Hottest Salesforce Certifications, How to Join a Consulting Firm, Disclosing Disabilities

Are you yearning to make a significant leap in your Salesforce career, but not quite sure where to start? Get ready to unearth the secrets of Salesforce certifications with our distinguished guests; Vanessa Grant, Steven Greger, Jason Zeikwitz, Anthony Rodriguez and Fred Cadena. We spearhead a conversation on the most sought-after Salesforce certifications and how they can remarkably boost your job market standing. We dive into the nitty-gritty of each certification and its potential, arming you with information that will give you an upper hand when making your next career move.

Switching the tone to a more sensitive topic, we share insights about the disclosure of disabilities during job applications. Using the real-life experiences of our guests, we dissect the hurdles that persons with disabilities grapple with during job applications, and subsequent integration into the workforce. Our candid discussion underlines the importance of transparency, institutional bias, and the need for adequate resources to facilitate equal employment opportunities for all.

The last segment of our podcast probes the intriguing world of consulting. Vanessa and Fred, with their vast experience in the field, share nuggets of wisdom on breaking into consulting, even with nil experience. They shed light on how you can successfully articulate your transferable skills and technical prowess to potential employers, and the crucial role a consulting certification holds. The conversation takes a twist to soft skills, stakeholder communication, and staying abreast with Salesforce trends and resources. Whether you're a Salesforce novice or an expert eyeing higher ranks, this episode is a goldmine of insights you wouldn't want to miss out on!

Transcript

Announcer: 0:02

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.

Josh Matthews: 0:20

Okay, everybody, well, welcome back. We are in part two of our live Twitter show and part two of our podcast, which is going to be on the show. If you're listening to this, it's already been released. If you're on the live show, well then you already know what's going on. But what we've got is some amazing folks here. We've got Vanessa Grant, our co-host. We've got Steven Greger, who we tried to talk to earlier, but I think there was some struggle there. We've got Jason Zeikwitz, our wonderful friend and sound effects person. Anthony Rodriguez Casey, we've got Fernando, we've got Sarah on here. We've got some wonderful folks, and what we're going to do in this segment of our show is answer some listener questions, and we've had a number of them over the past week, so I'm looking forward to diving right in and getting right after it. But first let's do a quick intro. Vanessa, who are you, where are you and what are you all?

Vanessa Grant: 1:19

about. What am I all about is probably a larger question. Today, I'm all about being with the Salesforce community at Tahoe Dreaming. Tahoe Dreaming takes place what's yours? It's on the smaller side of the conference. It's about, I would say, under 300 people, but it's a really great way to meet folks that are in the California community, so a lot of Salesforce folks come here. Since it's in California, that's what I'm doing today, but I've been in the Salesforce ecosystem for 13 years. I'm a consultant and also my heart is business analysis and I love supporting people in their career journey. That's why I'm here.

Josh Matthews: 1:56

Always great to have you here, especially when you're busy at an event. So thanks for making time for this show. Anyway, we've got Fred Kedena. Fred, go ahead and give us your quick bio.

Fred Cadena: 2:07

Sure. Thank you, fred Kedena. I am a longtime Salesforce professional six years on the customer side. It's a customer Salesforce, 10 years in consulting and I've got a podcast Baking on Disruption. Check us out at bakingondisruptioncom.

Josh Matthews: 2:22

Yeah, absolutely will. Thanks for being here and my name is Josh Matthews. I run the Salesforcerecruitercom, aka Salesforce staffing. I'll just give everybody a quick heads up. Right now we do have some new positions. We have a sales role, for it's a sales slash, sales leadership role with a very reputable but smallish Salesforce partner wonderful team. I love these guys. In fact, I talked to someone that we placed a few months ago and you know what he said. I'll just say this for Stephen's sake. But he said I got to tell you, josh, I think about you and Stephen every single day of the week because this job has changed my life, and I know that. He also said I know that there was someone who got the offer and didn't make it but a day because of some issues. He said I really hope he's happy, but I'm really glad he didn't take the job. That's what we heard from one of our candidates. So a great opportunity. We also have a CPQ developer position, also with a reputable client. This is a publicly traded company. It is not a Salesforce partner, it's a customer, and the person that you would be reporting to is one of my favorite people that I've ever placed. He's actually the hiring manager and runs everything Salesforce for this organization, so you will be taken care of with wonderful leadership.

