SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome! You are listening to the CRM Success Show, where you will hear from CRM executives who have overseen some of the most interesting and complex CRM implementations. Your hosts, David Mostri and Kiro Whitey, will be bringing you real stories, real insight. Follow along on social media for updates on new episode releases, exclusive content, and much more. Enjoy the show and thanks for listening.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Welcome to the CRM Success Show, where we deep dive into CRM success and failure, delivering real stories with real impact. I'm Dave Mastery. And I'm Kira Witzi. And today we're talking with uh Chris Pearson, the Director of Salesforce Development at Jostin's. So welcome, Chris. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

So, Chris, um, why don't you tell our listeners a little bit about your Salesforce journey today, Chris? Uh, just how you got started, where where uh where and when, and just kind of what you're up to currently.

SPEAKER_04 0:59

So I got started uh over a decade ago. I was working at a high tech company. I was a I was just your traditional application business analyst and worked with various custom apps um and was was has had gotten a new role in supporting the marketing and sales organization. And the company had just acquired a new uh another company and they had Salesforce and we had Salesforce. So we needed to do an org merge. So I'm proud to say that I completely screwed up that project by messing up every single possible thing uh from a business analyst who has no idea how Salesforce works. And from there, that was my sign that I need to figure this thing out because uh I started to recognize, started to read the writing on the wall that the SaaS apps and being able to configure changes without having to wait a day or so for a developer to make changes was likely the future. And so kind of hitched my horse to that, um, started to build my knowledge from there, working on different Salesforce projects. Um, was lucky enough to graduate into a platform director role several years later of uh working in the financial services organization, um, helped do some Greenfield Salesforce uh org implementations. That company got uh acquired by another large global organization, which gave me exposure to a really massive project of combining the two entities. Um so that was a like almost a $2 billion merger that I was I was able to participate in, uh, probably the largest project to my to to date in my career. And for the last uh almost like five years now, I've been at Jostins running uh multiple sales sales clouds uh for their organization. Salesforce Salesforce Clouds, excuse me.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Perfect. Um the merger uh project, I think is uh it's fair to say a household name as well. Um do you want to share a little bit more about that one, Chris?

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Yeah, sure. I was working at a company called uh HFF, uh, which was uh a nationwide um commercial real estate uh firm that focused on um the buying and selling of real estate as well as the lending um and the borrowing. So kind of both sides of that transaction. Um was able to grow that organization, had a ton of fun uh in that organization. And then JLL. Um JL is probably like the number two largest uh commercial real estate organization, was uh acquired the company, and then we spent about about a year, nine months to a year integrating the two organizations.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Fantastic. Um in terms of size, so you mentioned it was uh a 2 billion um you know acquisition, but but just in terms of Salesforce users, how how big does that translate like between the two orgs, the company being acquired and then merging to JL?

SPEAKER_04 4:08

Yeah, it was uh we had probably six or seven hundred different sales uh Salesforce users, but we also had a homegrown custom app that was like completely integrated into Salesforce, and that app what had been around for decades as like plural. Um, so there was over like 20 or 30 years worth of data that we also needed to migrate. So we had our Salesforce features, we had the custom app itself and all of its best uh features, and then we had all of the data as well. So that was kind of like though that that sort of uh three-headed hydra was was uh a complex beast to slay.

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Good. Um so you mentioned in the rapid ram your management career has spanned about eight years uh of that decade or so in Salesforce. So um I guess your your team size at JL roughly what was what was that?

SPEAKER_04 5:11

Uh that was a smaller organization. I had both the Salesforce team, I had a I had GIS, that's uh a very sophisticated mapping software called Isri. Um so we had that, and then we also had the entire team that managed that custom app, which included developers, business analysts, support analysts, um uh an application manager. So in totality, that was probably about a team of um between 12 and and 15, um, which is very much uh roughly the same size of my current organization. Kind of it flu it kind of we kind of fluctuate um depending on the the amount of projects that we're uh running.

