Salesforce Days live sessions came to a close for Wave 1 on July 31. We know Salesforce partners have the #AlwaysBeLearning mindset, so don’t let your learning journey stop just because Wave 1 is came to an end.
Follow these four steps to continue learning, grow your skill set, and make the most out of Salesforce Days.
1. Complete credential preparation
After attending a Salesforce Days session, you may need some additional studying and preparation to earn a Salesforce credential. If you need to rewatch a session, almost all Salesforce Days session recordings can be found on-demand on the session tab of the event page. Filter for relevant events and catch the replay for sessions you may have missed. Note: You must be registered for Salesforce Days to view on-demand recordings.
Next, use Trailhead and Partner Learning Camp to continue on-demand learning at your own pace. Each Salesforce credential has a comprehensive exam guide to make sure you are ready to ace the exam.
2. Work towards a Salesforce credential
Continue your learning journey and earn a Salesforce credential. Credentials help advance your Salesforce career, grow your resume, and advance your partner organization’s standing in the Partner Program.
Key benefits for your Salesforce career: Gain global recognition as a Salesforce expert and prove your domain expertise with hands-on product experience. With Salesforce credential, you can accelerate your path to advancement and help you stand out. Be sure to showcase your experience on your resume and your Trailblazer.me profile.
Key benefits for your partner organization: Credentials count toward your Navigator status in the Trailblazer Score, which customers and Salesforce Account Executives use to evaluate partners. Your expertise will be reflected in the Partner Finder and in your AppExchange listing, allowing you to display your expertise to new customers. A popular use case for the Finder Tool is filtering for credentialed individuals. Consequently, the more credentials your partner organization has, the higher it will climb in search result rankings.
3. Share your #SalesforceDays excitement
Let your network know why you’re excited to be part of the Salesforce ecosystem and what you've learned from attending Salesforce Days sessions. Tell your network by showing off your flashy new badge and use the #SalesforceDays hashtag for a chance to be featured on the Salesforce partners social media channels. Download your badge today!
4. Stay updated! More sessions coming in October
Salesforce Days is coming back for one more month of live sessions. These sessions are designed to help you prepare for credentials and get your credential questions answered by a Salesforce expert. Join the Salesforce Days collaboration group in Partner Community to stay up to date. Pro tip: Sign up for weekly digest emails so you don’t miss a beat!
Learn tips from Cognizant on how to keep your team engaged during Salesforce Days
Salesforce Days is the premier partner learning event of the year. There have been 280+ live sessions, numerous opportunities to give back, and dozens of announcements from our team. But did you know many of our partners create amazing programs and initiatives to align with Salesforce Days?
I had the opportunity to meet with Mohamed Jassat, Senior Director, Salesforce Partner Development at Cognizant, to learn more about how Cognizant executes Salesforce Days. Read on to learn about their strategy.
Q: Salesforce Days takes place across a 3-6 month time period. How do you prepare internally for Salesforce Days?
A: Salesforce Days is a serious global program of events at Cognizant. As the early pioneers of the program several years ago, we’ve learned lessons from the event every year. Preparations begin weeks before official launch. We treat it like a client project with sponsorship from our senior leadership team. We create a project team made up of our Salesforce Associates and senior leaders.
As a global practice, we look at our practice capability, set global and regional credential targets based on current and future demand from our clients, and coordinate relevant certification activities. We also consider emerging and new technology such as Data Cloud and Industry Clouds, as well as the future with Einstein GPT from Salesforce, so we can stay ahead of potential demand from our clients. In addition, we promote ‘giving back’ programs for local communities because volunteering is a key pillar of Salesforce Days. We get very granular during the planning process to create a clear vision of what needs to be accomplished. And we follow this through with the creation of certification campaigns around our targets. It’s a collective effort and we bring everyone together to be successful; it’s truly a team effort. The end of Wave 1 culminates in an impressive celebration across Cognizant. Our largest number of Salesforce Associates are based in India; they stage an incredible event. It’s a personal favorite of mine!
Q: Great! I love how engaged your team is from leadership to a project team. Now, how are you keeping your team of associates and consultants engaged with Salesforce Days?
A: As we home in on the focus certification areas, we create learning support groups for our Associates. We identify internal subject matter experts to guide learning groups through a series of regular sessions to discuss what they have learned, respond to questions, and provide additional support on complex curriculum topics. These learning groups are beneficial as individuals prepare for exams. They promote collaboration, shared learning, and a sense of collective success.
Additionally, at the start of Salesforce Days we have a global and regional kickoff where we share our goals with everyone, followed by a midway review of our progress. Throughout the program, we recognize people for their efforts and reward them. This is exciting for our team and makes it one of our flagship events to celebrate with our Salesforce Associates, who we place at the heart of the program.
And finally, throughout Salesforce Days, we have our own communications plan. It’s used to gather momentum and engagement to motivate our teams to develop, learn, have fun, and add relevant certifications to their portfolio.
Q: Cognizant has been really successful with Salesforce Days. We see impressive attendance and credentials earned. Do you have any tips you would recommend to other partners?
A: There is always going to be a challenge with Associates’ time because the priority remains delivering success for our customers. After all, our clients should always be top priority. My advice would be to look for leadership commitment to allow consultants the time to learn and grow. Create small time blocks between project work as free study time. Associates must know they are able to take the time to study and attend training sessions to prepare for their certifications. It helps having a certification date agreed upon, so individuals know what they are working towards.
At Cognizant, we find that creating programs around Salesforce Days, such as hosting dedicated Certification Days and gamification, makes Salesforce Days a fun and engaging event for the team. Throughout Salesforce Days, we have events that celebrate our Associates’ successes, recognizing teams and individuals for innovation, engineering excellence, and customer success. Voluntary activities are a key pillar during Salesforce Days where we give back our time to the community. This really helps to promote teamwork and camaraderie amongst our teams.