Josh Matthews: 3:41

So now that that plugs over, what we're doing in this segment is answering some listener mail, and so let's go ahead and dive into it. Nobody raise your hand, just pipe up. Okay, this is a free for all here. We want to hear everyone's perspective if we can. So this is one, and we get this a lot. It's pretty straightforward. Is there a specific certification that's in demand in the market right now? Let me throw that to Fred or Vanessa. What do you guys?

Fred Cadena: 4:13

think Omni Studio Consultant is being baked into all the industry clouds, from financial services to nonprofit to whatever. It's a lot of the technology that was from the velocity acquisition. I have to get it Hard to understand that right now. So if you want to learn that, I would definitely learn that.

Josh Matthews: 4:32

Great recommendation. Thank you, Fred. Vanessa, what's your perspective?

Vanessa Grant: 4:37

I was totally going to agree with Fred on Omni Studio. I also think CPQ is still as hot as ever. Revenue Cloud Janine is over here. She says revenue cloud. I also see there aren't a whole lot of people that do field service, but I know that anybody who gets field service tends to be fairly in demand. Anybody else here? Any other thoughts or what do we cover them all? What do you think?

Janeen Marquardt: 4:59

about Genie or data cloud?

Vanessa Grant: 5:03

Is there a data cloud certification, though? No, there are a lot of specialties there is a data cloud accreditation.

Fred Cadena: 5:10

So if you're a partner, work for a partner in the partner community, there is a data cloud accreditation and that is also in demand.

Josh Matthews: 5:19

I know for a fact that it's in demand because we had a data cloud candidate interview today and I think it went quite well. So not with us, but with our clients. So a really solid guy I've known a few years. I think those are great recommendations. I think we leave it at that. I mean, there's going to be your no brainers, your PD-1 and your admin and some of your more like get your foot in the door, unlock the door, get a toe in there and wedge it open. But if you're really trying to think about where you might specialize and where is the demand, those are some absolutely awesome suggestions. And the sooner you knock it out, the sooner you're going to be viable and the sooner you get onto the train before the sort of bandwagon changes. Right, because it does like certification needs and technical needs. There can be fads, if that makes sense. Trends trends is probably the better word. So, okay, we've got another question here and it says is it helpful to note on the resume that one identifies as someone with a disability? And I think that's worded oddly, because we either have a disability or we don't. I don't know if we can't be a perfectly 100% able-bodied person and then identify as someone with a disability, and I think you guys know what I'm talking about. I'm talking to you guys now, don't make me say it. You know what I'm talking about, okay? So no laughs, no smiles. Everyone's sensitive today, okay? So look, I actually have experience with this. I don't think it's actually a good idea to necessarily notify someone about that on a resume, because you may be screened out because of whatever, because of bias, right, and I don't think that you should do that. I can tell you that you should. Whoever you're talking to, before you come in, before you have a face-to-face interview, once you've been invited to the interview, I think you should tell someone and I think that you should say something as soon as you actually got the invitation right. They're never going to turn you down Once they find out that maybe you're hearing impaired, or maybe you're a vision impaired, or maybe you're in a wheelchair or whatever.

Josh Matthews: 7:46

To a great extent, these things don't matter anymore. Some matter more than others, but there's so much technology now that is overwhelmingly freaking awesome. Like I've seen it. It's amazing, and I'll tell you a quick story.

