The Salesforce Career Show
Forging Your Path in Salesforce: A European Conference Adventure + AMA
What if you could gain valuable insights and career advice from Salesforce experts, learn from Trailblazers who've overcome obstacles, and hear inspiring personal stories from the Salesforce community? Join us on this exciting episode as we share our experiences from three conferences we attended in Europe: London's Calling, YeurDreaming, and Yeur Lead-In. Our cohost, Vanessa Grant, shares her inspiring Salesforce Euro journey.
We discuss the importance of business analysis and personal connections in the Salesforce community. We also explore the challenges of stage fright and offer advice for those facing similar situations. Learn how practicing under duress can lead to greater success and why specializing in one area of Salesforce may not be as crucial as you might think.
In our final segment we are joined by Mark Baker from our previous episode, and Salesforce leader Fred Cadena as we delve into navigating the job market, providing tips for standing out in interviews, and discussing the impact of the Great Resignation. We also share the importance of finding the right career path and surrounding yourself with supportive people. Don't miss this episode packed with valuable information, inspiration, and advice to help you on your Salesforce journey!
What if you could gain valuable insights and career advice from Salesforce experts, learn from Trailblazers who've overcome obstacles, and hear inspiring personal stories from the Salesforce community? Join us on this exciting episode as we share our experiences from three conferences we attended in Europe: London's Calling, YeurDreaming, and Yeur Lead-In. Our cohost, Vanessa Grant, shares her inspiring Salesforce Euro journey.
We discuss the importance of business analysis and personal connections in the Salesforce community. We also explore the challenges of stage fright and offer advice for those facing similar situations. Learn how practicing under duress can lead to greater success and why specializing in one area of Salesforce may not be as crucial as you might think.
In our final segment we are joined by Mark Baker from our previous episode, and Salesforce leader Fred Cadena as we delve into navigating the job market, providing tips for standing out in interviews, and discussing the impact of the Great Resignation. We also share the importance of finding the right career path and surrounding yourself with supportive people. Don't miss this episode packed with valuable information, inspiration, and advice to help you on your Salesforce journey!
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:And now something or other Salesforce career show. We're jumping right into chatting with Vanessa Grant, our beautiful co-host, our esteemed co-host, and she has just returned from a trip to Europe, where she spent time in London. She spent time in Brussels, she spent time on a cobblestone street on her face after falling off of a scooter. We're sorry about that, but we want to hear all about it. We've got some terrific questions that we'd like to answer for you, and hopefully Mark can pipe up on some of these questions as well. Welcome, vanessa Grant. Welcome back to the good old United States of America. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm still getting over the jet lag, but I'm leaving with my heart full.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you got to go to London, colin. We announced that on one of our prior shows.
Speaker 3:Yeah, i went to three conferences actually. So I went to What I went to London's Calling, which is actually a huge conference. I think it was probably close to a thousand people there, if I had to guess. And then I went to Brussels for Your Dreaming, which is a pretty standard dream and event. I would say probably 200 people there. And then I went to Your Lead-In the next day, which was specifically tailored for Salesforce community leaders. Well, that was a smaller group, i would say probably 60 folks.
Speaker 2:That's a nice tight little, tight-knit group. Yeah, and now you didn't go over specifically for those other two, right? Like the initial, the greatest impetus to jumping on a plane going all the way across 3,000 plus miles across the United States and then all the way across the pond, was to go to London's Calling.
Speaker 3:It was not actually.
Speaker 2:It was not.
Speaker 3:I will tell you No, I will tell you, I'm just getting it's like I don't even know you anymore.
Speaker 2:You don't know me anymore, Josh.
Speaker 3:I'm sorry You know, and I don't know that she knows this either, but the reason why I ended up booking for London specifically is around last November, i don't know. I think I made some random Twitter comment about Twitter fame being weird, and I don't know if you're familiar with Gemma Blizzard, but she is very prominent in the UK Salesforce community. She started Ladies Be Architect, architects Be Architect Club. She's an amazing person and she commented on one of my tweets and said you are famous, i would love to meet you, please come to London. And it was such a kind of a like a just a little comment tweet.
Speaker 3:But that was the moment that I decided that I would be in London for London's Calling And, in the hopes that that she would you know, if I could get just a little bit of her time to get to know her, that that would be worth it. And boy was it worth it. It was, it was really. I mean, of course, this getting to speak at London's Calling just made the trip even more worth it. I'm really glad that I got to attend and that I also got to speak. It was my first solo speaking session and I got to do it internationally, so that was a huge deal for me, but really I went over because of the people. Specifically, it was for Gemma and I was so grateful that I got to spend like two days at her house and we barbecued and I met her parents and we stayed up til 4 am talking about Salesforce and life and that's really why I went to London.
Speaker 2:That's fantastic And it was. You know, 4 am London, but really it was like 10 o'clock, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, yeah.
Speaker 2:And so you and I had a chance to catch up just the other day, and you shared a lot of information about Gemma. What a wonderful person she is. And, by the way, if anyone here is interested in ladies be architects, of course be architects. Of course you can just Google it. You can also visit the expand exchange. Just go to expandexchangecom, which is the directory that Vanessa and I put together for all of you listeners, at your request to identify top resources in the Salesforce ecosystem that aren't necessarily hosted by Salesforce, right? So be sure to check that out.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely, and she's got a great book out on Amazon Hurricane Gemma talking about her Salesforce story and you know she's currently battling cancer, so that's been a big part of her journey as well And she also has a website where you can learn Salesforce with Gemma that she created specifically for people that are trying to break into the ecosystem. How to learn Salesforce.
Speaker 2:And do you know where they came in? And, by the way, gemma is spelled with a G, correct? G-E-M-M-A, m-m-a yes.
