CONTEXT: How companies track and manage their lists of leads and customers, and their interactions with those leads and customers has changed significantly in the past 30-40 years. During this period, companies have moved away from paper-based rolodexes, lead lists, individual contact management apps, and spreadsheets. These methods have largely been replaced by CRM (Customer Relationship Management) systems that centralize, streamline and automate the management and reporting of an organization's customers and customer interaction data.

TARGET AUDIENCE: This introductory, instructor-led, online class is designed to give those new to the world of Customer Relationship Management a quick leg up with the essential core concepts of CRM, and how such systems can help centralize, track, automate and streamline interactions with your customers, and provide your organization with greater visibility into its marketing, sales, and customer support efforts. This course is designed for those who don't want to spend several days, and potentially thousands of dollars, on a formal CRM traininng course. This course will provide students with the core knowledge and tools they need to support further self-learning and skill-building, using a free, online (but somewhat limited) version of Salesforce.com.

TOPICS COVERED IN THIS TRAINING:

• An overview of the core concepts of CRM (marketing, sales, and customer support)
• Managing your Leads and Sales Opportunities
• Tracking customer support issues with Cases
• Personal Task and Event Management
• An Overview of Reports and Dashboards
• Basic Salesforce administration and customization

WHAT'S INCLUDED: At the conclusion of this 2.5 hour online course, attendees will have:

• A free personal instance of Salesforce.com that you can continue to use and customize to your needs
• Knowledge of how to manage leads and sales opportunities
• The ability to set up, manage and track customer support cases for your organization
• An understanding of how to use Salesforce for personal task tracking, managing your next job search, and more.
• Free membership in the online community of ATS training graduates, for sharing tips/tricks, industry news/updates, and networking for job leads with fellow students.

PREREQUISITES: To access this course, you will need:

• A camera- and microphone-enabled device such as a desktop/laptop Mac or PC (a tablet could work, but will limit your ability to participate in exercises) with the Zoom online meeting app installed (www.zoom.us)
• Reliable broadband internet connectivity
• An active email account that you can use (if you would like to sign up for your own personal instance of Salesforce.)
• Recommended, but not required: Ideally, 1-2+ years of professional work experience, preferably in a marketing, sales, and/or customer service function.

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR: For this particular class, ATS Partners founder Jay Ashford will be the instructor. He has almost 25 years' experience in the information technology domain, and 15 years' experience as a consulting IT project manager and business analyst. For five years, he worked as an engineer and manager in the IT department at Salesforce, and subsequently worked for a platinum Salesforce consulting partner, where he participated in several Salesforce implementations for a variety of clients.

Since 2011, he has been a Certified Salesforce Administrator, and currently holds PMP and ACP certifications from PMI.org, Certified Scrum Master certification from scrumalliance.org, and Certified Business Analysis Professional (CBAP) certification from IIBA.org. He earned a BA degree in political-economics from UC Berkeley in 1992, and a Master of Business Administration from St. Mary's College of California in 2009. Please visit his LinkedIn profile for additional information (www.linkedin.com/in/jayashford).

ATS Partners, Inc. (www.atspartners.net) is an Oakland, CA-based consulting and training firm that assists and guides clients in their transitions from current state to future state, with project/program management, business analysis, and business process management needs. Our instructors must have a minimum of 5 years' industry experience, one or more industry-standard BA certifications, and prior training/instruction experience.