SPEAKER_01 5:58

Perfect. So so Justin's just for our listeners who who might not be aware of exactly what they do, um what's the kind of Google version, one sentence uh type you know, answer of what they do? Sure.

SPEAKER_04 6:12

It's the it's the the memorabilia that preserves the memories that that you've had with uh with your experiences primarily in school. So if you think about that, that's like what are the experiences from school graduating? So like all of the graduation gear, the announcements, the caps and gowns, um, the yearbooks themselves, the championship rings, uh, or the varsity letter jackets. And all of that, since we're a manufacturing organization, can scale and does scale both to the to the uh college level and then even the professional sports level. So, like all of uh outside of the Justin's conference rooms, you can see all the Super Bowl rings are that they've produced or in a nice loose site case um outside uh the each conference room. Uh and we also do just various other um products um kind of better tangential to that.

SPEAKER_01 7:12

Perfect. So so Justin's your director of Salesforce Development, um, about 2,000 users on the platform, um, sales service, marketing cloud, CPQ, any anything else that kind of goes into that? Tech?

SPEAKER_04 7:27

Uh Mule Soft, our integration platform. Um outside of that, I would say that uh we've got some kind of more B products on the Salesforce side, like Salesforce maps. You know, not a lot of custom development goes on to that. Um, but we do have that and the territory management uh functionality for for that product. Um outside of that, I think that's about it.

SPEAKER_01 7:54

Okay. So when you joined Justin's, uh what what was your I guess direct report team size, Chris?

SPEAKER_04 8:03

Team size was roughly the same. Um I was coming on to it was it was an interesting year. It was like right in the uh right in the heart of COVID. So I think I started in like December of 2020. Um, and the organization was was was going through a large transformation effort um on the on the the CPQ side, really wanting to deliver the billing side of um of quote cash.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Okay. So in order to go from um I you you've stayed kind of consistent with with team size, right? But uh, but we we know um there's been a lot of hires that have been made, and you know, some lasted longer than others, and uh and so on. Um but you've you kind of got to a point now where you know the DNA of what a successful hire looks like both for your teams but also for the business as well, right? So just just share us, share with us some general experiences of the last four years and the times you've had to hire for what type of skill sets, what what's been your overall kind of perspective on the candidates that you're seeing, uh the quality, the tenure, the experience levels, and so on?

SPEAKER_04 9:20

Well, it's it's been in the last four or five years, I I mean the market has been on to me, it's been a roller coaster. I think um if you were to to if I was to go back to maybe 2021 or 2022 when I was really focused on building the team, that was that was the time of zero interest rates. It was an insanely competitive time to get people um to to to apply, to get people interested. Um, not only during that time, I also had to maintain the existing team. Everyone was uh, you know, you could you could sneeze um and get an offer for you know five, 10, 20k more. Um everyone was hiring Salesforce talent at that time. And here we are fast forward to to 2025, and it's a much, much different market. Uh the we had just recently sourced uh a principal admin. That's kind of like the most senior role on the team. Uh someone who's who's got you know at least six to seven years of platform experience, um, who has got demonstrated experience mentoring like other admins and being able to work with other admins and kind of not only uh assess a little bit of their work quality, but then level them up. Um, and and we had over 400 applicants, uh 400 plus candidates apply for that role. And that was in a very short uh time period. So you know the the competition out there is uh as highly elevated for these uh for these technology roles, way different than the story it was in in 2022.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

So obviously to to get through 400 candidates, assuming you even look at all of them, um, you must have some kind of process in place, use an ATS system or so yeah, how do you how do you go about you know doing a search? And let's say in both situations, right? One where talent is scarce and one where there's an abundance of talent, you like adjust your process. So give us your overall approach and then kind of.

