Welcome to the seventh of my Salesforce Career Success Journey series. This series is focused on learning and sharing our career journey and hopefully encouraging others to pursue or continue their career on the Salesforce.com platform. Today, we have Amy Oplinger, who is one of the most bubbly and fun Salesforcers I’ve met. I met Amy virtually when she asked me to speak about #Trailhead4All at her first virtual Women In Tech Cleveland User Group meeting alongside Chris Duarte! =) Thanks for sharing your journey!
If you would like to share your Salesforce Career Success journey, submit here.
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Name: Amy Oplinger
Company: Silo Connectors, LLC
Job Title: Salesforce Administrator Consultant
Which Salesforce certifications do you have?
ADM201
How many Trailhead badges do you currently have?
67
[A.S. – My jaw dropped. Very inspired by you! Keep it up. ]
Describe what you do at your company.
I work on a team dedicated to delivering results and successful Salesforce.com implementations to our customers. I interface with customers to understand their needs in order to design, administer, and enhance their Salesforce instance accordingly.
Responsibilities include:
-Project management
-Coordinate with clients and developers on projects
-Meeting with customers (in person and over the phone)
-Recommend best practices to customers
-Prepare business documentation
-Create and manage custom objects, formula fields, validation rules, workflow rules, reports and dashboards.
-Prepare training plans, materials and documentation for customers, keep materials up-to-date, and coordinate ongoing training sessions.
Give us a snapshot of how you got your salesforce career started and/or how your career has developed.
I used SFDC as an end user for about 5 years in my sales career. I was lucky enough to work at a company looking to implement a CRM, and I suggested Salesforce. They made me part of the implementation team and their Super User! Learning more about the back end of Salesforce scratched an itch in my brain that sales by itself never could. I went to another company in a sales capacity, and quickly saw their SFDC instance was a mess. I took it upon myself to write up the issues I saw, how i could fix it, and how it would benefit them. My boss agreed, and made me their Administrator on the spot! While splitting my time between Admin and Sales, it became clear to me that I wanted my day to be filled with 100% Salesforce. I spoke to my manager, and because they were small, they couldn’t support a FT Admin. So, I graciously resigned, with the goal of pursuing my Salesforce dream. I put my resume online that day, and within 24 hours, I was contacted by a recruiter and immediately placed on the SFDC team at GE Lighting in Cleveland as a consultant. It was there I met Samir Patel (@SalesforceSamir) who would become my Salesforce mentor! Learning from Samir at GE was like being in Salesforce bootcamp..I learned a great deal very quickly. I am now happily in another consultant role, where I gain exposure to many different instances of Salesforce, each with their own unique needs. My dream of working 100% of my day in the platform came true very quickly, once I took the leap to pursue it!
[A.S. – How amazing is it that you get snatched up within 24 hours! Amazing… Proof that Salesforce is a place of great career opportunities.]
What advice would you give to someone who is developing their career on salesforce?
I would tell anyone interested in developing their career in the SFDC field is to JUST DO IT! There is a very unique and special passion shared by those of us working on this platform..and your itch won’t get scratched until you go for it! I also feel it’s very important to seek out a mentor..they can talk you through when you are having doubts or feeling overwhelmed! I was lucky enough to work with mine, but a the success community is so supportive, you are bound to also find many virtual mentors!
Speaking of mentors, do you have any tips on finding and approaching mentors?
I didn’t seek out a mentor, it just kind of happened because of our mutual love of Salesforce. Samir took a role in another state, so now I look to my Salesforce Community for mentorship…especially my WIT: Annie Shek Mason, Shonnah Hughes, Sarah Deutsch, Kristi Guzman, and Jennifer Lee! If you click with someone, put yourself out there and ASK them to be your mentor!!
[A.S. – I am happy to be a mentor buddy… be a springboard for ideas… or be your karaoke sidekick… haha]
Are you a leader or member of a user group?
Yes, I lead the Cleveland WIT UG, which was established November 2015. (Inspired by conversations I had with Toya Gatewood and Kristi Guzman at DF15!) We have 37 members!
Please name 1 person from the Salesforce community that you’d like to thank for supporting you on your journey.
I would like to thank Samir Patel . He helped me learn daily, and has pushed me to become better in my Salesforce knowledge, especially when I lacked confidence in my own abilities. I would not be where I am today without his support, and even though we work for different companies now, he is still my go to person to talk with about Salesforce.
[A.S. – I have GOT to meet Samir at some point in Denver.]
What’s the one Success Community group you can’t live without?
Women in Tech – Formerly Girly Geeks
[A.S. – Amen]
Follow Amy on:
Twitter: @salesforceamy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/acampbell3
AnnieForce 