Ever wondered what it takes to become a successful independent consultant in the Salesforce industry? Join us as we chat with Kristin Langlois, Chief People Officer at 10K, to uncover the unique recruitment model and strategies that can help you excel in this rapidly expanding ecosystem. Learn how to navigate generational differences, roll out the red carpet for employees, and conduct impactful interviews.
In our conversation with Kristin, we explore the perfect blend of technical and soft skills required to thrive as an independent professional, the courage needed for self-promotion, and the importance of understanding different generations' perspectives in hiring. Get inspired and learn how to harness the power of accountability partners and mentors to propel your career forward.
Lastly, we delve into the world of independent consulting and the qualities, traits, and behaviors that make top performers stand out. Discover the benefits of working for a consultancy versus going solo, and how fractional expertise is changing the way companies approach hiring. Don't miss out on this eye-opening discussion as we explore the expanding Salesforce ecosystem and the opportunities that await you.
Ever wondered what it takes to become a successful independent consultant in the Salesforce industry? Join us as we chat with Kristin Langlois, Chief People Officer at 10K, to uncover the unique recruitment model and strategies that can help you excel in this rapidly expanding ecosystem. Learn how to navigate generational differences, roll out the red carpet for employees, and conduct impactful interviews.
In our conversation with Kristin, we explore the perfect blend of technical and soft skills required to thrive as an independent professional, the courage needed for self-promotion, and the importance of understanding different generations' perspectives in hiring. Get inspired and learn how to harness the power of accountability partners and mentors to propel your career forward.
Lastly, we delve into the world of independent consulting and the qualities, traits, and behaviors that make top performers stand out. Discover the benefits of working for a consultancy versus going solo, and how fractional expertise is changing the way companies approach hiring. Don't miss out on this eye-opening discussion as we explore the expanding Salesforce ecosystem and the opportunities that await you.
And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce career show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant.
Speaker 2:Okay, there we go. We got that done, huzzah. Hey, vanessa, good to see you here. Thanks for the claps. Everybody. These complex buttons on these complex computers, what are you going to do? So I'll just do a quick intro on the topic. We actually have a wonderful guest today. We've got Kristin Langua I'm sure I'm saying your last name wrong. I apologize From 10K. We're going to do a full intro and talk to Kristin just a little bit. My name is Josh Matthews. I run the Salesforce, recruitercom and Salesforce staff in LLC, and then we've got my wonderful co-host, vanessa Grant. Go ahead and give us a little introduction and then we'll dive into any updates in the format of the show and then get going with our friendly guest here.
Speaker 3:Sounds good. Hey everybody, it's Vanessa Grant. I've been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 13 years, currently A consultant at Salesforce Partners Simplis and a part-time clicked coach for all you newbies out there.
Speaker 2:All right, and, vanessa, the format of the show is, you know, we like to talk to guests. This is kind of a new thing, a new format. It's been proving real successful on our podcast And, by the way, if you are listening to this live and you want to catch up on past programs, you just have to go to this Salesforce career showbuzzsproutcom and you will get there. You can also just look us up on Spotify, on Apple Music, on, i think we're, on Google Music and like 19 others, so you can find us very easily on your very favorite podcasting platform. Make sure, if you do that, go ahead and subscribe so you don't miss any of these fantastic episodes. And a little bit about how we do this We do this here, of course, on Twitter Spaces, and what we love about Twitter Spaces is the ability to interact with our audience. And so, vanessa, what can people do if they'd like to participate on our live show?
Speaker 3:Sure, if you're listening to us live and you're on Twitter, please feel free to raise your hand, ask to speak and we can bring you up so you can ask your question live. If you're not comfortable having your question and your face on Twitter available to all of us, then feel free to DM me on Twitter at rlvanessacom, and I'm happy to read your question out for everybody, and our wonderful speakers and hosts will be happy to answer.
Speaker 2:So with that I'll go ahead and do a little introduction for Kristen Langlois. I think I'm saying it right that time Did I get that right, kristen.
Speaker 4:It's French, canadian, so it's fancy, it's lingua.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, lingua. Okay, i'm so sorry about that. It's totally fine.
Speaker 2:I practiced this, by the way, but I just didn't practice it enough, so my apologies. So Kristen is the chief people officer over at 10K and they're a leading Salesforce consultancy that empower customers and experts to excel at the work that they love. She's got over 20 years of experience in recruiting and leadership, tons of years working in the industry some of the terrific Salesforce partners within our ecosystem. She really specializes in technology and management professional services space and she's very dedicated to identifying, developing and implementing strategies to improve processes and enhance the employee experience. I'm sure we're going to hear all about that. In addition to all of that great work that she's done over the years, she also volunteers at Kinder Morin and at atrium healthcare systems. And I'll just tell you, by the way, if you are in the staffing space, the headhunting space, the recruiting space, the talent acquisition space for 20 years, that's just something really special about you, because this is not the kind of industry that people tend to stick around for a long time, wouldn't you agree, kristen?
Speaker 4:I definitely would agree. It definitely has its ups and downs and I think you have to really love what you do to continue in this space or just continue to evolve with it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely So. what does a chief people officer do?
Speaker 4:Awesome. So I am responsible for all things in the HR area, specifically bringing in new talent, cultivating them, starting with their experience coming in the door and then all through their employee life cycle. 10k is a very unique company and sales force consultancy in which the talent that we bring in are all independent consultants, and so it is a little bit of a different recruitment model than you're going to find in your traditional consultancies, and so my job is to, from their perspective, is to find them, interview them, vet them and then ensure that they are feeling part of this community. On the flip side, i also am responsible for the internal team members we have within 10K, from hiring to their employee experience.
Speaker 2:Okay, And what's harder to do? Is it harder to vet an outside consultant, or are you a little bit more extra careful when bringing on team members to the company?
Speaker 4:That's a great question And two very different scenarios, and because when you're bringing on full-time employees, each employee or each role is very specific, very different into what we're hiring for. And then, when we're bringing on talent to our community, we do have specific requirements we look for. Basically, these are very experienced Salesforce consultants that meet the requirements we're looking for, whether it be that they have a deep expertise because of their tenure or that they've gone very deep, very quickly within Salesforce and they own their own business entity. So right off the bat, there's some pretty quick items that I'm able to vet for. When you're hiring internally, there obviously are requirements that you look for, but every role is so different And we go through a more robust interview process.
Speaker 3:So I have a question. So I have heard of 10K. 10k has been really great, sponsoring a lot of dream and events And was curious do the consultants that you have on contract are they all full-time Consultants, or do you have some people that are just regular part-time contracts, because I know a lot of other folks might have their own independent consultancy and then just do work with you? I wasn't sure if it was full-time or part-time or it could be a combination, sure.
Speaker 4:They're all independent Salesforce consultants that own their own businesses, so they can work with 10K. Our goal is to ultimately, for those that have decided to take the path of being an independent Salesforce consultant, our goal is to try to make their life as easy as possible by taking off some of the administrative burdens that come with being a business owner And then allowing them to do what they love to focus on, which is consulting and delivering to clients from a Salesforce perspective, so they can work with 10K, but they also usually have their own customers and clients that they're working with as well.
Speaker 2:All right, Right on. I mean, it's a really unique niche that you guys are filling And I think you've experienced some strong growth over the last 12 to 24 months. You've been there about a year now right, i have.
Speaker 4:I've been there about a year now. We have increased our expert base by right around 200 in that timeframe.
Speaker 2:Oh, sorry, i should unmute when I ask questions. Yes, as, like, so busy is what you're saying.
