This is the forty-second post in my blog series in which I feature people I know from the community: Salesforce employees, MVPs, User Group Leaders, Partners, and honestly, anyone who I’m connected with who is willing to share with me the answers to five simple questions. I hoping that this blog series will help everyone out in the community get better connected to others who are either like them, can help them, are nothing like them, can’t help them, or are simply people they haven’t met yet! After all, a stranger is simply a friend you don’t know yet.
For me, one of the greatest strengths of the Salesforce Ecosystem is its people and the connections that are shared.
So, if you are brave enough, even if you’ve never met me in person, fill out this form and I’ll feature you in an upcoming post. (In case I have confused anyone, the questions on the form about our relationship refers to you, the reader, and me, the author, Eric Dreshfield, and not the featured person in this post.) Just beware, by completing the form, you are giving me permission to use that information in a future post, as well as allowing me to interject some of my own thoughts into your responses!
And now I introduce the 2-time Salesforce Certified, Ben Bolopue.
What’s your job title? Salesforce Administrator, Quanex Building Products. (EFD – When Ben completed my form with all his details he actually listed his job title as: Salesforce Administrator/CRM Geek/Salesforce Kool Aid Consumer. I suppose that means he’s “All in” with the Salesforce platform and ecosystem.)
What does that mean you do? I’m the (goal) keeper of all things CRM related. On paper… I’m to facilitate the development and upkeep of CRM based systems/processes intended to standardize and/or improve the overall efficiency of day-to-day operations in: Customer Service, Quality Assurance, Tech Services, Sales and Marketing… and whoever else wants in really. In reality, I do my best to pull from my experience as a Continuous Improvement Coordinator and lifelong geek in order to make people’s work lives better, easier, more enjoyable and efficient. All via Salesforce, of course! (EFD – Oh boy…you’ve got it bad, but it really sounds like you LOVE your job and all the ways you can make an impact at your company.)
How long have you been involved with Salesforce.com (as a customer and/or an employee)? I first logged into Salesforce back in November of 2011 and have been my company’s Admin ever since. Literally… the first time I logged into (ever even saw the login page of) the system, I did it as an admin. Don’t get me wrong, Salesforce being as intuitive as it is, I was able to find my way around it pretty quickly. Also, I was fortunate enough to attend a week-long “Beginning Admin” class in Minneapolis a few months after I took over our org. It was HUGELY helpful in getting my feet wet with some of the more complex features of the system. It was definitely a zero to 60 in under three seconds kind of experience, though! (EFD – Starting your Salesforce career as an Admin…wow, and having to figure some of it our on your own. Whoa…and Trailhead did not exist back in 2011 either.)
Bacon or sausage? Can’t I have both? Don’t make me decide
What’s more important: Who you know, or what you know? Wow… Personally I think it’s more a matter of how you use WHAT you know to help WHO you know. Loads of people are experts in some or most parts of “something”. Which is great, but unless those folks are able to make huge, sweeping changes that make a difference in some part of life for the masses using their knowledge of said “something”, the impact (specific to their area of expertise) they have is most likely going to be highly localized. Now… if that same expert made it a point to share, even a small amount of their knowledge on a regular basis, the ripple effect kicks in and the potential impact of their efforts can grow exponentially. (EFD – Uh, So that’s a “both”?)
How did our relationship start, and when? I believe it was early Spring, 2016, and our relationship started the same way as almost all relationships… on Twitter of course! You play a large role in the Salesforce Community and post wonderful Tweets involving bacon. It was really just a matter of time before a conversation started between us! Long story short, knowing that you’d been around the Salesforce block several times and that you seem to also recognize bacon as a food group, I wrote you looking for insight and guidance. You, in turn, responded with kindness, openness and the insight and guidance I sought. Thanks, Eric. (EFD – Ok, so this is supposed to be about YOU, but thanks for the kind words, none the less. )
And now the bonus question – What’s one fact about you that few people know, that will surprise me and my blog readers? I contemplated being a vegetarian for a time. I was young and highly impressionable. Not to say there’s anything wrong with being a vegetarian, but for those that know me… it’s probably the last thing you’d expect me to think! You see, when I was little (5-6 years old-ish) my family was pretty poor. We lived with my grandfather who was a retired farmer and whose farm had sat unused for probably 25 years at the time. I’m not sure whose idea it was, but somebody decided that a good way to save some money, would be to purchase a calf from a neighboring farm, raise it and (eventually) eat it. Somewhere along the lines, this cow became mine. At least to me it was. I named it Leon and made it a point to spend time with him whenever I could. Leon being a gigantic cow and me being a little boy, I wasn’t able to do things that most kids would with their pets. There were no games of fetch, no going for walks and yard clean-up was never less than a two person job. My parents, seeing how attached I’d become to Leon and not having accounted for how much a cow would cost to raise, decided to sell Leon back to the neighboring farm. I-Was-Devastated. Shortly after I watched the farmer come to take Leon away, I overheard a conversation about how “the steaks probably wouldn’t have been very good anyway” and how “it would’ve cost too much to have a butcher come out all the way out for one cow”. Putting two and two together, I realized what Leon actually was and where he was headed. Almost made a vegetarian out of me. Almost! (EFD – I actually know someone who did become a vegetarian after realizing that hamburgers came from cows! As for me, the only way I could be a vegetarian is if Bacon was a vegetable, but we all know Bacon comes from pigs, which are most certainly NOT a vegetable.)
You can find Ben on Twitter.