Speaker 2:Okay. So if you're going to Google or try to identify her on LinkedIn, that's the spelling that you would go for. If there's a single takeaway that you picked up aside from, of course, the deeper emotional bonds that come with connecting with someone who's not just a friend but also having a shared experience in the same ecosystem kind of curious was there? was there from the conference? was there any big moment? Was there something that someone shared or an experience that you had, perhaps during your presentation? that was a little bit of a ho.
Speaker 3:I think for me my big takeaways, besides the connecting with people in the community, was again the importance of business analysis. It was surprising to me how even these sessions that weren't focused on user stories brought up user stories and brought up discovery and brought up requirements gathering. So even to Mark's point earlier about how important discovery and requirements are, it was very much reiterated to me that business analysis does go across all Salesforce projects, all it is the foundation of any good Salesforce implementation. And yeah, that and I will say by speaking with Gemma I was so impressed by she talked to me a lot about how she had put her consultancy together And I got to see, like some of her onboarding documentation, the value of documentation and having strong values.
Speaker 3:Again to Mark's earlier point of having a strong vision and a strong culture at the top and how that can permeate down to your employees and really help drive the business and the values and the quality was really inspiring to me. And I would say the last takeaway for me was just having, i guess, even just going across the world really and having people still say that my content has resonated with them, anything things that I've put out or things that I've said have impacted them and finding new jobs or inspired them in their careers. It really left me with a feeling of inspiration, of kind of continuing on what I'm doing. I got a little bit jaded, i will say, with the layoffs and some of the drama with the certs and the MVP program and all that stuff, but it's really amazing to see the impact that community people can have globally to really change people's lives.
Speaker 2:You know and you've changed a lot of people's lives and, in particular, with your very eloquent and I'll just say it's a real deep dive into the role of the business analyst. Vanessa, where can people find this extensive article that you pen?
Speaker 3:Oh, if you look me up on Sales Force Ben, i did recently put out an article on 30 interview questions for business analysts and that was very well received, and we'll see if my I did a talk in London on user stories that I imagine will be on YouTube probably in a couple months, but I'm hoping to maybe even refine that session a little bit more, and I don't know that business analysts get a lot of great training as far as how to do Sales Force user stories, so hopefully I can spread the word and just make us all better. That's really always been my goal is how do I, how can I help create some of the best practices that I think we're missing from Trailhead in order to make things better for all business analysts?
Speaker 2:Absolutely And, by the way, our number one most listened to podcast of all time and I say all time. It's five and a half months, guys. Okay, but our most listened to podcast of all time, which broke over 300 listens or over 300 downloads, is actually. The real number is a lot closer to 450 when we aggregate. Everything was Vanessa's session about three or four episodes ago about business analysis, and you can find that by going to Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. Type in Salesforce career will pop up number one And you just scroll down three or four episodes and you'll see business, business analyst episode. Right, it might say. The business analyst blueprint might have some flowery language, but at the core of it is Vanessa describing the article that she wrote, as well as deep diving a little bit more into the importance of the role of business analysts. So be sure to check that out. Well, thank you, vanessa. Is there anything else that you'd like to share that's noteworthy, whether it's about scooters and cobblestones, Brussels friends that you made, whatever it happens to be?
Speaker 3:Gosh, so many friends and it's the again. Networking is so important in this industry, but it's also great to connect as people And I think one of the easiest way to do that is, yes, we talk Salesforce, but ask personal questions. Talk about yourself as a real person, come with your authentic self And I had wonderful times connecting with like Paymon Lim, who runs the Zinhao Academy. He's amazing. Oh my goodness, that woman can see into any person's soul. You can see what makes her such a great project manager and consultant, tom Bassett. He's one of the number one answers on the Trailhead Community Boards And what an amazing guy. He ended up kind of being like my best friend on the trip. He ended up even coming out to Brussels spontaneously to hang out with me And what a genuine wonderful person, even though he was not the first to me when I fell off the electric scooter and my face planted into the cobblestones in Brussels, but he got me home safe. After that Gemma Blezard, of course, francis Pinder and even just speaking to Trailblazers about their journeys like I met this guy, paul Foley, who is from Northern Ireland, where they don't really even know what Salesforce is, and just hearing his story about how he came to London and was staying in hostels and learned Salesforce. Now he's a consultant for Fluido.
Speaker 3:Like amazing stories that are just inspiring. Like I, you know gosh, i could go on. You know Todd, todd Halfpenny. I mean just going to the community events, even if you're traveling, go check out and see if there's any Trailblazer community events going on. Get to know the folks in the community, get a little bit of outside of your, your spaces. There are amazing people in this, in this industry, on a professional and a personal level that can really, i don't know, like broker connections, that that you wouldn't even think possible. I always say when you go to a conference you never know who you're going to leave with, and I don't mean that in a saucy way, but like in a I just I'm always surprised when I leave a conference which friends I made that I didn't expect to make.
Speaker 2:It's so true, and I love what you said about connecting with people in a very real way and how important that is when you're going to these conferences. And with that in mind, i hope you don't mind. I'd like to ask you something, and it's personal, it's you'll have to be a little bit vulnerable, but I think you're going to be okay with it. You know, sometimes when we talk, vanessa, you'll share with me a little bit about stage fright. Right, yeah, yeah. So it's this thing that happens.
Speaker 2:And yet here you are, traveling overseas giving presentations, pulling significant weight on this podcast and this live program for years, doing mentoring, so you're in the public eye in a much broader way and at scale in a way that you know. Three years ago it just wasn't the case, but now you are. And every time I hear you on the show or any time I've seen you give a live presentation at a conference, i'm always shocked to be reminded that you do experience stage fright. And I think maybe some of our listeners would be surprised to hear that as well, Because when you present, you always sound very confident and appear relaxed. I'm curious is there something that you do? do you have a routine? What do you go through and what do you experience with some of the stage fright that allows you to get over it and keep going and then crush it once you're at the podium.