Speaker 4:We are very busy. It's exciting. It seems that people are wanting more opportunity to have flexibility and freedom, choose projects that they want to pursue themselves and really take on more of an entrepreneur path in their careers. So we're definitely seeing this direction grow more and more.
Speaker 3:What's the process of connecting those 200 consultants to the projects that you have? Because that's got to be a challenge in and of itself. It is, and resourcing is always a challenge in consulting.
Speaker 4:It definitely is, and so, and you can imagine, it's very unique too because these consultants, they are pursuing their own work as well.
Speaker 4:So it's not like we have your typical bench where you know the utilization of everyone at any given point in time. So there are a lot of moving parts to it. We have a connection, a matching ability where we're able to take the type of project work, the skills needed, the role needed, the clouds, you name it, the specifics needed for the project and the role, and then each of our experts helps us by identifying, okay, what are their top skills, what are all the certifications they have, and then we use those two in our Salesforce system to match them together and to bring up what are the experts that could align to the project work. From there I also get involved, along with another team member of mine, jared Miller, to really look at, okay, based off the conversations that we've had, based off of preferences, availability, who would best align to these projects, and at that point we reach out to those experts to see if they're interested and available.
Speaker 2:Okay, very, very cool. I got to imagine that in my experience, kristen, there are certain qualities that people have that are shared qualities when they strike out on their own. Would you agree?
Speaker 4:A thousand percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they're open to more risk. Right, they're open to more risk. They tend to be oh God, what's the word I'm thinking of? Like, i don't want to say they tend to be less agreeable, but they tend to be lower conformity, i guess you could say. Right, i'm kind of curious if there are one or two traits that you've sort of synthesized over the last 12 months working with these specific types of Salesforce professionals. What are some of the qualities that they share in common?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that's a great question. I think what we really see in those that are successful and going out on their own is the fact that not only do they have the deep technical skills, but they also have the business and soft skills in communication and articulation and are able to really communicate strongly what their abilities are in a manner that either the clients that they're working with or from a 10K perspective, understand how they can bring value to the projects. In addition to that, I would say where the world is going, you really have to just promote the heck out of yourself and be okay with the uncomfortable of really putting yourself out there, being able to articulate I've mentioned that a couple of times what are your skills, what is your expertise, and promote it, promote it socially, promote it to your network. That can be uncomfortable for a lot of people. However, I would say that's where we really see those thrive and be successful in going out on their own.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes sense. That's the. Can they talk rating. Basically, yeah, we joke about it. It's like, yeah, i'm glad that you're a developer and you've got five certs and you've done this for five years and apparently you've got great references. Can you talk? Can you talk to stakeholders? Can you ask good questions? Are you listening? Are you a good communicator? Are you unafraid to pipe up when someone's doing something that's going to be expensive to their business, expensive to their platform? I don't even know what else to call it. Just a little bit of courage, i suppose. Enough courage to put yourself out there and be like I don't know about that. That might. Let's talk about that a little bit more, because there's some risks involved. That's interesting. Do you have a standard? and not to give people a cheat sheet? but I'm curious because you've been interviewing Salesforce professionals for a lot of years now. I'm curious Is there a go-to question that you have? Then Vanessa's got a question. We'll jump right in with her right after this. Is there a go-to question? that's one of your favorites.
Speaker 4:That's a great question. I might have to think on that one, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2:That's one of my favorite questions, kristen, right there, you just got it.
Speaker 4:That's a good one, honestly, because there's just so many that come up. When you speak with individuals, i typically have my template of questions I go through, but it also depends on where is this person's expertise, what's their role, what clouds or verticals or industries have they really focused on to go dig deep? It really depends. To be honest, however, i would say from a 10K perspective, it's really trying to understand at this point in time, why have they decided to go independent? Why are they pursuing this path? Is this a path that they are going to continue to go down? That's a lot of what I focus in on now in my questions that I ask, those that we vet for 10K.
Speaker 2:That makes sense. What's their motivation?
Speaker 4:What's the motivation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, identifying someone's motivation for anything. Why are you interested in this job? Why do you want to leave your current company? Why were you let? Why was the motivation for the company who let you go? if someone's not working right now, that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Vanessa, go for it, yeah just curious, i have to ask for all my Salesforce BAs out there Do you ever see any independent folks that are? I know everybody is looking for the solution architect, the CTA, the technical architect, but do you ever look for somebody who might be an independent Salesforce BA where really their focus is more on the business architecture, the business analysis portion of the projects?
Speaker 4:Definitely 100%. We're seeing that role grow more and more and the need for it 1,000%. we look for those that are independent Salesforce business analyst.
Speaker 2:Right on. Vanessa is our resident queen of all things BA, plus about 10 other things In fact, if anyone's listening to this episode or this podcast for the very first time, go back I think two episodes and you'll hear a really terrific podcast that was focused on Vanessa and an article that she wrote for Salesforce Band About interviewing for BA positions. So definitely check that one out. By the way, the podcast now is getting over 1,000 downloads a month, so I want to send out a big thank you to all of our listeners, all of our subscribers and all of the people who participate in this show. Sometimes it's once a month, sometimes it's every week, just like our friend Jason, who's on here right now. So thanks so much to our audience. You guys rock and you're fun too.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you this The Salesforce ecosystem. It's something that you've been involved in for some time. You've worked at a period. You've worked at CapTech, I mean. You've worked for some interesting consulting firms and I imagine you've had a hand in Salesforce for a number of those years. What is it about Salesforce that keeps you in this ecosystem?
Speaker 4:There's nothing like Salesforce in the ecosystem. The last firm I was with was CapTech Consulting and they were more of a custom dev consultancy where they did have a Salesforce service offering And so it was part of the organization. It wasn't a big part And I will tell you I missed it. I missed being part of a consultancy where it was primarily focused on Salesforce and the innovation and the growth, and I think that's part of it. I look back to my days at a period and it moves fast, it keeps you on your toes, you're constantly learning, and I mean, obviously, the people that are in the ecosystem right, i mean it's some of the best fun engaging, humble, yet smart, and I constantly am learning from them on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i love that. I want to echo all of that Absolutely. I mean, i've been involved in a lot of different tech stacks over the years, starting in 99, right, and back then I actually got a chance to use Salesforce the year it came out. It was not a lot of fun to use, by the way, because I think I had 56-page dial up. At the time I was like, oh my God, enter a name, wait five minutes for it to load and then enter the last name, right. So it was a little bit different back then. Let's talk if I can just switch things around a little bit, because we're talking about coming on board either as an independent consultant for oneself or utilizing 10K. By the way, if you want to check out 10K, you can go to 10KViewcom. If you want to check out our firm Salesforce Staff, you can visit the SalesforceRetrootercom.
Speaker 2:We focus predominantly on headhunting and direct placement. We tend not to do a lot of these shorter engagements like 10K, because if Kristen was a real direct competitor, maybe I wouldn't have her on the show. I don't know, maybe I wouldn't, maybe I wouldn't. There's enough to go around, right, but I'm kind of curious. When we spoke the other day, we talked a little bit about hiring people and not just our activities as recruiters and headhunters and screeners and people trying to attract people to the jobs. But I'm kind of curious When we think about actual hiring managers, because you've got all these years director of global recruitment, senior manager, global recruiting manager, recruiting like you've done some team lead of recruiting. You've had these different roles. What are some of the what would be that, say, two or three mistakes that you see hiring managers make that cost them good hires? Because there might be 20 of them.
Speaker 4:I'm curious, was that repeated?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:That's the thing. I'm only two to three. It's a short show.
