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So far Jason Ventura has created 3 blog entries.

Salesforce Starter: The Perfect Solution for Small Businesses

Are you a small business owner who is interested in using Salesforce for your business all the way up until you saw the pricing? If so, Salesforce Starter was created just for you!

I know what you’re thinking: Salesforce is a big, expensive CRM platform. But Salesforce Starter is different. It’s a low-cost, lightweight version of Salesforce that’s designed specifically for small businesses. Coming in at $25 USD per month/per user, it’s a downright smoking deal to be honest.

There’s even a 30-day free trial to test it out and see if it’s right for you and your team! 

Salesforce Starter Capabilities

Here’s a quick rundown of some of the stuff you can do with Salesforce Starter RIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!

  • Track your leads and customers
  • Manage your sales pipeline
  • Automate your marketing campaigns
  • Manage customer cases
  • Write knowledge articles for your support reps  

Ease of Use is key to Salesforce Starter

What do I mean by that? I mean, it literally guides you through accessing objects (types of records) based on a picklist (dropdown) menu right after you log in (via your homepage)! 

Also featured on the home page are premade dashboard components that display your leads, contacts, opportunities, tasks, and any recommended actions! You can also see any recent records.

If your team’s focus is centered around Sales (Revenue), Marketing (Hello, Sercante) or Service (Support), choose those in the Quick Look picklist and your options change. 

Salesforce Starter for Sales

First up is Sales, the lifeblood of your business. If Sales is your focus, then Salesforce is built for you! Choosing Sales as your focus brings up Contacts (people), Leads (prospects), Opportunities (deals), To Do list (Tasks) along with Tutorials and Setup. 

Salesforce Starter for Marketing

Selecting Marketing as your focus gives you the option to import your Contacts (people), create Campaigns (think email or direct mail campaigns), and has links directly to tutorials and setup. 

Salesforce Starter for Service

Choosing Service opens up access to Cases (customer support requests), Connecting Support Channels (think email or web forms), Knowledge (think help articles), Reports (probably the most important part of Salesforce!), along with links to tutorials and setup.  

Clicking on any of these will take you directly to a list of records of that type (List View) that you have in your organization, and allow you to view, edit, or delete them as you desire. 

Connect Salesforce Starter to email accounts for Einstein Activity Insights

Salesforce Starter even prompts you to connect your Microsoft or Google email accounts so you can sync your calendars and get Einstein Activity Insights (AI recommendations) on your incoming emails. 

The data science and machine learning from Einstein is built to analyze external new sources and your account data to help build a data model that provides relevant updates to help you win more deals. Sounds like a win-win!

Go for all three

One last thought here, you aren’t limited to one or the other, you have access to Sales, Service, AND Marketing!

OK Jason, that’s great. But what if we grow out of Salesforce Starter? 

Salesforce Starter is built on the same foundation as Salesforce Professional, Enterprise, and Unlimited. So as your CRM needs grow, Salesforce can grow with you. All you have to do is contact your Account Executive (AE) to upgrade your edition and I’m pretty sure they just hit a magic button* and BOOM you’ve upgraded! 

(*This is unverified, but I imagine that they have a big red upgrade button they smack when a client wants to upgrade followed by a confetti explosion and 30-second dance party.)

Alright, I’m kind of convinced. Where do I start? 

Well any good SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) has a trial and that’s where you begin with the Salesforce Starter package. 

Sign up for 30-day Salesforce Starter trial

Click this link and you’ll head over to the Salesforce Starter site, where you can sign up for your own 30-day trial, check out a demo, or read some customer stories. 

Then, what’s next?

If you want to know more about how it works, I would recommend taking a look at the Salesforce Starter Quick Look Module on Trailhead. 

If you’re not familiar with Trailhead, it’s where all of us Salesforce nerds go to learn about our favorite CRM in a fun, gameified way! It’s free to sign up, and use and can lead to some awesome new skills. 

