The Salesforce Career Show
The podcast dedicated to helping you HIRE, GET HIRED and SOAR HIGHER in the SALESFORCE ecosystem.
Enjoy these live recordings of The Salesforce Career Show from X Spaces and YouTube's JoshForce. A guest + AMA format hosted by Josh Matthews, founder of Salesforce Staffing, LLC, Joshforce and The Expand Exchange and Vanessa Grant, Dreamforce speaker, 9X certified BA, consultant and social media darling. Recordings are 3x per month.
The Salesforce Career Show
Unlocking Salesforce: Expert Strategies for Successful SI/AE Partnerships + AMA on AI
Ready to navigate the complex world of Salesforce partnerships? Join co-hosts Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant as they sit down with industry veterans Bobby Dornbos and Theron Stanley. You'll gain insights into the evolving Salesforce ecosystem and learn how the influx of post-COVID consultancy partners is shifting the dynamics of service quality and partnerships. This episode doesn't just stop at what you know; it pushes boundaries with practical strategies for niche market success, emphasizing the importance of relationship-building skills and risk-taking.
Discover the secrets to sustaining a successful Salesforce consulting business. Our guests share personal tales of resilience and transition, offering firsthand advice on leveraging personal networks, continuous learning, and strategic marketing. The conversation broadens to the impact of AI, illustrating how cutting-edge tools can transform your efficiency and marketability.
Don't miss out on crucial advice on building your brand and pitching your skills, especially when AI knowledge is increasingly in demand. Whether you're a budding entrepreneur or an established consultant, the insights shared will equip you with the tools needed for career growth in the tech space. Prepare to be inspired by stories highlighting the power of community support, adaptability, and lifelong learning in the ever-changing Salesforce landscape.
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:It's a party again, it is November 20th. It's going to be a great show for a lot of different reasons. So, guys, welcome everybody to another episode of the Salesforce Career Show. I'm your host, josh Matthews. I have with me Vanessa Grant, co-host. Go ahead and say hi, vanessa.
Speaker 3:Hi everybody.
Speaker 2:And we've got some amazing guests. These two are actually friends. I know we had a mother-daughter team on recently. Now we've got two different friends and I'm going to announce who they are in just a moment. We're going to have a very interesting conversation about Salesforce partners and their relationship with Salesforce, and we're just going to deep dive on this. I'm not even sure what's going to happen in the conversation, but I'm pretty certain it's going to be magical, because I have not yet had a single conversation with okay, I'll just say it, it's Bobby Doerenbos and Theron Stanley.
Speaker 2:Welcome you guys. I'll give you the full-blown introduction here when we launch into this segment. But these guys I've never not had a magical conversation with them, so I'm very much looking forward to I think we all are very much looking forward to having this conversation. Bobby, do me a favor and mute your speaker. Thanks buddy, thanks dude. Now really important house housekeeping. Vanessa. You and I got together late last week and made a big decision that we're actually going to be moving the live show from X to go ahead and tell them.
Speaker 3:We're moving to LinkedIn careers Go.
Speaker 2:That's right. I mean it's a career show. Might as well be on the largest careers career platform in the world, Right?
Speaker 3:I agree, let's do it yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm excited too. It's the format's going to be the same show. It's going to be the same. We are anticipating a little bit more anticipation just because of the broad reach. I mean, even if you just look at now, I don't remember how many people you're connected with on LinkedIn. Do you have that number off the top of your head? I?
Speaker 3:think 16,100 something.
Speaker 2:So you got it down to the hundreds. That's good. And then, how many X followers do you have?
Speaker 3:Close to 10,000.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right, I'm about half that on X and we're hovering around 20K on LinkedIn. So it's like there's just more reach. We just know more people. You know that's 36,000 people that we know, and that's just the two of us, nevermind our guests and friends and all this sort of thing. So I'm pretty stoked. I think it's going to be interesting to see. It'll actually be the third platform that we've operated the show on, starting with Clubhouse. Yeah, clubhouse, clubhouse, those days, the COVID days, then X.
Speaker 2:So if you are a listener to this program, to the live program, just be aware this is the last time we will be having a show on X, unless we run into audio problems and outreach problems and technical difficulties with LinkedIn audio. I don't think we will. So please make sure that you follow us. You can follow me. Just type in Josh Matthews and LinkedIn. I'm pretty sure I come right up to the top, especially if you're in the ecosystem. It should. And Vanessa Grant. We're super easy to find. We're all over the place on LinkedIn. So make sure that you follow us, yeah.
Speaker 3:And we're always still going to be doing the podcast. So if you don't catch us live, you could always still listen to the recording on your podcast platform of choice.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. And you know it's interesting that the vast majority of our listeners I was just looking today, the vast majority of our listeners are actually listening on their mobile phone. They're listening on their iPhone that's the most common device that they're using and the vast majority are actually listening on Apple podcast. Now, I'm a Spotify guy myself. That's only about 15, 20% of our listeners. So, anyway, there you go Lots of different platforms. Those are the two biggest. Now we're also. Today, in addition to our in-depth conversation with Theron and Bobby, we are going to be answering some of the questions that you folks have submitted to us as part of this contest. And, vanessa, do you want to recap everyone on what's going on with this contest here, how they can enter?
Speaker 3:Well, I got stuck in a client meeting the last show, so I don't know if the rules have changed, but no, we don't change our rules.
Speaker 2:That would not be a rule, Rule number one don't change the rules.
Speaker 3:But we were very fortunate. I think it's always nice when our good work in the community gets acknowledged, and Salesforce has decided to grace us with five certification vouchers. We can't give you the certifications, but certainly we can enable you to get the certifications. We're giving away five vouchers and we'll be picking five winners on our first LinkedIn show on December 4th. Now to enter we have a questionnaire on the site.
Speaker 2:Salesforcecareershowcom and you submit a question. That's right.
Speaker 3:Yep, so submit a question and did we do the double the entries thing?
Speaker 2:Yes, we are doubling the entries the other way that you can have an entry you can do one or the other, or you can do both is to is to just give us a review, preferably a good one, on either Apple Podcasts or on Spotify, All of the rules around this. It's really it's not a lot of rules other than rule number one, right, it's really easy. Just go to Salesforce Recruiter or sorry, that's my other website Go to Salesforce Career Show I'm sorry, salesforcecareershowcom. It's all listed right there, but basically you'll give us a review, take a screenshot, mail it. Email it to the address that you'll find on the website it's my email address and then you're entered, and so you can't win more than once, but you can have twice the entries, and while we've had very good response so far, I'm happy to tell you that if you enter, you have a very good chance of winning a full voucher.
Speaker 2:You really do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, these vouchers are good for, yes, you could use them for an associate cert, but, man, if you can leverage this for $400 for like one of those architect certs, amazing, like that is high value there. So, and really, of course, we would love to see more entrants, but, yeah, it's a good shot right now. But also you helped the show, like we. We started this because we were answering folks' questions in the Salesforce career space and we we love serving the community in this way, Like this is why Josh and I have teamed up, so send us your questions and also the other folks that are listening.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'll tell you. Look, it actually has been a very good response. I've been pleasantly surprised. But with five vouchers to give away, you've got really high odds. So that's great, it's really very good.