Speaker 2:It's only two hours, Yeah, But what are the most common ones? Because here's the thing We spend a lot of time on the show helping candidates right, Helping them be engaged in their job search, helping them be engaged in their growth within the ecosystem. Some of our listeners are brand new. They've never even played around with Trailhead, much less be a solutions architect somewhere or in leadership somewhere. But the show is really dedicated to helping people in their careers. Sometimes that's about helping them be more efficient or to view their current. Maybe they're enduring a company that they don't really love, but they're enduring it because they're new to the ecosystem. They need to show stability right.
Speaker 2:But one of the areas that I really want to be able to help is helping the hiring managers who listen to our show. How can they make better decisions to bring on not just okay people or average people, right, Average employees with average results, but bring in the best of the best? And we all know hiring managers blow it Not all of them, but a lot of them. Most of them at some point blow it. What are they doing when they blow it, Kristen?
Speaker 4:Well, I think one of the common mistakes is, you know, someone has to look perfect on paper, right, They have to meet XYZ requirements and they have to come from this background, or you know these Ivy League schools which I think we're all starting to really recognize that not necessarily a determining factor for the success someone's going to have, But I think it's really trying to articulate not only what are the technical skills required, but what are some of those soft skills, What about the environment, What about the you know the other skills that really will make somebody successful in the role.
Speaker 4:And then also looking at how do we sell this and cater the opportunity to entice people to want to work there versus in. I think, Josh, one of the things I talked to you about is the fact that from an interview process, not always the hiring manager but people also involved in the interview process can come across of what can you do for me and can come across smug in the interview process as an interviewer to a candidate, And that script has to flip. We need to really be able to provide an outstanding experience to those going through the process and really try to create it as a open dialogue. So you're really trying to understand, obviously, not only what can the candidate bring to the role and job, but also what can we do as a company to cultivate, and what do we do to cultivate people that come in and inspire them to do better at their jobs or be successful? I've always also go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, just agreeing with you, it's the long play. The reality is we're hiring different generations right now. I was talking to someone this morning. I was talking about how there's this sort of confluence of four generations going on the boomers, the X's that's what I meant the millennials whether they like that term or not and Gen Z. So we've got all of these different desires and needs and it's shifting. What was good for the boomers, honestly, what was good for the X's, isn't necessarily what the Z's and the millennials want right now, and they're way more careful about their, like you said, they're way more careful about lifestyle, about work-life balance, about career progression and kind of getting pointed in the right direction early on in their career, i think, than they were when I was in college and coming out of college.
Speaker 2:So what are some things that employees can actually do? Those are the. That's one of the key problems, christian. How do we roll out the red carpet, or how do managers roll out the red carpet so that people can feel the warm fuzzies? And, by the way, the warm fuzzies should be real warm fuzzies, like don't fake it. If you're tough and you're straight talker and you're not real warm, well then just be that in your meetings? right, you don't want to fake it. But what can we do in general? do you think?
Speaker 4:I think that's a fantastic point of like you don't want to fake who you are, you know, but I think there's a way to still be yourself and come across inviting or not Maybe it's. You can come across as yourself but still come across as interested in that person. I've had hiring managers that have completely acted, disinterested in that, almost bored, or looking at their phone and interviews. And yeah, of course, who's going to want to come work for that company in those instances? But what can we do? I think one if you work for a internal recruitment or HR organization, it is it's change management. The environment's changing, the market's changing. As you mentioned, there's so many different generations that are coming in And we all have to be able to articulate and work with our team members to help them understand this change with all the different generations that are working. We've got generations that are coming across like well, i had to prove myself. Things didn't come easy to me. This is what I had to go through to get here. So so should this person coming in the door?
Speaker 2:And there's nothing wrong with that, right, i mean to a degree right. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's in the messaging, don't you think?
Speaker 4:It's in the messaging, but it's also understanding well, maybe you had to prove yourself, but honestly, maybe that wasn't the right thing either, Like maybe the proving that you had to do. maybe when you back it up and look at the past, you're kind of looking at like, oh, I can't believe those are the things that this company put me through at that point in time. And, yes, I did have to prove myself and I did. But maybe there's different ways that we can ask people to prove themselves or showcase it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i agree.
Speaker 2:I think too that you know, if we have someone who's 35, just to pick a number out of a hat somebody who's 35, who's been in the ecosystem for five years, versus someone who's maybe 25, just got their admins sort of a year ago and has had one job for a year, you know it's going to be a little bit of a different, it's going to be a different interview, right? How can it not be? I'm kind of curious too, like when it comes to how do you create the warm, and well, i know how, but I want the audience to know right from you too, right? Like, do you have any recommendations for what to do inside of an interview so that you can be warm, you can be inviting, you can be deeply interested in the person's background, what their path, what their future goals are, all of these things and yet still find a way to create a reasonable amount of stress and pressure inside of the interview, to be able to gauge how they handle stress and pressure and communication under stress and pressure.
Speaker 2:Is that something that's going to be in your purview or something that you've given some thought to?
Speaker 4:Yeah, i think that's an awesome question, so I would say one. To be able to be able to make that happen. It takes practice as an interviewer and hiring manager and going through that and following others, working with your interview team, your recruiters, your HR team to ensure. You know, i've always worked to put a toolkit in front of our interviewers and team to ensure that there are the you know best, strong enough questions to ensure that we are really truly digging in deep. But we are training them how to really work, to try to build a report upfront, to articulate Here's how the interview is going to go.
Speaker 4:I'd love to spend a couple of minutes telling you a little bit about myself. I'd love to then go into X, y, z of questions and ensure that there's plenty of time at the end to ask questions. I think there's a way to articulate, to come across in a warm way, but that is also still in an interview manner. It always helps to make sure that you have specific questions that are for that specific role and are consistent across the people that you're interviewing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i really love that last point, i think, because if you're asking everyone different questions, it's really difficult to compare. Having a scorecard, you can Google scorecards. How do you have a scorecard? But you can Google it. But at the end of the day, it's like having some consistency. If I'm interviewing five people, for instance, for one single job, i need to know how they respond to each of those core questions. Maybe there's only four or five questions that are the core ones, but you've got to have some level of consistency. I would like to share an idea, because you did mention giving time and space to answering their questions at the end.
Speaker 2:I read some years ago the book Recruit Rock Stars. I can't remember. I'm so bad with names, i don't know why. I'm a recruiter, but Jeff Hyman, that's his name. He's a nice guy. I've talked to him on the phone, but he wrote Recruit Rock Stars.
Speaker 2:One of his recommendations was a great way to develop rapport early on is just have the candidates ask all the questions that they've got up front. I just like great, i'm going to start. This is our company, this is what we do, this is my role here, this is what we're going to cover. But before I start asking my questions. Why don't I answer some of yours? So what are you curious about? That way, you can understand early as an interviewer what their key interests are, because if we just explain it all the way up front, we don't know which parts they were necessarily interested in, and then it lets the candidate relax. Of course, when people get to talk about themselves or have their own interests and curiosities answered, they feel more important, and that's also a nice feeling. Who doesn't like to feel important? What do you think about that? Is that something that you've ever tried or would give a try?
Speaker 4:So it's interesting you say that I do that today in my vetting for those that join 10K's community. On the flip side, my only concern is, in some of the interviews I've been a part of in other companies and for other roles, that can honestly turn into, in some cases, a significant amount of the interview time that you're allocated, and so there's got to be some kind of balancing act if that's a path you go down, because you, as an interviewer, hiring manager, you need to ensure that you're getting the questions answered, that you need to be able to make a decision or be able to articulate back to the team. This is how this person answered this question, and so I definitely think there's a fine line. I do like that, and that's actually the path I Oh, i think you cut out there.
Speaker 2:Can you hear us, okay, kristen?
Speaker 4:Okay, I'm sorry, I'm back.
