Salesforce Career Converstions #8: Adam Weekes

Episode 8: Adam Weekes talks about his Salesforce journey from CRM Manager, to owning his own Consultancy and now being the Chief Visionary Officer at Aotrom.

Lee Durrant: Hello, it's RODcast time with me, Lee Durrant. Today's special guest is Adam Weekes, who's been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 12 years I think. So, we’ll have a good old chat with Adam about his career and how we got into it, and the difference for him in working as a contractor, then permanent. Loads of tips for you guys - looking into the Salesforce ecosystem for those of you that are in it and want to listen to someone who's risen to the ranks of Director as a Salesforce customer.

Lee Durrant: You'll be pleased to know I have a little bit of a cold, so I won't be talking quite so much in this one. And apologies if I'm slightly more nasal than usual, but hopefully it won't spoil your enjoyment of having listening to this podcast. Thanks. So, Hi, Adam. Adam Weekes, welcome to the podcast mate, how are you doing?

Adam Weekes: Thank you. I'm well, thank you.

Lee Durrant: Good, good, good. Thanks for joining us today, I know you're really busy as you have been for many, many years. So, I think you've heard of these before, I asked you to have a little listen, but just to let you know, this is really about us talking about your career in Salesforce. How you got into it and what's happened to you since, and perhaps any little tips or thoughts along the way that people listening could use, really. So, usually, the first question is actually, ‘what are you doing right now?’ And then we'll go back to the beginning.

Adam Weekes: Yeah, I suppose, right now I'm still in my home office where I spend an awful lot of time, chatting with you about Salesforce. That's probably the highlight of my day, because I'm quite an evangelist about the Salesforce ecosystem. And if anybody's ever met me at some of the events, they'll know I can talk the hind legs off a donkey when talking about Salesforce and the associated exciting pieces about that. But that wasn't really answering your question, I'm sure.

Adam Weekes: So, what am I doing right now? I'm helping organisations to implement Salesforce, which is quite a broad topic, of course. So more specifically, when you see particularly smaller, you look at the SMB side of the market there; you see this propensity to think, you've got a choice between Salesforce, which sounds expensive and it looks maybe complex, and then you've got... I won't mention any, but there are plenty of other CRM solutions that you can look at that all have a variety of strengths and weaknesses. Some of them are really good in certain areas, and you know, some in particular around the implementation are really simple - you pull out your credit card and 10 minutes later you're working. But there are limitations to that.

Adam Weekes: So, when you look at the difference between Salesforce as a CRM solution or as a platform really, and some of those others are more entry-level solutions, as I would view them. The big difference is that platform piece, you're buying into a whole ecosystem there. But what that does mean is, you can't just switch it on and say, ’Great, now we've got a CRM’. When you look at the Salesforce website, they'll tell you some fantastic metrics about... you'll see a 41% uplift in sales and your efficiency will go up, your costs will go down and everything, all of those things are potentially true, but they aren't necessarily true to be fair of any CRM mouth box.

Adam Weekes: So, you can instal any CRM and then think, "Fantastic, we're now going to be super-efficient: we've got CRM," the reality is you're not. What you're probably going to see is actually a drop in efficiency because you've got new processes to learn, new systems, new ways of working, et cetera. So what I try and do is work with my customers to think about their processes,