The Ultimate Guide to a Career as a Salesforce Consultant
Salesforce is the world’s No.1 customer relationship management, CRM, software, with 150,000 Salesforce partners using the platform worldwide. With just under 10 million new Salesforce jobs predicted to be created by 2026 and further digitalisation of the workplace, there is no better time to work in Salesforce.
The opportunities in Salesforce are endless and the specialised jobs on offer include Salesforce Consultant, Salesforce Developer and Salesforce Administrator roles among many others. Each Salesforce job is suited to different skillsets which is why it’s important to know the differences if you’re considering a career in Salesforce or are looking to move up the Salesforce career ladder.
What is a Salesforce Consultant?
A Salesforce Consultant may work in-house or be contracted as an external consultant to implement and optimise Salesforce products to help businesses get the most out of their Salesforce CRM. Salesforce Consultants are trusted to help transform the way teams work to improve the performance of the organisation. They do this by building Salesforce Flows to streamline Salesforce partner’s processes and create auto-generated triggers, workflows and record updates.
Salesforce Consultants carry out business analysis of the Salesforce partner to gain an understanding of their specific business processes and requirements to implement appropriate solutions. Most importantly, the role of a Salesforce Consultant is to enhance business processes and performance. They understand the CRM platform and have excellent business analysis and project management skills to solve complex business problems for Salesforce partners.
What does a Salesforce Consultant do?
As more companies turn to cloud-based tools such as Salesforce CRM, Salesforce Consultants combined knowledge of the CRM platform and excellent communication skills make them incredibly valuable assets where businesses are not up to date with the latest Salesforce software. Salesforce consultant jobs’ day-to-day responsibilities include managing client relationships, creating and managing projects, mapping out business processes and support Salesforce users through change.
At smaller Salesforce partners, Salesforce Consultants are often responsible for the end-to-end project delivery from requirements gathering, creating user stories, workshops, business analysis, solution design, workflow automation, configuration, implementation, project management and user training. They ultimately help businesses make the most out of their Salesforce platform.
At larger Salesforce partners and global companies, the Salesforce Consultant’s role becomes more segmented. For example, you have Salesforce Business Analysts that are responsible for requirements gathering, user stories and workshops, Salesforce Project Managers that look after resource planning and budget management and Salesforce Solutions Architects that are responsible for solution design, configuration and workflow automation.
Why is a Salesforce Consultant role so interesting?
There are a number of reasons why Salesforce consulting is interesting. As well as providing a varied workday with the flexibility to work from home, Salesforce consulting is a highly rewarding customer-facing role. Salesforce Consultants help businesses and non-profits achieve their business goals by helping improve their processes to reduce costs, increase income and improve customer service. On a personal level, the role of the Salesforce Consultant helps people feel happier and perform better in their own roles which is extremely impactful.
How to land a Salesforce Consultant role?
During the interview process for a Salesforce Consultant role, candidates are often required to present a solution to a business scenario to a panel of people. In these instances, they are being vetted for their client facing skills, and ability to perform well under pressure, talk about technical solutions with non-technical people.
In terms of hard skills, the Salesforce Consultant job candidate must be proficient with Salesforce administration and configuration, lightning web components, building Flows, user acceptance testing as well as be able to design solutions. Other functional skills include stakeholder management, business analysis, data analysis and documentation.
Desirable skills for Salesforce Consultant jobs include exceptional spoken and written communication skills and presentation skills because the role is largely client facing. A good Salesforce Consultant is one who understands the ins and outs of the Salesforce cloud service but has equally good management and interpersonal skills to guide businesses through change.
What does progression look like for a Salesforce Consultant?
Salesforce Consultants usually come from functional backgrounds where they have helped a company improve their business processes. However, every Salesforce career is different and is entirely unique to the individual and it is not uncommon for Salesforce talent to switch back and forth between technical and functional roles.
Although progression is not linear, after gaining several years of experience, Salesforce Consultants often work up to more specialised roles such as Salesforce Solution Architect jobs, then often move into Delivery Lead roles and may go onto Programme Management if they are skilled at project management. They also may choose to move across industries.
Salary expectations for a Salesforce Consultant?
In the UK, Salesforce Consultants can command a salary of around £65k-£80k given they have undergone Salesforce training, have 2 to 3 Salesforce certifications, 3 to 6 years of experience and a background in consulting. More senior Salesforce Consultants salary will range from £80k-£90k because of their greater experience level and specialised skills. At the highest end of the salary range, Solutions Architects may attain up to around £120k.