Speaker 2:You're back. Okay, we might need to wrap this up because I'm concerned that there's going to be other issues and then you and I can catch up tomorrow or Friday, get a little bit more of. We can just record you and I chatting and then we'll get this out to the majority of our listeners who don't listen to it live. We can try to take some questions right now if it's not being infringed upon by some of these technical challenges with Twitter Spaces right now. So if someone does have a question, now is probably the best time to ask, because I think we're going to have to wrap this up. It's extremely unfortunate, but it's also going to be perfectly okay. Get some more information out and some more time with Kristen in this conversation in the next few days.
Speaker 4:MUSIC. Good morning, Josh. How are you?
Speaker 2:Oops, there we go. Good morning, how are you doing?
Speaker 4:I'm doing awesome. Happy Friday.
Speaker 2:Happy Friday, and that's a special happy Friday because it's a long weekend. Celebrating Memorial Day on Monday, my entire team forgot I was, like you know, cut out early on Friday and no work on Monday. And they're like, oh yeah, laughing.
Speaker 4:They're just too ingrained into it.
Speaker 2:These guys can be a little bit too dedicated. I'll definitely give them that. It's not the worst quality in the world.
Speaker 4:I was going to say I don't. That's kind of one of those in between where, yeah, it's not the For sure the worst quality.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I do feel like I have to remind them to take vacations.
Speaker 4:LAUGHS Yeah well, that's good. That means you're showing and leading Right, leading the pack in the right way.
Speaker 2:Hey, trying to my friend.
Speaker 4:Trying to.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's right. Well, gosh, you know, do you have any big?
Speaker 4:Ops, they're good.
Speaker 2:No, go ahead.
Speaker 4:I wasn't asking you any big plans.
Speaker 2:You know we're going to be out on the boat on Monday So you know I think it's going to be kind of fun out there. We're here in Jupiter, florida, and you know, along the intercoastal and the ocean and the inlet, so it's a huge, huge boating community And I think Memorial Day is going to be pretty busy out there on the water I think it's going to be a lot of people out there having fun, But usually we just like to pull up to a sandbar anchor, put our feet up, listen to some music and chill out.
Speaker 2:We'll be hanging out with a couple of friends, one of whom is actually a pretty awesome Salesforce guy, So yeah what about you guys?
Speaker 4:Well, fantastic. Well, our plans have kind of gotten thrown out the window. The weather here in Charlotte is just supposed to be pretty nasty and chilly, so we're looking for a lot of indoor activities to keep our six and four year old busy. Yeah, so I think we're going to go check out Little Mermaid.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:The new Little Mermaid on Saturday.
Speaker 2:There's another one. They did it again.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, they did it.
Speaker 4:So they've. My understanding is they kind of started or tried to start production before COVID And then COVID hit and they in fact I think my understanding is how to even get a new actress to play Little Mermaid, because the one that they had had grown up So they needed somebody. Can you? imagine.
Speaker 2:So we'll see What a bummer to just have outaged your big break, right, or maybe they already had a big break, i don't know.
Speaker 4:So true.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:No, I know.
Speaker 2:Well, good thing, we haven't outgrown our big breaks.
Speaker 4:You know we continue to come into our own right.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, thanks for our guests showing up here, our audience. It's nice to see you guys. I see Ms Jane Anthony, one of the most giving and fun people out there, and Mike Martin, fantastic Salesforce MVP, and we've got Samarth visiting here today too. So thank you folks for showing up. And, by the way, i mean, if you guys want to get involved in this conversation it's a little Friday morning conversation Feel free to. All you got to do is raise your hand and go ahead and add you as a speaker, and your input is always going to be valued on this program. So I'll just kind of do a quick recap.
Speaker 2:Tristan, we were having a nice chat, you and me and Vanessa, on Wednesday And right around 6 o'clock is when Governor Ronda Santos and Eli Laun Muff got together on a Twitter space for what is probably the largest Twitter space event ever. I think they had half a million people on there And what I heard was about 50,000 people were adding it, being added every single minute, and I think the servers like the system. It just broke down And you know it. It. It shows them mentally what they need to shore up with the system and impact on our it had an impact on our show, on our Wednesday afternoon program. So that's why we're back here today to catch up, because I just didn't think half an hour chatting with you was quite long enough. What do you think?
Speaker 4:No, never, you know, i could talk, i could go on and on about this, this area in space. Well, good.
Speaker 2:So one a couple of the things that we already covered. We talked a little bit about your background, and we'll be spicing this episode together with the last one. We talked a little bit about your background and we talked a little bit about what 10K does and their unique offering, And we also discussed, you know, what it takes, necessarily or potentially, to be an independent consultant. What are some of the sort of qualities, traits or behaviors that you've witnessed over the years that are common for people who have their own LLCs and and operate as independence? And then we talked just briefly I think this is kind of where the conversation broke up.
Speaker 2:We started to talk a little bit about what hiring managers can do to improve their chances of bringing on top talent. So, with that in mind, is that an area that you'd like to continue discussing or are you open to talking about? you know what we're seeing in this specific current economy that we're having right now, Because it's a little bit different than even five or six months ago. But I'm happy to go where you want to go. So where do you want to go?
Speaker 4:Yeah, i mean I'm happy to kind of recover the hiring manager and then go into that direction. Okay, i also had somebody reach out to me and asked specifically about kind of things that they could do if they're wanting to pursue independence. What are, what are, things that they can do to prepare themselves? So that is something that we could talk about.
Speaker 2:Let's do that right now. Let's let's help them out and get some answers to this. I think that, combined between the two of us, you know, they might have a chance.
Speaker 4:Oh, perfect, i like it, so yeah. So I mean, we we really do try to talk through with those that are in the position or have goals to go independent And we work to really encourage, talk through what it takes, create almost in so many ways, a checklist of things to think through. And there's you know, the way we define independent at 10K are those that have decided to fully transition from a full-time job into going into independent consultancies where they own their own business or entity and they're doing that full-time. We also define and there's two terms there's independent consultant and then there's freelance. Okay, our definition for freelance is somebody that considers doing some maybe consulting or side project work in addition to having a full-time job.
Speaker 4:I think we always say, okay, when you're really thinking about the path you want to take do you want to be a freelancer or do you want to go fully independent, really understanding why do you want to do this and what is your why behind it. That would be the first step. It's like what is your why for starting your own business or going independent? Then if you can really articulate that and understand it and really say, yes, this is the path I want to take, then it's always a good idea to really work with maybe a group of friends or those that you find in your professional network that have been advisors to you or mentors, and really talk through what are the steps that you feel it needs to happen and have them hold you accountable, have that accountability. If you know this is a goal that you want to do, then you work with those that are in your network, talk about it. What are those accountabilities that they can hold you to?
Speaker 2:I love that, kristen. Yeah, i mean, the accountability piece is huge, especially for independence. Now there are a handful of people out there that can spend their own top and then they can spin forever. They really can just do it all on their own. They have the right motivation, dedication and often it's just the right personality profile. Sometimes you're just born with it and sometimes you're not. That's okay.
Speaker 2:It's an incredibly powerful thing, i think, to have an accountability partner or to let people in. I mean the statistics around, for instance, committing to your weight loss goals or your fitness goals or your dietary goals or whatever, getting your first admin certification, whatever it happens to be. The statistics are staggering about how much more likely you are to succeed If you're a part of a group or at least have a single accountability partner to do it. I know when I did a marathon I've got no business running a marathon, by the way, i'm just not. I'm just too tall, too flat-footed and I'm just not built for it But I did it and I did it within an accountability partner, i think, without that motivation and looking forward to seeing him for the long runs on Sundays. I just don't think.