Speaker 2:I will ask the reviews help us more than anything. We love your questions. You can shoot those to us anytime, but the reviews are what makes a difference. I think we're running five stars on Spotify, but we took a big old dip on Apple because I think two people, three people, put in like one star, thanks guys, but for whatever reason it kind of tanked us for a little bit. It's coming back now. So a positive review on Apple will actually give us the opportunity to reach more people, help more people to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem, and with that let's go ahead. I think that's it for housekeeping, right, I think. So I was going to tell you guys one thing before we dive in I think you know this, vanessa.
Speaker 2:Before we dive in, I think you know this, vanessa, but I did a little mini digital nomad thing this past month and I chucked my golf clubs and a little carry-on into the back of my little convertible and I drove north and stopped in Savannah, outside Savannah, and I spent about I don't know eight, nine days in Savannah and three different Airbnbs to try out different parts of the town. And then I went up to Charleston this was a working. I worked full time while I did this, by the way. Then I went up to Charleston and I was in Charleston for about a week and then I got lonely and so I flew Casey up. She joined me for the remainder of the week and we enjoyed the weekend in Charleston and then back down to Savannah, because I loved it so much I couldn't wait to share it with her.
Speaker 2:And I've got to tell you I just think Savannah is the most charming place. People were so polite, so friendly. I got to try shrimp and grits about 10 times because it was so freaking good and I'd never had it before and, oh my God, I just I mean, I'd get fat on that every day. It's so delicious and people were so friendly. Literally. There were people like teenagers. You know, I'd park my car, going into the little convenience store or whatever I'd be I don't know 50 feet from the front door, and they'd see me and they'd stand there and hold the door for me, like you know, while I trudge along embarrassingly slow to go inside Like and that was. That wasn't a one-time thing, that was an old time. So the uh, the charm of the South was very real and absolutely something I'd never experienced before, and I've also never been away from my house for that long, like ever, like if I was going to be away longer than three weeks, I'd probably just moved somewhere else, and that was a really wonderful experience.
Speaker 2:So I encourage everyone you can go back to one of our podcasts. It's actually on the YouTube channel, Josh Forrest, and you can watch me interviewing Alex Lapa, who gives a detailed description of what it's like to be a digital nomad how to become a digital nomad, how to start with where you're at right now, working with your current employer and finding ways to be tapped in and engaged in your work, while still getting to explore different parts of the country and different parts of the world. So this was my first time really doing it other than just like, or I'm at a conference and I'm working, and I want to say it was absolutely fantastic. So that's all I wanted to share about that. Anyone here been to Savannah before?
Speaker 3:by the way, I went with my kiddo last December. We went on a little road trip right around there. Yeah, because my dad lives in Delray, so we went out up to Georgia. I think we left out of North Carolina. That's awesome. That's awesome All out of North Carolina.
Speaker 2:That's awesome, that's awesome. All right guys.
Speaker 3:Love Savannah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, beautiful place we're going to dive in right now. We're going to be talking all things you know partnerships and alliances, exploring the relationship between Salesforce partners and AEs, avps, rvps and, essentially, how to team up between Salesforce and the SIs, the system integrators.
Speaker 3:So yeah, hard pivot Let and the SIs, the system integrators.
Speaker 2:So yeah, hard pivot, let's Hard pivot. Here we go, switching, grinding the gears. Okay, theron Stanley, thank you for being here. Theron was introduced to me by a mutual friend, brandon, who was on the show about a month ago and Theron's got 20 years in the Salesforce ecosystem. He's a strategic account director based out of Texas. He's with Salesforce and he's got a background in energy, retail, customer experience and loyalty. Go ahead and say hi, theron. Josh, you're doing such a great job introing. I just wanted to let you keep up. Oh well, I appreciate that, but let's not give me so much grace next time. Okay, you just jump right in my friend.
Speaker 4:I got thrown back into the listener category somehow, so thanks for bringing me back into the field.
Speaker 2:You got it, buddy. We're like the mafia as soon as you think you're out, we pull you right back in. We also have Bobby Dornbos. Bobby and Theron, by the way, are friends they're buddies in Texas and he is a 10-year Salesforce ecosystem professional. He started his journey with IT roles from admin, pm, product owner, and then he shifted into pre-sales engineering at Salesforce back in 2016 on the energy industry team and he ultimately led that team. And since the start of 2023, so almost two years he's been back on the delivery side with MRE Consulting where he works with Brandon. He serves as a PM and architect for customers and he also leads alliances and industry go-to-market efforts for MRE's Salesforce division. Welcome, bobby.
Speaker 5:Thanks for having me, glad to be here.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm just glad that your unmute button works.
Speaker 5:Also, theron and I are neighbors too. We live like a stone's throw, oh that's awesome.
Speaker 2:True story, true story, I love it. So, guys, there are only about a dozen topics that we could probably dive into, but when we caught up on Monday, we decided that, exploring a little bit deeper into the relationship between Salesforce and working directly with their AVPs, rvps and so on strategic account reps that would be a really good idea. And then, oddly enough and I don't have it pulled up right now, but, oddly enough, salesforce Ben don't have it pulled up right now, but oddly enough, salesforce Ben came out with an article just today. I'm going to pull it up. He came out. It was a good one, wasn't it? I thought it was a really robust article and you can find it at salesforcebencom. Does Salesforce have an issue with bad consultancy partners?
Speaker 3:I mean, can we all just nod and say yes at the same?
Speaker 2:time. What do you guys think?
Speaker 4:I think nodding would be ineffective for this platform, yes, but when you move to video, then we'll see.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right, and maybe it can have sort of air quotes nodding, indicating yes, that's what the AI transcription will probably say. So what do you think? Let's start there. So Salesforce has an issue with bad consultancy partners and one of the things that I think we all knew this anyway, but the number of partners doubled post-COVID right More than doubled and it's set to grow astronomically again. When they review all the numbers of this past year. I can tell you, from the position I'm in, that there are a number of very brand new junior consultancies that I work with and I enjoy working with, and then there are some that I talk to and I've interacted with and I want nothing to do with them like literally nothing to do with them. They are the partners that create the problems for the partners that I supply candidates to come in and fix right. So you guys work for a very reputable partner right now, but what's your experience like in having to come in and sweep up everyone's mistakes?
Speaker 5:Well, I'll start First off. I think it was just a product of how big of a gold rush the Salesforce ecosystem was for so long right On the Salesforce side. I got in when they were growing like wildfire. I was a people leader during that, especially going into COVID where we were hiring two to three folks per quarter or per year. Then all that shifted right A lot of layoffs across Salesforce, other tech companies and their delivery ecosystems and now I think it's just right-sizing across the board. Right, I know Salesforce is with Data Cloud and AgentForce. They're growing and scaling up again. Hopefully they do it a little bit more intelligently, but I think it's just right-sizing and I think you're getting down to the consultancies and the people that are successful in this ecosystem are the ones that are the hard workers, they're the smart ones, they're the ones that are going to stand the test of time.