Josh Matthews: 8:01

So when I was in Australia, I was working for I only spent about six months for this company. It was a very large global firm and I was doing some sort of technical recruitment. It's just like sort of this little thing. I did for six months out there and we were working with an airline I think it was Virgin Airlines out in Brisbane, australia, and it was a technical role and we'd done an interview Back then. We weren't doing face-to-face interviews at this company. It was real quick. It was like get them on the phone, talk to them. Are they decent? Great, get them across to the candidate. That's not how we operate in our business anymore. We actually never have, I say anymore, we never have operated that way. But in this organization all you needed was a phone screen and then you could submit the candidate. So the candidate did a great job in the interview. I presented them to the client Again, I think it was Virgin Airlines and then they scheduled an interview and their offices, by the way, were about two blocks from me.

Josh Matthews: 9:06

We were right on the water in a big high rise right down on the river in Brisbane and I get a phone call from a very nervous and confused I think she was like an administrator and said that the person had shown up for the interview but that they were blind and it was a big kefuffle and I get over here right now and they made a real big deal about it. Now I love me some Australia. But in Brisbane at that time which actually wasn't that long ago I'm talking 12 years ago maybe at that time it sure felt like often I was living in 1985, right, some of the stuff there felt a little backwards again. Don't be offended. If you're Australian and you're listening to this, if you're even listening to this, you probably know what I'm talking about and go oh yeah, mate, that's right.

Josh Matthews: 10:01

But I ran over there and they made a big deal about it and I told them what the laws were, because I actually happened to read some of the laws for hiring an Australian. I was like you got to interview him and if he can do the job and he can do it well, then you should hire him. And he showed me this software that he used and he brought it all with him, probably like two or three different computers with him. And he brought it all with him and he can listen like I'm a fast audio guy, I can listen to most of my podcasts about 1.7 or 2X speed and I can digest it, it's fine. Nothing's lost on me at that speed. For the most part, this guy's listening to stuff something like 10X speed. They have all of these screen readers and all this stuff. Long story short, I had this experience.

Josh Matthews: 10:47

The only mistake that this young man made was not telling me once he got the interview, to just kind of give them a heads up.

Josh Matthews: 10:57

Just give them a heads up so that they know what they're walking into, and I think it's fair. I don't think people should necessarily be expected to adapt and bend over backwards on everything emotionally, even if they'll do it physically. You need to give people time to adapt and think like okay, do we have the resources that can support this disability? If not, what does it take for us to acquire those? How do we get familiar with it? How do we understand that this is actually possible? So give them some time to just sort of emotionally adapt to that. I hope everybody who's listening to this if you do have a disability, I hope you're taking it in the right way, which is one, don't put yourself out there to be discriminated against, either purposefully or accidentally. But then, two, make sure that you're being communicative and transparent, and if you're not, then it's not fair. So that's kind of my perspective. I'm curious if anybody else has some thoughts on this.

Fred Cadena: 11:56

I mean I'll say I think you're spot on. I mean, from my perspective, usually by the time somebody gets to me in the review process, it's not their first conversation, but I don't think there's a lot of reason to put that on an application upfront. People shouldn't discriminate, people shouldn't be filtering for that. But you never can tell. And then to your point, just make sure people understand, especially with a person interview any accommodations that you need. Right, like you want to make sure you're able to get in and put your best foot forward. But I would hope in this day and age nobody is screening out that kind of stuff. But just like the same way I would recommend anybody putting a picture on their application. You just never know where people's biases lie.

Josh Matthews: 12:44

Yeah, we don't, and so we don't do that here in the United States. In other countries it's required to. You have to put your picture on, and I get it because there's a lot of grift going on in other places, right. So I mean, I know tons of people and it's happened to me where you interview one person and the different person shows up for work, so that's why they do that, and there's a lot of information out there about what happens with the picture.

Josh Matthews: 13:10

Stephen and I had an experience with one of our hiring managers. We sent them a candidate. They didn't like the person's LinkedIn picture, right, and it was like are you freaking, kidding me? Like that's the problem here. He doesn't look friendly in the picture, I mean. So anyway, I addressed that in a very direct and specific and serious way, because that's not acceptable to us. We are equal opportunity employers and we only work with those that are right. So how you look should not affect whether or not you can do the job Period and your disabilities, if you have any and some people there's disabilities coming, a wide range of things.

