The best part about living out your philopsphy, is that that number of times you say to yourself, "I don't want to go to work today" when you wake up in the morning goes to zero. Honestly since I have become a consultant in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud space, I've never said it. Prior to becoming a consultant for Salesforce Marketing Cloud, I was a user - even before it was called Salesforce Marketing Cloud. Whatever is happening that brought you to my blog I've probably experienced and done the same thing you're doing now - reaching out to connected community of users who have shared their experiences. Most orgaizations that I work with today have a team of dedicated individuals for SFMC, but for most of my career as a user it was only me. I built emails, built campaigns, campaign reporting, administration of the tool and developing/configuring SFMC; you name the task, it was my responsibility. The most important of those tasks I think was I was always the person in Marketing that was the direct interface to the technology teams. This gave me the unique ability to take marketing lingo and translate it to tech-talk...get the answer and translate that back into language that marketing team could understand and act on.
These days, I'm still doing the same thing, but with other people and organizations. I was once asked what goals I have when I start an engagement with a client. I answered them with: First, my goal is empower organizations to be successful and profitable. And second, my goal is to make a user as passionate about Salesforce Marketing cloud and all the things it (and the user can make it) do and accomplish. In late 2023 I had a former client reach out to me through LinkedIn and they told me that they had been laid off from the organization that I had met them at. But in that time since they were laid off, they had taken the SFMC Email Specialist, SFMC Admin and SFMC Developer certifications. Not only had they "certed up", they were now actively interviewing to be a consultant focusing on SFMC with a couple of agencies. Honestly, that was the happiest day of my life - I had gotten someone to follow their passion for the tool (even in the worst of times) and they wanted to inspire organizations to become successful too. That's why I'm a consultant these days.
If you're like me, you like to get some insight to people, not just from the articles they write on their blog but to know the things that make them unique. Here's a quick list of some of those things about me:
- I have two Cardigan Welsh Corgwyn - did you know that's the plural of 'Corgi'? Berklee a female brindle and Angus a male blue merle.
- I live in Ocoee Florida - 20-25 minutes from the parks with my partner and our dogs.
- Yes I go to the parks, no not all the time, and I sure don't spend the entire day there like I used to when I vacationed at them.
- MINI Cooper enthusiast. I'm on number 3, a 2013 Mini Cooper S Roadster. I've had it for a year now, purchased used, and it's still not told me it's name yet!
- I'm a PC person. My everyday driver is a Lenovo Gen 3 X1 Nano that I got in February 2024.
- I carry my Google Pixel 8 Pro everywhere I go, but I have an iPad that I watch TV on at night, so I'm split on mobile devices.
- Wear a Google Pixel 2 Watch - and really like it!
- I build and collect LEGO sets. It started with the Architecture Series, then Harry Potter, modular buildings, Ideas series, and then basically any really "big" set. I'm running out of room to display them all in my office.
And most importantly, thanks for visiting my blog.
Kirk R Gray
Ocoee, Florida 34761
linkedin.com/in/kirkrgray
Ocoee, Florida 34761
linkedin.com/in/kirkrgray
Hands-on and results-driven professional who creates and implements strategies, technologies, and solutions. Collaborative team player that gets processes moving – organizing and transforming ideas and untapped overlooked opportunities into action. Outside of the box thinker skilled in developing business requirements, connecting with complex data and systems and communicating the engineered solution as an understandable concept and action plan. Change agent that listens to the voice of the customer, sheds the status quo, and embraces fresh alternative thinking to positively impact the organization.
Professional Experience
Slalom | Seattle, Washington July 2021 to present
Salesforce Certified Partner
Remote Employee
Senior Consultant (July 2022 – present)
Have been nominated for multiple internal/team awards for solution development, deployments while at Slalom, including being a member of the winning team for my first client engagement.
Salesforce Certified Partner
Remote Employee
Senior Consultant (July 2022 – present)
- Responsible for designing (when acting as a solution architect) and/or building technical solutions (when acting as a developer) for clients for Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
- Lead requirements gathering workshops for tehnical design of complex projects while respecting overall system performance, scalability, and client/team skillsets.
- Solution documentation and training during implementation, delivery and go live phases.