Speaker 2:So don't you think there's crappy?
Speaker 5:ones that stand the test of time too, I mean that's the problem.
Speaker 2:It's not a perfect Darwinian meritocracy here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because they work for less.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because, look, this is the problem with all quotes. Right, I got a quote on painting the inside of my house. I took the lowest one. Look, they did a good job. It took them forever. A company could have done it in a half a day and these guys took three weekends or something like that. So we have a saying in general in my industry, but I'm confident that it exists in all industries and in the article. They say you can get it done quickly, you can get it done with high quality or you can get it done with low cost. Pick two, right. So the low cost, done quickly, really results in a lot of poor quality and the good news is it creates a lot of work for the good companies.
Speaker 5:A lot of hours yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but unfortunately it creates a lot of sourness in the ecosystem and gives room for competitors of Salesforce to slide in, right? I mean, I talk to companies every single week that say, look, we've got this, we've had it for a year. It sucks, can you help us? We don't even know what's going on. Blah, blah, blah, blah. We've got this, we've had it for a year. It sucks. Can you help us? We don't even know what's going on. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And we get someone in, they fix it and it's fine. But talk to me about that. What are you guys seeing in the market?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm happy to chime in here from a Salesforce perspective. Yes, we see all flavors of those scenarios right. I believe what makes a good partner for me to bring in to my customers or to partner with at my customers is one that communicates really well with the account team and with the customer. Think about it as like a three-headed snake or a trifecta. When everybody's on the same page and very well connected like Bobby and I are those projects have a very high success rate. You get happier customers all the way around, and I think that when we do see a project not work out very well, usually one of those elements is missing.
Speaker 2:How often is it the customer? How often is the customer getting in their own way?
Speaker 4:I don't have a percentage, but I would say often that is the case right. Many times we're dealing with clients who are rolling out something brand new. They don't have experience with it and so all the more importance for them to build up their own staffing models. Well, right, Call it a COE, a center of excellence, center of expertise. That becomes a very important part of success long-term. And to have that plan and to work with their partners, like MRE for example, to kind of develop those centers of expertise for long-term success, not just for a project duration.
Speaker 3:So can I ask then what responsibility do you think Salesforce has as far as their account executives to prepare their potential future clients for what it will take to maintain Salesforce properly?
Speaker 4:I believe the responsibility can fall heavily on Salesforce. At least that's the way I operate and I've seen a lot of very successful projects go through. Salesforce has its own professional services, so sometimes you have a fourth kind of cornerstone there, that kind of works alongside of partners as well.
Speaker 2:Bobby, what do you think about? I mean having been or being in a partner right now and I don't know if you've been working with the exact same, the exact same AE and, by the way, is it Theron, I mean? Is that your contact? Is he the one that I work?
Speaker 5:with yes, I mean I work with a ton. There's a ton of account directors.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay. What do you do? What advice would you give to a customer that was feeling like the AE just wasn't getting it?
Speaker 5:Well, first and foremost sorry, Theron, they're probably right Right, you need to understand that the account executive is the relationship owner and their job when it comes to meeting the customer's need is to bring their matrix team, their resources in to really advise and enable that customer Right. So a lot of folks they can blame their account director oh, you're just a sales guy and that's correct. That's how Salesforce works. But they also have an amazing team at their disposal to get the customer exactly what they need, from customer success to technical architects, to all sorts of pre-sales business value experts.
Speaker 5:Believe me, salesforce will back up the Brinks truck with resources if you show them that you're serious about digital transformation or a specific project or a specific product. So all the resources are there. I would say definitely for customers. You need to come together with both functional and technical people in these conversations as early as possible. Have your IT partners in the conversations, even the introductory conversations you're having with Salesforce sellers, so that you can show Salesforce that you guys are aligned and serious and that you can easily call bluff of Salesforce just trying to potentially just push easy products to you without that kind of due diligence. Sure.
Speaker 3:So how would you suggest that folks do demonstrate to Salesforce that they're really serious? What are the things that clients can you know, and customers of Salesforce can do to get access to these resources and show that they are committed to success with Salesforce?
Speaker 5:Oh, salesforce is there and interrupt me if I'm wrong. But Salesforce is always willing to give those, give those resources up. They're looking for signals, right? You give them. You open them up for information like how many users are we talking about? Come with your use case well thought out. Have your own business plan for what you want your future state to look like. That will help Salesforce size their opportunity and their investment to helping you. Potentially they will bring a partner or, if you have a partner, they will work with them as well. The more information you're willing to share, the better it goes.
Speaker 5:But of course there's this political tug of war and when it comes to enterprise software and the procurement of that, it gets in the way a little bit. But I understand it. It's business, but as transparency and understanding that there is mutual value in the use case that you're trying to solve, if you call Salesforce and say, hey, come, show us field service, they'll come and show you and they'll try to bring you the use cases and I've seen that so many times where if the customer is really unsure about why they're even interested in something, salesforce will sell you. They will find a way to sell you something. So, being firm on what it is you're trying to solve and making that quantifiable before you even get into the deal cycle. That's going to help both sides.
Speaker 2:I totally agree, yeah. I saw Vanessa laughing on that one because that's like, yeah, dude, ba BA work right.
Speaker 3:Also, if you don't know why you're calling Salesforce, they will find a reason for that. Oh work, right. Also, if you don't know why you're calling Salesforce, they will find a reason for that. They'll find the product.
Speaker 2:They'll find the use case for you. I found the product for you. It's called Data Cloud and Field Service and let's See and a couple other things.
Speaker 5:It gets very. It's so overbearing for us in this ecosystem that Salesforce sells so well, but they're just a machine. They will find a way and they have all sorts of resources to help do this. So customers just got to be smarter.
Speaker 3:So, to that end, bobby, I would love to, and Theron, of course, I would love to hear your takes. And sorry, Josh, for taking this over, I'm just like so into it.
Speaker 2:Are you kidding me? I'm so glad that you're doing this. I blabbed too much on this. Keep going.
Speaker 3:So I know that it can be that challenge between finding the balance of Salesforce supporting your implementation versus a partner like a Salesforce S system integrator supporting your Salesforce org. Salesforce has premium support, like they're really pushing signature success these days. Where's that balance and when should you start engaging with NSI versus engaging with like signature success or something like that? When do you bring that partner in and when can they support you?
Speaker 5:with Salesforce. Aaron, you go ahead. I've got to take here, but I want to let you talk.
Speaker 4:Again, it all starts with a plan. From kind of my perspective, our signature success teams are great, but they're only as good as communication. So they're definitely another element that we have worked side by side with partners, with the customers, to figure out what is the right solution to make up the long-term objective. Bobby, would you agree with that?
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, I think it's a little bit deeper, because I think that you have to look at you as a customer. What capabilities do you have in-house and what do you want to have in-house? Because a lot of times there's a lot of folks, there's a lot of organizations out there that don't want to staff up and build Salesforce COEs because they don't want to have to let people go if the environment changes right. So they like tapping into that billable model where they can just pull resources off the shelf when they need them and that works. I just I think that when it comes to a partner like whenever your business requires also that industry advisory piece, in addition to just give me some people that are certified and have, like the capacity and the capability to implement this product, if I give you the requirements, they know how to build the solution, understanding and taking that industry perspective to it, so that you can try and future-proof the way you're building this thing.