Josh Matthews: 13:54

I have disabilities, I have CRS, right, and I've had it for a long time. So if you don't know what that means it stands for Can't Remember Shit. So you know, I think a lot of people have CRS too, but the reality is is like you've got to give everybody a chance. I love it. I love it when someone has a disability and they can overcome it. And I love it when people give those people a chance because they're no different than anybody else, right, and in many times they have a lot more gumption and a lot more stick-to-it-ness because of what they've had to overcome. So there's some wonderful qualities when someone's had to face that. So everybody, give everybody a chance. I think that's it. That's the smart move. Shall we move on to another question. It's a little bit less sensitive.

Anthony Rodriguez: 14:43

Thanks. Thank you, josh, for removing us. Want to jump in there. Thank you for bringing this up. You know disabilities and feeling like you look different, you know that can just be really soul-crushing and it can get in your head. You know I personally, before I was in the tech industry, I had some negative experiences being Hispanic and not always looking like everyone else on the team. And you know, at the end of the day you have to come around that self-realization that I got to do the best that I can do, you know, and I have to hope and believe that they're not going to look at the shade of my skin but see that I'm capable and I'm a viable team member. But you know it can like crush you even before you apply.

Josh Matthews: 15:30

Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for sharing that, anthony, and just so you know, so that it's on the record here permanently you are a beautiful man, especially with the cigars.

Vanessa Grant: 15:44

Yeah, that's right, I actually have Janine here who has a perspective on this.

Josh Matthews: 15:52

All right hey.

Vanessa Grant: 15:53

Janine, do you want to introduce yourself?

Janeen Marquardt: 15:55

Hi everyone. Let's hear it. Hi, this is Janine Marquardt, long time listener, first time call.

Josh Matthews: 16:01

No wait not quite You've been on.

Janeen Marquardt: 16:04

I've been here a couple of times. Yeah, I mean I didn't hear the original context of the question. I don't know if it's worth repeating.

Vanessa Grant: 16:11

It's. Do you think that somebody should disclose a disability on a resume, or if not, then at what point should they disclose it?

Janeen Marquardt: 16:19

I guess it depends on the type of disability and the type of job you're applying to.

Josh Matthews: 16:25

I don't know if that matters or not, but if the job Well, okay, but so in what situation would it make sense to do that?

Janeen Marquardt: 16:34

So if the job requires you to lift 40 pounds on a regular basis and you can't lift 40 pounds, you might want to disclose that because you'd probably be incapable of actually doing the job right. Or you might need special. If you need special accommodations to actually do the job and you can do the job with those special accommodations, you probably would want to disclose that. But I've got a case where I don't disclose my disability because it doesn't impact my ability to actually do the job at all, but it does impact people's ability to interact with me sometimes and I don't want it to be one of those factors that people will judge me on unfairly. That's right.

Josh Matthews: 17:23

You and I have spoken about this before. Yeah.

Janeen Marquardt: 17:25

We have. So there are different kinds of disabilities, and mine's kind of one of those.

Janeen Marquardt: 17:31

It's an invisible one, but it has bias associated with it, and so that's what we want to be really, really careful and you are under no obligation to disclose a disability, really, in any case, as long as it's not something that's going to actually prevent you from doing the job to which you're applying, or if you can do the job with some minor accommodations or reasons, it's called reasonable accommodations. So, for example, if you need a screen reader to help you because you're losing your eyesight, that's a reasonable accommodation and you don't actually have to disclose that during the Definitely not in your resume and definitely not even really during the process, because you're not being hired for your ability to read. You're probably being hired for your ability to think or provide some sort of knowledge or information.

Josh Matthews: 18:27

Right. Or to be able to read 10 point font when you can read 18 point. Fine, sure, right, yeah, yeah. Well, it's the American Disabilities Act, right.

Jason Ziekowitz: 18:35

Exactly.

Josh Matthews: 18:38

It's been around for a very long time and it is what we would call in the industry a protected class. 100%, right, yeah, thanks for coming on the show, sure, and keep going. You've got a perspective, so continue to share, if you like, please.

