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Jennifer Cole is a Trailblazer | Salesforce

4 May 2023 · 3 min

Watch on YouTube

2:48

Short interview/profile video in which Jennifer Cole describes her path into software and Salesforce administration. She explains moving from a large, supportive organization where she felt limited to a smaller company as a solo admin so she could drive automation and broader impact. She reports a ~55% productivity increase across teams, approximately $208,000 in annual savings for the company, and that within a year she was promoted to manager; she also emphasizes mentoring, Trailhead learning, and community participation.

Questions this video answers

About 55% increase in productivity for all teams.

Approximately $208,000 per year.

About one year ("At a year's time mark I became a manager").

Solo Salesforce admin (owning the ecosystem).

Chapters

I think being a trailblazer means something different to everybody. Like there's no school course for trailblazers. There's no blueprint to follow. You get to make your own path. As a kid, I was definitely a puzzle fan. I loved taking things apart and putting them together. I loved figuring out how to make things work and to make things better. My journey into the software field is definitely a fun one. I kind. I fell into it, to be honest with you. Puzzles are in my DNA, but not coding. When I started learning Salesforce, I was at a large organization. It was a cozy space where I was surrounded by a lot of support. But at some point, after being at that organization for almost a decade, I hit that glass ceiling. It was a hard place to be in. I wrestled with myself a lot. I felt less and less like a change agent and more and more like a ticket. And that wasn't what a trailblazing admin meant to me. I knew I could do more automation. I knew I could bring bigger and better value to my business. And I knew I had to do it for the future me's. So I made the leap. I moved to a smaller organization where I could actually be a solo admin. Like, how scary is that? A solo admin going in there and owning an ecosystem. I had the ability to build solutions very quickly. It just kind of exploded of work exploded. Wait a minute. I think we can automate that. I think we can optimize that. Are you talking to that department? Because they've got something similar going on. The impact was near immediate. It was like a 55% increase in productivity for all the teams. That's like $208,000 of what I was saving for the company every year by giving people that time back. And it was just incredible to see at a year's time mark I became a manager. Mentoring my team absolutely brings me Jo Jen sparked to me the curiosity to understand the business, where it's all going and why we're constantly learning. Getting into Trailhead, making sure we're stretching ourselves, the community is just an amazing place. To know that something I'm sharing might actually help somebody else feels so rewarding. Where I was when I started out, I didn't know up from down in Salesforce, and the idea of being able to pay it forward now is a pretty cool one. It's been an amazing adventure to actually be in an ecosystem that I have my fingerprints on. You know, I feel like I and my team are now really making an impact.