Speaker 5:That's where what I've enjoyed on the consulting side and me joining MRE it had a lot to do with that as well. They were huge in this energy utilities manufacturing domain, in addition to building Salesforce and other technology practices. I've always thought that if you had the trends in your head, like you know where this industry is going, you know what other competitors and peers in industry are doing with this given technology, you're going to help the customer make the right decision versus just rolling out a great field service or CPQ solution just based off of a customer's requirements. So I think that if you're a customer that you want to tap into that industry expertise, I think that typically has to come from a partner, because they're the folks that are paid to look at the entire market and Salesforce does have that in some areas. But to have that real intimate investment for your specific solution, your tactical project, your strategic roadmap, I think that's really where it matters most for the SIs.
Speaker 2:Let me ask you guys something, and we kind of touched on this the other day a little bit. Sometimes, particularly with these smaller SI partners, they will go all in right. They'll heavily invest in attracting the very best talent. They might even use me to bring in some badass people because they've got a projection of a certain quantity of business based on the relationship that they have with the AE or with the AVP, and then, just through no wrongdoing of their own, the spigot just gets turned off on them.
Speaker 2:And I've seen this you know this isn't an every month or every week thing, but I have seen this where, whatever the February shuffle happens and someone gets a new AE and they're coming in on that territory or with that client list and they've already got their people right, and so this company that's built up, this relationship, loses that relationship, has to build a new one, and preference is given to the new AEs' favorites. And it's perfectly fine, right, I have favorites, so fair enough. But what would you say about that? And it's just like kind, like the scaffolding around that, like how that operates. And have you seen that before? Where smaller, growing SIs can suffer due to February shuffle.
Speaker 5:Oh yeah, that's good, bad and ugly, right Like good. If you're on the right side of it and you've nurtured your relationships and you get brought into new customers and new projects, that's great. The space where Theron and I have collaborated the most is in enterprise right, massive accounts, hundreds and thousands of employees where I find that doesn't happen very much, because the customer politics and the customer relationships are what drive you right, like, oh, if you have a big four in there that does a lot of your technology work across like well, well, salesforce, you're going to have to work with this partner. And hey, mre, if you want in on this, you're going to have to white label through these guys and build your own relations.
Speaker 2:Sure, that happens all the time.
Speaker 5:Yeah, certainly a different lens there.
Speaker 2:What about you, Theron? What do you think?
Speaker 4:I agree exactly with what Bobby said. Right, no two companies and decisions and projects are the same. The continuity is very important For me personally. As an enterprise account director, I've been very fortunate to work with some of my customers for nearly my entire time here at Salesforce, even through promotions role changes, things like that but it is a reality, because good people get promoted, they get moved around and sometimes they want to go do something different, and then the customer is still there. So I think this is where partners become that connective fabric for them to continue to have success long-term.
Speaker 5:Sure yeah, and it also speaks to the fact that even if you're a technical resource on a given project with a customer, we're all sellers. Right? Build those relationships, get tight with your customers so that an account executive or some sales change of hands after the ant pile gets kicked doesn't determine your fate, right? That's something that I've learned being with a small consultancy is that relationship building at all times matters just as much as your project. That's maybe not true a lot of the times, but that's the way I see it sometimes Be too good to let go.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, of course. Now, let's say, a partner, even a midsize partner, is trying to woo an AE and this happens, right? I mean, there's a lot of young ones I hear all the time yeah, they get front row Knicks tickets or they get a box at a Cubs game or something like that I've heard I'm not even going to say it, you guys, I told you the other day I've heard some really nasty stuff. Right, I can't even believe it, I know, but I have heard stories that would anyone out there with an imagination just imagine how do you get more airplay in 1978 for your band? How do you do that? Well, think about what you would have to do, what you would have to do, what you would have to send and what you would have to give to all of these disc jockeys.
Speaker 2:Right, it's like that, and I'm sure there's no formula, because we've got six-year-old senior account executives, we've got 27-year-old AEs. Everyone's a little bit different, but there's a lot of. It seems like there's a requirement for a lot of steak dinners and basketball games or something, or am I wrong? Like is it? Is that not a real thing? You guys have to unmute to answer. Yeah, let me know. What do you think?
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's, it is a real thing, in fact, for any background noise, I'm on my way to Houston rocket suite tonight.
Speaker 2:There you go and who bought those? Tickets. Who bought those tickets? Well, salesforce.
Speaker 4:Salesforce. It's a Salesforce event, but we have partners as part of this right?
Speaker 5:Yeah, aaron, I didn't get my ticket. Just leave it at Will Call. I'm on my way, will do Wow.
Speaker 2:I'm so glad you guys fit us in on your awesome basketball. It's funny that I even brought up basketball and look at you guys.
Speaker 3:I feel, like I didn't get enough perks when. I was a customer. I only got like a I think an AE got me coffee once Congrats.
Speaker 4:Coffee is for closers, and sometimes from closers.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I see a lot more like where I guess MRE potentially a little bit more conservative.
Speaker 5:But yeah, we do entertain our customers and sporting events and things like that. But, as I'm finding out on the Alliance side a lot of it, if I'm making a new relationship with an AE or a customer at a workshop, something like that, you do have to come and bring something right. You can't just show up and say, hey, I'm good at this use case, introduce us to your customer right. You have to create an event that is mutually beneficial, whether it's a dinner, whether it's coming with, like an accelerator, something that can make their project go faster, and it's just. You just have to be of the mind that, like, there's got to be mutual benefit here. They're trying to make revenue, you're trying to make revenue, the customer has their own KPIs that are trying to drive with a project. So, again, like that, that awareness will help you realize that you do need to invest in these relationships, albeit a little bit cheap, when you say I've got the best people, so just hire us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right. Well, I mean, I know kickbacks are not allowed, but I think they happen, don't you think you think kickbacks happen? Little woo, little way, little grift on the side, what do you think you think?
Speaker 4:it happens. I don't see it so much in this industry, but I would add that when it comes to events, where did we meet Josh?
Speaker 2:We met at Dreamforce Right.
Speaker 4:So those are oftentimes really good times for us to connect not only with our customers, with partners, to introduce our customers to partners. Bobby and I did a lot of that at Dreamforce this year and to Bobby's point, I think I don't want to. I want to underscore what he said, and that is partners that bring value, because I have a very large network of friends and customers and former customers and partners and LinkedIn. I'm only about 5,000, not near where you are, josh. I strive to get there.
