Getting the best tools isn’t enough, says Salesforce

Salesforce is the undisputed leader in CRM and becoming so in many other business software categories.

They've gone from a core CRM product a few years ago to eight different product lines that they call 'clouds'.

You can read our explanation of the different clouds here.

With this growing list of product lines comes a challenge, to teach new adopters how to get up-to-speed quickly.

The company has long been committed to what it calls 'customer success', which equates to ensuring their customers fully utilise their tools.

Each year the company runs a major event in San Francisco for users and partners called DreamForce. The company incorporated an area called 'TrailBlazers'. This area was dedicated to bringing new users, those considering moving to Salesforce or those long term users up-to-speed with how to best use the platform.

It was such a success; in 2014 the company turned it into a major ongoing initiative called Trailhead and with their most skilled and influential users called 'TrailBlazers'.

"At Dreamforce, Salesforce is unveiling unprecedented innovation that is paving the path forward for our Customer Trailblazers," said Alex Dayon, President and Chief Product Officer, Salesforce. "By delivering new levels of intelligence, speed, mobility, productivity and connectivity across the Salesforce Customer Success Platform, we're empowering companies to get closer to their customers and achieve entirely new levels of success."

Trailhead is a free online learning environment where anyone can develop Salesforce skills through an interactive, gamified experience. There are learning modules and guided trails for every skill level, where users test their knowledge and build new skills through a series of challenges, earning badges that can be instantly posted to their LinkedIn profile.

Since Trailhead launched in 2014, Trailblazers have earned more than 735,000 badges by completing more than 3 million challenges.

In June this year, they company introduced Superbadges. These are skills-based credentials awarded for solving real-world business challenges, such as scaling the infrastructure of a growing business, automating sales and customer service processes and engaging with customers using mobile apps.

Superbadges enable businesses and learners alike to skill up for new opportunities in the digital economy, fueled by the demand for cloud, social, mobile and intelligent apps. Salesforce skills are amongst the most in-demand in the industry.

And by 2018, Salesforce and its ecosystem of customers and partners are expected to create 1 million jobs and generate $272 billion in GDP impact worldwide.

So it's not just a great free tool to learn how to use Salesforce, but also its good for your career. Who knew that something this fun could be good for your resume.

Register and experience TrailHead here.