Bill: From an Airline Pilot to a Freelance Salesforce Consultant

Bill started his career as an Engineer in Avionics but soon realised he wanted more! He retrained and was in the air transport industry for over 20+ years. After managing the accounts for his wife's Trademark Law business, he discovered an appetite for all things tech and made him re-evaluate his next career move. This led him to Supermums, Salesforce, and finding a love for helping charitable & NFP organisations to implement or manage their CRM's.

Bill's Story

  • Course: Salesforce Consultancy Skills Course
  • Region: EMEA
  • Job Title: Freelance Salesforce Consultant
  • Works: Ward Ambrose Limited
  • Lives: UK
Bill has relaunched his career as a Salesforce Consultant. Bill was in the air transport industry for over 20+ years as a Pilot, Director of Flight Operations and later an Aviation Consultant. After leaving this industry he then managing the accounts for his wife’s Trademark Law business. During this time he discovered an appetite for all things tech which made him re-evaluate his next career move. This led him to Supermums, Salesforce, and launching his career as a Salesforce Consultant.

 

Bill decided to join the Supermums Salesforce Admin and Consultancy Course because…

“I was an engineer in Avionics (thats for aeroplanes!) but i became bored and wanted something more exciting. I retrained and was in the Air Transport industry for 20+ years, with experience as a Senior Manager and Director in Flight Ops. It’s a tough industry to be in though! It’s not family friendly, i was away a lot, and i was always fighting against my body clock to stay awake when you want to be asleep, when you are in the cockpit and on long haul flights. My family needed me so i changed to a Consultant and help aviation companies to become more efficient in their operations.”

“My wife is a Trademark Attorney and we decided to set up a business together. While she managed the clients, i managed the backend stuff to get the business ticking over. I found myself playing on the computer, using tech and managing the CRM they were using. I had heard of Salesforce but thought this was just for big companies, not a little business like ours, so i didn’t think it was for us. We sold the business a couple of years ago and I did some career coaching with Career Shifters. They helped me to re-examine what he wanted to do with the rest of my working career and I met some of their alumni….and there was Heather. I was intrigued straight away and knew Supermums was for me!”

“I did the Supermums Salesforce Admin course in Nov 2023 and the Business Analyst cert in April. I then bolted on Supermums Consultancy Skills course in May 2024 which gave me the additional skills needed to add on to the technical skills i had learnt on the other courses.”

 

Bill would recommend the Supermums Consultancy Course because…

“The Supermums Salesforce courses gave me tremendous confidence to go forwards and set myself up as an independent consultant. I’d happily be an employee but with all of my experience and journey that i have taken, i would rather have the freedom to be independent. It doesn’t matter if it takes me a little longer to achieve this.”

“Everything i learned, from Agile to Change and Project Management on the course is of value. Also, there is no shortage of politics when dealing with clients, in-house or as a consultant, and it can be a difficult path to navigate, but the course teaches you how to manage this. You need to be sure that whilst you are eliciting what clients want to do, and you have your own opinions on how it should be done, the client needs to own the whole process and all decision making has to come from then. If you try to cram it down their neck, it will come back to bite you.”

“I went from Salesforce zero to Salesforce hero!”

 

Bill was able to secure his first paid role by…

“Bill, you did your work experience as part of the Salesforce Admin course and managed to turn this into a paying client. How did you position yourself to do this? ”

“I wish there was a secret formula but all i really did was just ask!”

“I really love this client. In fact, they are still a client of mine. The charity does fantastic things for disadvantaged children. I drove 100 miles to meet them face to face when i first started working with them, and i really wanted to do more to help them. Their existing Salesforce instance had been implemented about 12 months prior to me doing the Admin course, but was too complicated for them and didn’t work properly. We considered scraping the whole things and starting again from scratch. In the end, we didn’t do that. Instead we managed to work around it, little by little. My internship was running out but i wanted to find a way that i could stay and finish the project for them. All i did was ask. I wrote them a short proposal. I kept it simple and said that i was happy to work part time as an employee, or freelance.”

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