The last 6 weeks were an amazing time. A long relaxing vacation with friends and family.
There are a few things I learned for my Salesforce career. Today, I want to share three of them with you.
1. Road-Signs are amazing
One part of the vacation was a bike tour in Bavaria and Austria, mostly on dedicated bike tours. While all of it was amazing, riding in Austria was much more relaxed.
Austria has road signs for bikers everywhere while in Bavaria there were long stretches with no signs.
In Bavaria, without the dedicated signs, we had to check our phones constantly which was really annoying. In Austria, we could solely rely on the road signs to reach our goals. This made riding in Austria just so much more relaxing.
Takeaway: Have good, consistent signs for my User to bring them from Start to Finish. I will try to use Field Help Text, In-App Guidance, Dynamic Rich-Text Components, Guidance for Success and all other tools available.
2. Even a little support helps
We did the bike tour using E-Bikes, it was my first time on an E-Bike. Having E-Bikes made all the difference.
While I’m quite experienced riding my normal bike, the E-Bike allowed us to reach areas we would otherwise not even attempt.
We had the support setting of the E-Bike almost always on the lowest setting. Even that little but constant support helped so much. The key difference was, that the little support was there constantly and I could rely on it. That constant, reliable support gave me the confidence to try even the highest mountains.
Takeaway: Constant, even if small, support is more than the support itself. It gives the confidence to reach the goals. In my next project, I will try to offer a daily “Office Hour” for all Users to drop by and ask any questions they might have. I hope that constant, reliable support gives the Users a boost in confidence while using Salesforce.
3. If you are tired and hungry it’s working
As a summer tradition, I try to get into shape and lose some weight. Over the years I tried many different diet strategies. Only one of the different strategies provides reliable success: Always be hungry and tired.
If I eat enough to not be hungry anymore, I don’t lose weight.
If I don’t exercise enough to be tired, I’m not getting fit.
It sounds horrible, always being tired and hungry, but visualizing and talking about the goal kept me going. On top of that, I knew it’s only a couple of weeks, once I reached my goal I can stop being tired and hungry.
Takeaway: Change has to be a little painful/annoying to be effective.
Yes, I’d like to be nice to my Users but I need them to be “hungry and tired” for the project to be a success, after all it’s a digital transformation.
I will try to be transparent about the upcoming pain while constantly reminding them of how great life will be afterward.
Vinay Sail and Bibhu Prasad Pati ☁ have been the inspiration for that post, thanks.
