When to Consider Bringing in a Salesforce Admin
A question that every company who uses Salesforce asks, at some point in their growth is, “should we hire a Salesforce admin?”
While this is a pretty important question to ask, unfortunately, there is no cut and dry answer. It’s different for every company, based on their individual needs. However, with that being said, let’s take a look at some of the values of bringing on a Salesforce admin, and when to do so.
Why you would need dedicated admin support
So let’s start with why you would even need an admin in the first place. Salesforce Admins do more than just set up users in the system. A good admin is essentially the workflow builder, data buster and all around problem solver that keeps your company’s processes and data on track.
Often times, a small company will either have done a makeshift job installing and configuring Salesforce, or otherwise used a consultant to set everything up correctly at the beginning. Either way, over time, the system grows and needs to be maintained or tweaked here and there.
For mid-size to large companies, where having dedicated admin support is mandatory – these are the people that your in-house staff will come to whenever they need the system to accommodate some request or change, for example, sending congratulations emails to the new client when a deal is closed.
What type of Admin
When it comes to in-house admins, it is fairly straightforward. Many times, for small to mid companies, there won’t be a full time, dedicated Salesforce admin, but someone who has the basic skills, and does it part-time / as needed. In-house admins have the advantage of generally being faster to deliver results, they already know the system, and if you have enough work for them to do, they end up being more cost effective.
Of course, not every company has enough workload to justify keeping a full-time admin in house. If you want to outsource, there are plenty of options, from lone wolf Salesforce experts to implementation consultants to Salesforce admin companies. For the solo contractors, they can be a cost-effective option, however, it may be hard to verify their qualifications, and they may not always be able to respond right away.
There are many Salesforce partners and implementation consultants, who primarily install, configure and develop Salesforce solutions. They will have in-depth technical knowledge, especially if they installed your system, and so will know exactly how to make the changes you need. This does also come at the cost of the normal consultancy rate.
Finally, you can utilize Salesforce admin services, from companies who are dedicated to that sort of thing. These groups may have a couple to dozens of trained admins available at any given moment to handle your needs. Their advantage is response time. However, like the individual contractor, you need to do your research to ensure they really know Salesforce. Their rates generally vary as well.
When do you want to bring on a full-time admin?
There is no right or wrong ratio, but many companies start finding they need one full-time admin, somewhere between 30 and 40 users.
If you are a small to mid-size company and growing, you may want to get ahead and plan for the future. Keeping your long term grown plans in mind is always a best practice when hiring anyway.
Whichever way you choose to go, in-house, outsourced or hodge-podge, Salesforce Admin work will inevitably need to get done. Hopefully, this has given you a little bit more insight on the why you need to think about it, who to consider, and when it is necessary to bring in a Salesforce admin.
-Ryan and the CloudMyBiz Team
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CEO of CloudMyBiz Salesforce CRM consulting services with a deep knowledge in the lending industry. Taking keen interest in the project management side of operations, playing a vital role in the 31% YOY company growth. Strategic leader, mastering the ability to problem solve at every level of the business, providing effective solutions for clients.