Please feel free to leave any questions in the comments below.

Original article: Salesforce Starter: The Perfect Solution for Small Businesses

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Salesforce Starter: The Perfect Solution for Small Businesses appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-09-20T20:47:36+00:00September 20th, 2023|Categories: Getting Started, Industry News, revive, Setup & Admin|
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Salesforce Summer ’23: User Access Management Updates

The Salesforce Summer ’23 release includes many changes to the platform, like the ones we’re seeing with Account Engagement that include the ability to copy marketing assets between business units. However, the thing we’re going to talk about in this blog post are two new features that (hopefully) help you simplify user access management for the Salesforce platform.

First, we’re going to quickly go over the new User Access Policies (Beta) feature and then we’ll talk about setting field-level security in permission sets.

Salesforce User Access Policies (Beta)

User access policies are a new feature that allows you to control user access based on criteria such as user roles profile, or other user fields. For example, we can give users different access to the same data, depending on their role in the organization or their department.

Users can be assigned to permission set licenses, permission sets, permission set groups, package licenses, queues, and groups using user access policies.

User Access Policies are broken down into two types, Manual User Access Policies and Active User Access Policies. 

Manual User Policies

Manual User Access Policies are one-time processes to grant or revoke bulk access for designated users. What this means is that you can identify users by using filters and modify, add, or remove access that you define in the policy itself. 

Example: You’re migrating permissions for a group of users from profiles to permission sets. You would create filters to identify the users assigned to the profile, then create actions in the user policy to assign permission sets and permission set groups. 

Active User Policies

Active User Access Policies automatically grant or revoke user access. An active user access policy runs in the background and is triggered by an event like a created or updated user record. 

Example: You can have an active policy set to assign a series of permission sets permission set licenses and groups to a user when they are created and have the Sales Manager role, or grant/revoke assignments to an existing user who’s been updated with this role. 

Sounds like a flow if you ask me…

Ok, that’s cool Jason. So how do I get to it? 

  • Go to Setup > Quick Find “User Management Settings” then enable User Access Policies (Beta). 
  • Then, Quick Find “User Access Policies” to create or manage user access policies.

Considerations before enabling User Access Policies

A couple of things to be aware of before you go and enable this setting in your org:

  1. Each org is limited to 20 access policies in total. 
  2. This feature is in Beta and is subject to change without notice. Be sure to watch future Salesforce releases to find out when this will be made Generally Available (GA).

Set Field-Level Security for a Field on Permission Sets Instead of Profiles (Generally Available)

In the past, field-level security could only be set on profiles which, even with the Enhanced Profile User interface, could be extremely tedious. However, in the Summer ’23 release, you can now set field-level security on permission sets when creating a new custom field. 

What does this mean? 

When creating a field you would normally have a step that would have you pick which profiles have access to view or edit.. 

Now, once the Set Field Level Security for a Field on Permission Sets feature is enabled, this step (Profiles step) is replaced with something that looks like this screenshot:

This was originally a beta feature in Spring ’23 but is now Generally Available in Summer ’23. 

How do you enable it? 

  • Go to Setup>Users>User Management Settings, then Enable Field Level Security for Permission Sets During Field Creation.

Considerations for the Set Field Level Security for a Field on Permission Sets feature

Things to keep in mind when enabling Field Level Security for Permission Sets During Field Creation:

  • Enabling this setting will remove the profile list from view when setting or changing field level security at the profile level. 
  • When you set or change field-level security for a field on permission sets, you can view by permission sets with object permissions, or by all permission sets. 

Streamlining Salesforce user management today and beyond

Cool stuff, but how is this going to affect me now and in the future? 

These changes are all part of Salesforce’s master plan to streamline User Management to make it less tedious, less challenging, and less time-consuming so we can spend more time taking the dog for a walk or enjoying the awesome Pacific Northwest Summers. 

Eventually, we will see Salesforce sunset Profiles and move solely to controlling record access via permission sets as outlined in this Salesforce Admins Article.  