- Conduct solution walkthrough and demos with client.
- Developed solutions using "out of the box" that addressed common challenges that Marketing cloud customers experienced, e.g., near real time on-demand consent, using smart capture forms to update or create leads/contacts in core without creating duplicates in SFMC.
- Contributed heavily to internal knowledge base to record unique solutions that have been developed by myself and other teammates so that the solutions could be scaled or act as seed code for new implementation work.
Have been nominated for multiple internal/team awards for solution development, deployments while at Slalom, including being a member of the winning team for my first client engagement.
Offprem Technology | Fiskers, Indiana Jun 2018 to Apr 2020
Salesforce Certified Partner
Remote Employee
Technical Architect, Senior (Nov 2020 – June 2021)
Developed and launched an omni-channel marketing communication strategy, data model, and integrations to deliver better communications to attract, engage and retain ridership.
Salesforce Certified Partner
Remote Employee
Technical Architect, Senior (Nov 2020 – June 2021)
- Responsible for designing and building technical solutions for challenges facing the client.
- Lead requirements gathering workshops for technical desing of complex components while respecting overall system performance, scalability, and client/team skills.
- Lead the organization's iniative to attract and gain business by being the first team member to become a Salesforce Certified Solution Partner for Interactive Studio at Offprem.
- Focused on Salesforce Marketing Cloud as a technical expert for cross platform and cross cloud implementations, especially in reagrd to data modeling and architecture to maximize productivity.
- Developed and trained on scalable solutions and boilerplate code for client solutions, i.e., form-handlers, email template designs and products like Salesforce Distributed Marketing.
Developed and launched an omni-channel marketing communication strategy, data model, and integrations to deliver better communications to attract, engage and retain ridership.
- Increased marketable database from 120K to 300K by identifying missing data and building FTP processes to develop segmentation models for customers/partners/consumers.
- Marketing/IT liaison leading critical developments and new solutions, including first-time rider acquisition programs, customer journeys, student discount and corporate travel benefits programs.
- Developed and implemented simple solutions for complex technical problems when development teams (and resources) were not available or could not deliver.
- Executed data-driven marketing and communication campaigns moving the organization past “batch and blast” methodology.
- Built and deployed a dynamic searchable internal-use web portal via SFMC Cloud Pages that aggregated multiple data sources delivering essential information to operations such as Train-To-Port/group travel reservations, commuter passholders/discount program participants, and companywide announcements.
Brightline | Miami, Florida Jun 2018 to Apr 2020
Passenger rail transportation servicing South Florida
Associate Director of Customer Experience Integrations (Sept 2019 – Apr 2020)
Spearhead development and integration initiative to drive data management and scalable solutions.
Developed and launched an omni-channel marketing communication strategy, data model, and integrations to deliver better communications to attract, engage and retain ridership.
Passenger rail transportation servicing South Florida
Associate Director of Customer Experience Integrations (Sept 2019 – Apr 2020)
Spearhead development and integration initiative to drive data management and scalable solutions.
- Architected the roadmap for Project 360°, a multi-product technical solution providing a 360-degree view of the customer by integrating data, back-end and middle-ware systems using Salesforce as the relational database for an enterprise deployment.
- Internal Salesforce solution sales advocate essential to the RFP, negotiation, and purchase of technology (Salesforce Marketing Cloud, Salesforce Communities, Surveys, Audience Builder, Interaction Studio and Datorama) for Project 360 as well as securing a coveted spot in Salesforce’s use-case program.
- Engineered solutions that solved business problems as part of a cross functional team, in a fast paced constantly changing organization through technology.
- Managed and solutioned CRM processes streamlining the sales cycle, implementing Person Accounts, and increasing customer/partner/consumer insights, access to data, and reporting.
- Project managed the implementation of “Rosie”, Brightline’s chat bot, and call-center software using Salesforce as the skeleton as part of a Customer Services improvement initiative and Project 360° component.
- Multi-unit business partner that aligned and developed digital marketing strategies and technical solutions that increased staff productivity by 30% through marketing automation.
- Owned complex transactional communications (sent via SFMC), delivering optimized dynamic 1 to 1 content by email, SMS, and web pages driven by data and AMPScript.
