Salesforce Trails and Trials

Salesforce Trails and Trials

By Jon ClineBusinessTechnology
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Salesforce Trails and Trials episodes

  • #18 - How to prepare for a Salesforce interview
    This podcast episode offers advice on how to prepare for a Salesforce interview. The hosts emphasize that soft skills and thoughtful preparation are more important than technical Salesforce knowledge. They suggest focusing on three key areas:
    ● Preparation:
    ○ Research the company thoroughly. Understand their business model, goals, challenges, and opportunities. This will allow you to connect your potential contributions to their overall success, demonstrating a level of sophistication that many candidates lack.
    ○ Use the initial contact with HR to gather information. Request a brief phone interview to clarify the company's needs and goals, as well as the specifics of the Salesforce implementation. This shows genuine interest and provides valuable insights for your preparation.
    ○ Prepare questions for the interviewer. Bringing a printed copy of your resume and a list of questions shows preparedness and allows you to take the initiative, turning the interview into an opportunity to assess the company's suitability for you.
    ● Tenacity:
    ○ Prepare anecdotes that demonstrate your initiative and problem-solving skills. Highlight situations where you overcame obstacles, gathered information, and found solutions, even if it went beyond your job description.
    ○ Anticipate common roadblocks and have solutions ready. Be prepared to discuss how you would handle situations such as lack of information, unavailable resources, uncooperative team members, and budget constraints. This showcases your proactive approach and commitment to success.
    ○ Emphasize collaboration with your manager. Demonstrate that you would seek guidance and approval from your superiors when taking initiative, addressing potential concerns about overstepping boundaries.
    ● Maturity:
    ○ Highlight your emotional intelligence and ability to build relationships. Share examples of how you have navigated challenging interpersonal situations, turning adversaries into allies by understanding their perspectives and finding common ground.
    ○ Showcase your understanding of human behavior and organizational dynamics. Emphasize your willingness to invest in building relationships, recognizing that people are motivated by more than just job descriptions. This demonstrates maturity and an ability to get things done effectively within an organization.
    By focusing on these three areas, you can present yourself as a valuable asset who brings more to the table than just technical skills. Your preparedness, tenacity, and maturity will set you apart from other candidates and increase your chances of landing the job.
    51 min
  • Episode 17 - How to know if a Salesforce career is right for you.
    ### Choosing a Salesforce Career: Summary
    **How Did We Get Here?**
    Salesforce started with a unique approach—“No Software”—and focused on making the back-end admin area as important as the front-end user experience (UX). By integrating many key features into the platform, Salesforce allowed businesses to prioritize people-first concerns, streamlining the user experience and administrative tasks.
    **What Do Things Look Like Now?**
    Salesforce's ecosystem has grown immensely. As of 2023, the company holds a market share of approximately 22% in the CRM space. The number of Salesforce certified professionals reached nearly 173,000 by October 2023, marking a more than 100% growth from the previous year. This marks the first time in years that the supply of Salesforce professionals has outpaced demand.
    **Where Are We Going?**
    The global CRM market, valued at $91.43 billion in 2023, is expected to grow to $262.74 billion by 2032. According to a 2021 IDC study, Salesforce's ecosystem will create 9.3 million jobs and generate $1.6 trillion in new business revenues by 2026. However, AI will continue to change the nature of Salesforce roles, automating many routine tasks.
    **Where Might You Fit?**
    When considering a career in Salesforce, think about your preferences and strengths in these areas:
    - **Creative vs. Guarded Client Departments**: Are you more inclined towards innovative solutions or managing established processes?
    - **Changing vs. Consistent Learning Landscape**: Are you excited by constant change and learning or prefer a stable environment?
    - **Face Time vs. Alone Time in Work Environment**: Do you thrive in collaborative settings or prefer independent work?
    - **Determined vs. Distracted in Motivation Style**: Are you highly focused on achieving goals or do you find it harder to stay on task?
    These factors will help determine where you might fit within the Salesforce ecosystem and its evolving landscape.
    30 min
  • Episode 15 - CD Maturity Model w/ a Crawl, Walk, Run Roadmap, LWC apps, Dreamforce, Pickleball
    This time on Salesforce Trails and Trials, hosts Jon Cline and Erik Yewell talk with Zachary Pals, who took a unique career path to go from moving couches to Salesforce consultant.
    Jon Cline has been working in IT since 1998 and is a very curious person. Erik Yewell has been in IT for 24 years and done just about everything you can imagine. They share their wins and worse so you can learn with them.
    Zachary Pals is a Salesforce consultant with an interest in swing dancing and a philosophy degree from Pepperdine University. His career took a unique path, including Task Rabbit jobs and bartending before moving a couch for Jon Cline led to a career in Salesforce. Lots of learning with Trailhead (https://trailhead.salesforce.com/) and time on projects with Jon’s team over the past five years has changed Zachary’s career trajectory.
