3 Questions to Fast-Track Your Salesforce Sales Representative Certification

A Salesforce Certified Sales Representative has broad knowledge of the sales process and is proficient in planning, customer and prospect research, deal management, pipeline management, forecasting, and closing deals with value.

Being the one who closes the deals pays off. Sales representative skills are in high demand, and getting certified can put your career in high gear. The median base salary for a Salesforce Certified Sales Representative in 2022 was $75,000 (U.S. data) with a 40% average sales commission and bonus according to the report Lightcast Research: Jobs in the Salesforce Ecosystem, 2022.

So, how do you set yourself up for Salesforce Certification success? Check out the answers to three questions that will put you on the path to becoming a Salesforce Certified Sales Representative.

Who is the Salesforce Certified Sales Representative Credential for?

Are you an account executive? A sales leader? A Salesblazer? This exam was designed with you in mind. The Salesforce Certified Sales Representative Exam is for sales professionals who want to validate their knowledge and experience across the following areas of sales.

• Guiding research and planning for sales
• Building and nurturing customer relationships
• Engaging customers throughout the sales process
• Demonstrating thought leadership
• Managing objections, negotiations, and deal closures
• Overseeing pipeline generation and forecasting
• Ensuring customer success and value

Salesforce Certified Sales Representatives exemplify sales excellence by using a customer-centric methodology; developing trusted relationships with their customers; ensuring deal success by aligning with entire account teams, executive sponsors, and stakeholders; and taking full ownership of the sales process by planning, managing, and analyzing their business.

How do I become Salesforce Certified?

Start with Trailhead! Salesforce’s free online learning platform helps you enhance your resume with the most in-demand skills to prepare you for future Salesforce career opportunities. Then, join the Salesblazer Community, a space for sales professionals to share expertise and tips, mentor one another, and build connections.

With Trailhead and the Salesblazer Community, you can:

• Learn at your own pace: What learning schedule works best for you? Mornings before work? Evenings after work? Weekends? All options are open because you decide what modules to complete at a pace and time that works for you. Every time you return, you can pick up exactly where you left off, so you never miss a beat.
• Learn anywhere: With the free Trailhead GO mobile app for iOS and Android, you can study on the go from almost anywhere! Have a few minutes on your commute? Waiting at the airport, or on a long-haul flight? If you’ve got a few minutes to spare, you can learn something new.
• Follow a curated guide for sales: We’ve got learning paths designed especially for sales, and you can follow that preset path to make sure you’re exam-ready.
• Get involved with the #Salesblazer movement: Be part of a community where sales excellence drives company excellence. Let’s learn, connect, and grow our careers — together.

But that’s not all — you’ll also want to bookmark the Salesblazer Hub where you can find all of the resources designed to help you grow your Sales career.

How do I pass the exam?

We’ve got the tools to help you prepare for your exam, no matter your learning style. We’ve covered all the bases, with exam guides, interactive study tools, videos, trailmixes, and more.

Salesforce Certified Sales Representative Exam Guide

This exam guide supplies all the critical details you’ll need, including a full content overview, information about how much time is allotted for the exam, the score required to pass, all associated fees, retake options, and more.

There’s a handy exam outline included that details every topic covered in the exam and the relative weight of that topic. It also includes a list of all other recommended training, references, and study materials to get you on the path to success!

Prepare for Your Salesforce Certified Sales Representative Credential Trailmix

You’ll know if you’re exam-ready after you’ve completed the Prepare for Your Salesforce Certified Sales Representative Credential Trailmix. The trailmix guides you through each section of the exam. It includes all the modules, downloadable resources, and tasks specially designed to get you prepped and ready for the actual exam.

Effective test-taking techniques for the Salesforce Certified Sales Representative Exam

Test-taking is stressful for lots of people. Even if you think you’ve got all the concepts for the Salesforce Certification down, you may dread the actual exam just because test-taking isn’t your thing. But you can manage your state of mind and put a success strategy in place to help you get through exam day!

• During the exam, it’s important to manage your time. You have 105 minutes to complete the Salesforce Certified Sales Representative exam, which has 60 multiple-choice questions and up to five non-scored questions. You should be mindful of approximately how much time you devote to each question. You’ll always know the total amount of time you have remaining, and you can easily mark a question to come back to later — so don’t let any single question take up too much of your time. Simply mark it for review and revisit it.
• Calculate if you’re on track for a passing score. You need a score of at least 70% to pass the exam. Track your confidence level for each response. If you guessed your tallies correctly, would you have at least 70% of the answers correct?

Stay calm and learn to manage your expectations. Not everyone passes the exam the first time around, and the internal pressure to pass at any cost may cause unnecessary stress. To be clear — if you don’t pass, it’s okay! Your exam results include section-level feedback, which will help you identify exactly what to focus on to come back even stronger for any certification retake.

You’re doing a great job — celebrate your progress

All of these strategies have one thing in common: to help make preparing for your exam more fun! Enjoy the learning process, and remember, you’re an expert in your field. Getting Salesforce-certified is proof to yourself and your employer that you’ve worked hard to gain the knowledge and skills you need to succeed as a Salesforce Certified Sales Representative.

So, it’s not a matter of whether or not you’ll get certified — it’s just a matter of when. You’ve got this!

And when you do earn your certification, you can pay it forward by taking part in the Trailblazer Community and helping other aspiring members of your community get ready for their exams.

Make sure to shout out your #CertifiedPro success on LinkedIn — we want to celebrate with you!