforce community has been a tremendous help and encouragement to me over the last six months. The local Salesforce community has been very supportive and helpful as well,” says Mark.

For more insights, make sure to follow Mark Tossell on Twitter (@MarkTossell).

Links:

• Mentorship Central with James Goerke
• True Facts About Baby Echidnas by ZeFrank
• Mary Scotton #BeLikeMary

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