    Rather than the typical show notes, we’ll share several quotes from the conversation. First, here's that bread recipe we mentioned: https://www.feastingathome.com/sourdough-bread/
    Snippets of Our Interview With Zachary Pals
    Being your own boss: “I never really had a strong vision for what I wanted to do with my time. I'm fortunate enough and talented enough that I probably could have chosen a number of different routes and been successful at them. So I ended up choosing kind of nothing and doing everything. I was doing handyman work and Uber and I didn't really like the independence. I don't like doing what other people tell me. I remember I was telling my friend how I was doing my own thing, doing handyman work and whatnot. And he said to me, ‘So Zachary, you finally found out that you don't like working for other people. I could have told you that 10 years ago.’ So it was a lot of that—just me not really knowing what I wanted to do.”
    Realizing the need for change: “The thing I needed to learn and sort of get over to make the phone call was two things: One, really coming to accept that I wanted to go somewhere and do something in life and shared economy, handyman stuff wasn't going to be that—I needed something else. And I saw that this could be something like that. And then the other thing I needed to sort of entertain the idea of is entering the tech space. I saw this as a good opportunity, but it was just nothing I'd ever considered before.”
    Taking on responsibility: “The more I learn, the more responsibility I gain, the more responsibility I gain the more anxiety there is, but then the more skill I have, so then it helps me cope with the anxiety. It's been a constant struggle, of just the willingness to continue to step into anxious situations.”
    Perspective: “That's been a learning point for me as well, being highly introverted and highly independent, and like doing my own thing, and then to have you and the team to be able to come to and talk about those things. … And you said, yeah, OK, that'll get you here. But like, what, if you wanted to go here? Is that going to get you there? Is that going to get you to making $100,000 or $150,000, or if you want to gain these responsibilities or support a family in this way—you helped me put perspective around which route I wanted to take.”
    Value of consulting: “It has been invaluable to have a consulting background where I get a lot of very good experience in a short amount of time. So there's different routes you can take: Trailhead is great, getting certifications is great, I will say getting my sys admins—while necessary and beneficial—didn't really teach me a ton about how to actually understand Salesforce and do Salesforce. It was really the work that did it. So it obviously depends on where you're at in your life, like a junior admin position is a great place to start even in-house somewhere. But it might not be the right fit for somebody in a different season in life. But I did find consulting to be invaluable, because you're gonna get more experience across a wider range of things and learn much more quickly.”
    Know yourself: “Really learning yourself… I'm very anxious, I don't necessarily like to learn new things. There's been maybe not necessarily specific instances I could think of, but along the way, having to constantly understand that I could handle those situations… For instance, understanding that I have a team of people to support me and I don't necessarily need to know the answer right now. So even if I am afraid in the moment on a call, or with a boss or a client, and they're coming at me, I don't necessarily need to know the answer right now, I just need to know how to find the answer or get somebody who does. And so that was one thing that I really had to learn.”
    Confronting weakness: “Being OK with taking on responsibilities that I'm not comfortable with, knowing that, of course, I'm not comfortable with it right now, because I'm not good at it. I'm not used to it. And being willing to step into those responsibilities, and those weaknesses of mine, almost with a gratitude that I get to work on that.”
    Dive in: “Go ahead and dive into the Salesforce thing if you can tell it's a good opportunity, and take any good opportunity that comes your way and dive into it. Because that'll be the way that you get the most out of life, even if it's not the path that you anticipated.”
    Advice to yourself: “If I'm talking to myself five years ago, I would say you don't have a path, so why not do this? And then I'd say along with that, just a gentle reminder that I am an anxious person, and that doesn't really go away. You just get better at handling it. So I would encourage myself to continue to take on responsibility with gratitude rather than resentment, and to practice the skills that are going to prepare me best to handle those situations. Because that's as comfortable as I’m going to be in the situation is to be prepared for it. And then on top of that, to just know that, anxiety will always be your friend, it'll always be there for you. So learn to love him.”
    Value of anxiety: “It makes us sensitive to people's responses, and clients needs, and even our teammates as well, because we don't want to rock the boat, we want to understand people and understand where they're coming from and see if we can find a mutually beneficial outcome.”
    50 min
  • Episode 14 - Code Standards, Dedicated Admins, Salesforce and Slack, Power of Debugging, Nerd Manifesto
    This time on Salesforce Trails and Trials, hosts Jon Cline and Erik Yewell talk about the value of code standards and the peril of not having a dedicated admin. Plus the marriage of Salesforce and Slack, the power of debugging, and a nerd manifesto. 
    Jon Cline has been working in IT since 1998 and is a very curious person. Erik Yewell has been in IT for 24 years and done just about everything you can imagine. They share their wins and worse so you can learn with them.
    This episode includes a quick reflection on the show’s one-year anniversary. “It’s really about helping people improve their lives,” Jon says.
    What We’ve Learned
    Jon learned about the ongoing improvements and integration as a result of Salesforce acquiring Slack. Eric learned about increased hierarchy with roles and a new Flow optimization.
    One Small Thing
    For this episode’s one small thing that can have big consequences, Erik and Jon bring their own examples:
    Jon talks about companies that try to share admin duties across the organization, and expect employees to pick up the slack in their spare time. Somebody has to be given that task or it’s just a time bomb waiting to go off. 