If you would like to know more about the future of User Management I encourage you to check out this awesome blog by Cheryl Feldman and the Awesome Admin team over at Salesforce. And reach out to Sercante when you’re ready to talk about how these changes fit in with your overall marketing and technology operations strategy.

Original article: Salesforce Summer ’23: User Access Management Updates

©2023 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

The post Salesforce Summer ’23: User Access Management Updates appeared first on The Spot.

By |2023-07-14T15:07:36+00:00July 14th, 2023|Categories: New Features, Release Notes, Strategy|
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Breaking into the Salesforce Ecosystem: A Military Veteran’s Story

Merivis recently named Sercante as their “Partner of the Year” for 2022, and I couldn’t be more proud to be a #Merivet AND a #SercanteDragon. In the spirit of this award, I want to share the story of my journey into a new career in the Salesforce ecosystem as a transitioning military veteran.

Summer is in full swing, and folks are having BBQs, going to baseball games, and heading out for vacation. This is also the time of year when many active-duty servicemembers and their families are getting ready to move from one duty station to another, or transition from the service back to civilian life. 

Every year, over 200,000 active-duty sailors, soldiers, airmen, marines, guardians, and coast guardsmen separate or retire from active duty. This is a large group of highly motivated, smart, and loyal potential employees that have no idea that they can break into tech and the Salesforce ecosystem. 

First, I’m going to tell you a bit about my journey and then I’ll lay out resources for you and your team to tap into this talent goldmine. 

My Limited Duty Officer Class in front of the USS Constitution in Newport RI, circa 2011

My journey from sailor to Salesforce solution engineer

Why am I talking about this? 

Well,  a little over two years ago, I was in that same group of transitioning service members. I was coming up on 20 years of active duty service and was preparing for life after the Navy (Yes, I’m a retired sailor). I knew I didn’t want to be one of the guys who leaves the service only to come back as a Government employee — it just isn’t for me. 

I spent a lot of time mulling over my options, and I knew I wanted to break into tech. But that’s a nebulous destination at best with so many options (too many to count!). 

By now, you’re probably thinking…

“Jason, get to the point, I mean isn’t this blog supposed to be about marketing?”

Well, not in the traditional sense but be patient young grasshopper. 

Here I am reenlisting one of the best sailors I ever worked with. Reenlisting a sailor was a sacred honor I cherish to this day.

Introduction to big tech through military-sponsored program

In 2019 as I was planning my escape, er I mean, retirement, I applied to and was accepted into a program called Fourblock. It’s a program specifically designed to help veterans and transitioning Active Duty break into tech. 

We got to do some cool stuff like visiting the T-Mobile HQ, Microsoft Campus, Amazon (they are truly everywhere in Seattle), and meeting with and networking with Veteran Group Leaders at these Fortune 100 companies. 

We did resume reviews, interview prep, and networking! Pretty awesome stuff, right? I mean I had never seen a place that had craft beer ON TAP in the lunchroom, wild!

It was during this time in my Fourblock cohort when I was lamenting about breaking into tech without any tech skills (queue up imposter syndrome), and someone recommended Salesforce.

I jumped on Trailhead, created my profile, and got to work. ANNNND then the pandemic hit — my job got super crazy and I totally neglected Trailhead, Astro, and all the cool things I was starting to get hyped about with Salesforce. 

Learning Salesforce through the Merivis cohort program

Fast forward to Spring 2021 and I’m starting to panic about my post-Navy career. Then, after one fateful Veterati Mentorship phone call, I was directed to the Merivis website. 

I applied to and was accepted into Admin Cohort 20, and I achieved my Salesforce Administrator certification in June of 2021. 

It was through a Merivis contact, the amazing (and former Sercante Dragon) Hayley Tuller, that I was introduced to the leadership team at Sercante. And the rest is history. 

Team Sercante with Merivis Executive Director Kate Perez

Since joining Sercante in September 2021, I’ve added 2 more certifications and I truly love my job! 

