Have you ever been asked to take a job outside your realm of experience? That happened to Steve Harris, now Applications Manager at Thompson Pump & Manufacturing.

Steve was asked to lead the charge in deploying Salesforce company-wide. At the time, he had very limited IT experience. But to move the company forward — and his career forward, too — he decided to give it a chance. Steve learned as much as he could to unify all of Thompson Pump’s employees on a single platform, and he did it through Trailhead, Salesforce’s free, online learning platform.

Two years later, Steve streamlined Thompson Pump’s sales process, maximized productivity, and enabled the company to build deeper relationships with its customers. In addition, Steve excelled in his new career path, discovering that he had a passion for something he didn’t previously know much about.  

Steve sat down with us to share how his career change has transformed his life and helped Thompson Pump grow.

Q. What motivated you to learn Salesforce, and how did you get started?

A: When I was asked to take on this new role to lead our Salesforce implementation, I wasn’t originally trained as an IT professional. So to get started with Salesforce, I used Trailhead, and it was a huge help for me. It's a really fun way to learn about the platform and it was especially fun interacting with other Admins around the world who were in the same position as me.

It eventually became a competition with myself, and that’s what really motivated me. I started setting small goals for myself — to reach 50 badges, 100 badges, and so on.

I also joined online communities on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Chatter of Salesforce MVPs and Admins. For example, I joined a private Twitter messaging group called OhanaGIFParty that MVP Monica Sandberg set up in 2017 for people who were attending TDX17. There are 50 of us in the group and we have talked at least every day since TDX17. When you have a whole community backing you up, believing in what you can do, and helping you out while you face struggles, it’s inspiring and can help you accomplish great things.

Q. How did Thompson Pump manage such change across a growing organization?

A: Teamwork! I sat down with individuals in various departments that would be interacting with Salesforce, and we were able to agree on process changes together. With their guidance, we progressively started to notice change.

When users started to recognize the value and also see the potential that Salesforce brings to our organization, more users started changing their daily habits. No one likes change, so it truly takes everyone’s participation to evaluate what they do on a daily basis and see where they can implement change to make the company more efficient. Once users realized we were using Salesforce to make them more efficient, they could see the results, and change started occurring.

Q. How did the adoption of technology impact a growing business like Thompson Pump?

A: Due to the size of the business and the fact that it's family-owned, we did most of our customer tracking manually before implementing Salesforce, and most of our communication through email. There wasn’t any centralized place for us to track leads and their conversion.

Implementing Salesforce has changed our business productivity immensely. We’re saving about 15-20% of the company’s overall order entry time. A big part of that was taking the time to process each order from 30 minutes to 5 minutes. And with approximately 30-40 orders needing to be processed every day, it has really made a positive impact. I feel very honored to have been one of the individuals leading the implementation of such an effective technology.

Q. What advice do you have for people who are looking to change their careers to impact their business?

A: Don’t be afraid to learn new things from scratch. So many free resources are available for folks who are just starting out and are interested in Salesforce. I recommend starting out with the Admin Beginner trail in Trailhead. If you filter modules by “Admin” and “Beginner,” you’ll be able to start with the basics. From there, once you gain more knowledge, you can move on to “Intermediate” and “Advanced” modules.

I also think it’s extremely helpful to connect and engage with Salesforce MVPs like Jennifer Lee, Monica Sandberg, and many others. There’s so much knowledge shared across the Trailblazer Community, and for me, that simple networking opened up a whole new world of possibilities. When I shared my experience with other admins, I noticed I wasn’t alone in my trials and tribulations. The community really enabled me (and encouraged me!) to get the right technology in place to help Thompson Pump grow.

This blog post is one in a series of blogs celebrating National Small Business Week 2018. Looking for more Small Biz Week content? Check out these surprising stats in our 10 Things You Don’t Know About Small Businesses blog.

Salesforce can help you find more customers, win their business, and keep them happy so you can grow your business faster than ever. Learn more about our small business CRM solutions or follow us on Twitter @SalesforceSMB and on LinkedIn at Salesforce for Small Business. Join the conversation with #SalesforceEssentials.