SPEAKER_04 11:36

Yeah, I think um my approach has evolved. I think that the Chris Pearson of like a couple years ago would have probably said, like, you know, that's um, you know, that's HR's job to kind of like get people interested or screened or whatever for for the role. And I felt like that um we were that that strategy may have worked then, but I don't think it it achieves the success that it does now. Um what helped me and what I the tactics I used for for this go-around was um well, using social media to advertise, that just gets you an influx of candidates. But I was really particular about you've got the job description, and that's kind of the job description out is out there for you know anybody to see. And that's it's a very kind of standard boilerplate. But then you've got the hiring manager's perspective. And I think that Salesforce professionals need to really think uh about who the consumer is of their resume. Because there's I think there's really you only have two choices. You're either going to have someone who's not familiar at all with Salesforce, and if your resume is a list of all of the metadata and all the features of Salesforce and just a list of tasks, um, you know, the chances of them assessing and saying that you are skilled in in this job market, I think are pretty slim because, and I say that because every single resume has that. Like uh in my experience, like more than half of them are listing out the same set of tasks and duties and and and keywords. But for those that want to stand apart, you're actually treating the resume not as just a list of duties or worse, the list of the setup nodes that you went to and clicked buttons. I mean, I've literally seen people be like, orgwide defaults, custom tabs. Like if report managing report folders is a bullet point on your resume. I'm telling you now, listener, please go get your resume and remove that. Stop listening to the podcast, make that correction, and then come back to us. All right. But um, it's the resumes that were that describe things in an impact. You know, they they they actually it was actually a huge a human, whether or not that human was even knew how to spell Salesforce could understand it. You achieved what? Like, is it a percentage? Is it a dollar value? Was it cost savings? Is it time savings? And it's kind of so that what? And so looking for those kinds of impact statements was the key to whittling that 400 resumes down to a much more manageable dozen or so. From there, we definitely had uh, Dave, like like you said, uh an ATS. Like an ATS is literally just a database that uh lets you do some profiling, filtering. Think about if you've ever built a Salesforce list view, you know, it's like I want and and or and this and all of those kinds of criteria, but at the end of the day, it's literally just picking out keywords and it's trying to parse it from resumes that may or may not look the same. So it's it's kind of hit or miss. So, so for really to me, I encourage people to reach out to the hiring manager. I had several people, many people reach out. I had many people reach out and just tell me that they were interested or that they applied. And that's kind of like like, all right, great, you get the thumbs up from me, but you don't get anything else because you know, I'm uh I I didn't really understand what what kind of response you're looking for when you just tell me you applied because the the system tracks that. But the people who told me they applied or that they they could they aligned to all of the things that I was looking for, they do stuff with DevOps, they uh love mentoring other individuals, and here's you know how they've done that, or they've got uh they've got a passion for learning AI and not just the agent force, but actually literally like how does AI work and how do I exploit it for myself? Like those are the types of things that got me really excited to talk to people.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Yeah, real cool. So um I've done a lot of resume work, uh, believe it or not. I used to be a part of the uh Salesforce mentorship program as a mentor. Um, and uh I was actually invited on their on their um, they did like a like a webinar on resume writing. Um so I was invited on their tell to kind of you know, I guess help out with some of the advice and stuff. So one of the things that I always tell people that I'm helping with their resume is um one of the biggest mistakes you can do is not realize that your resume is nothing really more than marketing collateral. Like it is a marketing document, um, and it needs to be written that way. Um, and it's exactly like you said, right? You you you really want it to showcase some level of personality, some passion, um, but also who you are as a person as well as your expertise and not just like a menu of you know things that you know, let's say. Um maybe that's partly because of the the the way ATS systems work, that people are trying to game the ATS and not necessarily worrying about um the long game. So that being said, I personally feel, and maybe unfairly, that people get interviews more so because they're better at marketing themselves than necessarily the raw talent or how well of a team contributor they are. Um, do you ever run into that that you're finding people who are really good at marketing themselves but just aren't that good at the job?