Speaker 3:Well, you know, for me part of that is connecting with the people that I do. My session for London's calling was at 4.25 pm, so I literally had the whole day to freak out and I absolutely freaked out the whole day. So I spent a lot of the time in kind of like more of the chill out zones. My friend Paula V Argyll-Wil was there and like she just kind of like let me lean on her shoulder and kind of do some deep breaths for a bit. Whenever I saw Tom Bassett, he gave me a big hug and said you can do it, you're a badass BA And once you start making the connections with friends like Melissa Shepard does not need my session.
Speaker 3:Melissa Shepard was front row in my session and she was there for me And it's so much easier to speak to a crowd and there were over 100 people in my session. But it was so much easier to speak to the crowd when there were familiar faces, friendly faces in the crowd that you know, even just people that will laugh at my jokes, you know, and so that really helps a lot. But I mean, as far as the, do I have any routines Like I don't know? I pretty much freaked out and then I got there and it went okay. I would say part of it is also, you know, i picked a topic that I could talk about in my sleep, so even if the slides didn't magically appear, i could have still gone on for 25 minutes or longer about user stories, because I live and breathe user stories. You know I'm obsessed with them. So that also helps is picking a topic that you feel confident in, that you have a point of view on.
Speaker 5:Can I?
Speaker 2:butt in on this one, of course And, by the way, this is Mark Baker. Mark, if you had a chance to listen to our most recent podcast, was our guest and he's still here on the program today, and so we're going to take live questions from Mark. We already have two lined up, so go for it, mark.
Speaker 5:So, this so I like talked about a live podcast. You know I did have music career. It was bootstrapped, it wasn't glamorous but I performed a lot, including in a few crisis situations. One of the things my band did is we sang the national anthem in four part acapella harmony before an Oakland A's game. That was 15,000 people and 15,000 people in the middle of the infield with the PA slapping back. It was impossible to hear, and I tell you what. Nothing quickens the pulse and empties the stomach like singing in front of 15,000 people.
Speaker 5:But I can tell you this the advice I would give you about public speaking, a performing of any kind. Number one practice, practice, practice, practice, practice in front of the mirror, practice in front of people that are safe, that you feel you know that you can trust to see you at your worst and do it, give it your all in that practice. When you're nervous you're going to go back, you're going to be able to fall back on all that practice that you've done And it's going to come out a lot better than if you haven't practiced enough and you're just going to be on a mush now. Number two understand that the experience of the audience and the experience of the presenter or the performer are separate. You can be up on stage thinking that you are absolute disaster, nervous as hell, stumbling over your words. And you get off stage and people are like wow, it was so great, you totally inspired me.
Speaker 5:Likewise, you can think you're nailing it and just people are stone faced. They're not connecting with you. So you've got to understand what's going on for you on stage. It's just for you. So if you can just be in the moment and maximize yourself and enjoy yourself, you're going to be giving your best chance to succeed. So those are my two bits of advice. And I get number three try to enjoy it. And this is for somebody who is worried about speaking or worried about presenting or performing. It sounds crazy, but do everything you can to enjoy the experience, whatever that's going to be. But honestly, once you're up there, going it's for you, and if you can enjoy yourself, man, that makes the biggest difference in the world.
Speaker 2:Man, it so does, And the audience will vibe off of that And I think Vanessa does enjoy it. Once you're up there, vanessa, i mean you have fun, you crack some jokes, you get some laughs, and boy, there's nothing like a couple well-timed jokes, either on purpose or by accident, to bring a little chuckle to the audience can really relieve a lot of our brain and energy. It really does so much.
Speaker 3:So I will say there was a part when I was talking about user stories, how important it was to keep user stories small, And so I kept doing this kind of like small hand signal with my left hand And just then the event photographer showed up and I stopped my session mid-sense and said don't you dare take a picture while I'm holding up my hand like this. And the whole room started cracking up and it kind of turned into a weird inside joke for all the folks that ended up tweeting about the session. Don't take Vanessa's picture when she's, because it looked like I was kind of gesturing that something was small, But if you weren't at the session you wouldn't know what it was.
Speaker 2:I think we got it. We're all adults here. That's a good point. I used to play in a band too, mark. We didn't tour around the country for a year, but we just do some local shows in Portland And it was our largest concert, which was maybe 200 people, right. So not a big show, but big for me. And it was my first time, or maybe my second show ever, as a drummer.
Speaker 2:I was kind of new to drumming And I got off the stage. I had bonked at least three times. I messed up the beats on different songs. I was embarrassed. I was trying to find my groove after that and really stressing, and the show was done and this young man came up to me and was like, wow, that was amazing, and how did you do that beat? And how did you do that? And it was just like part of me wanted to be like inside my head. I was thinking, well, he's not smart because clearly I suck, right. It's like that old Groucho Marks. You wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have you as a member, and but the reality is is no, i must have nailed some parts enough for someone to enjoy it. And did I enjoy it as much on stage as I could have Definitely not less than learned. So great advice, vanessa. We've got some good questions, i think, in the chat, but possibly others Actually.
Speaker 1:I have a couple specific ones as well, just a moment, jason.
Speaker 2:let me wrap up here. Okay, i want to make sure that everybody, whether they've got a live question, go ahead and jump up on the stage. Go ahead and raise your hand when you're ready to get called on. We'll grab you for the question. But Vanessa is generally in charge of going ahead and reading these questions. So if you don't want to speak openly, you can always just drop it in the chat or send a DM to Vanessa and we'll get that answered. So, thank you. Oh, look, someone raised their hand. How polite I was in Jason. It was Fred, but we'll take Jason first. So, thank you, fred. We will get to you in just a moment. Go ahead, jason.
