Be a discerning decision-maker. Be a Salesforce Business Analyst.
By using both project management and technical skills, Business Analysts dig into multiple data sources to provide companies with key business insights and actionable recommendations. Learn how Toni V. Martin built her Salesforce Business Analyst career, one action plan at a time.
Salesforce Business Analysts — or BAs — understand that a quick fix isn’t always the answer. They take the long view when it comes to offering business solutions.
They use their extensive knowledge of the Salesforce Platform to create detailed action plans that break larger projects into smaller, more digestible processes so they can turn requests into realities.
The many hats of a BA
Although BAs have to assess business requests from a technical standpoint by asking some tough questions about system requirements and feasibility, they need more than tech skills to be successful.
A BA must wear many hats: project manager, project planner, researcher, negotiator… The list goes on.
Toni V. Martin, a BA for NCR in Atlanta, Georgia, wears all of these hats proudly but suggests that “bridge builder” might be the best way to describe her role.
“So the Business Analyst role is typically a bridge between the business side, which may not have that understanding of Salesforce and what it can do, and the IT or technical side, which might be more Admins and Developers,” Toni explains.
“A Salesforce Business Analyst has to be really steadfast in their knowledge and say, ‘Let’s find out what you want to do first, and then we can talk about the solution later on.’”
Shifting career gears
Although Toni–an incredibly accomplished leader in the BA community — is steadfast in her own technical expertise today, she started off on a very different career path. She earned a degree in English and initially held positions in marketing and public relations.
But she still wasn’t where she wanted to be professionally, despite excelling in these roles. “I was approaching one of those birthdays where you stop and think, ‘Okay, what am I doing?’ And I said, you know, I’ve got to find something that I truly enjoy that pays more.”
Playing at the back of her mind was a job she held previously, in which she used Salesforce and served as a de facto Salesforce Administrator.
She soon recognized that she could combine her experience with Salesforce with many of her other business skills and pivot into a career as a BA.
“The thing that I love is that [the BA role] allowed me to merge kind of all the skills I had and all the experience I had from other jobs… and put those together and really package myself as a Salesforce Business Analyst.”
In-demand skills
This package of deep Salesforce knowledge and familiarity with business processes pays off — literally.
Research shows that the average salary in the US for a Salesforce BA is $104,000. And it’s just one of the many in-demand roles in the Salesforce ecosystem, which, according to reports, is expected to grow by 3.3 million jobs by 2022.
A total of 6,522 BA jobs have been created in the US in the last 12 months alone.
Building BA skills with Trailhead
Just as there are a ton of opportunities for BAs, there are also a ton of options aspiring analysts can explore when they’re ready to take the next step.
Resources such as Trailhead — the fun way to learn — Salesforce’s gamified learning platform that anyone can use to build their skills.
Here, you’ll find the Build Your Business Analyst Career on Salesforce trailmix, offering a great jumping-off point. But as Toni explains, several other — maybe less obvious — learning journeys will give burgeoning Business Analysts an edge.
“One great resource is the Learn Salesforce Agile Practices trail on Trailhead… [It] is really helpful to know the structure and the processes that guide the Agile methodology.”
Toni also recommends taking the Learn Drucker School MBA Essentials trail to understand the connection between larger business objectives and Salesforce tasks, as well as the Culture of Feedback module, which gives BAs tips for communicating with people at every level of a business.
The invaluable Trailblazer Community
The Salesforce Business Analyst group that Toni started within the Trailblazer Community is another super resource.
“It’s just a helpful community of people who just kind of share what it’s like to be a Salesforce BA.”
She continues, “And so right now there are more than 1,400 people in this group and we share best practices, we answer questions. People have uploaded templates and different resources to support anyone who’s interested in becoming a Salesforce BA or in getting better at being a Salesforce BA.”
Toni also suggests tapping into other non-Salesforce resources, including the International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA), a professional organization that provides BAs with relevant content such as best practices, processes, and procedures.
Embrace what you know
Toni’s final bit of advice is simply for those interested in becoming BAs to embrace what they already know.
“I think people would be surprised… that a lot of what they’re already good at and a lot of what they’re already doing are things that are part of the BA job description. That’s one of the things that makes Salesforce such an amazing career path. Someone who doesn’t have a technical background, who doesn’t have an Information Sciences degree… can find a career in technology.”
Ready to start your Business Analyst career?
Learn more about Toni’s road to becoming a Business Analyst by listening to her episode on the Trailblazer’s Guide to Careers podcast. Then, start skilling up by completing the Build Your Business Analyst Career on Salesforce trailmix.