Speaker 2:Well, you don't have to be where I am. Man, You're not a headhunter, it's totally cool. This is not it's a weird thing and I've been doing it. I think I started about 799 million people ago on LinkedIn, right? So it's fair. It should be 100,000, based on what you think it should be.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and even given that, like me, is working for Salesforce, I probably don't go a day without somebody reaching out wanting to partner. The difference is when a company brings a point of view hey, we're working with these customers, we've put these solutions in, we'd love to have a conversation. Or, even better, if they're already engaged at a customer, like Bobby's company is with one of my clients, and that's where things become very valuable and the partnership really works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, let me ask you something, because I'm looking for just a little bit of practical recommendation, and I'm thinking of a specific partner here. Think about a 30 person, 30 person company, okay, and they're growing, and they've been growing steadily. They've probably grown 30% last two, three years. Is there a percentage of their budget that they should be dedicating simply to these types of mutually beneficial events? That will help support both their relationship with their AEs and AVPs, but also with the customers too. Should it be 1% of their budget? A?
Speaker 2:lot of these companies don't have a budget for this stuff, you know.
Speaker 5:Right right. Can I ask how they grew or what they would say? How they grew? 30%, if you okay.
Speaker 2:If you this is, I almost don't want to answer because it's self-serving, because I did ask this client how they grew so well and his answer was well, you guys, you know, brought in like 10, 15 amazing people and they do such an incredible job that Salesforce keeps giving us business. So that's my self-serving answer. I'm sure it's a lot more than that.
Speaker 5:No, I mean Mary, grows by their reputation. For sure. That's a great way, especially for the small firms, to grow, and I don't even think that I would say it's a percentage of a budget. I think you just need to be very opportunistic in your locale that you operate. I don't know if they're fully remote or whatever, but again, I said, with MRE we've been doubled down on the Houston market, whether that's healthcare, energy and utilities, and definitely we have this commodity trading energy big advisory brand to us.
Speaker 5:So you have to be opportunistic when, like from a Salesforce practice, when those things overlap, like on the Venn diagram, right, like if there's a Salesforce event in Houston or we have a world tour in Dallas coming up, let's swarm that and make sure to leverage all of our relationships. Host a dinner, host a happy hour to show them that we know Texas, we know energy, we know energy, we know this market and we know Salesforce. So that's not something we've been budgeting all year. They just announced these world tours based off of agent force like out of thin air. So we had to really rally and go.
Speaker 5:We didn't have a budget. We made it happen. We needed to invest here and now and I think you need to be a little bit more grassroots guerrilla warfare tactics when you're that small right, because I think that you're going to see diminishing returns if you say we're setting aside 15% of our budget to go do these things and we're just going to have them on the calendar and hope we get some people that show up. You have to be more agile. You don't want to waste your money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, don't spend 90 grand on a booth when you've only got got five people in the company and no one can go have meetings. You know all you're doing is passing out swag.
Speaker 5:That's not going to turn into any kind of business yeah, right, I would say, dabble in like like start easy, start light things like webinars that you can invite existing customers to, and then start branching out just date dinners like little things that work, yeah, and then expand upon those instead of just, well, accenture, did this so. So I better try and do it to our scale and that's not going to work.
Speaker 2:You know it's interesting. There are so many styles of salesperson right, and when I think about salespeople, I mean there are just you know about 50 different archetypes of them right, and some of them are just as they said in, like I think it was in Wall Street, like, oh, he gives really good lunch or something like that. He gives great meeting. I've got friends in the ecosystem. They are the kings of steak dinners. They'll take out a group of people, they will wine and dine them, they will engage, they will be giving them value during the dinner as well, not just food, and they're so good at it. Other people just don't have the same battery for that kind of you know three hour. They'll hang out, kind of communication style. Do you know what I mean? Others are like let me get on the phone, let me close, let's get on zoom, let's lock it down. You what I mean? So it really depends on the style of how you operate.
Speaker 5:as many buffoons I've met in that role in my career. It is definitely a very difficult role and it is really special when you see ones that are great, doing what you, what you can't, like that relationship building in that way and being able to keep the social battery up and be able to navigate the politics of a customer and a relationship. It's a skill and it also remember it comes with a massive amount of risk tolerance to do that job. So it's a special recipe when it's done right and I think that guys like Theron are some of the best at it. I don't think an agent will ever do what Theron is able to do with some of those customer relationships will ever do what Theron is able to do with some of his customer relationships.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I can see that, look, you guys are just, you know what, you guys are just so swell, you really are, you're swell.
Speaker 3:The bee's knees.
Speaker 2:You're the bee's knees pal.
Speaker 5:I had to be nice because I called them buffoons.
Speaker 4:Bobby, your tickets are waiting for you at.
Speaker 2:Wilk Too funny. Vanessa, you've worked at a partner. What's some insight that you'd like to get from Bobby and Theron about? You know, maybe has anything shifted in the last couple of years? That kind of stuff.
Speaker 3:Well, actually I would be interested as a person who is possibly considering starting an NSI. So I've been doing freelance lately so maybe you guys can answer my career question. I'm curious to hear how I guess about the partner program and how that impacts your relationship with Salesforce. When is it worth becoming an official Salesforce partner? Because I have heard mixed things about it, like I've heard somebody call it a pyramid scheme and I have no idea why you would even call it that. But understanding that you know the partner program a little bit would be helpful.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so I'm getting up to speed on a lot of that. I'm not as sophisticated as I could be, but I'm getting better all the time. Kudos to you for going freelance. When I left Salesforce, there was no that thought crossed my mind for maybe five seconds Again.
Speaker 5:The risk tolerance, the pressure, the anxiety of having to do the selling and the delivery. I just did not want to do all that, so I hitched my wagon to a small firm. Right, I didn't want to go to a big firm. I didn't want to be like on the bench or be in an ocean of people not understand where I stood. I basically went to a practice where I knew three or four people that had an amazing reputation and that I knew were just incredibly smart, and so if they're there, it must make sense. I kind of am a fast follower in that way.
Speaker 5:So I went to a firm like that and they weren't really investing too much in the, in the partner resources and the scorecard and all the stuff that's on that side.
Speaker 5:They got it stood up, they were a partner, but they were not yet Ridge level, and now we've grown to that level, and so what I get to do is now learn how a lot of that works and see how sophisticated the partner program is and how you get resources, and also see, like the realities of like you're not going to get the same level of support as, like a PwC or Deloitte. When you have a problem and you log your case right, You're not going to. There's a reality to it. But I think that Salesforce does a pretty good job helping you self serve yourself and providing you pathways to get resources and enablement for you to do that stuff. So I'm proud of the Salesforce ecosystem in that way. But I will also still say that my firm and, being a small firm, being a freelancer, your relationships are really much more valuable and important than all that, because, at the end of the day, that's what's going to sell the work.
Speaker 2:No, one's going to door knock for you, right? I mean, you've got to do it yourself at that base level.
Speaker 5:And I think, vanessa, like at your point in your career in this ecosystem, you've got the know-how, you have people that trust you. I think that you know it'd be a bear to really start it up, start your own firm up, unless you had a lot of people that you were willing to take on with you and like be a part of that brand. Like you could get something going. But you got to be able to go work day one, right, you got to be ready to sell. You can't just think about what you want to do with the business. You got to get going quickly. So that's how did you do it? How do you do it as a freelancer? How do you keep your pipeline rich?