Speaker 4:Well, it was coming right off of the previous topic we were just talking about And I have been holding back. Interrupting is one of my villains of listening. So one thing I want to mention, actually from a while back, is when, mark, you were talking about your journey, about going on the road. Oh, and I think Mark Dostoevsky just missed this, but there he is. Wait, yes, okay, cool. So there you go, mark's going on the road. So, as I wanted to mention a great book that I just recently read, that, vanessa, i think you'll like being a Foodfighter's fan, and Josh, you should like to being a drummer The autobiography of Dave Grohl. So he just wrote that over 2020.
Speaker 4:And I suggest, if you listen to podcasts, check out audiobooks and you can get them from free from your library. They're free technically, but you already paid for them with your tax dollars. So there you go. Good little threshold to get it, and I recommend that. It was really cool And we like for the Josh, vanessa, mark and Jesse, and I think you guys will like it. That's the first thing I wanted to say. I've been holding that one for a while.
Speaker 2:Thanks, Jason. Thank you, Jason. That's a great recommendation.
Speaker 4:The second thing I want to say is about Mark, about your advice about practice. Practice, practice, yes, 100%, and also think about all the situations that can go wrong and practice for that. So Michael Phelps another famous person that I don't know His coach had him practice one time by smashing his, taking his goggles and throwing them on the floor to smash him, so that Michael Phelps would have to practice with smashed goggles. And sure enough, that's actually what happened. When he wound up winning the gold medal first time. His goggles broke, but he still knew the count of how many whatever you call it, not steps, strokes to get to the side.
Speaker 2:Very cool. How many strokes does it take to get to the other side? Yeah, that's great Good advice. I love it. I love it, man. Yeah, you know, this idea that we practice and practice under duress is critical, right? So you know the Seahawks when people are going to go play the Seahawks, which has an incredibly loud stadium and by people I mean NFL teams, they might practice with headphones on that are blasting stadium noise They have to be able to figure out how to get you know, shout the count for the down or call plays. The quarterback has to call plays over a tremendous amount of noise And, by the way, it is earth shattering. I sat in that stadium. It's deafening, and so you have to practice under duress. So first we practice under optimal conditions, then we practice under duress, and when we do both of those things, then we're really set up for success and really set up for anything. So good points, jason. Thank you, fred. You had your hand up. Why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself and then ask away, please?
Speaker 6:Hey Josh, Hey Vanessa, Thanks for putting this on. I'm a long time first time. I usually listen in the podcast format, but you guys dangle my good friend Mark in front of me and I just have to listen in live.
Speaker 5:So, fred, good to hear from you. It's now everyone has to listen to us say hi. But, fred, so good to hear from you. I didn't know you guys were buddies, that's so cool.
Speaker 6:Yeah, mark. Mark officially had to work with me for a couple of years when we were both at Federal Line together, so he had he was the project whisperer, i would mess them up and then he would come in and save them.
Speaker 5:So I don't remember. I do remember eating quite a few steaks and drinking by our share of bourbon together.
Speaker 6:So it must have been a good one. We certainly did I just I want to ask a quick question.
Speaker 6:I apologize, it's not going to be something cool like playing in a band, but I wanted to ask a question I get asked a lot and I'm sure, Mark, you've got an opinion being in the mother's ship and actually, Josh, I'm sure you guys have your perspective on this as well. I frequently get asked you know, Salesforce is big right. There's core, there's industry clouds, there's commerce, there's CPQ, there's MuleSoft. I think marketing cloud these days has like 50 different modules, all slightly different technology. So, from a demand perspective, if someone's starting out in the ecosystem, where would you focus? So not like pick what you're passionate about, But if you're thinking about maximizing demand for your skills, maximizing potential comp, what would you specialize in?
Speaker 5:Personally, i'd start with core. Core is always going to be or not always going to be, but core is the biggest part of the portfolio And the core skills are going to be applicable across your industry. Clouds, in terms of industry, i don't know Fins, maybe HLS, i don't know. I'm not sure on that, i have a very non-center view on industry, which is that it's not as important as everyone says. It is. Some of it's very important, but only to a point. So, personally, if it was me, i'd start now. Start with core Salesforce.
Speaker 3:I actually totally agree with that, Everything you said. even with the industry.
Speaker 5:Right, we've got a club here. We'll start our own club.
Speaker 2:I agree too. I'll tell you something. I mean, i think it's so important to love what you do Now. You don't have to love it to death And you might say something and only sort of like it or be in like with it. You don't have to love it yet You do something long enough and you gain enough competency in it. You'll love it because you'll be proud of yourself that you can accomplish so many things in swiftly and that you can influence other people and help support their careers and swiftly there as well. But the kind of people that you want to hang out with that matters. That matters in work. It matters in your career.
Speaker 2:So if you like hanging out with engineers, right, right, and you like to do engineering well, who cares if it's FinServe or HLS or CPQ, like who cares Right? And you're going to be surrounded by people who are relatively like-minded that you're going to have common ground with, just like Mark and Fred have common ground with one another, right, whether it's bourbon cigars or steaks or a sales force. So being with the people that make you feel good, being with the people that understand you, that's critical And they're not all the same guys like. It's not right. The manufacturing vertical attracts different people than FinServe, which attracts different people than HLS, and on and on and on. So if you can go with the thing that you at least like or you know doesn't suck first, then I think you're making a good move. That said, yeah, i'm in agreement with all of you, starting with court. Okay, awkward silence. Time for a new question.
Speaker 4:I'll give a plug for a website that I built that you can find on the Xman exchange. Thank you, josh, for posting it there. So I built a website to help explain the sales force ecosystem to people. It's called a sales force career navigator. That because I've tried to explain, like, what sales force is and where you can find sales force, and then all the different jobs, such as business analysts and recruiters and services. So, understanding all the different people, all the different places you could find sales force in those industries that you could be able to put that cloud into context. So maybe you have experience working in a call center, maybe you have experience working in a bus buy or a blockbuster. So, wherever you have the experience, imagine, like, if you use sales force or if not, like how sales force could be used, just be able to put it into context.