- Implemented a new multi-business unit SFMC instance including the Marketing Cloud Connector.
Developed and launched an omni-channel marketing communication strategy, data model, and integrations to deliver better communications to attract, engage and retain ridership.
- Increased marketable database from 120K to 300K by identifying missing data and building FTP processes to develop segmentation models for customers/partners/consumers.
- Marketing/IT liaison leading critical developments and new solutions, including first-time rider acquisition programs, customer journeys, student discount and corporate travel benefits programs.
- Developed and implemented simple solutions for complex technical problems when development teams (and resources) were not available or could not deliver.
- Executed data-driven marketing and communication campaigns moving the organization past “batch and blast” methodology.
- Built and deployed a dynamic searchable internal-use web portal via SFMC Cloud Pages that aggregated multiple data sources delivering essential information to operations such as Train-To-Port/group travel reservations, commuter passholders/discount program participants, and companywide announcements.
Boats Group | Miami, Florida Jul 2017 – Jun 2018
Web company that powers a multiple listing service for boats
Marketing Manager
Built the foundation for one-to-one email marketing that resulted in a cohesive experience for subscribers driven by data and behaviors.
Web company that powers a multiple listing service for boats
Marketing Manager
Built the foundation for one-to-one email marketing that resulted in a cohesive experience for subscribers driven by data and behaviors.
- Led email marketing for both customers (dealers, brokers, and industry partners) and consumers.
- Developed communication strategies including segmentation models and customer journeys for three brands: boats.com, Boat Trader, and Yachtworld.
- Reset strategies by integrating proprietary back-end systems, developing a multi-brand segmentation schema using a single instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
- Architected a technical predictive email solution which tracked site behaviors, along with products viewed to make recommendations based on geographic area, listing type and price range.
- Re-implemented SFMC establishing data hierarchies in lieu of business units while migrating all existing data into a new data model using custom subscriber keys to identify individual with a brand while saving the company $39K in Salesforce consulting fees.
Ultimate Medical Academy | Tampa, Florida (Remote Employee) Sept 2015 – Jul 2017
Non-profit higher education provider for healthcare
Senior Marketing Manager
Implemented new instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud adopting a mobile first approach.
Non-profit higher education provider for healthcare
Senior Marketing Manager
Implemented new instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud adopting a mobile first approach.
- Migrated from Enterprise 1.0 to Enterprise 2.0 moving 2,000+ assets, 150+ automations without outside consultants saving the institution over $50K.
- Decreased the time to enroll for new prospects from 5 days to 48 hours through a non-linear “on demand/choose your own adventure” nurture journey that allowed the prospect to get the information that they wanted first.
- Developed an internal “instructor report card” that visually communicated instructor/student engagement with ‘at-risk’ and ‘watch list’ students, increasing student retention by 15%.
SAE Institute | Miami, Florida Oct 2014 – Sept 2015
Leading educator in creative media industries.
Marketing Manager, Email
Leading educator in creative media industries.
Marketing Manager, Email
- Developed online application and application fee solution
- Integrated Google Analytics into communication campaigns
- Mentored international consultants and staff on American online education, regulations, and communication best practices
American Public University System | Manassas, VA Jun 2012 – Sept 2014
For-profit, online learning institution composed of American Military University and American Public University.
Interactive Marketing Manager, Email
For-profit, online learning institution composed of American Military University and American Public University.
Interactive Marketing Manager, Email
- Developed solution to streamline newsletters through RSS feeds/content syndication that reduced the build time from 12 hours per week to 1 hour per week.
- Coordinated the transfer from Exact Target to Salesforce Marketing Cloud across a userbase of 200+
Skills
Teamwork | Collaboration | Problem Solving | Solution Engineering | Creative Thinking | Decision Making | Research & Strategy | Email Marketing | HTML | Marketing | Presentation | Requirements Gathering | AMPScript | Solution Architecture | "Fixer"
Education and Professional Certifications
University of Phoenix: B.S., dual degree, Business Management and Marketing
The Art Institute: Digital Design Certificate
The Art Institute: Digital Design Certificate
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To discuss possible opportunities or to receive a properly formatted version of my resume, feel free to email me.
Last Updated: February 2024
Last Updated: February 2024