4 Great Visual Resources for Mastering Salesforce
Foundational Essentials
After being out of college and working in the “real world” for almost a year, I’ve learned a few important lessons on how to get the most out of what you are learning.
I believe we can all agree that one of the most valuable things in life is time. Not because time is money, but because money can’t buy time. With this being said, I can’t emphasize enough that being aware of your learning styles and having the discipline to adjust your habits accordingly is essential when it comes to saving time and mastering concepts and skills. Learning styles include Visual, Aural, Verbal, Physical, Logical, Social, Solitary. You can read more about these styles and identify yours in the link above.
Being a mix of visual, verbal, and social learner, I find myself consuming information in a number of different ways. Visual learners prefer using pictures, images, and spatial understanding, while verbal prefer using words, both in speech and writing, and social prefer to learn in groups or with other people. When it came to learning Salesforce a few tricks helped me dig in and really understand it. These included drawing diagrams in order to visualize the links between parts of a system (visual), then validating the idea/solution with more experienced coworkers (social), and writing down takeaways from lessons, both as typed and handwritten notes, to help my brain retain the information better and to help create a quick reference to go back to later (verbal).
It has also been helpful for me to try to explain what I’ve learned to others. The trick here is to test if you truly understood the matter. You’ll know you do if a person you are explaining it to understands it too. This is when you can say you’ve learned it. Especially in the consultancy world, you often have to transfer knowledge to your clients as well as train them to do the thing you do.
If you’re an admin you’ll probably want to train end-users to filter their reports, send mass emails, etc. this way you can free yourself from repetitive tasks by driving user adoption, and focus your attention on optimizing the backend of Salesforce. This is why, and I can’t emphasize enough—you truly have to understand the matter. And it all starts with basics.
Recommended Resources for the Visual Learner
Above all, my learning style is visual. This means I learn best by watching videos and working with pictures and images, more so than reading text. Here are some of my favorite visual resources that have helped me understand Salesforce.
Salesforce Hulk on YouTube
Groovy and to the point Salesforce lessons. On Salesforce Hulk’s youtube channel you can find content that ranges from What are database & objects in Salesforce for basic understanding, to How to implement many to many relationships for starting admins, to REST APIs and Integrations which is for developers. For a quick lesson with a demo on how to configure a use case in an practice org I highly suggest this resource.
S2 Labs
Here is where our Salesforce Hulk becomes professor Bruce B... actually Shray Sharma. On his website you can find his instructor-led webinars where you will feel like you are back in school. Shray offers a free Salesforce Admin & App Builder course where you will learn everything from Cloud Computing concepts to Data Modeling with section assignments. In addition to the Developer course you can pay a fee to access the videos like Learning Apex basics, Deployment processes, Heroku, etc. If you are looking for an overall deep understanding of concepts or preparing for a certification exam—this is for you.
Iman’s Webinars
Iman is a Master Solution Engineer at Salesforce. Every Tuesday and Thursday he hosts 30-minute, fast-paced webinars that help you better understand Salesforce and take full advantage of the platform. If you are looking to learn and catch some of Iman’s contagious enthusiasm check him out. From content for Newbies, webinars on third party app resources like Conga Composer & E - Signature, as well as a great community where you can post a question and get a solution— Iman is a great resource.
Salesforce YouTube Channel
Quick and easy to consume content straight from the mothership. The Salesforce Youtube Channel has demos explaining their products, testimonials on how businesses use it, to content from their Events and Dreamforce. Pay attention to the release date to make sure you are following the most recent updates.
Adding in GTD
One thing to keep in mind as you dive into these resources is that we live in the information age and, I will have to quote our CIO Jason Atwood quoting David Allen here, “Your brain is for having ideas, not holding them.”
The practice of Allen’s GTD (Getting Things Done) can help us keep track of what we’re learning and our plans for progress. For example, you can use Google Docs for taking notes while watching videos. Then supercharge your visual learning practice by keeping track of these and other favorite resources with bookmarks or lists. A number of Arkys swear by Evernote for list management. It’s also no secret we’re huge fans of OmniFocus to keep our busy schedules and sanity intact. For example, you can set a repeating project to remind you whenever you wish to review those lists. For more about OmniFocus and how to master it, check out this post from Arkus founder Jason Atwood on the OmniFocus blog or this podcast featuring Jason on the OmniShow talking about installing GTD in an organization.
What learning styles do you associate with? Which resources do you use to truly understand Salesforce? Comment on Salesforce Success Community, or tweet directly on me Twitter @iva_mandic7.