Speaker 2:I would have got through it. I'm curious who should not be doing this. Maybe I'll just answer it real quick, sorry. I have found a lot of folks reach out speaking to different people over the years of different and varying abilities and different levels of experience. I've found some people who are really just chomping at the bit in their 20s to go independent very quickly, but they haven't necessarily had enough time in the seat around a mentor. It's like you wouldn't necessarily have a 23-year-old flying a 747 after only 100 hours. You know what I mean. I feel like some people need a little bit longer time of mentorship first, or maybe they've been an admin and then moved up, maybe even a solution architecture, but they've only been in one company working for a Salesforce customer, but they haven't spent any time in the world of consulting, say, working at a Salesforce partner. Do you think that that gives them a serious disadvantage, not having that exposure?
Speaker 4:Yes, i do. I think there's so much to be said for having exposure across multiple industries, multiple clients, environments, stakeholders, communications. Getting that exposure and experience is invaluable as you're looking to go out on your own, because then you can take all of that and you can understand the different environments, different businesses, how the different styles that people communicate. And if you don't have that background, your I propose are more likely to not be successful as an independent consultant. It's very crucial to have an underlying business acumen, consulting acumen, and then a specific deep expertise in a specific area of Salesforce, whether it be 10-year or you've gone deep within a specific niche, vertical, in the tool itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you need a differentiator right. Why you instead of other people? And if the majority of your competition has five years of extra experience? maybe your differentiator is that you're affordable, But the reality is that you may actually have. It may take you more hours, Like your ability to estimate work for clients is going to really go to the wayside if you just have no experience. We've got a question from Anthony Pipe up, Anthony.
Speaker 5:Hey guys, Thank you both so much for coming back on Friday with everything. I think you both are just hitting the nail on the head. When you got a mentor-mentee relationship, that's strong. That's where you're going to know, Because if you don't trust that mentor or you don't trust yourself, the mentor is going to tell you, hey, you're not ready for this, or, yeah, this sounds like a good move. They've been there and done that. So I just want to back that up 100%. Trying to start your own business is a giant adventure. I had my own business in my 20s. I had a karate dojo. I loved karate, but once I started running my own business, it was 60-plus hour weeks and I had little time myself to do the karate. I was the janitor, the insurance guy, the marketing guy, the tax guy and it was a trial by fire.
Speaker 2:For real, and you've got all those wonderful children, too, to look after too, Don't you now? One thing we can always count on Anthony for is sound effects. I don't even know how you do it, but it's awesome.
Speaker 4:That's fantastic. I love it.
Speaker 2:That's great And, by the way, while we're on it, we still got to get you on the boat buddy, so come on down. Anthony's just up on the space coast and we got to hang out at Florida Dreaming. He's a wonderful guy. He gave me and Casey and about six other people a lift while it was pouring rain out, so he's a stellar dude.
Speaker 5:Glad to do it. Shout out to Mike. He did a phenomenal job Florida Dreaming last year. They got it coming up again in October Getting a big time. Oh Josh, I'm speaking at Midwest, Dreaming about mentor-mentee relationships with the legendary, The legendary Janine Markard. It's going to be epic bro.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic. I've done some shows with Janine in the past. I think that's going to be amazing. Well, congratulations on getting your first. I'm assuming this is your first Salesforce speaking engagement, Is that correct?
Speaker 5:Well, I got the MC at Florida Dreaming for Gabby and Vanessa, So this is Well yeah, you did a great job in that one too.
Speaker 2:I was there, right, it was fun, it was fun, it was so fun. It was one of the most fun sessions I've ever been involved in. Yeah, well, i wasn't even involved, i was in the audience but somehow got involved. Too cool man, too cool. Okay, i'm going to share real quick. When I decided to leave Robert Hath, i was a vice president there. I'd been there for a number of years. I did two stints, each about four years long.
Speaker 2:When I was thinking about going out on my own, i had a meeting with I'll call it a meeting, okay, i ran into Arnie at the JCC where I worked out, and Arnie was just hardcore, died in the wool DBA And he'd been at it for years and years, and years And he was one of the founders of PadNug, which is the Portland areanet user group, which at the time was the largestnet user group in the country. And so I knew him through that affiliation and ran into him And I asked him. I said, hey, man, i'm thinking about just going out on my own. What are your thoughts about me keeping it real simple? in other words, just being a headhunter on my own and not really building a business to sell, because you can't sell a business if it's just you. But what do you think about the difference between me trying to actually grow this into a company versus me just doing this as like an independent, which is kind of what we're talking about right now? Kristen, right, except in recruiting and in staffing? And he just said well, the best advice I can give you is imagine yourself 10 years from now doing exactly the same thing that you're doing right now, because if you're small and it's just you, that's probably what's going to happen.
Speaker 2:And I had to sit on this for a long time and usually I'm pretty quick with decision making, but this one really made me think And I thought long and hard about it And I thought no, i don't want to keep doing the same exact things that I have been doing for years or that I am doing today, 10 years from now. That might be okay for some folks. It's not okay for me. And that conversation, of course, led to my drive to create a business that was well beyond me and incorporated lots of other people, the same way that Nick and Jared have done with their business. So something that these independent folks can think about, because even if they go out and they are on their own and they find some success, then they have that sort of second decision of do I want to now employ other people and grow this thing and help more organizations? I'm kind of curious, kristen, does this come up at all in your conversations with people who are applying to 10K? A thousand percent?
Speaker 4:And I think that's the really awesome option that you also have. You can go out, you can focus on yourself building your own independent consultancy and you can make that determination. Do I want to only worry about myself? Find sales force opportunities where I'm delivering, i'm client facing, doing what I love to do, and do I want to continue that and build upon it?
Speaker 4:We have definitely both sides within our community where we've got those that said you know, this is plenty. I've worked in the corporate world, i've worked for consultancies in the past. I've managed teams, i've led teams internally while I'm delivering. Now I just want to focus on delivering and providing awesome consulting work to clients. Then we also have those that say you know what I've loved going down on my own. I've been successful. now I want to bring more people into it, and so I don't think you can go wrong with either.
Speaker 4:I think it is as you said. you look internally and ask yourself those questions, and one of the things that I think is just so unique and fabulous about 10K I'll brag on 10K for a minute is the fact that we are bringing a community to those that you know are independent and want to stay independent, and we're bringing an opportunity for them to engage with others that are like-minded that, have you know, businesses have gone out on their own. In addition to that, we're bringing growth opportunities to them. We're bringing a very new and curated learning and development program for them to continue to grow. So just because you're independent doesn't mean you can't continue to grow and take on different types of projects that allow you to expand your skill set.
Speaker 2:Yeah, excellent point, really good point And nice work to have been able to build this community. We love building communities too, and it's always a little bit different. You really never know what your community is going to turn out to be right Until it's built. We've, you know we start relaunched the Salesforce professionals community. It's now the largest Salesforce community on Twitter And it's been great, like it's been great, and it's still small by community standards. You know there's probably like 8,000, 10,000 people on Ohana Slack and we have just over a thousand. So it's not as robust, it's not as engaged And I don't know if the platform is going to necessarily be able to compete with. You know what Slack can do From a real engagement standpoint, because anything that gets too big and unwieldy if you don't have sort of the different channels that Slack offers, it can be a little bit challenging. But building a community nonetheless is really a special thing. Anytime you can bring people together, like we try and do on this show or like you guys are doing with 1010. So I think that's terrific.
Speaker 2:Let's do this, let's talk about the economy. Want to do that? Hey, what's your take? It is now. What is it? It's now May 25th, i think or something like that. I don't even know What is the date.
Speaker 3:Who are we.
