The leap from Salesforce professional to Salesforce Solopreneur is one of the most rewarding career moves you can make. It’s where your talent and time are rewarded fully.
After five years of running my own practice and through coaching others, I’ve identified the nine traits found in those who succeed. Let’s examine them.
Your Foundation
The nine traits are broken down into three separate pillars. The first pillar groups the foundational traits that represent your core skills and experience that give you the legitimate ability to deliver value to businesses using Salesforce.
1. Salesforce Knowledge and Work Experience
It should go almost without saying, but you need Salesforce-specific knowledge and real work experience.
That experience can come from working within a company as an admin, business analyst, product manager, etc. Or working in project delivery and support of external clients as part of an implementation provider. Or anything in between.
Wherever it may come from, I typically suggest having at least three years of experience before trying to work independently. Clients care about how you have solved similar issues to those they are dealing with. And your knowledge is where your confidence will come from.
How to nurture the trait: Keep working, and try to focus on depth rather than width in your knowledge. Better to know a few things very well than to sort-of know everything.
2. Current Network and Networking Ability
My first client came from my existing network. That should demonstrate that this trait is critical for success.
But what is your network? It should not be only your current and past coworkers. Make sure you stay connected with current and past clients, and the people you meet at Community events.
And to further expand your network, the best thing to do is to create content to educate others. Sharing your journey in the ecosystem establishes your personal brand.
How to nurture the trait: It’s never been easier to start building your network. So share your knowledge and use your voice. But I encourage you to use your authentic voice, and not the voice of AI alone.
3. Industry Specific Experience
How well you understand the way specific industries operate will open up opportunities. This knowledge will guide you towards your ideal customers.
Those are the people whom you will confidently help, because you understand their business reality and have likely solved problems that they have in the past.
For me, manufacturing and industrial processing formed my core knowledge. But when I transitioned to selling implementation services in the Salesforce ecosystem, I got to talk to hundreds of businesses about their current processes. There is no substitute for that.
How to nurture the trait: Ideally, learning about different businesses excites you. Before you start, make sure you have enough knowledge and experience of the industries you are most interested in. Yes, this may delay your solo start a bit. But it will ensure you have a solid foundation for starting your own business.
Your Support
With your foundation in place, let’s review the three key elements that will support your operation as an independent expert.
4. Ability To Manage Projects and Work Alone
Are you ready to be the Lone Ranger? If you are not, worry not! Operating solo does not mean you are working in isolation.
I always work as an embedded member of my client’s teams. Leading projects for them, and keeping them and myself on task. This way, I ensure the quality of the delivery of my services.
Knowing how to work alone and manage projects builds confidence with your clients. Maintaining engagement momentum is made easier if you actually care about the client’s success. Their success is always our goal!
How to nurture the trait: If your current role has no project management responsibilities, you should get more involved in understanding that element of the projects you take part in. While not a perfect substitute for the real thing, having an understanding of project management concepts will serve you well.
5. Business Acumen and Process-Oriented Thinking
You need to have the confidence that any business you step into, you will be able to ask the right questions to understand how the organization works.
In order to provide true value to your customers in the Salesforce ecosystem, you need to have that innate curiosity. Salesforce is an enterprise operations engine, facilitating processes for businesses is what we do.
As a kid in school, I could not care less about how biological things operated. So I was never very good at biology. But when it came to how things physically functioned – machines especially – I was all in. Process-oriented thinking, as an engineer, is my default mode of thinking.
How to nurture the trait: You don’t need to be an engineer, but it is important to start practicing breaking things down in step-by-step diagrams. The reason this helps you do your job well is that you simplify complex details into small elements that you can visualize more easily and better provide solutions for.
6. Client Management and Communication Skills
If you have never worked with clients, I don’t want you to be discouraged. Managing clients simply means taking responsibility for solving the problem, organizing and motivating individuals to get work done, and setting a clear direction.
The most important tool we have in managing clients is clear and consistent communication. When it comes to Salesforce implementation projects, I believe there is no such thing as too much communication.
If you’ve experienced projects in the past that were assigned to you that you didn’t care about, fear not. The beauty of working for ourselves is that we have a lot more control over finding clients we vibe with and actually want to help!
How to nurture the trait: Always communicate clearly, as this will drive progress in your engagements. More than anything, you need to genuinely care about the client’s success. If you don’t, it will negatively affect your management and communication style.
Your Passion
If your foundation is the road, and your support is the car, then your passion is the fuel! So let’s talk about how to nurture it.
7. Willingness To Invest In Yourself
When you believe in yourself and you believe in a dream and a goal for yourself, then you are always willing to invest in yourself.
The opportunity you have with Salesforce skills is that you can start a business without a significant financial investment. The key to starting a solo practice is giving yourself a runway to take flight from. That runway is the savings that allow you to separate a steady income for a given period of months. I personally started with a four-month runway, and having it gave me the confidence I needed to start.
How to nurture the trait: If working for yourself is a passion, some adaptation in your life may be necessary. When you are ready to start working solo, set a budget and start a savings strategy that will give you enough money in hand to step away from your job.
8. Entrepreneurial Spirit and Ability To “Sell”
Entrepreneurship has many definitions, but simply put, it is the ability to take calculated risks to better the lives of yourself and others.
What I have seen in life is that this spirit is almost a natural-born trait. I know I was certainly this way. One of my earliest childhood side hustles was working for a video game bot scripter. He would run automated players to collect items and store them in the bank of his account. And I was his virtual salesman for commission.
Now, selling as an independent expert feels a lot more genuine than what you may think sales looks like. It’s not pitchy and pushy; it’s finding ways to provide value for people who truly have a need for what you do best. If you are still thinking, “I can’t sell, I am terrified to do that,” then this journey may not be for you. But I encourage you to consider the idea that selling is really helping.
How to nurture the trait: Reflect on your life. Are you a passionate creator? Even if you have never started a business, do you feel the drive to work for yourself and build something? If yes, you have an entrepreneurial spirit. And with a clear picture of who you can help best, selling just becomes connecting.
9. You Need To Love The Idea Of Working For Yourself
While the first eight traits define your “how”, we finish the list with the most important element: your “why”. Why do you want to work solo?
This desire may be driven by the belief that you deserve the full value for your time. Or by the confidence that you can provide true value to companies alone. And even by the knowledge that you do not need a boss to tell you what to do.
Regardless of what drives you, you need to be excited by the opportunity to make your dreams and life goals a reality. Without this, you will struggle to put in the effort necessary to build your solo business. There will be tough days! But if you are in love with the idea of working for yourself, the toughest days will still be more rewarding than the best days when you are working for someone else.
How to nurture the trait: There is no secret sauce here. If you do not have these beliefs yet, you need to flip the switch in your brain. Even if it feels wrong at first. Believe in yourself and fall in love with the idea of building your life as a solopreneur. It’s all on you!
Final Thoughts
Now that you understand the elements that are important to your independent success, you should reflect upon each and see which areas you feel you can and should strengthen.
In reality, you can, and will, continue to grow in all of these areas as your career evolves.
If you are driven to work alone, you should make a plan for nurturing these traits. In order to help you do exactly that, I encourage you to take my Salesforce Solopreneur Readiness Assessment found here. It will help you gauge your level of confidence with each trait.
I wish you luck in your solo journey!
