There’s a lot of reasons to get your Salesforce Admin Certification. Similar to why most people earn a college degree, those reasons normally include making more money and enjoying more job opportunities. Those reasons are absolutely true, in fact, a study done by Admin Hero showed that Salesforce experts with at least one certification were paid an average of $17,250 more per year than their counterparts without a certification. For most of us, becoming a certified Salesforce admin can help with increasing your salary and opening the door to jobs you normally wouldn’t be considered for.

However, I want to discuss some of the lesser known benefits that comes with a Salesforce Admin Certification. Everyone loves a pay raise, but as the saying goes “money can’t buy happiness.” In a study done by the Boston Consulting Group, where 200,000 workers from around the world were interviewed, salary ranked #8 out of 10 of the main factors impacting employee happiness. Here’s three reasons you should get your Salesforce Admin Certification – and each of them rank higher than #8.

1. You get to learn and develop. (#6 out of 10)

While some of us may not admit it, most of us like learning new things. We also like further developing our career and skillsets. By earning your Salesforce Admin Certification, you’re doing both.

In addition to learning more about Salesforce, as the admin, you also learn more about your company. By being the Salesforce admin, you get to see how your company works. On the assumption that Salesforce is being used correctly in your organization (or will be shortly after you’re on the job), you’ll quickly find that it ties into all departments. As you work as the Salesforce admin, you see processes and workflows across the entire organization, giving you better insight into the business – which leads to the second point…

2. Your boss will probably like you more. (#4 out of 10)

As the Salesforce admin, you start to see how the whole organization functions. For example, here at Simplus, everything from lead generation to fulfillment to collections are tracked inside Salesforce.

This valuable insight puts you in a unique position. As someone who can view and study the organization, you can suggest various ways to further streamline processes and increase efficiency. And what boss doesn’t want that kind of engaged employee?

3. You can make some great friends. (#2 out of 10)
Salesforce is more than just another tool to help you do work, it’s an entirely different world. Inside this world is an incredible community of Salesforce admins, developers, fanatics and evangelists. Dreamforce, Salesforce’s main event of the year, had over 170,000 registered attendees in 2015. People line up to get a photo with SaaSy (Salesforce’s mascot) while others get custom nail wraps with the Salesforce logo. Some dedicated fan even made a Twitter account for Salesforce CEO Mark Benioff’s shoes. What other business software solutions have that same kind of following?

Salesforce’s community is an incredible place to meet great people. The Salesforce Success Community (more info can be found in our blog post or #AskSimplus video) currently has over 2.1 million members. Across the US, Salesforce fans have created local User Groups to network, share ideas and give tips on how to get the most out of Salesforce. Countless friendships and incredible relationships have come from these events.

So now that you can’t wait to become a certified Salesforce admin, how do you proceed? Well, if you’re interested in becoming a Salesforce Admin but basically no nothing about it, I’d recommend doing some additional research. You can find great learning materials for free at Salesforce’s Trailhead.

If you’re already familiar with Salesforce (maybe you’re the “unofficial Admin” right now) and would prefer to take a more hands-on approach, Simplus offers an in-depth training course designed to teach you the principles, strategies and best practices you need to know to earn your Salesforce Admin Certification. The three hour class is held once a week for eight weeks. To learn more, ask for the Simplus Academy.