Salesforce Trailblazers We Love: Lucas Felman
The Salesforce Ohana is truly something special, isn’t it? Join us as we introduce you to some of our favorite trailblazers. First up, analytical, well-rounded, and systems-focused Lucas Felman shares how he got his start in the Salesforce ecosystem, his favorite Salesforce resources, the best-kept Salesforce secret, his Salesforce prediction, and more!
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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Andrew Duncan 0:16
Hello, thank you, everybody for joining us today. My name is Andrew Duncan with cloud adoption solutions. And we have another great, great Trailblazers we love guest. Thank you so much, Lucas, for joining us today.
Lucas Felman 0:27
Hi, everyone. Yeah, Lucas.
Andrew Duncan 0:30
So for those who might not know you, and don’t know about your time at cloud adoption solutions, could you tell us a little bit about yourself? And you know, what you do here?
Lucas Felman 0:39
Yeah, sure. So, I lead our Salesforce practice, kind of so I’m our technical solutions architect, architect kind of person. And then, you know, with that, I also still do the delivery and the building and kind of just oversee our whole Salesforce practice of the business.
Andrew Duncan 0:58
Yeah, jack of all trades. I know, I spend a lot of time asking you questions, that’s for sure. So yeah, definitely a trailblazer. And someone who’s been involved with Salesforce for a while. So yeah, thanks for for joining us today. So I guess we’ll start with the beginning. I think that’s, you know, a great place to start. You know, tell us about your introduction into the world of Salesforce. And like, you know, what got you started in your, you know, role as a trailblazer?
Lucas Felman 1:21
Yeah, sure. It’s actually a pretty interesting story. I wanted a career change. And that was obviously a little bit later in life. So I was like, Well, what can I do to get out of the career I was in, I was actually in the trades, I was an electrician. And so I found out about Salesforce. From Shannon Gregg, that also works to cloud option solutions. And she kind of turned me on to the platform. So I just got on the trailhead. I mean, I’ve always been interested in computer science, right. And, you know, for a long time since I was young, so I kind of had the background. And actually a lot of that relates over from being an electrician. But I just dove into trailhead and start learning on my own at nighttime and weekends. And, you know, just picked up the platform pretty quickly. And then I got my admins certification pretty quickly, and just kept learning more and more and more, as we all need to do really to just stay on top of all of the changes that Salesforce is always making or the updates or the change, you know, the new products they’re putting out. So yeah, I just enjoyed it a lot. And I still enjoyed today.
Andrew Duncan 2:23
Yeah, well, ya know, being an electrician is a lot of problem solving, just like being a Salesforce admin and developers so. Yep. Really very similar. Yeah. So being someone who was doing all that learning on your own, I know, I think your time of like learning Salesforce was like a record pace. I remember when he told me how many weeks it took you to learn. So being a Salesforce admin, I was kind of blown away. You know, as someone who’s experienced like that, what’s your favorite, like, you know, tool to like, learn, Salesforce says, What’s the best resource to you, that someone can use to learn more.
Lucas Felman 3:06
It’s still trailhead, for sure. It does the best. But I would say after that. Even if you’re not getting paid, just volunteering, just shadowing, having someone give you real life scenario problems, like, you know, edge cases, and just business requirements to start solving problems, or making silly you know, building solutions, right? Even if they’re, you’re not gonna like deploy them or give them to the client, but actually doing real things, I think, is the best way to help you learn in a quick, the quick and efficient manager. Like, yeah, manner. Trailhead is really good. But like you still don’t really learn. You don’t get that full on the job training.
Andrew Duncan 3:05
Sure. Yeah. And I know that that hands on situation definitely helps. Especially when you’re in a time crunch with a client and you have a being pulled a million different directions. Yeah,
Lucas Felman 4:01
yeah. So however, you can do that. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t recommend ever trying to do it alone. Some people say like, oh, just go volunteer for a nonprofit, but then you get underwater with all the things that they want you to fix. And you can get lost very quickly. So or worse, mess up their org, or mess up their order. Yeah, so like, find a mentor, find someone that is a consultant or working in the ecosystem and just kind of have them pass you some of these solutions or building, you know, and have them give you the requirements, and then you could kind of build it in your own Dev. org and come up with your own solution.
Andrew Duncan 4:34
Yeah, thank you so much. That’s great. And as someone who I know, we lean on really, you know, hard with like, you know, internally, always asking you to take on these really big projects and you work with a lot of different types of clients. So I know you’ve seen a lot of different Salesforce orgs what to you is the best kept Salesforce product secret, like what’s something that you’re seeing used really well and you think a lot of others could benefit from it.