Speaker 2:It's the 26th. Ok, well, it was May 25th yesterday, so it's May 26th. The economy has been in decline, but it's getting mixed messages in the numbers, right, we are seeing a reduction in professional services year over year. Right, it's about 7% of all jobs right now, whereas about a year ago it was right around 9%. We're seeing a little bit of an uptick year over year in tech. It's grown by small margin, but those numbers aren't necessarily accounting for the growth, the strong growth that occurred, say, between January 2022 and September of last year, and then we've been in a little bit of a decline since then, and a much steeper one since December or January. What are you seeing? What do you think is going on? Give us a future prediction about what you think might come. Ok, come on.
Speaker 2:Ok, let's see here Put on your cool turban, grab your crystal ball and off you go.
Speaker 4:All right, looking into the crystal ball. Ultimately, we talk a lot about those at 10K as well, and I think there's going to be a continued push for fractional type of work and those that companies needing more of that type of expertise to come in. I think there will be less of companies hiring it full time and knowing that they can hire a specific team internally I'm specifically talking about Salesforce and Salesforce orgs to manage the day to day but when they ultimately have a specific problem they're trying to solve or they're trying to move forward a new solution, they will look to outside sources. So my prediction is that you're going to see a continued drive in companies realizing that fractional expertise and the need of that is going to help them and move them forward better than hiring that expertise full time in-house, and so I think you'll see a lot more people in the market take on more either side work to do that or go independent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think that's a real thing. I think that we're going to see firm hiring slow. I don't think it's going to retreat, but I think that we're going to see it slow. And I agree with you. I mean I've gone through I don't know three or four recessions already in staffing and you probably have done close to or the same number in staffing. When I was going through these, it was predominantly through agency right when I was working with agencies either here or abroad, and the reality is, is contract picks up, direct placement slows down. Now it doesn't necessarily slow down like by a massive amount for an extended period of time, but most bear markets are two to five months. They're not forever, right.
Speaker 2:But if we get into the full blown recession numbers and there's debate out there right now about whether we've already been in a recession or if we're currently in a recession or if we're going to go into a recession they've looked at the jobs numbers and it's particularly the jobs numbers that they're seeing, that are sort of trying to. They're using the jobs numbers basically, as my understanding kind of Mr Samuel, the jobs numbers are still good. It's under 4%. It's like 3.6% unemployment or something like that, which isn't that bad. Honestly it's not that bad, but we're also so used to. We've got this backdrop of post COVID right And that backdrop was insane hiring because of all of the pent up demand when everybody either went out of business or put their businesses on hold.
Speaker 2:My take is that there's really two ways that companies make it through a down market. One is they go into retreat, right Like they hide out in the cave and they all just eat their one slice of bread a day and sip on some water to stay alive, and then come out in the sunshine and again. And then the other thing that people do, or organizations do, is they view it as a time to grow a market share right. So if you have some coin, if your business is not broke, if you are able to maintain minimally your current status, or even if you've reduced a little bit, but now you're able to have the funds to invest and grow in market share, that they're doing that right. And so you know, for those folks out there who are independent consultants, this is not the time, i don't think, to retreat. This is the time to like double down and like work twice as hard Anytime we experience, as a business, a slowdown. This has always been the case over the last 20, 24 years is like now we work twice as hard even though we have like fewer things to work on. Right, but now is when we work twice as hard because, you know, the importance is to serve the community.
Speaker 2:Right Like when I think about the business, for instance, that the Salesforce recruitercom was in, or Salesforce stashing. The business that we're in is about literally changing the experience in the life of these hiring managers and the plus side is that we get to actually help some really wonderful candidates and employees move from good to great or bad to great. Right Like that's the goal. But ultimately it's like you know, you can't when you don't have the team around you that you need. It's so painful, so painful. I like to imagine I'm on a rocket ship or spaceship or at at near right Like I'm at the space station. Who do I want to be surrounded with Right, if I'm going to have and most Salesforce team?
Speaker 2:there are some very large Salesforce teams out there, right, you know, like United Health Group has a massive team, and then there are some large companies that you know. I think Staples is probably around 30 people, something like that, but for the most part they're not. They're not the largest teams in the world. Most Salesforce teams are anywhere from you know, one to 10 people, unless we're talking about Salesforce partners and consulting firms. And it just seems to me like it's an amazing opportunity right now because there's slightly not massively slightly greater access to top performers out there Now.
Speaker 2:Top performers tend not to lose their jobs And if they do, they tend to have a new offer by the next day. Like things move really, really fast. I'm talking top five, top 10% of the people out there, right? And I like to think about doctors. Like 50% of doctors graduated in the bottom half of their class, which is your doctor, you know.
Speaker 2:And same thing, when you have a Salesforce team and you're looking at your team, it's like, okay, who could I replace and who could I add?
Speaker 2:And I used to ask managers this question, kristen, when I was pounding the pavement for Robert Hath, which was like, who would you let go of? Like who could you replace? I always sorry I'm kind of fumbling here, it's still the morning, but I'm a firm believer that, for the most part, 98% of hiring managers out there wish that they could either replace someone or add someone to their team. And so, even while it might not be a great time to hire someone and no offense to those people who are in the bottom half of their class but it might also be a great time to replace someone with someone better, because you can have a team of six A plus people that are synergistic and work together and accomplish what 10 or 12 average people do, or maybe even more than what 10 or 12 average people do. So, even though there's probably going to be an in general slowdown and head hunting, it shouldn't be a slowdown for head hunting for top performers.
Speaker 4:What do you think?
Speaker 2:about that.
Speaker 4:No, i agree completely. And kind of going back to some of the things you're talking about, i mean I'm seeing in the professional services and consulting world there's a significant amount of layoffs happening, unfortunately, and I think some of that also I'm kind of thinking about. what you're talking about, like the trends is because they follow a very traditional model when you staff projects, your staffing a project or individual consultant for 40 hours a week for a period of time when companies may need help within their Salesforce org but they don't want to engage in that type of traditional model. So we are seeing consultancies unfortunately have to make layoffs and decisions there too. But, like you said, i think from a top performer standpoint people will make it all just fine. However, there are larger layoffs happening. I mean Salesforce has some massive layoffs and they unfortunately were top performers in those instances that were let go.
Speaker 4:They are making some decisions on what path do I want to take now. Some of them are really looking internally do I want to continue to work for somebody else or do I want to work for me? I think, ultimately, what it goes back to is, if you go out on your own, you have to put the work in. Going back to what you had said earlier when you started out, and Anthony, talking about the business that you started, that's another thing. You have to recognize that going on your own and starting your own business, it's not going to be easy. There's a lot of different pieces that go into it Marketing, business development, setting up any contracts, understanding how to scope work. So those are pieces that go into it and you play all of those.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah you cannot underestimate how much work it takes either For anyone who what I would recommend. I've got one book I'd recommend to people and it's not specific to the Salesforce ecosystem or to consulting either, but it's called The 10x Principle. I think that's what it's called. I read it a few months ago and it was a great book. I've seen so much marketing advertising like 10x your business and 10x this, 10x your productivity, and it's like these freaking idiots didn't read the book. They didn't read the book because the book isn't about 10xing your results. It's that whatever result you want, it's probably going to take 10 times the work you think it's actually going to take. That's what the book's about And, having grown more than one business from scratch, i can tell you they're not wrong.
Speaker 2:It's hard. It's hard. It doesn't mean it's not fun and rewarding, but I used to pull 90-hour weeks for two years straight. Like it was like kiss my kids on Sunday night. It was busy And a little bit of busy and a little bit of broke. Like it's hard to get by and eat by unless you have a partner that's got a great income or maybe you move back in with your parents If you're a younger person starting your own business, but you've got to find ways to reduce cost and grow income. And the marketing and the sales piece is often the piece that escapes technologists. I mean it just is right.
