When I first heard the concept of using Salesforce for a custom program management build (nonprofit use case) I had no idea–absolutely no clue–what that would look like. Fairly soon I had the aha! moment: when I thought about “selling” a GED program to a single mom, or a “selling” a visit to the free health clinic for a teen girl, or “selling” a personalized brick to a donor (okay that one’s pretty straightforward) … Salesforce made perfect sense.

But how? I had a strong background in dealing with big data (thanks MS in Applied Psychology!) and had dabbled in MS Access. But 1) getting a Salesforce product donation is like getting a free puppy and 2) firing up a new Salesforce org is like landing in China.

My solution was to write a small grant request (capacity building grant from our community foundation) and hop on a plane to San Francisco for Dreamforce! I was exceedingly fortunate to meet a brilliant Salesforce guru whose significant other overheard me asking some specific questions in a Circles of Success session. I had no idea what I was doing, and it was pretty clear. They took me in under their wing and I had a crash course in Salesforce making.

Fast forward just one year, and Salesforce rolled out Trailhead! So now, a newbie can start off on a facilitated journey in learning how to make Salesforce–it’s amazing.

All you need to use Trailhead like a maker is to fire up a “developer org”–your own, personal, FREE and fully functional version of Salesforce. Create one or more to try your hand at making Salesforce.

Some cool things to know about Trailhead:

• It’s free
• You get points for completing challenges
• Trailhead checks your challenge work by connecting to your developer org and looking to see if you actually did the challenge correctly (so cool!)
• You can earen badges and certificates and much more
• Sometimes Trailhead runs fun contests and incentives–check them out on Twitter (they’re someone you should know!)
• You can add your badges to your LinkedIn profile

Tons more details here, but really–just dive in!