I get to work with thought leaders in the Salesforce and Pardot (MCAE) space every day. And the best part is that it’s fully remote. My commute is the 15 seconds of walking downstairs to my office after taking my dogs out. 

What is Merivis?  

The name Merivis comes from the Latin roots of Merit and Force, Merivis is a non-profit Veteran’s Service Organization (VSO) that specializes in “Transforming military years into tech careers.”

 It was founded by Hector Perez, Kate Perez, and Joe Castro and focuses exclusively on helping veterans, military spouses (current and former), and transitioning service members break into the Salesforce Ecosystem. From Hector’s experience as a hiring manager at various tech companies, he recognized a growing talent gap that veterans could be trained and hired to fill, which inspired him, Kate, and Joe to found Merivis. 

Merivis provides no-cost training by Salesforce Certified Instructors to members on a wide range of certifications: 

  • Salesforce Administrator
  • Platform App Builder
  • CRM Analytics
  • MCAE (Pardot)
  • and more

Members of each cohort are paired up with a coach to help them with the technical side of understanding Salesforce and a mentor for accountability and guidance on job seeking and networking. 

Seriously, that one phone call with  Jeri Lim and her advice to check out Merivis changed my life. 

Why Veterans? (or Transitioning Military, or Mil Spouses?)

We all know and appreciate military veterans for the jobs they do while wearing a uniform. But what if I told you that even the most junior enlisted sailor has better project management skills than the kid who just graduated from college? 

Real-Talk: Any member of the military who has served for at least 2 years has been a project manager. And the same applies to military spouses. Military spouses are project managers, logistics experts, and financial gurus. No joke.  

The point I’m trying to make is that most, if not all, vets, transitioning service members, and military spouses have those “soft skills” you see on job posts. 

Hard skills versus soft skills 

Hard skills are the things that can be taught or learned — like coding, building automation, writing flows, building marketing campaigns, developing reports, etc. 

Soft skills are more abstract and tend to be hard to codify — like being a team player, adaptability (whoa boy is that a military requirement), authenticity, passion, and leadership. 

You can study a book on coding and retain the information and make use of the skills immediately, but it takes time and effort to put soft skills into practice. And it takes a lot more time to effectively use and master them. 

Ok, you’ve convinced me. So what’s next? 

I’ve only scratched the surface of what the veteran and mil-spouse community can bring to the table. And I could write a series of blogs about each group, vertical, or specialization that veterans and mil-spouses can excel in. 

However, to keep this more of a blog and less of a Doctoral Thesis, I’m going to sum things up for you. 

  1. Veterans, mil-spouses, and transitioning service members are often overlooked as a resource in the martech space and Salesforce ecosystem when searching for talent. 
  2. Training in technology is easy. Training in soft skills is hard. Vets and mil-spouses probably have the soft skills you’re looking for. 
  3. Merivis and other amazing VSOs provide no-cost technical training to vets, mil-spouses, and transitioning service members. 
  4. Finally, if you connect the dots, Merivis and other VSOs fill the skill gaps for vets, mil-spouses, and transitioning service members so they can come to the Salesforce ecosystem and find fulfilling careers. At the same time, they’re filling skill gaps that make it hard to hire people for technical specialty roles.

Technology career resources for military veterans

There are a number of great resources out there for companies looking to hire veterans and veterans looking to break into the tech industry. 

Here are some links:

My sincere goal was to introduce you to these wonderful organizations, bring awareness to this untapped talent resource, and share a little bit about my story.  

If you have any questions, feel free to hit me up on LinkedIn or drop a comment below.

Cheers!

Original article: Breaking into the Salesforce Ecosystem: A Military Veteran’s Story

©2022 The Spot. All Rights Reserved.

By |2022-07-07T20:51:00+00:00July 7th, 2022|Categories: Career Development, Community, Community Spotlight, Real Talk, revive|
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