In this section, I also want to share a tip on how you can save money and get a discount on taking the Salesforce exam. This is not any illegal hack, and we won’t be hacking into the CEO’s Salesforce account to get the needed codes. Salesforce occasionally hosts free training events called Salesforce Certificate Days, where if you sign up and participate, you’ll be rewarded with a discount code for a selected Salesforce exam. These trainings cover various topics related to Salesforce exams, so if you participate in a training related to the Salesforce Certified Administrator exam, you’ll get a discount for that exam. Salesforce Certificate Days are recurring events, so I recommend keeping an eye on Salesforce-related events on social media or visiting the dedicated page: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/credentials/cert-days. It’s worth it because the codes you receive can discount the exam by up to $100, which is half the price. Michał, who is my friend and currently a Salesforce Consultant, whom I have been supporting in his Salesforce learning journey, recently told me that the Salesforce Certificate Days made a huge impact on his learning growth, understanding of Salesforce features, and exam preparation. Michał, who was a customer support manager previously but wanted to change his work profile, is now a successful Salesforce expert working for one of the Salesforce consulting Partners. Michał could be your inspiration to try Salesforce Certificate Days.
Salesforce Trailblazer Community
If you’re not familiar with the Salesforce Trailblazer Community yet, I recommend catching up quickly because, as I’ve already mentioned, it was a game-changer for me when it came to learning Salesforce. To visit the Salesforce Trailblazer Community, go to https://trailhead.salesforce.com/trailblazer-community and select the topic that interests you at the moment. The following screenshot shows what a question on the Trailblazer Community forum looks like:
Figure 12.4: Trailblazer Community topic example
The Salesforce Trailblazer Community is a place where users ask questions and other users can respond to them! How to use it in your Salesforce learning? It’s very simple! I just tried to be a person who analyzes the problems posted there by other users and provides them with answers. I wasn’t always the first, and my answer wasn’t always ultimately chosen by the author as correct (it was correct, but not the first correct one), but thanks to analyzing real problems or challenges faced by Salesforce users, I delved deeply into Salesforce setup. I got to know the pains of Salesforce admins, their configurations, and most importantly, I learned how they deal with creating, configuring, or sometimes even working around certain things in Salesforce. This is invaluable knowledge, especially if you don’t deal with Salesforce daily and are only learning it through Trailheads. Trailheads are great, and I don’t want you to misunderstand me, but Trailheads present a somewhat ideal world, an ideal setup for an ideal user. In practice, it’s often a bit different, and that’s what you’ll discover by visiting the Trailblazer Community. Suddenly, you’ll find that not every Salesforce instance is configured the same way, and even standard Objects are used in very different ways. Personally, what actively participating in the Trailblazer Community gave me was an expansion of horizons and knowledge of Salesforce setup in various ways. My previous Salesforce instance was very simple and practically unchanged out of the box.With Trailblazer Community, I could look at other setups, use other Salesforce features, and explore the challenges they entail. For example, that’s where I learned the most about using Salesforce Flows, acquiring knowledge that I still use to this day. Additionally, I dealt with problems from companies in different industries, which also expanded my Salesforce skills.