    Erik talks about the importance of including code standards in your consultant contracts. It’s a simple form of governance that can ensure code is written correctly—not just that it works, but it’s efficient and sustainable. That kind of documentation can keep you from bricking yourself into a corner and then having to break down walls to get out.
    This Show’s Quote
    Erik: “The most rewarding thing about development is debugging.”
    Jon: “There isn’t a best practice for making a sandwich, but there is one for spreading the mayo.”
    What’s Your Trial?
    Call our hotline and leave a message to share your story: 540-TRIAL-75 (that’s 540-874-2575).
    Extras:
    OrgConfessions
    Nerds: A Manifesto by A Capella Science
    Debugging tools: Apex Log Analyzer and Octane
    57 min
  • Ep. 12 - Miro Decision Tree & Flow UX/Polymorphic Visual Flow, Slack Bots, Gratitude, Soft Skills
    This time on Salesforce Trails and Trials, hosts Jon Cline and Erik Yewell talk about admin power in the wrong hands. Plus Slack bot platforms, Miro decision trees, bow ties, gratitude, and holiday lights.
    Jon Cline has been working in IT since 1998 and is a very curious person. Erik Yewell has been in IT for 23 years and done just about everything you can imagine. They share their wins and worse so you can learn with them.
    Erik talks about learning Slack bot platforms and automating tasks. You can do it with Heroku and Azure of course, but there are also options for MuleSoft, Workato, and Zapier. Meanwhile Jon learned about using Flow as a validation tool for handoff to Conga document generation. Plus, they both revel in learning anything on YouTube from tying a bow tie (something Jon learned) to changing a car window (something Erik learned about, but decided to leave to the professionals).
    For this episode’s one small thing that can have big consequences, Erik and Jon talk about too many system administrators. In short, admin power in the wrong hands is not a good idea. But you can address this challenge and keep people happy by setting up a delegated administrator to restrict how much access some admins have. 
    What are you grateful for? Jon and Erik talk about the value of starting with gratitude, whether it’s a meeting or a conversation, and they’d love to hear what you’re grateful for. Who are the people that have helped you or projects that have moved you forward? Maybe it’s a manager that gave you a good kick in the butt. You can call our Consulting Camp line and leave a message to share your story: 540-TRIALS-5 (that’s 540-874-2575).
    Extras:
    Jon Cline is wearing a bow tie all month as a part of Dressember. You can make a donation to his campaign to stop human trafficking.
    The Salesforce Developers Podcast is worth checking out, especially recent episodes on Enterprise Apex programming and the SFXD user group on Discord.
    Salesforce Lightning Platform Enterprise Architecture by Andrew Fawcett.
    Jon shares Miro templates for creating decision trees and a polymorphic visual flow for Salesforce that can save a lot of time (check out the new architect resources coming soon).
    50 min
  • Ep. 11 - Salesforce Classic vs. Lightning, future integrations with Slack, how to do more with Flow, and the power of opportunity.
    This time on Salesforce Trails and Trials, hosts Jon Cline and Erik Yewell talk about Salesforce Classic vs. Lightning. Plus, lots of discussion about future integrations with Slack, how to do more with Flow, and the power of opportunity.
    Jon Cline has been working in IT since 1998 and is a very curious person. Erik has been in IT for 23 years and done just about everything you can imagine. They share their wins and worse so you can learn with them.
    Salesforce recently acquired Slack, and there are new integrations coming down the pipeline. Erik has been learning a lot about Slack and some of the coming changes discussed at Dreamforce. Jon has been tackling business rules for complex billing for some construction clients, prompting a tangent about Flow.
    For this episode’s one small thing that can have big consequences, Erik and Jon talk about the impact of continuing to use Salesforce Classic versus switching over to Lightning. It can be hard to switch over, especially if organizations have a lot of legacy implementations that will take some work to convert. But in the end, sticking with Salesforce Classic will just continue to build technical debt and cause more and more problems as Salesforce focuses on Lightning. 
    Extras:
    Using Slack to more quickly get clients on-boarded with slash commands and Flow.
    Opportunity is often at your door but it doesn’t always knock.
    Luck is the intersection of opportunity and preparedness (learn more about your luck surface area).
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCYLmr7-Nbo&t=3s
    58 min
  • Ep. 09 - Interview with Tyler Cobbett, a Tech Industry Veteran
    This time on Salesforce Trails and Trials, hosts Jon Cline and Erik Yewell talk with Tyler Cobbett, a tech industry veteran.
    Jon Cline has been working in IT since 1998 and is a very curious person. Erik has been in IT for 23 years and done just about everything you can imagine. They share their wins and worse so you can learn with them.
    Tyler Cobbett started out with IBM in the early 1980s and has had a long career that moved from sales to solutions, eventually focusing on Salesforce consulting. He's now moving into retirement, which presents an opportunity to share what's he's learned and focus on other interests.
    52 min

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Why do 95%! of technical projects fail? Why are all my efforts to advance my business and career making so little difference!? Jon and Erik, two tenured Salesforce Architects, explore Salesforce…