Speaker 2:Thanks for sharing that, Jason. That's awesome. Okay, let's dive into some additional questions. I know that Ty had written a couple of questions. Vanessa, do you have access to those?
Speaker 3:I do. I did invite Ty up to speak. I don't know if he's done. So actually, while we're waiting to see if Ty responds, i do have a couple other questions.
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 3:So one is can you talk about the sales force labor market right now, because it seems very slow. I'm very curious what it looks like out there, especially for freelancing but even just jobs in general.
Speaker 5:That's probably one for Josh. If you're talking about the market, yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm happy to talk about this. So, yeah, it's not slow, it's just slower. So we've got to remember everything's in context, guys. We just had this post-COVID experience of pent up demand. Think of all those companies that wanted to get things done and didn't, because they didn't know what was going on. They didn't know if they were going to get sick or they didn't know if they were going to go to the hospital. There are clients all hungered down in a cave and maybe they did too And after that experience, when these companies started to poke their head out, realize that hey, you know what, the majority of us are going to be alive and the economy is actually quite strong.
Speaker 2:And it was at that time. Well, what happened then? Well, now we've got all this pent up demand because for three months, six months, nine months, the work that everybody had planned to do got put on hold And after that came about 18 months or so of massive, crazy high-prane staffing implementations. People couldn't get enough people. It was practically impossible to find anyone of competence to do implementations, to do architecture or even development. And now we're in a much more balanced ecosystem from a supply-demand standpoint. In regards to what's out there Now, there are not as many jobs being advertised, and I would say that there are, in general, fewer jobs than a purely balanced market. But what there is is one, a lot of hope.
Speaker 2:We're getting so many mixed signals from the economy. Right now It's like it's a bear market, and then the stock spike in the Dow. It's all time high. Oh, targets going down and Bud Light's going down for crazy-ass reasons, and everybody starts to sell their shares of this, that and the other thing, and then that dips the Dow down again, and then companies go this is weird. And then you've got stuff going on with the Ukraine. Everything's just always kind of iffy. Everyone in this administration and by that I mean the White House administration is saying look, we're not in a recession, but we're about to hit one. And the only thing that is preventing them from having declared a recession are the unemployment numbers. We're hovering right around 3.6%, and I can tell you that's about where we were in 2008, before the global financial crisis. So we're actually in a pretty normal kind of market. And I can tell you this too that professional services in the last year has grown and it's expected to grow.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't mean that people are hiring willy-nilly. They are hiring, but what they're doing is they're hiring slower And there are fewer people that are like remember that whole crazy musical chairs thing that happened? What did they call it? The Great Resignation? It was a stupid thing to say, because the majority of those people just went and got different jobs. So it was really the great musical chairs thing that happened. Well, they all made jumps, they got their 10%, 15%, 20% pay increase. They got a slightly nicer boss, they got slightly better hours than then. A year, year and a half later, they're still there. So a lot of that demand, that pent up demand, has been exercised And people went crazy, just like a housing market.
Speaker 2:Like you buy a house, it's $500,000. And then all of a sudden, no one's selling their houses. So now you can charge $750,000 for what's a $500,000 house? It's not a $750,000 house unless the market makes it. So we're in this weird time Now.
Speaker 2:I don't have a crystal ball. I've never been good at it. I predicted that Britney Spears, christina Aguilera, lady Gaga and InSync would never make it when they all had their first TV debut. So I am not the guy to predict the future, but I have seen this enough times to know that this is temporary. We've been in this bear market. The average bear market is two to five months. If there is a recession, the average recession might be anywhere from a quarter to a year and a half, sometimes two years in the worst situations But that doesn't mean that the economy shuts down. We're just dealing with so many weird things in the economy. So understand yes, there are fewer jobs being posted, but there are also fewer people looking for jobs, and so what we have to do to adapt to this kind of ecosystem is plain and simple You have to be better than everybody else.
Speaker 2:Now, if you don't think that you can be better than everybody else, that's okay. You just have to be better than the other people applying for the job. Or you have to be better if maybe you don't have the best resume in the work history. Find a way to get the conversation, get the interview. Maybe you're great at verbal communication, so have a killer interview. And to Mark Baker's point how do you do that, vanessa, you know the answer. How do you have a perfect interview? You practice people. You practice like crazy, just until you can mumble it lying in bed in your sleep. Right? Have the answers ready for the common ones right, get comfortable, because nothing kills an interview like nerves and lack of preparation. And I'll tell you this, and everybody knows this whether you're watching a musician get on stage because they're unprepared and they didn't practice their piece, or they drink too many beers because they were so nervous and couldn't relax, they come up and they screw it up right. Everybody can tell when someone has put the time in and when they haven't.
Speaker 2:I was listening to this audio book by a guy named and I'm going to botch this I think his name is Arthur Samuel Joseph And he is one of the foremost trainers, vocal trainers for people who give speeches. So half of the you know NFL Hall of Fame speeches those guys were coached by him. I'm listening to this book and I think it's like finding your voice or vocal leadership. I can't remember what it is. It's a fantastic book And Casey and I got to see him speak at a Tony Robbins leadership conference that we attended recently And you know, the reality is it's this idea of like finding your voice, practicing, practicing, practicing.
Speaker 2:But he gave a great example. This wasn't a CEO, but this was a senior person in a Fortune 500 company And he went in there to help support this guy And the way this guy would do his speeches is he'd have a few slides and he wouldn't prep. He was so good, so competent on the fly that he never prepped Okay. So he'd go up there, he'd do, he'd look at the slides and then he'd riff for half an hour and he'd do, okay. Well, this guy, joseph Arthur, joseph, samuel, had him actually write out his introduction Maybe it's a two minute introduction, okay And then practice it and annotated it And then had him do it. He recorded both. So, to Mark's point, right, get yourself on video, get yourself on audio. Right, get yourself in front of live people.
