Welcome Samantha Safin – Girly Geek of the Week!

Samantha S

You really must meet Samantha!  She is another WIT #RockStar!  Self taught, 2x Certified, aspirations of being a CTA, she is “roping” her family into the Salesforce world (yes, Mom and Hubby have dev orgs!), she and her mother are advocates of people with disabilities in tech (scroll down to read her mom’s interview with Mary Scotton!), she volunteers her data management skills and is just an all around awesome woman!

Me:  How & when did you start working with Salesforce?

Samantha: Like so many of us, I sort of fell into it by accident. I applied for an internal data analyst position at my company, and during the interview process, they said “Oh, yeah, and you’ll be administering Salesforce and Marketo.” I had never heard of either of those, and the concept of a CRM was so foreign to me at the time. But I went back to my desk that day, asked the Googles, and ended up watching the Who Sees What video series on YouTube. The entirety of the Getting Started series and a few more YouTube videos laters, and I just went in pretty much with a bulldozer.  #Amazing Start! ❤

Me:  What is your current role working with Salesforce?

Samantha: I am a solo admin, supporting approximately 40 users, spanning from Sales to our internal training team. And we keep expanding! We’re looking at implementing Service Cloud soon, which would be a lot of fun! Good Luck with the growth of your Salesforce instance!

Me:  What is your favorite thing to do in Salesforce and why?

Samantha: I love Process Builder and Validation Rules. My org’s data had never been cleaned before I took over, and there is something so satisfying about being able to control the quality of what’s going into our org. I like Process Builder because my users are always happy to hear that I can auto-populate fields on related records, so they don’t have to replicate efforts. And the fun of Validation Rules is making quirky error messages.  I have also recently become a big fan of Process Builder! ❤

Me:  Are you currently certified? And if so what certifications do you hold?

Samantha: I am a certified Advanced Admin and Platform App Builder, and I just registered for Platform Developer 1 (thanks to Sarah Deutsch for keeping me honest and Beth Breisnes for tweeting her success and inspiring me to take the plunge and sign up already!) Love those ladies!! and Good Luck!

Me:  What are some of your aspirations and/or goals when it comes to Salesforce?

Samantha: Recruit ALL the admins! I’ve got my mom roped in – she attended SED16 and was interviewed by Mary Scotton (http://www.maryscotton.com/2016/03/25/what-about-people-with-disabilities/)! And immediately after this, the hubby is signing up for his first dev org! #evangelizing My big pie in the sky dream, though, is to become a technical architect. I have a long way to go for that, but how cool would that be?!  What a fantastic article! and yesss ALL the admins! lol

Me:  Do you have any advice for women working with Salesforce?

Samantha: The kool-aid is as delicious as we all say it is, so join us by the punch bowl, ladies. You are in fantastic company here – I am inspired everyday by the women on this platform, humbled to be among them. This is your chance to make a difference, to reach your potential, so dive in! I second that! 🙂

Me:  What kinds of things are you involved in, and/or do you like to do outside of the Salesforce world?

Samantha: #SaaL, though, seriously. Love that. Thank you, Amy and Lauren for that – my shirt is ordered. If I am NOT looking at something Salesforce related, I’m either at work and working in Marketo, or I’m at home next to the hubby and the cat, in front of my PS4.  Yess! and THANK YOU for ordering your #SaaL shirt!  If you haven’t ordered one yet, there is still time!  ALL proceeds go to a great cause! eh hem … we will be donating to Black Girls Code and Girls Who Code SalesforceAsALifestyle! ❤

Me:  Are you part of a WIT Chapter?

Samantha: I am, yes! I am the leader of the West Michigan Women in Tech User Group. We had our first ever meeting in March, and our next one is April 28th, so if you’re in the area, please join us. Oh Congrats on being a new WIT Leader!

It was a pleasure getting to know you Samantha and thank you very much for sharing!

You are definitely an inspiration!

For those of you that want to follow Samantha, here are her links:
Linkedin:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthasafin
Twitter handle:  @thesafinhold
Sfdc Community link :  https://success.salesforce.com/_ui/core/userprofile/UserProfilePage?u=0053000000AKEEe
Blog:  http://polymathforce.wordpress.com

A little more about Samantha:

I am a reformed English major with a stupidly diverse work history, from candy maker to fire fighter (true story!) to 8th grade math teacher and now #AwesomeAdmin. I’ve lived in 5 states, but now I live in Holland, MI with my husband and our cat; I play video games and read comics in my spare time, but somehow I’ve only recently fallen into coding. Go figure.

I help with the Nonprofit Circles of Success on Data Management, which happen usually around the 4th Wednesday of every month.

I am speaking at Marketing Nation Summit this year! No way! Link: http://events.marketo.com/summit/2016/sessions/speakers/#Samantha-Safin