Speaker 3:I think for me and you know, maybe this is a I don't know if I've shared it, but a good story to share anyway I feel like I've spoken so much in this ecosystem over the last few years about the power of networking and I don't know that I really felt it personally come into action until I lost my job in August.
Speaker 3:I had I've been laid off twice in my life Once was in 2017 and once was this past August and in 2007,.
Speaker 3:When I got laid off, I felt like I was alone in the world, like I was a customer at the time Salesforce customer so I didn't realize that being a Salesforce professional within an organization where you're a customer, you're kind of on an island, so you're not spending as much time unless you're actively doing it networking with folks that are actually in your industry, because you end up thinking that your industry is finance or media or whatever it is, when really you are a Salesforce professional.
Speaker 3:So I spent a lot of the time between 2017 and this year doing a lot of networking and when I put up my post in August with really actionable bullet points on how people could support me through my layoff, I received well over a hundred LinkedIn messages and work just landed in my inbox and that, for me, was the evidence of all the networking that I've done over the years. The 16,000 LinkedIn followers that I'm like I don't know. Does anybody even read my post Like they? They read my post and, whatever all of my public learning had inadvertently branded me as an expert in the particular area that I'm an expert in. I and I love Salesforce business analysis and a lot of people know it and a lot of people want to pay me to do it. So I kind of accidentally I'm an accidental freelancer and just work showed up.
Speaker 5:I love to hear that I also empathize. When I left Salesforce in 2020 or whatever, that was because of the massive, like 10,000 person riff, so I that's my layoff and Boyd does that and you can empathize with me. Boyd, does that really pressure test your, your network, right, my network is your network. You really find out who your ride or dies are in those moments and, yeah, I have MRE to thank for that and the people that I met through that. But anyways, congrats on where you are now.
Speaker 2:I think it's really important here. Yeah, Vanessa, you've done awesome. I was going to jump in real quick and say oh, the best way to get clients is just announce on LinkedIn that you lost your job. Just announce on LinkedIn that you lost your job. Don't do that, If you're listening. Don't do that unless you're Vanessa Graham.
Speaker 2:What happens is every business has sort of an initial lift from our network and after that initial lift, things kind of calm down a little bit and then begins the work of marketing. Right, so not all clients will stay with you forever. Right, you will finish the work for them and they'll move on. And then you need to get more clients and so there's that initial burst of relationships, that connections, network that can sort of fund your new career, right, but any small business oftentimes like it happened with me, I left. I left Robert Half, I was vice president there. I was like, okay, I'm going. Like it happened with me, I left Robert Half, I was vice president there. I was like, okay, I'm going to start my own thing. I've done it before, I'm going to start my own thing again. And I said to myself look, if I can get a quick deal, like right away, I'll exit this Fortune 500 company and this great job that I have. And I did. And I got a deal with my friend, Colin McKean, who has a 20 person law practice in Portland, and they needed an amazing ops manager and I found him. He's still there. This is now over six years he's still there and it gave me just enough confidence and enough cash to like, okay, launch, like, let's go.
Speaker 2:And then comes the grind right, the serious grind of building out all of your marketing, building out all of your systems, and every partner that grows has to go through this. Now, sometimes they get lucky. They land a big deal, they land a big client, a friend of a friend, or however. They pull it off, but all of a sudden they need 10 resources, right, or they need 15 resources and they get a partner who can dump some cash in to help cover the 45-day delay on getting their checks in to pay their staff. You can do that, but oftentimes when that happens and I've seen this at least a dozen times someone splits off.
Speaker 2:They go do their thing. They land a big deal, they hire 10, 15 people, whether they're offshore or not, and then something happens to the economy and they lose that client and therefore they lose the business because they're not spread, they're not diversified across multiple clients, right? I mean it's business 101. Don't you know, if your client gets a cold, you know you'll get pneumonia, right? So you got to be really careful with that. So I would say, you know, it's one thing to start and launch and be a consultant, and I think that's a very freeing thing, but once you start getting into the place of like HR and 401ks and marketing department or marketing vendors and things like that, your billable hours go way down. So then you have to hire someone who can run this stuff. Do you see what I mean? Like it's a real tricky thing to tier up and level up.
Speaker 5:Basically, hell, yeah, yeah. So I'm 40 plus hours a week billable to customers. On top of that, I do partner alliances. Outside of that, I do business development. And then I do industry, go to market, like content creation, things like that. These are all jobs at bigger consultancies right. Bigger firms, bigger companies. It can be frustrating that those aren't roles at MRE, but I also love it because it is it's job security. It shows that we are running like lean and conservative right. Like I think that that's a new balance, that a lot of new SI are coming up, especially if they're pure play Salesforce firms. They're having to really rationalize that. Like I love that I could hire this specialist to just do my partner alliances right, like I hired this one person that's done that. But also, what if I could also build that resource out right, because that alliance work isn't a full-time job or maybe they don't have to be talking to people all day every day.
Speaker 5:So that balance and really understanding it is pretty critical. Because you think about growing I want to hire more people, do more projects, do more this, do more that, and then exactly what you're talking about what if the economy doesn't sustain that growth? And then you gotta scale down. So I think having a mindset of very conservative growth is actually super helpful, albeit maybe not as sexy and exciting sometimes.
Speaker 2:I'll tell you guys, I still want to create like a super group practice someday, Like I think it would be the coolest thing. I feel like I literally feel like I know some of the smartest, brightest, most capable people in the ecosystem. Not all of them, I don't know everybody, but I know enough of them. I feel like gosh. I'd love to just push a button, bring them all together. A lot of them have small practices. Just create like a, like a super group. You know, I think that that would be a really cool thing. I just don't know how to do it because I'm not smart, but I think it would be really cool.
Speaker 5:That's how that conversation always goes. I can't wait to do that.
Speaker 2:I just don't know how to do it, so anyways, yeah right, because I'll stick the head hunting Guys any last advice and, by the way, the show's not wrapping up. I want everyone to know that we are going to be answering some of your questions, our audience questions. We have a number of them tonight, but I wanted, just on this partner conversation, what haven't we covered that people should know?
Speaker 5:I liked that. Yesterday we talked a little bit about and I'm sorry, theron, this isn't really your world either but like Vanessa and I, she's a freelancer. I just worked for a partner and we were talking about what happens when that relationship that you have, that landed, like MRE at a customer or whatever firm at a customer. What if you leave or the customer changes? What happens to the customer in that relationship with the firm? That's not you and like, how do you pick which partner you go to?
Speaker 5:And I think that for any of the folks out there looking to go to a big or small Salesforce, si or be a freelancer, you just have to understand, like the brand, like you want to be able to instill your brand at these places, right, like when I chose not to go with a big four, it was because I didn't know that I'd be able to impact my customers. I felt like I would lose my relationships, I wouldn't be on the front of that versus with a smaller firm of people that I trust and very like intelligent. I knew we do good work and we were affordable. We checked all those boxes that, if I left, that relationship would still sustain because of the good work that we were doing. So I think it's just it goes back to that surround yourself with people that you know do good work, kind of idea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's super critical. There is an article I penned for Salesforce Ben. It's called the what is it? The career checklist. I think that's what it's called, the career checklist. I got to look it up. But if you go to Salesforce Ben, it's absolutely everything you really need to know so that you can make a good decision on which partner you want to join. Right? This isn't for clients to figure out which partner although it doesn't hurt for a client to do this as well but if you're someone who wants to be employed by a consulting firm in the Salesforce ecosystem, I definitely recommend checking out this article. It's called the Salesforce Career Checklist which Salesforce partner to join? It's about a year and a half old, but it's still very relevant, so definitely check that out.