Janeen Marquardt: 18:53

Oh yeah Again, I'm not sure who asked the question, but certainly find me on LinkedIn If you wanted to ask something more specific about your case. I'm really happy to talk about it in depth and certainly share more in depth about mine. I don't want to take over the conversation as I have a tendency to do.

Josh Matthews: 19:09

Janine, do us all a favor. Tell your very complicated spelling of your last name so people can find you.

Janeen Marquardt: 19:15

Are you kidding? I should spell the first name too.

Josh Matthews: 19:17

Yeah, probably.

Janeen Marquardt: 19:18

Yeah, because I'm not here myself. J-a-n-e-e-n is the first name and the last name is M-A-R-Q-U-A-R. E-d is in David, t is in Tom, but I am friends with Vanessa and with Josh on the socials, so you might be able to find me that way as well.

Josh Matthews: 19:36

Fantastic and, yeah, you and I have had some cool sessions before, so thanks for making time and I hope you and Vanessa crush it on your presentation this week.

Vanessa Grant: 19:47

Oh, we always do. We're going to go practice soon.

Josh Matthews: 19:50

Very good.

Vanessa Grant: 19:51

Practice.

Josh Matthews: 19:52

Very good, jason, you had your hand up OK.

Jason Ziekowitz: 19:55

Yeah, I wanted to say how this reminds me of the question tell me about a weakness. I wouldn't even say disability. I think that it does come to mind about a strength, about if you have a disability that you have strategically overcome and that comes to mind as a strength that could be played up appropriately. There's appropriate time for it during the interview. That is something to show off when, if it's appropriate to show off those strategic skills. So for me, a disability would be ADHD. I think I have ADHD. I didn't actually finish the test, but I'm fine.

Josh Matthews: 20:38

Good one buddy, Good one Thank you, thank you.

Jason Ziekowitz: 20:43

But I think in this day and age, with social media and everything trying to grab your attention, attention is shortened. So for that I try to be very intentional. I'm not to multitask and to make sure I make lists, make sure I have a schedule, so I just try to organize the animal that I am, the human being. I try to attain this human being. So I find that as a great strength.

Josh Matthews: 21:14

Listen, guys. My name is Josh, in case you're just tuned in. I run the Salesforce recruitercom along with our friend Steven Gregor here, who is actually having some technical difficulties. My co-host is Vanessa Grant, dreamforce speaker, tahoe dream and speaker, london's call and speaker. It's extraordinary Florida dream and speaker, extraordinaire and badass BA, plus a bunch of other things. Thanks for joining the live show.

Josh Matthews: 21:40

If this is your first time listening, you can find past episodes either here on Twitter spaces, but we recommend that you visit the Salesforce career show dot buzz proud or forward slash buzz proudcom or something like that, I can't remember. Just go to your favorite platform type in Salesforce career. We'll probably be the first thing that pops up on podcasts and you just go ahead and click on that, check out the past episodes. And, guys, I'm going to ask a favor here. Seriously, do us a favor. Would you do us a favor and not just subscribe but also leave a review? Leave a review for our podcasts. I think that you can do this on Apple. I'm pretty sure you can do it on Spotify and maybe even on Google. So whatever your favorite platform is, those reviews help. What it does is? It just kind of lifts us up in the rankings a little bit and lets us reach more people. And when we reach more people, we do one thing and one thing only, and that's help more people, and that's what we're here to do. So we appreciate you, we appreciate your listenership and we appreciate you liking, subscribing, leaving comments and leaving some good reviews as well. So thanks for that.

Josh Matthews: 22:48

Let's get to another question here. So we've answered some good ones. How about this one? Okay, how does one get into the consulting space when almost all consulting openings require consulting experience? Vanessa, you work for a consulting firm. You said you were a leader in a consulting firm. I'd like to hear your perspectives first. Go for it.

