The skill gap - Intro

Salesforce admins are in high demand

The demand for skilled Salesforce administrators has skyrocketed as companies seek to optimize their operations and improve customer experiences.

However, every company that I meet with (and that’s mostly what I do nowadays) tells me one of two stories:

1. They can't find the right candidate with the necessary skills and experience for the job.
2. Their in-house team is struggling to keep up with the GTM requirements and therefore either needs to grow or a-priori acknowledge that some required optimization will simply not happen.

Both of these scenarios eventually result in a higher cost for the company and a poor experience for the GTM organization.

But what is the underlying reason for this problem? What is the root cause of the constant dissatisfaction from CRM management in many companies?

The skill gap - explained

There is an ever-growing gap between the requirement of the company from its CRM and what the team is capable of doing.

Why is this happening?

On one hand, we have the company’s needs from its CRM, which is a multiplication of the following parameters:

1. GTM complexity - how many funnels/motions are in play
2. International GTM - adds to motion complexity
3. Legacy GTM
4. Tech stack complexity
5. Company velocity
6. PLG motions require the CRM to optimize as quickly as other “online” funnels
7. CRM functionality - Salesforce is constantly evolving, not becoming simpler, but rather adding robustness and depth

On the other hand, when we look at SF admin candidates, a simple framework to evaluate them would be using an XY axis of “SF knowledge” and “GTM experience”.

A candidate with high rankings on both axes is highly desirable, but finding such a candidate is rare. As Salesforce continually evolves and expands its platform, it becomes increasingly challenging to maintain a skilled position as an admin. Additionally, GTM is constantly evolving with new technologies, and as a result, the relative position of a candidate is dynamically shifting over time.

How can admins get better with their skills?

While learning Salesforce is more accessible than ever, thanks to Trailhead, the trailblazer community, and numerous Salesforce courses, being skilled at Salesforce is an entirely different matter. It requires understanding the business requirements, hands-on Salesforce experience, and the ability to keep up with the constantly updating feature set.

All of that takes time.

What should admins do to get more GTM experience?

1. No shortcuts - spend time with GTM teams, and experience various motions in the trenches.
2. Attend GTM-related events: Salesforce hosts several events throughout the year, including Dreamforce and various regional events, where sales and marketing professionals come together to share insights and best practices.
3. Engage with third-party applications: Salesforce has an extensive ecosystem of third-party applications and integrations that can help companies with their GTM strategies.
4. Participate in training and certification programs: Salesforce offers several training and certification programs that cover various aspects of sales and marketing, including the Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud certification

Well, all of this takes a lot of time.

So moving up these axes takes a lot of time.

Not only that, but the axes themselves are expanding as Salesforce becomes more complicated with new features across Sales Cloud, Service and Marketing Cloud, reporting, and lightning components. Furthermore, GTM is also becoming more complicated, with companies deploying more GTM motions than ever, such as PLG, B2B, B2C, ABM, LBM, and partner selling. Companies also scale faster than ever, making optimization essential for efficiency, and admins are responsible for ensuring that they support business needs.

The combination of the increasing complexity of Salesforce, GTM, and the need for growth optimization results in a significant SKILL GAP. Candidates often lack the necessary skills and experience to deliver the value that companies seek, leading to a frustrating experience for both admins and organizations.

How does Sweep help solve the skill gap?

Sweep was created with a single-minded thought - to make admins’ lives easier.

In order to accomplish this, we strive to make admins better on both axes described above.

Skills - making complex SF automations/actions/configurations accessible to admins, allowing them to move faster through their backlog and focus on planning and strategy rather than firefighting.

GTM experience - while we can't compensate for actual experience, we surface best practices for admins that are relevant to their use case, what should be the architecture of their LBM motion?  And how does that connect their ABM motion? How should they bake partner channel sales in their existing architecture and what in god’s name is MEDDIC - We constantly work on refining these best practices and our plan is to share it publicly very soon.

Getting started is easy, you see all the “schedule a demo” buttons around you, feel free to contact me directly at ido@sweep.io - I’ll be more than happy to show you what it's all about.