Speaker 2:Theron, any final thoughts on this partner topic? What can people do to have a better relationship where their AEs are to stand out, aside from just being badasses, right? Aside from just delivering quality and having a great reputation doing what you say you're going to do and all of those other things? But you've sat in on these meetings where you're sitting there and you're looking at meeting one, meeting two, meeting three, partner four right, there's something that's happening in those conversations and in those meetings that one of them is doing better than the others. What is that?
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's a great question. I think you have all, vanessa, josh, bobby kind of touched on something really important. It is brand and it's be a serial connector, which I think all of us are right Stay connected with the ecosystem and bring fresh ideas. So, from an AE perspective, bring me fresh ideas. Josh, you do a great job of this right. You sent me some folks that are coming up off project that might be a good fit for my customers. That's the kind of stuff that I need, kind of things that my customers need.
Speaker 4:Bobby mentioned his company right has very special, unique skill sets and a history of very successful projects and trading. All of my customers engage in that, so that helps me to open up conversations. Thank you so much If I were to bring it back full circle for the promo that you mentioned at the beginning getting your certifications and actually not just being a talking head in the room stacking your Salesforce certifications. Whether you are going the entrepreneurial path, you want to get in with a small firm or one of the big four, those things are very important and that's one of the great things about the Salesforce ecosystem that you don't find in other software companies.
Speaker 2:I think it's the most incredible thing I've ever seen in the tech space is Trailhead. I mean, I stand by that. There's always controversy around it. There was controversy in the Salesforce Ben article. I think Mike Martin, who helps to run Florida Dreamin that we ran a podcast from just a month or two months ago was one of the people who contributed some knowledge to that article.
Speaker 2:One of the things they said is like getting Salesforce certifications is easy. Learning how to be a good consultant is hard and I'm not going to 100% agree with that. I think some of these certifications are incredibly challenging. You know, very difficult to get, very difficult to obtain. Now it's easy to you know you've got all the resources right there. All you have to do is put in the time right and hopefully, I don't know take some ginkgo and like improve your memory or something. But you've got to put the time in to get this stuff. But he's got a point you know you can have all the certs and if you can't communicate, if you don't know how to follow through on what you say you're going to do, or say no when you have to, or be diplomatic with a customer that wants you to overextend your work without any increase in payment for that extra work, things like that. People get screwed over all the time because they don't know how to hold the line and hold it kindly, like hold it generously.
Speaker 5:No smart customer is choosing an SI because they say, oh, you've got this number of certs. There's a lot more that goes into that. That's true, that's right. One would hope, yeah, one would hope right. I know things slip through, but I would have loved and would love a future. I know it's a really hard thing to put together but like Trailhead being how they facilitate credentials and certification, right, More of the hands-on stuff, because that's the gap. Just like you said, Josh, you got all these resources to learn and I love the consultant certifications. They really teach you on how to have a high level consultative conversation on certain use cases and product domains for Salesforce. But the actual like can you implement this, Can you architect this?
Speaker 5:Like they, the tests just can't cover everything that you're going to come across even on day one Now's projects, that is, the hands on aspect of trailhead gets you a little bit closer to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, Absolutely. Guys, do you have enough time to stick around to help us respond to some of our listeners' questions? Sure, let's do it. I absolutely do. I've talked a lot, though Well you know what, but it's all been good stuff. You say smart things, Bobby, and that's a good thing. Guys, thank you so much for covering this. Really, I think it's an important topic.
Speaker 2:I want to continue to revisit it. We've covered it once before in an earlier show. I think we explored some different aspects of it right now. Now we have a number I don't know, it's like 20 different questions to get answered between now, and you know it probably won't all happen by the end of our episode coming up on the 4th. Just as a quick little recap, everybody, you are listening to the Salesforce Career Show and we are running a contest and a lot of people have submitted some great questions. Some of these questions, by the way, we might get one or two that are sort of piggyback on one another. I've asked Vanessa to pick out the three that she'd like to cover today and sometimes we get a question and we talk for an hour about it. So I can't say that we're going to get through all three, but, Vanessa, if you've got it up, feel free to read it. If you don't, I've got it in front of me and I'm happy to. Would you like to read the question?
Speaker 3:Sure, should I go through the ones that I picked.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So the first one was I want to ask how can I pitch myself for a job that requires 80% Salesforce administration experience and 20% CRM AI experience? I do have a strong admin and BA experience, but don't have prior experience in AI. However, I've started studying about AI on Salesforce Trailhead and also completed AI certifications.
Speaker 2:Okay, awesome, that's from Bona Saini. I hope I'm saying your name right. Thank you so much for sending that question in and for letting us share your name too. So great question.
Speaker 2:Look, I mean, no one knows anything about AI. They just don't right. You use it Like you use AI. Ai is supposed to. For people like us, for someone who's a BA or a sales admin, ai is to make your life easier. It's not a complex process to figure it out and learn. So the first thing that I would say is just relax, okay, just take a chill pill. It's totally cool.
Speaker 2:Right Now, you want to figure out how to pitch yourself and your knowledge of AI. I mean, you can just type that into perplexityai and they'll tell you, but of course, we're not perplexity, so I'm going to tell you what's up. Okay, first of all, the reason why they want AI, and we're going to start seeing this in. Probably, I'm guessing right around 30% or more job postings nowadays are saying something around that. I could totally be wrong. I really don't know, but I think that's a number that, at least within the last few months, made sense based on some research to understand AI or CRM. Ai is so that they can get more bang for their buck. That just means you're going to be a lot more effective than someone who doesn't know how to use this.
Speaker 2:Now there are Luddites in the world. That includes some Salesforce admins, believe it or not. Okay, a Luddite is someone who's not into tech, but there are actually Salesforce admins that are resistant to change. I mean gosh, theron and Bobby you guys are working in oil and gas. Ever see any resistance to change much?
Speaker 5:Oh, yeah, and a bit of resistance to trailhead characters and the whole marketing push of Salesforce.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, but it's not for them, is it Right? I mean it's not for them. It's Salesforce's way of showing diversification without having to have pictures of people real people. So what I would do first things first is just get on AI and start using it all the time. I mean, I don't even use Google anymore. When I use Google, it feels like gross to me, it's like having to. What is it? It's like having to use a landline, right, compared to like a mobile phone or a headset. That's what it feels like to me. It's clunky, it's slow, it kicks out stuff. I don't know if the stuff is good. I'm going to have to spend 20 minutes opening up 10 different links to see and speed read and scan to figure out. Is this what I'm actually looking for? Ai gets rid of that. I use perplexityai. It's absolutely fantastic. Chatgpt is just up their game about two weeks ago and so now they can do the same things, in other words, access real-time internet, right. So ChatGPT can do that. What I like about perplexity is you can use a bunch of different large language models. You know you can click on Claude, this ChatGPT, that this kind of image creation software or whatever, and it'll do it for you. There's some really heavy duty stuff out there too.