SPEAKER_04 17:32

Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's um there they're usually you can sniff some of those that out when with some insightful questions. But um the way that I would describe that scenario, like uh my my uh the younger generation would say, Oh, they're they're great on paper, or they check a lot of boxes. Um, shout out to to the Gen Z listeners out there who use those phrases. Um, but there was in my experience hiring people, there's been tons of people that are great on paper. But then then when it's in person or when it comes to problem solving or collaboration or simply showing up, uh you know, they fail or they're not as strong at that. Um, and so that takes it. I don't know if there's one single way that you can tease that out, but for for those individuals, if you're looking for words of advice um to those individuals, to me, sometimes it's it's like it's having having a strong network. There were people, Maz, that I reached out to that I had no idea who these people were, but these were trusted individuals in my trusted network um told me that these people were were badasses, you know, or they're great, or they're my go-to person. They always they always deliver. And so I I did sometimes cold outreach and was like, hey, I'm posting for this role. Um so-and-so recommended you, uh, would love to chat with you. And uh sometimes I got told I'm good. Uh other times I got uh sometimes it would actually turn into a great conversation.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

Good. Um, so just just to go back to um you put this advert out, you get four orange responses in what a week, maybe less.

SPEAKER_04 19:21

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:21

Yeah. Um and then the the piece around, you know, actively encouraging candidates to reach out and and say, hey, you know, um that they've applied or whatever, but but the difference in approach, um, having a different way of resonating with you depending on what they say, right? So instead of just saying, hey, I applied, cool story, like I'll get the notification, use it as a second opportunity to make your case, I guess, is what you were alluding to. So um I'm I'm curious how how many people of those 400 people, which then whistled down, maybe you had 50 people reach out directly or or 25, whatever. But what percentage used the video? Um, used video.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

I don't think any of them used video. I may have gotten some screenshots of some some orgs from some very uh hungry trailblazers that you know were are very early on in their journey, which which I appreciate. I was like, all right, great, tell me about it. You know, I I do want to uh ask more questions on that. But it was m it was mostly um just like messaging, you know, kind of text messaging, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

So so no one used video. How how many people pick picked up the phone and called you directly?

SPEAKER_04 20:42

Oh, that I think only third parties did that. I don't think I got any phone calls. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:51

Uh okay. Uh how many people left your voice note versus text?

SPEAKER_04 20:57

I don't think I got any. I got I got some I guess all the channels I got was LinkedIn mails. I got uh unauthorized recruiters calling my phone and leaving me voicemails uh at all times of the day and night. Um and then LinkedIn DMs, and a couple made it to my like work email, which is not even out there listed and is a little bit obscure. So I was kind of like I was a little bit surprised to get that.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Yeah. Uh the the reason I ask, I think look, there's a lot of noise on LinkedIn. Um, and you know, it's it's a topic that I've I've spoken about often and seen post about and contributed to post around like the hidden job market, right? I would estimate only about 25% of the Salesforce jobs out there are actually advertised by companies. Um, some of it is that they don't have the internal ATS, the HR teams, right, to go out and and manage the amount of volume of applicants. Other times it's you know, you you still got a the team to to run and you know you've got Projects that still need to be implemented, recruitments you don't have to just simply don't have time for it, right? Um, sometimes the need is more urgent, you need a contractor, that's where you tried a trusted network comes in. So I think in reality, what I see is when a role makes it to be advertised, you get the 400 applicants. What are you doing to stand out, right? And you kind of touched on that a little bit. Um, how are you trying to differentiate from the competition? Um, those three areas video, picking up the phone, voice note, basics anyone can do, right? They're not they're not difficult. Get a free free account to Loom. Uh, record a quick standard demo functionality, um, of you know, put a bit creative around it. Hey, Mr. Customer, you know, this is my sandbox org, here's XYZ that I've built, here's a flow that I've built, break it down, right? If someone made an effort to do that, Chris, would it be fair to say you're more likely to respond to them?