Speaker 2:So this guy, who didn't want to work with a coach who was arrogant, saw the difference in his opening statements, his opening presentation, and was floored because he actually had taken the time to practice. And even though this guy's got it, he can walk into any room and he can own that room and he can get people all jazzed about whatever the thing is that he's got going. But the reality is is he was full of tropes, he was full of dumb stories, He was full of so many issues that even though he was good, he wasn't great. And so if you want to be great, he's got to practice. Okay, so I don't know how he went from the economy and job market to global coaching, but we got there. So there you go.
Speaker 5:You said something, josh, that I want to offer this. It's about interviewing. I haven't interviewed. It's been a while. I've been in this role for a couple of years now and whatnot. But what you said about practicing interviews, i do that.
Speaker 5:Now. I don't practice interviews, but I know my work history, i know my roles, i know the things that I've accomplished in those roles, the stories I want to tell them, those roles, down to the level of what is it that I want to be able to say for each one of those things. And it's written out. and I should have practiced those things so that when somebody asks me about it, i'm not stumbling. I'm not stumbling. You know you've got an hour with this for this interview. They're going to ask you a lot of questions. You want to get your answer out, you want to get the perfect thing out or the best thing out, and a little time is possible And you don't want to be hitting yourself in the head when you're done. Oh, why did I say that? I should have said this. So practice is 100% for interviews. I do it and everyone else should do it.
Speaker 2:Love it, baby. That's how we do it. Shall we get Ty up here? Ty's been. This is Tyler Zeke. Ty's a great guy. Welcome to the show, ty. You've got some good questions.
Speaker 7:Hey, Josh and Vanessa, thanks for hosting and inviting Mark to share his experience. So, Mark, I've been working remote since before COVID and is there any advantage to trying to position yourself as a Salesforce professional to like be on site or like do any type of traveling consulting Is that even a thing?
Speaker 5:You know it wasn't a thing for COVID. Obviously It was absolutely not a thing for COVID. I think it's trying to make a comeback. I don't know if it's going to make a comeback. I don't know how much of a comeback it's going to make. It feels like it's kind of being forced. I don't know what the future is going to hold. So it's not like it was pre-COVID. But I don't think that there's a disadvantage in saying and I can be on site or I can work remote, i'm comfortable with both. You know, and be honest, because you wouldn't ever want to put yourself in a situation where the requirements are not what you're comfortable with. But if you're comfortable with both, then I would say that and you're certainly not putting yourself in a disadvantage.
Speaker 2:I'd like to add to that too, mark. I think that you're going to find you become a more, slightly more attractive candidate with the big four if you're willing to travel, or any large consulting firm for that matter. Now, that's not a dyed in the wool like definitely 100% all the time, and anybody who's willing to travel is going to go get a job at Deloitte. But there tends to be a little bit more of that Slalom. They work locally, so it's not such a big thing, but we're looking at the central centers of the world, and so even cognizant doesn't do much traveling anymore, or the Deloitte's of the world. Then it can definitely be a real advantage. And then the other thing is and I can't recall exactly where you live, tyler, where do you live?
Speaker 7:I'm in Southern California Okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you know, you got a lot of industry there, which is great too. So, yeah, it's good stuff.
Speaker 5:I can tell you. I'm sorry, let me just I'll say this for 10 seconds. I can tell you what I'm seeing in a lot of the big programs that we're running now is our customers are asking different. So in years past, when a meeting would have been on site and it wouldn't have been a question and would have had 20 people fly into a certain location to have a certain meeting in mid-program, you know it would have cost $80,000 or $100,000 to the program. but that's what we're doing. We're having these people flying. Customers are saying nope, let's not fly. It's happening. So it's a little different. The demand for travel is different, it's changing And, like I said, i don't know what it's going to be in three years from now, but it's a little different than it has been.
Speaker 2:It's also gotten more expensive, mark, right, like I mean, for real, it's gotten more expensive. We used to be able to fly from Portland to Florida for, you know, 350 to 400 bucks, and now it's a thousand bucks. Especially, it depends on the week, right, and so when, since fewer people are flying now for business, guess what that does to the cost of the seats? It goes up, right, it's applying demand. So that's how it goes. Okay, we got three raised hands. I'm just going to pass the baton. Here you go, vanessa. You run it. You pick on someone, even if it's yourself, i'll pick on myself.
Speaker 2:Just be kind to yourself. I'll pick on myself, just be kind to yourself.
Speaker 3:I'll pick on myself first. So I think a lot of it depends also on if you're doing consulting. It's going to be your clients as well. I have some clients that want to save the money and are happy to do everything remotely, and then I have some bigger clients where money is not the option And, for whatever reason, their culture is just in such a way that they want people on site.
Speaker 3:So I have not traveled so much for a client as I have in the last, i would say, five months where they want us on site a week out of every month. At this point, and in general in the organizations that I've worked with, they're starting to implement the okay, let's be on site two days out of the week. If they're internal, if they're consulting, especially on the sales side, they find that they're closing sales faster and more efficiently when they're on site. If they get that in person, hey, we have some local people to you, so kind of aspect to it. So from everything I have seen, it's certainly a benefit if you have some willingness to travel and are even possibly even enthusiastic about it.
Speaker 2:And I'll just share. in addition to that, we do have a podcast. We had a wonderful guest. He's the author of Rise of the Remote Worker in America. Okay, so if you go back about five podcasts ago, he was one of our very first guests that we had. check out that podcast and definitely check out that book. You can just Google Rise of the Remote Worker in America on Amazon Prime. It should be released now and you'll get a lot of details there. Okay, i'm out. Keep going Cool.
Speaker 3:Hey Ty, did you want to follow up something?
