Bill Powell has been awarded with MVP status by Salesforce in September 2017 for his outstanding contribution to Salesforce community in sharing knowledge, leadership skills, and showing creativity within the Salesforce Community. Here is his journey to MVP status in his own words!
Brief Intro about yourself? What do you do?
It’s an interesting story actually. You can read the back story on my blog at http://force-lightning.com/about . But for now i’m a Salesforce Admin and interesting enough, my last day at my job is Friday. On 10/2 I’m moving into the partner world as a consultant for a new SF Partner.
My official title is “Senior Salesforce Solutions Engingeer”, but i’ll be doing a lot of everything from configurations & implementations, project management, requirement building, solution architecting, and a lot of other things.
Some little known things about me are that I love hard rock and heavy metal, video games, and Walt Disney World. I love Disney World so much in fact, that I tried to be a part time travel planner for them to help people book vacations.
How do you feel being a new MVP?
Honestly i’m still processing it. I think I spent a lot of years doing work I didn’t enjoy, so now i’m playing catch up and crammed about 4 years worth of work and experience into 19 months, so its not letting my brain catch up 🙂
At first I thought they sent the email to the wrong person. The fact that i’ve made a difference in someones life or career enough for them to nominate me is surreal. My entire professional career i’ve always tried to mentor and train folks to be successful because it was an amazing feeling to see someone succeed, but being recognized for it in this capacity is amazing, i’m beyond honored.
What was your motivation to become a MVP? Insipration?
Becoming a Salesforce MVP wasn’t really a goal of mine. Other then remaining employed, taking care of my family, and continuously learning, my only concrete goal was to pay forward the kindness showed to me by my Salesforce mentor.
I was at the lowest point in my life when I first inquired about admin training. He took the time to respond to my question , respond to all of my (lengthy) emails, and kept up a dialogue until I was on the right path. He made sure to connect me with people that would also help point me in the right direction and afford me opportunities to learn and grow. I will never forget that.
My only goal was and always will be to do for others what he did for me. I truly am honored with the Salesforce MVP designation, so even without it, i’d still do what I do, but with it, it only fuels my passion more so 🙂
Message for future MVP aspirants?
As cliche as it sounds, I would say “not to make being an MVP your goal“, but to develop the next generation of Awesome Admins, Trailblazers, and champions of innovation. Because with or without an “MVP” title, you’ll be an MVP no matter what.
sfdcFanBoy:
Thank you Bill for sharing your story with all of us. You truly are a great inspiration.
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sfdcFanBoy 
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