Vanessa Grant: 23:15

Fred probably has as a leader, probably has a really good perspective on this. My perspective on this is this is where transferable skills has really. You know, being able to communicate those has been really helpful in my career and also in the career of my mentees. There were so many people in hospitality and healthcare and education that had to figure out a way to describe what they did every day, but in a way that would make sense to a consultant. So if they were an educator they could adjust. You know what they did on a day-to-day basis so that they sounded more like trainers. So they say oh, you know, I created curriculums and I worked with some difficult folks to train them on things Just. However, I'm not doing it well because I'm not an educator.

Vanessa Grant: 24:08

But I think focusing on those transferable skills, having some confidence, having those soft skills a lot of times, especially at least in the last few years where we've had such a gap in, there's been more projects for consultancies than there were people working them. It was a lot easier to get in, probably a little more difficult now, but I still think having a focus on those soft skills, those transferable skills, when you don't already have the Salesforce experience, can get you into consulting. And if you do have those technical skills if you've been an admin then just make sure you've got those soft skills in there. Have you been doing business analysis as an admin? Can you say that you are the whole package? It's easier to get into consulting that way. And then, lastly, getting a consulting certification Show that you actually understand how a project is delivered in your desired cloud.

Josh Matthews: 25:03

Yeah, that's great. Thank you, Vanessa. Let me pipe it. Fred, You're going to take most of this.

Josh Matthews: 25:08

I've just got one small thing to say, which is, if you've ever been hired by any company ever because of the skill sets that you already have, that first few months on the job you are a consultant, You're a full-time employee, but you're dealing with people that you don't already know. You're figuring out the lay of the land. You're having to communicate what your strategies are, the reasons for why you think certain things should be done in a certain way. Congratulations, you're a consultant. So it's not the same thing as maybe balancing for clients at the same time logging your billable hours into a platform. All that stuff is a little bit different. But actually interacting with stakeholders. I learned early on that CIOs look at internal departments as clients. If you're in IT, moving into Salesforce, and you've already been in IT, then you're already dealing with clients, which means that you're consulting with them. So it's a big word that applies to so many things, but I think if you've ever been hired for your expertise before you know everybody congratulations, you're a consultant. What do you think, Fred?

Fred Cadena: 26:22

Yeah, I could agree more with both you, avinathan, on this topic. First, no surprise here as the contrarian, I'm going to challenge the premise, which is I've been a leader now at five different well-known consulting firms. In the Salesforce ecosystem there is not a requirement to be have been a consultant before you get hired, so if that's on the job list that you're looking at.

Fred Cadena: 26:51

I would certainly take the talk track that Josh just laid out and say look, here's the skills that I have based on what I've done that apply to consulting, and let's have a conversation. But what I think is difficult is you have to have something that you can cross-apply. We're not going to take. It's going to be very difficult for a consulting firm, a consulting leader, to take somebody that has this is their first Salesforce job. They really don't have business experience. They maybe have worked in unrelated industries and now your first job you want is in a consulting firm doing Salesforce limitations.

Fred Cadena: 27:28

That's probably a path too far, unless you're going to some kind of a consulting firm that has like a Salesforce boot camp or something along those lines. But as long as you're bringing to the table hey, I know a lot about this industry, a lot about how this business runs, and maybe I haven't done Salesforce's deeply, that's fine, that's a great place to have a conversation. Or I know a lot about Salesforce. I've worked as an admin for a year, two years, three years, but I've never done consulting. Okay, that's a great jumping off point. But I think as long as you're checking some of those boxes and you can show how what you've done really lines up, even if the job title is not identical. Go for it.

Vanessa Grant: 28:11

Yeah, I just want to add to that, like there is no one perfect consultant, consulting generally happens in team-.

Josh Matthews: 28:20

That's not true. I placed them, I did.

Vanessa Grant: 28:23

But the perfect consultant.

Josh Matthews: 28:26

I did. I'm just teasing.

Vanessa Grant: 28:28

It's definitely not me.

Josh Matthews: 28:29

You'll never know.