Speaker 7:real quick, yeah. So, mark, you talked about how there's some people who want to work 60 plus hours a week. I want to be one of those people. I currently am looking for a new job to start in July. What are the work environments like where someone can work 60 hours and they're productive 60 hours? Because when I've worked in some roles, i'm sometimes twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the client or there's a lot of unknowns. I function as a developer and a solution architect. Maybe the best question is how do we avoid the bottleneck so we can work those hours if we want to, those 60 plus?
Speaker 2:hours For clarity? do you mean available Absolutely?
Speaker 5:Okay, that's a good question. There absolutely are people who want to work that much. I've absolutely run into them Frequently. it's often developers who want to do that. I can tell you as a manager, as a portfolio leader, a portfolio owner, i am very cautious with engaging developers who are working more than 40 hours a week on purpose because, first of all, when demand increases, when demand spikes, then I need to throw more onto them than we have planned. then it's possible There's no headroom. That can be a problem. Also, i have found that when people are working that much, things fall through the cracks, things don't get answered, something is harder than they thought it would be. then it totally destabilizes the whole system.
Speaker 5:As a portfolio owner, i'm extremely skeptical of people who are trying to structure more than 40 hours a week in work. That said, the point is here is how to give you advice on how to accomplish it. I think it's going to be as a contractor. I'm not exactly sure how you would go about doing it, but you would want to put yourself into a position where you are finding the work yourself. There are communities where I know there are some consulting organizations still I can't remember the name but they throw a lot of work out like tickets, crowdsourced tickets and things like that.
Speaker 2:You can go to 10kviewcom. We had the chief people officer, kristin Langua, joined us just a couple weeks ago, about three or four weeks ago. 10K advisors they'll do this. You need an LSD. If you don't go get one, they're like 200 bucks. You go get an LSD and then you can work with an organization like 10Kview. They're not going to necessarily keep you busy 60 hours a week, but you could do that for moonlighting. The number one way to guarantee you're going to put in 60 hours of work or more per week is to start your own business. That's the shortcut. There you go.
Speaker 5:That's a good answer. I will say just consider it from the point of view of the business that's hiring you. If you're going to do this, you need to be planning your time and planning demand so that if and when demand some one part of your portfolio spikes where you're getting 60 hours, you're going to be able to accommodate, because if not, you're going to be like that service business who suddenly can't service the business that they're selling Pain and panic.
Speaker 5:You're going to hurt your brand, you're going to hurt your long-term prospects. It's hard to manage, but I guess you could do it if you're really interested.
Speaker 6:My perspective, and I had in my hand that I had a comment on the previous thing too, and if you want me to shut up, Josh, I know this is not my forum, but 60 hours is a little hour.
Speaker 2:Go for it. Yeah, you're at the top of your body. Keep going. By the way, this is Fred Cadena.
Speaker 6:Go for it, Fred 60 hours of billable time a week outside of like an emergency is unsustainable. There is so much other work you need to do that is not billable, especially if you're in an organization, if you're a contractor, if you've got three or four contracts or 20 hours a week, that's one thing. But if you're working at a consulting firm, you cannot sustain 60 hours of billable time a week full stop. It's not possible. I wanted to provide a different perspective on the prior questions about travel. I don't know that it's an advantage in getting hired, but it definitely provides an advantage in advancing in your career, especially again, at large organizations.
Speaker 6:The way to get ahead is to grow the business. It doesn't mean you have to be a salesperson. It doesn't mean you have to be an AE full time. But farming accounts, going into an organization, learning about new opportunities to do other work, different work that isn't signed, is the fastest way to get ahead, especially as you get more senior in your career. The easiest way to do that is to be on site. If you have that flexibility, like Vanessa said, i would be enthusiastic To Mark's point from before. That's probably one of the reasons why we had so much stake in bourbon. Is you're going to tend to be one of those enthusiastic people. Anytime I can get in front of a client and have a conversation about their business outcomes, how we can move the needle for them, i'm taking that opportunity 100% of the time.
Speaker 2:Hashtag expense account 100%. Vanessa. do we have more questions for this episode? We have one last one. Okay, guys, Then we're going to wrap it up and say goodbye until our next session. I'm excited to tell you about that in just a moment. Let's go for it.
Speaker 3:Okay, what you say is a realistic timeline for someone just starting their Salesforce career with no tech background, but they have a certification already. I actually have something on this, but I would also love to throw it out to the folks that we have.
Speaker 5:I would love for you to start us off, because that's a tough question.
Speaker 3:I'm in the Salesforce for Everyone Facebook group which is run by Bradley Rice who runs the talent stacker program. He actually posts his stats every month. Anybody can join the Salesforce for Everyone group. It's just a Facebook group where we talk Salesforce job stuff but also just people ask for help on their flows. It's a nice resource. if anybody's more Facebook driven We all know it's more my generation I thought it was interesting.
Speaker 3:They actually do have a stat that they post every month and I would say folks that tend to go into that program tend to be pretty new to Salesforce and not necessarily have tech backgrounds. I grabbed the last two months April the certification to job landed average number of days was 83, and May certification to job landed average number of days is 77. You also have to consider that those are people that are actually in a program that is teaching them how to network and volunteer and update their resumes and things like that. I would say adjust those numbers based on how much you're actually putting into your networking and LinkedIn efforts. but I thought that those were interesting stats that I could probably share for that particular question.
Speaker 5:That's a lot quicker than I would have thought. It's 83 days. Is that what you said?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it was 83 days for the April folks that got jobs through Talent Stacker and 77 in May, but again, those are people that are going through a program that is helping people with their resumes and stuff. I imagine it would be quite a bit larger. I'm not sure what the statistics would be, but my guess is, without some sort of guidance as far as how to, that's always one of the challenges with Salesforce is there's so many resources that there's a lot of noise as far as finding the resources that you need in order to get the jobs that you want and understanding how to find the right people and find the right groups and find the right websites, even just finding focus on force, which is such a huge factor in a lot of folks first and second certifications. I would probably add another two months to that if you're not going through, if you haven't found the right resource early enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, guys. A quick plug one more time for this episode. Check out the expand exchange. It's expandexchangecom That will connect you with a variety of Slack groups organizations like Focus on Force, organizations like LadiesB Architects. That was created by Gemma Vanessa's friend. We've got Jason's on there. We've got a ton of great resources there and it's for free. There's no charge. Just go check it out and get the training and the connection and the network that you need. Super cool.