SPEAKER_04 22:59

Yes, absol I I absolutely. I when I like I can tell when things like to me, the effort like sometimes dictates the the effort and response. If you're just gonna say I'm interested on a post and like I'm I'm not even connected to you, I had I had people like reach out to me and uh like weeks after and um say they were interested. And I would then I informed this this one uh lady that the role was closed, and and her response to me was um, could I notify her the next time that we posted a role? And I I was I I I thought I was like, wow, a stranger wants me to do work for them. So I it's it's kind of interesting the what people think is expected in this uh in this kind of situation. But I do think that there's it's really hard for hiring managers to be a jerk if you outreach and you do it in a professional manner, you speak to what you think their pain is, and I think that that's the key is trying to recognize like the perspective of the manager. Every hiring manager is hiring for a role because they have a need, like they they can't do that work themselves or the team itself cannot absorb it. And so you as a candidate simply need to position yourself as the best uh the best cure for that pain, like and and then you justify yourself why.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Yeah, and I know a lot of people say, well, how am I supposed to find out what the pain point is is if I can't get an interview right? Um again, I I I'd encourage thinking outside the box. If you really want to roll, you'll find a way. Um and you know, to give people an example, I mean it takes two minutes to go on LinkedIn, type in Salesforce under Justin's, and you know, I can I won't mention their names, but I can find several people straight away that work there and do Salesforce. If I can't get hold of you, if I was a candidate looking for a job, I can't get hold of you, Chris. Maybe I'd reach out to one of the team. Hey, Dave Masri, see you work with Chris at Justin's. There's this position, I'm named the position specifically I'm interested in. Um any advice, insight that that might help me get to the top of the list. Um, you know, could I could I send you a virtual coffee card for a Starbucks on me just to grab five, ten minutes of your time uh to brainstorm about my application? Um, you know, just I think I think, and this is where like the whole AI piece comes in. It's super easy with like LinkedIn, easy apply to just hit easy apply and and submit an application, but like are you really applying to a job or are you just uh literally clicking a box and hoping for the best, right? I think they're two very different things. Um we see it often when it, you know, even before um, you know, before we get ahead of ourselves, but when we get to an interview, right? Like, are you really doing interview prep or are you just turning up to have a conversation on a call, right? Um jobs can be secured through interview, interview prep. Um, and I think what you mentioned, Chris, you didn't mention it, but I will uh extend on it. Um is almost a sense of entitlement with job seekers, right? Like these employees, these recruiters, etc., owe them something to help their efforts. When in fact, I think I'll go to say that a lot of job seekers need to put in more effort um to their job search, not quite not quantity, but quality. Apply for fewer roles, but do it properly. Um, and once you secure the interviews, make sure you're spending hours, you know, doing your research, reaching out to the team. Hey, I've got an interview with Chris, Dave. You know, can you tell me a bit about the org? Right? Um, you know, there's basics, right? Um, that I think would maximize the chances of success. But I don't know what you guys think about that. Obviously, I'm kind of positioning a bit of a this is what we do for a living, so you know, we've seen all seeing it all, right? But what are your thoughts?

SPEAKER_04 26:59

I think um that the the the front part of the job seeking part, which is like just when you're dealing with like resumes and and your network and all of that, it's all about marketing yourself. And then the moment that you have a fish on the line, if we're gonna use that expression, like a a company that has expressed interest, then it's on you to then figure out and reverse things. And now you've got to completely understand the company's perspective. What's the pain? What are the what are the different levers that I can see so that I can position myself as being the best person to solve those those different pain points? And then it almost flips because I I can tell you how many times candidates didn't get the job with me because of the lack of of how they performed in the interview. There's lack of insightful questions, you know, lack of uh articulate responses uh or a missing uh example of collaboration and things like that. And that to me, it's like that that interview is like it's it's yours, it's yours to lose it. So you need to then make sure that you're positioning yourself and asking asking questions and not just just being not just going through your resume and your experience, but actually saying, like, I've done my research or in my experience companies of your size and uh or this industry have these types of problems. How are you solving it? That type of um approach demonstrates ownership. And believe me, I want a team of owners. Like I want, I don't want a team of just uh of workers that just are here for an eight to five, um, but ideally, owners actually kind of have a have a different mindset and approach the work and design uh solutions that in my experience are are frankly uh more scalable, uh better documented, and filled with less errors.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