Speaker 2:I'm working with, working with. I'm talking to a friend of mine. He's someone who used to work at a company called Veruna. His name's Mike. Mike is a super intelligent guy. He is looking for his next career. So if you need a super smart Salesforce pro, this guy he's a developer. This guy's incredible and he's raving about a product called Cursor. Anyone here ever heard of Cursor? I mean, it can build out software and code in an incredibly efficient way. You do not need to be a developer, but you do need to understand how logic works, and that's how AI is. So I'll give you an example.
Speaker 2:I'm helping a friend right now rewrite his employee handbook. It's a 17-page handbook and this is one of my best friends, right, so I'm helping him out with this. Am I rewriting all this stuff myself? Hell, no. But I can't just take a 17-page document and dump it into the product of my choice and have it kick out.
Speaker 2:Exactly what I want it to be. You have to learn to talk to it and you have to say this is what I'm going to do, this is what it's for. There's legal stuff in here, so you can't change any of that information. It's a lot of text, so I'm going to be delivering it in three parts. After the third part, I'm going to type in quote organize and when? Going to type in quote organize, and at that. When I do that, then I want you to organize this in such and such a way. You have to break things down the way developers do, but you know, with text you just have to break things down for ai to really understand and get really specific. That's just a matter of practice. There's I don't know thousand great videos on YouTube to learn how to do this. Okay, as far as CRM AI, I mean, there's not a single AI program or platform out there worth using. That doesn't that hasn't already created their own videos on how to use it. So that's all you got to do.
Speaker 5:Can I I actually? So, going back to the original question, right, salesforce is a wild platform. You have the core platform, you have Tableau, you have Slack, you have CRM, you have AgentForce, you have DataCloud, you have all these different things. Now, and so to this candidate if I'm putting my people leader hat on, I'm thinking like they did a good job of already pitching themselves by talking about all the efforts that they're taking to learn these new things.
Speaker 5:Right, like, if I'm hiring a new resource, a solution engineer or a business analyst or whatever, prove to me that you're a career and a lifelong learner and I will take that initiative over any number of projects you've implemented. On one given thing, right, we know we have to have that foundation of have you delivered a Salesforce project? Do you know agile? Do you know these certain things that are technical requirements of what you're doing? But as far as, like all the other things that the customer would like as a bullet point on their hiring record, whatever, like, just show me that you're willing to learn and prove it in that interview that you're taking the steps needed to get there, because we're not ever going to know everything. Right, absolutely.
Speaker 3:I totally, and you know I'll add to that when I do click coaching a lot and we've been doing a lot of career sessions lately. I say a lot of times, especially when you're moving into a newish kind of role, a lot of the interview is going to be understanding the vocabulary. So to find somebody who's 20% of their experience is CRMAI, like okay, did they start last year? Like so, that's kind of a weird job bullet to ask for anyway. So all you can do, talk about your experience. If you've done, you know, clicked experiences with AI. Did you do that agent force thing and put up the frame like 20,000 trailblazers did a couple of weeks ago because they all did that trailhead? Did you go to the hackathon in New York? Maybe? Talk about that. Have you taken the AI specialist? Can you actually do you understand the vocabulary that Salesforce is using when it comes to AI and how can you inject that in your answer when they do inevitably bring up AI in that interview?
Speaker 2:That's 100% correct, vanessa, and, by the way, that bullet was probably written by AI, right Like you've got. Anytime there's a job that requires X, y and Z. You don't know. Did a recent graduate from the local university who just started in HR write that? Was it a CEO who wrote that? Was it the direct hiring manager?
Speaker 2:I've had clients before I don't work with them this one anymore where I said look, we got to talk about this job description. She'd never read the job description. She never wrote the job description. She sent it to me. She never even read it. She didn't know what it said. And when I started going through it, she's like oh my God, that's all different, it's all off.
Speaker 2:Hiring managers are busy people. That's why they need to hire more people. The last thing they've got time for is hiring and training, but that's exactly when they need someone. So part one is don't even trust the job description. Just just assume like, yeah, okay, 20%. Yeah, they don't know if it's 20%, it could be 3%, it could be 100%. They don't even know Most companies. They literally don't even know. Unless it's a massive factory, you know they can't tell you exactly what you're going to be doing all day. So take it all with a grain of salt, and I think everybody here shared some really good opinions on it. I love the life. Look, I'm a lifelong learner. This is what I'm doing. This is what I've done so far to learn CRMAI. This is the community I'm involved in to get better at it, et cetera, et cetera. I'm so stoked about this stuff because clearly it just makes everything easier and makes everything better and improves our performance.
Speaker 3:To Bobby's point earlier, know your use cases and also I mean I did a session last year at Dreamforce called Preparing your Org for an AI-Driven Future. There's an article on it, if anybody wants to check it out, on the Salesforce admins blog from last year. But a big part of preparing Salesforce orgs for AI is also going to be business analysis and data cleanup piece. You know it's a garbage in, garbage out. Is your org actually prepared for it? So if that's where you feel more comfortable, if you're responding to a question from an interviewer, you can speak to that, which is also going to be really important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and there was sort of a piggyback question on this which was how can I navigate the AI buzz and improve capability in what is really important within that space? I think we've kind of covered that. I also think that if you go to I think it's two episodes ago, two, three episodes ago we dive into this. It's a lot of what I covered at the Florida Dreamin' session too, right, so just go back two or three. We talk about it.
Speaker 2:Another thing that you can do if you're an admin connect with David Giller and his Brainiate org. Okay, brainiatecom, I mean, he is all about this. Let me make sure I've got it right. Brainiate yeah, I don't have some cool person looking stuff up for me. Yeah, brainiate, salesforce enablement. So this is David Giller's baby. And Vanessa, do you remember? We were at New York World not the one this week, the one last April and we got to sit down with David and it's just, he's a wealth of information. Now, because of that wealth of information, he doesn't have time for everybody, he can't do one-on-ones with everyone, but you can join the Brainiate Slack channel and you can go to Brainiatecom and you can download all sorts of really awesome information on how to get trained in this stuff. So I would go there. That's what I would do. I would start there and I'd start with YouTube and I would start just with like perplexity or chat, gpt and deep dive on this stuff. Bobby.
Speaker 3:Aaron, thank you so much for coming. Casey, thanks for being here. Josh, val, savory Analyst. Everybody thanks so much and we will see you guys next time on LinkedIn, where we will give away five Salesforce certification vouchers. Bobby, there, before we go, how can we connect with you?
Speaker 5:Find me on LinkedIn. Just like this podcast next time.
Speaker 4:Same here. I'm more active on LinkedIn than anything.
Speaker 3:Awesome. Thank you, guys so much.