Vanessa Grant: 28:31

It's not me either, but generally speaking, you are working on a team. It tends to be the resourcing person's problem at the consulting company to make sure that they put the team together that is going to be able to do the job best. Just like Fred's talking about, you are not necessarily going to check all the boxes, but you don't have to wait until you check all the boxes before you can become a consultant. There is a team out there that is probably missing your skill sets. You just have to be able to communicate what those skills are and make sure that they're useful in a consulting capacity.

Josh Matthews: 29:06

Definitely. One other thing I'd throw in here, guys, is that every job description you've ever looked at, usually not always but they're usually asking for everything that they desire, not everything that they need. Now it might be listed under the required competencies section. You get your summary at the top, your little byline the absolutely required the nice to have the day in the life of the benefits. They're pretty much the same, but most job descriptions will list everything in the kitchen sink. A lot of hiring managers don't even know what's on there. It's produced by human resources. It gets pushed out by human resources.

Josh Matthews: 29:50

I've told the story on this show before about someone who had never even read the job description that they were using to attract candidates to work for her, for the team she was hired to build. I mean, talk about abdicating responsibility. This woman should have been fired because that's just the stupidest thing. I mean honestly, god, guys, it's the stupidest thing I've ever heard of. But this stuff happens and it happens all the time.

Josh Matthews: 30:14

So if you want a job at a consultancy and you see a job description that says you must have consulting experience, yeah, apply anyway, but be upfront about it. Hey, listen, I'm applying for this job. I'm going to be straight up. I don't have specific consultancy experience working at a Salesforce partner, however, and then fill in the blanks of everything that Vanessa and Fred just said. So call it out. This is called taking the bullets out of the gun, because if you don't address it, they can shoot that bullet right back at you and say, hey, thanks for the application, but you don't have consulting experience. But if you already said, hey, I know I don't have consulting experience, but this is why you should still look at me Now you're making a case.

Josh Matthews: 30:58

It's just an obstacle, so overcome it. It's an objection. Overcome the objection. That's all you got to do. Just overcome the objection. Give them a reason that's compelling and it doesn't have to be mind-blowing. You can just say, hey, look, here's the reality.

Josh Matthews: 31:13

I'm extremely good technically. I'm the guy that people come to on my team for when they have questions and they're not certain about things. I support people in these areas and that area and this, that the other thing. I've also done a lot of research about what it takes to be a good consultant. And guess what Lucky you, lucky me I happen to fit that profile perfectly. So let's please have a conversation. You can say something like that, and that's just a first draft right off the cuff, but you could do something like that that's a little bit more polished and probably double or triple your chances of getting a meeting. Once you get the meeting, it's all game over. Then you just lay it all out and be awesome, be your super awesome self, all right, so great question. Let's do one more question before we wrap up the show, but let me kick it to Vanessa. Vanessa, are there any more questions coming from your live experience out at Tahoe Dreaming right now?

Vanessa Grant: 32:08

So today is basically registration day. It's just mostly people playing Connector and lots of hugs and how you've been at the registration desk. So no questions today so far.

Josh Matthews: 32:22

Okay, so I'm going to ask this question that was given to us by a candidate this past week, which is are there any resources or tools available to help me stay updated with the latest trends and developments in Salesforce? I'm going to kick that to Vanessa and Fred.

Vanessa Grant: 32:45

I would recommend. So this is a big thing that I advocate for which is finding the MVPs. They're usually the ones that are the Salesforce. Mvps tend to be the ones that are really in touch with their particular niche of Salesforce and speaking to it. So, like Andy Utkin, he's going to be able to speak about flow stuff. You follow Salesforce Ben. You're going to get breaking Salesforce news all the time. So if you follow those folks on LinkedIn, it'll help make your LinkedIn feed serve you the industry news. But you have to be able to kind of cultivate your feed with the right people so that that news is reaching you. And then, of course, I would say you know, I mean the standard. You got to read the release notes, go to the webinars explaining the releases, the product roadmaps. I even connect with the I would say, the product managers that are within Salesforce too is also a nice way to kind of keep up with what the future is going to bring as far as the products that you're interested in.

