My Salesforce Story: Francis Delusong
How long have you been involved with Salesforce as a customer/user/consultant/partner?
I’ve been involved with Salesforce since 2008. Throughout my career, I was a end user tasked to use the platform to manage my lead list, track opportunities and activities. I then transitioned to a full system administrator role where I supported a newly implemented Salesforce Org for a Private Client Group in Wealth management. As I started to gain more experience, I took on a CRM Manager and a Product Owner Role to drive change and deliver value added solutions to advisors using Salesforce. In 2018, I made the decision to move into a consulting role so that I can share my experiences and knowledge that I have gained with other customers to support them in their CRM initiatives.
How did you discover Salesforce?
I first discovered Salesforce in 2008 when I was a Corporate Relationship Manager at a leading discount brokerage in Canada. I used Salesforce as an end user and received a daily Lead lists to make outbound cold calls, track my pipeline and used activities to help me keep track of who/when/what I talked about.
When one company was acquired by one of the big banks, I was asked to become the system administrator because I was good adopter of the platform. They supported me by sending me to a 1 week administrator course where I discovered the ‘Art of the Possible’. That’s when I came to realize the endless possibilities of the platform at both the business transformation level and also from a career transformation perspective.
Eventually A full-time system administrator position became available within the bank supporting a newly implemented org for another wealth business line. I decided to pivot from my investment career and move away from Equities/Options trading & Sales and apply for this full-time Salesforce system administrator role. Getting hired as a system administrator laid the foundation for where I am today.
What did you want to be when you grew up?
When I was growing up, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do as a career. I explored many different career paths and that time my favorite movies were Boiler Room and Wall Street so my younger self thought it would make sense for me to take Business Administration specializing in Financial Planning thinking it would lay the foundation in becoming a stock broker. It did lead to a role that was kind of like Boiler Room but then Salesforce came along but instead of being Charlie sheen of Wall Street, I feel more like Marc Benioff of Salesforce.
Tell us about how you contribute to/ interact with the Salesforce community/ecosystem.
When I first started my career with Salesforce as a quasi-Administrator and Relationship Manager, I found out about the Toronto User Group. I joined the group because I wanted to meet like minded CRM professionals to support me on my questions and issues I have trying to work out with the platform. The time I spent with group was amazing and eventually decided that I wanted to do more so I started volunteering as the Co-Leader in 2014. Since then, I have been organizing meetings on a quarterly basis and trying to grow the group and provide value added content to help members of the community.
What’s your favourite part of the Salesforce Community?
My favorite part is bringing together Salesforce Community members to share, learn and network. I’ve met many new members attending the events I organize in search of solutions or career opportunities and find it truly rewarding knowing that they learned something new or was able to find their dream job working with Salesforce.
What’s your favourite app, Cloud, or feature on the Salesforce platform?
So many features and apps but if I had to choose one it would be Linkpoint360. Outlook and Salesforce Sync was truly invaluable to me when I was a end user of the platform and it supported me in my efforts of being organized and meeting my Sales quota.
What are you most looking forward to with True North Dreamin’?
I’m looking forward to meeting community members across Canada and to be able to learn about their Salesforce story and to share mine. Plus all the amazing content being presented by members of the community – some of which are members of the Toronto Admin community group that I lead.