Speaker 2:So you know, you got to think long and hard about it. I've seen a lot of folks move into consulting just really by accident. Someone tapped them and said, hey, could you help me with this? It's six hours a week. They can do it on the weekend, then it goes to 20. Now they want to hire them full time. Now they want to know if they've got any friends who can help. And I've seen that turn into someone running a 20-person partner. Right, it can happen like that, which is kind of incredible. It definitely can, yeah. And I think it's putting yourself out there.
Speaker 4:That's what I always talk with people. And going back to what you were mentioning about from a financial standpoint, we always talk about make sure you have a contingency plan. Right, if you want to go independent, make sure you do. You separate your personal and business finances And then you have a contingency plan, because it is. It can take some time to get up and running, but with what you're talking about too of you know, somebody just kind of taps him on the shoulder to help out. You have to also let your network know that you're available and willing to help, and I think that's a way that you can start to ease into consulting to. Sometimes it does It just kind of it happened naturally over time, but that's probably that's definitely not the norm. The norm is you're going to have to work your tail off and put yourself out there and let people know that this is your, this is your game plan, this is your goal And then really going to start taking on some pieces of work here and there to prove your value and build a reputation.
Speaker 2:I love it, kristen. So you've made some wonderful points today And I want to go back to something that you said at the very beginning of this conversation here today, which was you should understand the why. Right, you really know why you're going to do it And and for me, let's talk about this What are some of the why's? for those people who who might lack at least in their career forever, or wherever they are in their career right now, they might just have kind of a feeling like, oh, that would be neat, or I think that would be fun, or wouldn't that be cooler? I could work less and make more money, and I could work from Portugal and save money. And you know like I hear this stuff all the time. What do you think are the most, some of the most compelling why's out there for going independent?
Speaker 4:So we have so many just amazing reasons from our independent experts and it goes across kind of the board, but I think most of it ties down to flexibility and freedom of being able to choose what they want to work on, when and when. Yeah, and I think they just have a lot more options than they ever had. Working for another company, right, and working for another consultancy, you don't really typically have a say in what project you take on or what, in some cases, what industry you get kind of put into or what vertical, and when you go out on your own, you can really you can take or be empowered now to an ownership of the type of projects, the work that you take on. Again, when you work, where you work, we have a lot of people that you know they're more mature in their independent career But you know they may choose to take projects on for specific months and maybe they load it up so they can take the summer off and have the freedom to be with their family or travel, and so that's what I would say that I see are more than the highest level or biggest reasons.
Speaker 4:People love independence. You can also make good money, but again, you have to kind of build that reputation. You have to know what your value is and you have to prove yourself. So those are, those are the things that I would say that stand out the most to me from our independent experts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me. I think that there is this sort of I mean, look, people can pick their industry because they can just go work for a specialty or their cloud. I think. Just go work for a specialty, you know, someone wants to work for CPQ, someone wants to do field service, someone else wants to do non-profit, someone else wants to do health care, and you can do. Or health cloud, and you can. You can sort of choose a consultancy because there's just about seven or eight hundred in the United States that may be even a little bit more, you know that are four or five star rated out there that you could, that you could pick from and try and get a job with. So I think it's less the, i think it's less the industry, but I definitely think it's it's picking your projects.
Speaker 2:But then there's this other thing of, like you know, not being necessarily beholden to your boss. I can tell you that I've had some really wonderful bosses in my career. I've been fortunate that way. I've had some bosses that I really didn't like that much. Yeah, you only had to endure them for maybe, maybe you know, 10 years out of a 30 year career. I really didn't have to endure them for too long. I don't think that's that's that's too long, but ultimately it's sort of like when you look at who's taking the profits. It can often be very financially driven. You know, i know in you and I both know in the recruiting world it's a little bit different, right. But I, you know you stand to make significantly more being independent than, say, being a consultant, where you can make more, but maybe it's not significantly more, right, it might be double, but it's not going to be triple, right, right, that's that sort of thing. But then you also, you know you have that flexibility.
Speaker 2:But there's this thing that people forget about. I just want to remind those again, those who are new or thinking about going into independent. It's that if you're a marketing machine, if your network machine goes down, like you might find that network, like, if you're not growing your network, your network is shrinking. It's just how it is. People come in and out of this ecosystem all the time. It doesn't just grow and everyone stays there, right? So even if you're taking that summer off, you still might need to be spending three to five hours or even 10 hours a week on your marketing and keeping your promotions up and like doing your networking and having conversations. It's just once you launch a business, you don't get to just turn your back on it, necessarily, unless you're just going to come back and sign up for another six month gig. That's full time. But if you're doing much more fractional work, then you probably need to be spending some time networking.
Speaker 4:Yes, i think that is like something I agree with you should be a constant that you're continuing to build your network, and that's where Salesforce is so unique. There's all these different conferences and engagements that you can participate in to build that ongoing network and keep it alive. Honestly, while you're still delivering, or even if you're taking some time to travel, you can still keep that Engagement very easily across a variety of different platforms.
Speaker 4:Or you can also partner with a firm like 10K, where it can help you on your journey with providing and connecting you to project work, but that's something that you should still, on your own as an independent, continue to focus on And I going back to kind of talking about because I do speak with those that are a little bit earlier in their career or early in their career or Salesforce And they do They have this goal to go independent and you can see the passion and you can hear it in them, but it is really important to really get a strong foundation of Salesforce itself. We always say that really having multiple years working with the system and ultimately we highly recommend working for another consultancy because you just get so many different life experiences, industry experiences, working with mentors and others and growing, and you grow very quickly in that environment to where you gain just core, invaluable consulting acumen that going straight independent that you're not going to get, which could really hinder a long-term career being an independent consultant.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, you got to get your reps in and you got to hit all the machines, basically Right. And for those who are listening right now, just understand where our business is positioned. We're about 75% of our placements are with the Salesforce partners, with consulting firms. So if you're an independent, it makes a lot of sense to go and work with 10K We do it too but they're probably going to spend 100% of their time working on those engagements where we spend 75% of our time on full-time, 25% on longer-term contract, but 75% of all of our placements are working with a variety of top-notch Salesforce partners.
Speaker 2:And so if you do need to, if you are trying to make that switch into the world of consulting or you're already in consulting, you want to make the switch to a different partner, whether it's a 400,000-person Salesforce partner or a five-person Salesforce partner, feel free to apply. You can go to thesalesforcerecruitercom slash J-O-B, scroll to the bottom There's a little link and you can go ahead and upload your information. So we'd love to hear from you and we'd love to have a chance to chat with you, as I'm sure 10K would be very welcoming to those who have their own LLC and are looking for some additional work.
Speaker 4:A thousand percent. Yeah, we're always, always happy to speak with those, and I'm always happy to you know, dig in deeper with those too, if this is, you know, an ultimate goal of theirs.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. I'm kind of curious and this might be sort of an out-of-the-blue question and you might be able to answer it or might not but I've seen consulting firms try to turn into recruiting firms, and I've seen recruiting firms try to turn into consulting firms or Salesforce partner firms. Do you see this yourself and, if so, do you have a perspective or a take on this?
Speaker 4:That's interesting. So through the consulting firms I've worked for, i would say that there have been questions in the past and that there've been, you know, kind of, i think, desires or pushes from a variety of people in the company to take on more from a recruiting perspective. I have always recommended to almost like keep that separate because it is and can be one depending on the size of the team. It's just they're two very different models and so you know I've always recommended to keep it separate. But I have seen that in working in the professional services consulting world where you know we would get asked time to time of like can you help this person and that, and like I'm happy to help or recommend how to go about the hiring, but it is a very it's just a different model.