So from a job seeker perspective, I think I think there are two different things. One is getting the interview, and then one is how you perform past that, right? Um so a lot of the things, Kiro, that you're talking about, like you say that it's um it's very obvious, but it's very time consuming. Um and it's not like you know, people, particularly good people, are sitting at home necessarily, right? They they have a job, and if not, they're doing something else, maybe they're hustling. Um it's a big investment, and truth be, you know, it's a big investment in time to spend a half hour per job application. We don't even know if that job exists, truth be told. Um, if all you have is an ad, right? So if I don't know Chris and I'm gonna reach out to someone in my network who's connected to Chris and say, Oh, you know, Chris, look he's hiring. What can you tell me about his Salesforce Award? Um maybe you'll get a response from them if they're feeling particularly helpful, but I very highly doubt they would actually pass your resume along. Um, particularly if they don't know you. I wouldn't. I wouldn't make a recommendation to someone I don't know personally. Um, that's just me. Um, but it it's it's a very, I mean, people gotta like often submit hundreds of applications, at least that's what you're claiming, right? Just to get um an interview. Um, so Chris, I'll I'll ask you anecdotally, 400 candidates. How many of them did you talk to?

SPEAKER_04 30:34

Oh, uh I could talk a one hand, I can count that number on possibly one hand.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

Um so we're talking single-digit presenting.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 30:44

Right? So, like, are we going to invest a half hour?

SPEAKER_01 30:47

So I mean, so so I I'll I'd I'd caveat a little bit actually, uh, and push back on that, right? I think it I think it depends how much time here's the thing like it's very transactional when people go and about their job search. I lose my job, I get laid off, I get lose my job, my contract ended. Okay, let me open LinkedIn and start networking, right? Oh shock, it takes me two, three months to find a job, the market's tough. What people do when they're smart is they invest their time in building connections like we are, right? And networking, going to events, supporting local meetups, supporting podcasts, sharing content, updating their certs as they go along, right? They're networking to put themselves in the best position possible so that when an unfortunate circumstance does happen and they need a favor from somebody, they're more likely to have a better outcome from asking for that favor, right? If you're you know, Maz, we haven't spoken for four years, but I need a job and I saw you connected to Chris. No, I probably wouldn't respond if I was you either. But you know, let's say hypothetically someone said, Hey Maz, you know, this podcast is awesome that you started, obviously. Um, you know, and you know, in six months from now they kept in touch. How are you? How are you getting on? Yeah, good. Six months from now, oh, I saw you you did a podcast with Chris, and you know, it he saw that he's hiring. You're probably more inclined to then maybe help that person out because they've made an effort with you over time. Would that be fair to say you're you're asking me?

SPEAKER_02 32:21

I mean, yeah, I mean, I I keep in touch with everybody. I I mean I'm a little bit of an oddball that way. Um so if I worked with you four years ago and haven't spoken to you, I'm not going to not talk to you now just because it's been four years. Um that I mean, that being said, again, it's not it's the ask. I'm more than happy to help with 10-15 minutes of my time for some advice. Um, but it's a very different ask than asking me to make a referral where I'm now putting my reputation on the line saying he's good, right? Um, because there the level of professionalism there. That that's um that's all I was saying. And my secondary point was again, as a job seeker, um how much value is there in that, right? To put that much effort into a single application. That was my my only point. Again, if there was an interview there, that's a completely different story, right? I want all the information I can get, but otherwise, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 33:25

I think what Kara's saying though, I think he's saying is put put your your the time that you spend in building those relationships, like and farming your network and kind of cultivating the human relationships is a way better use of time than like trying to automatically apply to 20 different jobs. I I think that that that's the takeaway because I I identified with several things that you were saying before about, you know, like am I gonna jump to help somebody who I haven't talked to in five or six years because you know, all of a sudden they're they're in a problem. It's like like, you know, well, it's not, it may not be my number one need to do that. But if you're a job seeker uh in this industry right now, your time is better spent in building the relationships in the community and trying to have those conversations with people who have more experience than you or have a different perspective than you, than it is on simply just trying to apply to 100 jobs per day.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

That was the more eloquent way of putting what I was trying to say, Chris. So I th thanks for the assist. Uh, but but exactly my point. Um, Chris, curious, before you got the job at Joston's, we I guess did you apply for it? Were you headhunted for it? Were you recommended by someone else that you'd worked for prior? How did you get hired?