Speaker 5:I was going to say. I've done a lot of mentoring with a program called Veterati which is focused on helping veterans who are transitioning out of the military and into tech or other careers. My focus was veterans who wanted to transition to tech. I can tell you some of them struggled. It took a while for them to get that first job certainly more than 83 days. Going over that first hump of that first job in tech can be challenging. As a manager hiring people, i often it's rare that I hire somebody into a first role. That hasn't been what I've hired people for. It can be challenging if you don't have that experience to show off, to get in the door, even get people's attention. What I always tell people is, first of all, you have to be ready to be in it for the long haul. You got to give it energy, you got to keep putting yourself out there. You cannot give up.
Speaker 2:Secondly, Just to underline the cannot give up part. Cannot give up. This is whether you're trying to solve a math problem or get a job. It's all the same. Do not give up. We've had story after story after story back in our clubhouse days, all the way into our Twitter days here and now into our podcast base of people who spent eight, nine, 10 months Finally got their first job. It paid them half what they felt that they were worth. They stuck with it for six months or a year. Now they're making way more money than they ever could have imagined and they're fulfilled and really enjoying their sales force career. Stick with it.
Speaker 5:This is the second tip.
Speaker 2:Point point two Don't.
Speaker 5:It's not all or nothing. Connect. Connect gave what I was going to say away. You know there's other opportunities like volunteering, even just building projects. You need to be able to show what you can do, what you're willing to do. Volunteering is a great way to do it, just building portfolios. I was working with a kid.
Speaker 5:He was a young kid, he was 23, 24, something like that And he graduated from a technical college and was working as a personal trainer and was trying to get into tech, and I said, and he was trying to get into development And he was taking, he was in those programs where we're going to teach you Java in 30 days or whatever, and he was not having a lot of luck And I said you need to just go, code stuff, code websites, code apps, make a mobile app or something that you can show people, that'll show off your skills. And again, you can't give up. It could take you years to get to the place where you ultimately want to be, but baby steps and just keep moving forward, always forward you'll get there at some point.
Speaker 2:That's right And minimally like we were talking about and I can't remember if it was earlier in this show or in the podcast that we recorded just an hour ago even if you don't get all the way there, you'll get really good at hiking, you'll get really good at everything that you're doing, even if you're not all the way there.
Speaker 2:And, mark, what you shared about veterati is a perfect lead into how we're going to close this show, which is an introduction to our next episode which is going to be launched, the live show, which is going to be two weeks from today. It's always on a Wednesday, it's every other Wednesday And we have a special guest. His name's Philip Anderson. Now, Philip Anderson is a veteran and he's spent more than a decade in the Air Force and Special Ops And he's going to share on July 5th. So it's a special military episode that we're going to have. We're going to try and get as many people from the Salesforce ecosystem who came from a military background to be on the panel, to be involved to answer the questions. And it's not just for veterans, it's not everyone should listen to this. Okay, so it's not just for veterans. It's also about military spouses, right? Because they can experience unique hardships that someone who's married to someone who works at Deloitte has gone five days a week We'll never experience, right? So we absolutely are looking forward to that. Mark, you've been a wonderful guest to have on this podcast. We appreciate you so much. Thank you also to all of our speakers, everyone who was brave enough to raise their hand, including Pilar Zika, including Fred Kedena, including Jason Zeichowitz, of course, my wonderful co-host, vanessa Grant. Thank you for sharing your experiences in London and in Belgium, and we are excited to be here for you again in two weeks.
Speaker 2:Now, this live recording of this program will come out two weeks from today possibly earlier, but probably two weeks from today And the program that we recorded in the first half of this, that will be available as early as next Wednesday. So be sure to check that out. And in the meantime, if you've enjoyed this content, i wanted to ask everybody, or share with you, how you can help support the program. We never asked for a dollar, we never asked for a dime, and everybody on this program. We mostly get together because we like each other and we just like talking to each other. We like to help other people, but we can help more people when you subscribe, okay, so when you subscribe, when you like our tweets, when you connect with us on LinkedIn and when you leave reviews for the podcast on your favorite platform of your choice, it helps to promote this show and it gets the message out.
Speaker 2:And what do I mean by that. What's the message? Well, the message is the information that people need to advance their careers. That's what we're trying to do here. So, before you launch into dinner or jump into your car for your commute home or wherever you are, if you could do us a favor, pull up the podcast on your favorite platform, leave a quick review And if you haven't subscribed yet, go ahead and subscribe. And the last little plug is if you're interested in a career in Salesforce, or you're already an experienced Salesforce professional but you're looking to make a change, or perhaps you're listening and you need to hire someone from the top 10% of talent in the Salesforce ecosystem, by all means, please check out my company. It's Salesforce Staffing LLC, and you can find us at thesalesforcerecretercom. Okay, any last words, vanessa.
Speaker 3:No, I think you covered it. That was awesome. Thank you so much, Mark, Okay guys, hey guys, hey, thanks.
Speaker 2:Have a wonderful, wonderful week. We look forward to connecting with everybody here in just a couple of short weeks. And if you'd like to follow me on Twitter, it's at the Josh force, or just Google or put Josh Matthews into Twitter. Same thing for Vanessa Grant, which is our at our Vanessa Grant, i believe. Is that correct, vanessa? Did I get that right? That's correct. Yes, you did Okay, and you can also follow Mark Baker. Mark has mark underscore Baker 50 here on on Twitter. Okay, thanks guys, have a wonderful day. Bye for now.