Speaker 2:Yeah, i have yet to see a firm that does that. We're there in an A-level class of either right and no offense. If you're listening and that's your company, sorry, prove me otherwise. Come on the show and tell me why that's not the case. but that's what I've seen over and over and over again, and it's not like there's too many out there, but there's enough. And it's very funny, i think, like there's no way I could be, for instance, a solution architect. Like there's just no way, kristin, okay, i'm right here with you. That is not me.
Speaker 2:I can talk to people, but the tech stuff and getting buried in the tech stuff and having the patience for it or the memory for it, it's like that you know that would be. I mean, maybe I could do it, but I'm quite sure I would quit well ahead and just go back to what I know. So when I see Salesforce admins becoming recruiters out of the blue right or launching their own little companies and they haven't had any mentorship working in big firms or small boutique firms that are badass or anything like that, i'm always like, oh my God, like what are you doing? Like you're just setting yourself up for a life of average And no offense again, no offense to those people, but it's like there's so much to every single career out there, right? Particularly when we're talking about higher level professional services, type roles, recruiters or professional services, and so are so are Salesforce consultants. It's technical, but it's still professional services And there's so much to it.
Speaker 2:I really think that people should take a little bit of a minute and evaluate themselves And, like you said, surround themselves with mentors, talk to family, take a personality test, right, like just kind of measure yourself a little bit, see if it's true, see if you've got what it takes, and then spend some time in state, in other words, like sit there and just imagine, like take some deep breaths and just imagine, okay, like what's the outcome that you want? Right, take another deep breath, what would that look like? What would the results be? Right. And now the question isn't necessarily how do I get there? The question is who can help me get there, because if you start trying to invent all this stuff yourself, it's going to be a really long road, like a really long road fraught with many more obstacles that would have been way more easily overcome. So think about who do you know that can support you in this case, if you're an independent consultant, 10k view can help you. If you're a Salesforce consultant and you like working at partners, salesforce staffing can help you. But who in your immediate sphere? parent, friend, brother, sister and then people in this absolutely amazing Salesforce community that we're in? By the way, i'm just going to do a little plug here. So Vanessa Grant, who's my co-host it's a little bit early in the day for her She's got a busy day today going into a long weekend, so she's not on the program right now, but she helped to curate a directory for Salesforce professionals And it's called the expand exchange.
Speaker 2:The expand exchange is a little page on my website redoing the website. It should be up in about two and a half months, i think, but it's a page where you can find and very easily search for different resources in the ecosystem outside of what you can find on Salesforcecom. So it's not going to be all of the Salesforce Saturdays or Dreamforce and things like that, but it's going to list out the bloggers, the YouTubers, the Slack channels that you can get involved in and follow to grow your career, and it's good for all levels. There's a little button you can click for architects and it's all of the different channels and YouTubers and personalities in the architect space of Salesforce. You can click one that's military. So if you're a military vet or spouse, then you can go ahead and find additional resources there. And yes, anthony, thanks for your service buddy. So, like you can do, just check it out, it's expand exchangecom. Or you can go to the Salesforce recruitercom forward slash resources.
Speaker 2:I never wanted to compete with 10K. View 10K's awesome publications. I think that you guys not only produce a lot of really stunning information about the sales, the state of the Salesforce economy, which I'm grateful that you guys produced them. I read most of them. So we wanted to do something a little bit different. By the way, you guys do really beautiful work too. I love your design. It looks great.
Speaker 2:It's always very very pleasing to look at To guys do a nice job there. I thought, well, what can we do to support people? And really it came out of this show because we'd have so many people. Where can I learn more about this? so how can I connect and so and so, or how do I do this, that and the other thing? And we would just constantly be sending out DMs after every show of where people can go, And so instead we just put together this directory.
Speaker 2:We have tried to keep some people out, groups out that weren't necessarily like, pass the scrutiny of our little team here, But that doesn't mean that if someone's not on that directory, that we excluded them. So if you know of a YouTuber, a blogger, a Slack channel, an influencer in the ecosystem that you think deserves to be on there and isn't yet, go ahead and let me know. You can DM me right here on Twitter. You can write to me, Josh, at thesalesforcerecruitercom, And we'll have a look at it. Reach out to them, do a quick review and then get up on the directory. But definitely check that out. It's a nice resource, whether you're an independent consultant working at Salesforce partner, working at a Salesforce customer or just getting started in your career. Again it's expandexchangecom. All right done with my blog.
Speaker 4:I love that, because one of the things that I always talk to people about, regardless if they're looking to make a switch in their career to another industry if they're, you know, unfortunately we're caught up in layoffs and are looking for a full-time job or, you know, are looking to pursue going independent I always talk about dig into your network. You know, use your network, connect with others, find those that are in roles and jobs that you're interested in and ask if you can just talk to them and understand their path. How did they get where they are? And you know you can really learn so much from hearing other people's stories and then build relationships that way And then now you have another connection that potentially is working out for you and you know could get you connected with the recruiter that's hiring for that job. So, just getting out of your comfort zone and reaching out to your network and then finding people in roles that you would love to be in, I love it, kristen.
Speaker 2:This has been such a fun way to spend Saturday morning really. It's like a potentially a little more clear-headed than the fog of a late afternoon.
Speaker 4:I'm going to hate to break it to you, but it's Friday morning.
Speaker 2:It is Friday, what did I just say? Saturday I said Saturday morning Oh God, My coffee's broken. I'm going to have to go look at that machine. I'm going to go have a talk with my coffee machine and see what's going on there.
Speaker 4:I swear, though, i feel like Wednesday, felt like Friday, so I hear you on that.
Speaker 2:All right, well, thanks for your forgiveness.
Speaker 5:I'm ready for.
Speaker 2:Saturday. I'm ready, you are, anthony, all right. Well, look guys, i think we're going to go ahead and wrap it up here. Our goal is going to be to have this up on a combined and edited version of both this session and Wednesday session on our career show podcast. And, by the way, you can find us at Apple Music. You can find us on Spotify, on Google and about 15 or 16 other channels, including FM something or other and iHeartRadio. So we're all over the place. And if you want to go to our core page, you can go to the Salesforcecareershowbuzzsproutcom And you'll be dialed in. You can go ahead and subscribe so that you're getting more and more readers of this show.
Speaker 2:We have some stunning guests coming up in two weeks from now and we're booked through July, so I'm really excited about having some leaders at Salesforce partners. We've got some leaders of Salesforce architecture coming on board. We've got a military veteran, an ex-special ops military veteran who's involved in the Salesforce ecosystem, as well as a military spouse and their perspective on Salesforce military. So stay tuned, tune in every two weeks on Wednesday for the live show or listen at your leisure. Applause all around. Kristen, you've been a wonderful guest. Thank you so much for being on the show And anything that we can do for you guys. You just let us know, okay.
Speaker 4:I appreciate it. We'll write back at you and don't hesitate. If any of you have questions wanting to understand what it looks like to go independent, or you are independent and you'd love to partner with 10k, you can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn. Also, you can go directly to 10kviewcom and submit your information to our expert questionnaire, and I look forward to hopefully speaking with many of you.
Speaker 2:Rock and roll. All right. Guys have an awesome, awesome long weekend and a very special Memorial Day. Memorial Day is a special day and it's a given nod to all of the soldiers and all of the people who supported the soldiers on that day as well. So you all, take care and have a wonderful, wonderful day. Bye for now.
Speaker 4:Thank you, bye, bye, bye.