Lucas Felman 4:57
I really think the platform itself like people forget Salesforce in the background is a full platform that you can develop on. So like, right you have your Sales Cloud and your service cloud. But say you want to build more things, build more apps, just internal use, whatever they may be. You can get the cheaper Salesforce platform license, and kind of put more people in your Salesforce or with custom objects, integrations, whatever you might want to do, you know, in the back, round, it is a platform. Also, it’s not just a sales and service tool.
Andrew Duncan 5:34
Yeah. Which is a totally different answer than we’ve gotten so far with our other guests. So that’s great. And I think, you know, that shows kind of your experience with making the tool the best the best it can be. So for someone who’s like really plugged in, and you’re seeing, I know, you see what clients are doing and how people are utilizing different things, you know, could you make like a Salesforce prediction? It doesn’t have to be you don’t have to be Nostradamus. It doesn’t have to be super extreme. But do you have something that you think is coming in the future?
Lucas Felman 6:01
Mmm hmm. That’s a tough one. Um, something coming in the future with Salesforce? Well, I think you’re gonna just keep seeing more and more different industries. Start using the platform, you know, all over the world, whether it’s financial services or higher, you know, the higher education cloud that they have now, but I think they’re just they’re just gonna keep making more and more industry cloud as a call it, you know, within the breakout of the industries, and just kind of keep finding more and more people to use it. Because, you know, it is a really great tool and platform for everyone.
Andrew Duncan 6:42
And I guess that means new customizations that are industry specific and more training for you and the team.
Lucas Felman 6:48
Yeah, right, more more package, you know, more installed packages based on the industry to maintain and review and usually that means more complex architecture. Yeah. Yeah,
Andrew Duncan 7:02
absolutely. Well, I know you’re a man of many talents. So you know, outside of Salesforce. So what’s something that you’re like, really into right now? I know, you have a lot of hobbies. So like, what’s something that you think somebody else, you know, might might look at and say, Wow, that’s really cool. I want to try that.
Lucas Felman 7:17
I mean, yeah, my favorites are off. You know, mountain biking, like, true off road, downhill type mountain biking, snowboarding, with me, my favorite would probably have to be my cooking, just home cooking, you know, you have to eat three times a day, why not enjoy it, make it a meal, make it fun, share it with your friends, share it with your loved ones and share it with your neighbors. So that would be you know,
Andrew Duncan 7:44
cooking, any new, any new books that you’re you’re reading through a new recipe books that you’re cooking
Lucas Felman 7:49
through? Ah, let’s see a new one. I got well, there’s a crazy person. Not crazy. Like a cookbook is kind of what how the person is from Australia. It’s called Nat When I recommend but the one I really recommend, like everyone should have. It’s like the food Bible. Okay, it’s called Kenji Lopez. Yeah. And the book is called The Food Lab. And it’s like this thick, like 700 Plus pages. And it kind of just, it’s not just recipes, but it’s the whole science behind them. So kind of goes along with Salesforce, right? Like you get computer science. You like the theory in the background? So pick up Kenji Lopez FoodLab, you’ll learn a lot more about food than you ever knew was possible.
Andrew Duncan 8:40
Yeah, there you go. You heard it here. First, we’ll put a description to that book in the bio for those who might want to go look it up. You know, Lucas, thank you so much for being here. I know you’re, you’re incredibly busy. But I think people do have some something to learn from you. So what we’re going to do is put your information on your social media, your handles and your email in the description so people can reach out to you with their questions, whether it be you know, career wise, or just trying to get you know, a mentor, like you know, learn more in the industry. See what you’re up to, you know, we’ll put the those those pieces of information there. But thank you so much for being here today.
Lucas Felman 9:11
Yeah, welcome. You know, happy to be here and happy to share my love of Salesforce.
Andrew Duncan 9:16
Yeah. Thank you so much. Well, everybody, thank you so much for being here for a another installment of Trailblazers we love. I’m Andrew Duncan with cloud adoption solutions. A what? 100% women own Salesforce partner, make sure you reach out to us with any questions you might have about Salesforce. We’re always here for projects and to answer questions for you. And Lucas, you know, you never know he might be on that call. So give us a shout. Let us know what you’re thinking. Please subscribe and like this video. Thank you so much, everyone. Lucas, thank you and have a great day.
Lucas Felman 9:43
Thanks, everyone.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
salesforce, trailhead, learn, platform, trailblazer, electrician, solutions, cooking, industry, cloud, called, lucas, client, work, give, volunteer, making, building, customizations, great
