Fractional Salesforce Support for a Small Coaching Firm

For about a year, I provided ongoing, part-time Salesforce support for a professional coaching company. The company offered virtual and in-person workshops, resources, and group and 1-1 business development coaching.

This was my first experience providing fractional, remote Salesforce admin support—stepping in as needed to help a small team get more value from their CRM without the overhead of a full-time administrator.

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What I Did

I reported primarily to the Sales Manager, but also supported the Marketing Manager when their Salesforce admin needed overflow help.

Some of the projects and tasks I supported included:

• Reports & Dashboards:
  Built and maintained reports tracking key sales KPIs—such as sales rep activities, lead conversion rates, Opportunity stages, lead source performance, and cost-per-lead analysis.

• Automated Lead Assignment:
  Implemented round-robin lead assignment to distribute new leads evenly across the sales reps, removing the need for manual distribution by the Sales Manager.

• Training & Event Tracking:
  Supported reports on class registration, attendance, and travel details for the training team’s workshops and events.

• Referral Program Enhancements:
  Enhanced the referral tracking solution to display referrer relationships and track each client's referral tier and reward status, reflecting a multi-level rewards structure.

• Duplicate Management:
  Created duplicate matching rules with fuzzy logic (name and phone number) to identify potential duplicates, including matches between Leads and existing Contacts—helping maintain data cleanliness.

• Marketing Automation Support:
  Helped manage segmented lead lists and assisted with Act-On marketing campaigns, including cleaning, deduplicating, and importing attendee data from webinars and in-person events.

• Cross-Platform Integration:
  Implemented and supported integration between Salesforce and Infusionsoft via PieSync to allow lead sharing between the main company and its sister brand, which operated under a different CRM.

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Key Takeaways & Lessons Learned

This role gave me practical experience with the challenges of remote fractional consulting—especially when supporting a busy team that didn’t have time for frequent or repeat check-ins.

Some of the key skills I built included:

🌸 Asking the Right Questions (Without Overloading People):
I learned to frame clear, focused questions that gave me the context I needed without overwhelming the Sales Manager or pulling them into unnecessary meetings. This forced me to think carefully about what I really needed to know before asking.

🌸 Translating Business Needs into Salesforce Solutions:
I strengthened my ability to listen to what people wanted—like fair lead distribution or cleaner reporting—and turn those into actual Salesforce tools, such as assignment rules or deduplication processes.

🌸 Prioritizing Work in a Flexible, Ad Hoc Environment:
With no formal sprint structure, I got better at self-managing priorities—deciding what would deliver the most value next, whether that was cleaning new lead data, improving the referral tracking system, or supporting an upcoming training event.

🌸 Handling Multi-Platform Ecosystems:
Supporting Salesforce alongside tools like Act-On, Infusionsoft, and PieSync helped me understand how systems share data—and how to think carefully about record flow, sync rules, and potential conflicts.

🌸 Communicating as a Remote Fractional Admin:
I practiced giving clear progress updates and surfacing blockers in a way that didn’t slow anyone down—using thoughtful emails, quick status messages, and regular check-ins to stay connected without being intrusive.