Josh Matthews: 33:51

Excellent advice, Fred. What about you?

Fred Cadena: 33:53

Hey guys, I don't know if I can add a whole lot more to that, Other than the challenge that I have is not getting enough sources. It's really curating the sources, so I'm getting the information that I want. I think Vanessa raised a lot of great points there. It's making sure that you're really focused in, you've connected with people, you're following people, you've got alerts set on certain topics because Salesforce generates a lot of news. Salesforce is a huge ecosystem. It's way different than it was when I got involved 16 years ago and there was Sales Cloud and Service Cloud and Sassy was walking around at the different events. There's so many products now that you can't learn at all. You can't do it all. So really hone in on what you want to do and learn and keep up with those are all great resources. I know, John, you've got a great resource that you've been putting together on your site as well, but I mean those are all fantastic.

Josh Matthews: 34:58

Thanks, fred. Yes, so you can visit the expand exchange. It's expandexchangecom. Just about two hours ago, I was wrapping up a little Zoom meeting with our marketing pro and our UI UX web designer. So that's all being redesigned and I got to look at the initial drafts of it today. It's going to be awesome. It's going to be easy to navigate, it's going to be beautiful and it's going to be much faster loading than what we have right now, but what we have right now will still serve you. So go to expandexchangecom. You can also go to the salesforcerecretercom forward slash resources or just click resources when you're on the site and that will take you to about 50 or 60 curated links that mostly Vanessa put together me too, but mostly Vanessa and these are YouTube channels, slack channels, training academies, influencers, bloggers, newsletter writers, all sorts of different folks and these are resources that you can find off of the salesforcecom platform or site. So definitely check that out. Some really great questions this week, I think, some really amazing and insightful answers as well. Thank you to everybody for joining us on this live program. Thank you to all of our listeners of the podcast. We appreciate all of you. We really do, I like for real. We love you guys, so keep coming back. We'll be back next week.

Josh Matthews: 36:38

Now, tomorrow, I'll be releasing part two of our military show conversation that we had with Dave Nava Golden Hoodie, dave Nava and Fast Roper, deloitte consultant Philip Anderson. So please check that out. It should be available for you, I would think, by noon tomorrow. So that's part two. What we've been covering so far is part two, and this is going to be released on podcasts probably two weeks from today, and if you missed the first part, if you're just joining us now, then next I believe Tuesday or Wednesday it will be released on Spotify, apple, google and iHeartRadio and every other podcast platform that you can imagine, so you can listen to the episode in full, and it's also going to be immediately available, unproduced, unedited, here on Twitter Spaces, because it is a safe podcast, and I'll post it on my. I will post that on my personal profile. If you're not connected with me, please go ahead and connect. It's at the JoshForce and make sure that you join our Twitter community as well. It's the largest, fastest growing Twitter community dedicated to Salesforce professionals and it's got a really unique name it's called Salesforce Professionals, so you can find it. So if you see those little people buttons. They look like little people icons. That stands for communities. You can check us out and you can also search for communities. Just click communities type in Salesforce and we'll pop right up to the top.

Josh Matthews: 38:10

Thanks, everybody. I hope that you have a wonderful week. Vanessa, good luck on the conference and to you and Janine on your presentation, and I'm looking forward to catching up with everybody in two weeks from today at 230 Western excuse me, pacific and 530 Eastern. Fred, it's been special to have you on the show again. You're welcome every time. Love having you on here and thanks for all of the insights and for the interesting topics. Also thanks to Jason and to Anthony as well, and I just want to do a quick little shout out to my friend, larry Lee. Hope you're doing great, larry. That's Cheesecake, larry Lee. Thanks for being on the show, buddy, good to see you, man. Okay, guys, have a wonderful week. Bye for now.

Vanessa Grant: 38:56

Bye, josh, thank you.

Josh Matthews: 38:58

You're welcome.

Anthony Rodriguez: 38:59

Great show. Bro Loved it.

Josh Matthews: 39:01

All right guys, I'm going down.