SPEAKER_04 34:53

I got this job through a recruiter, believe it or not. Um, it hasn't happened too often in my uh in my career, but uh this company was looking for um someone uh to do to take on the the responsibilities of uh of their team and the org and the existing team. Uh no one was wanting to kind of step into the management layer. We had they had a really strong solution architect, and um so so I happened to fit the bill. So um so I was able to check off the fact that uh I have been placed by a recruiter um in my career, and I think that that may be one of the only times that that's happened.

SPEAKER_01 35:38

Good. I think it's um I think it's like your investments, right? You don't put all your eggs in one basket, you're not gonna put it all into property, you're not gonna put all your money into stocks, you're not gonna put all your money in gold, right? You're gonna spread it around. And and I think for the job search, you have to do the same, right? It's networking locally at events and meetups with a ton of user groups. Um, there's networking on LinkedIn, there's networking with recruiters, there's a little bit of applying to jobs directly and you know, maybe trying to leverage because you've got industry experience, maybe that might give you the edge, right? Um, maybe you're local, that might give you the edge. Um, so I think it's the same way as you would same mindset you'd approach investing your money as you invest your time. Um, maybe Maz, that's something you could agree a bit more, uh, a bit more with.

SPEAKER_02 36:29

Well, yeah, look, you're always going to have a better success with uh people you know than right, strangers or just uh back in the day we used to think appointed jobs with like throwing your resume into the void. That's like that's like literally how you would um describe it, and it's gonna get worse now with the AI. Um they now have like AI application bots. Um I just wanted to add to your list that um coworkers is probably your best uh networking, um, particularly in Salesforce. So if you're if you're with an SI, you're meeting your clients, you should be you should be maintaining those relationships. Um and when your coworkers leave to other firms, to competitors, you should be maintaining those. Um, I would say that's probably the number one source of hires. Um, Chris, how how about you? How how um is that something you like? How often or if I'm hiring, that's literally the first thing I do. I go to my team, who else do you know? Um for a bonus is huge in business. Um do you start with that too, or how does that fall into your oh yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 37:43

It's to it's start with the team. You know, do you know anyone? Um and given given the makeup of the team, at least for this particular role, it was I knew that was not going to give me too many uh options. Then go from there. It's kind of like tree rings, go further and further outside your circle of of immediate trust to trusted colleagues, um, and then and then like you know, then other uh executives or leaders. Um, and then and you know, and then finally you've got recruit recruiters, of course, who are always uh willing to help you. Um but yeah, starting starting in that approach is is great.

SPEAKER_01 38:23

Good. I think um before we move on to next question, Chris. There was there's something around resumes you mentioned, right? Uh and Mazie covered as well. I think it's really important to add. Um it we see a lot of resumes that essentially look like a job job description copy and paste, right? Um develop lightning web components, apex triggers, right? The usual stuff, you know, customized page layouts, right? Like people, if they're hiring an admin or the hiring a developer, you know what an admin or a developer do. Um I think you know the the emphasis on what your value you'll bring into that opportunity or in that role over that period of time, from experience, I I think there's three things a hiring manager probably cares about more than not, right? How much money will your role help them generate in revenue? How much money will your role help the business save? And then probably how much time will your role help free up for different business units? Um so we see a lot of like resumes where it's you know uh decrease the time spent doing XYZ, but no like specific number metrics saved X on third-party application integrations with Salesforce, but no specific mentions and numbers, savings, cost, time, you know, manage a team. There's a difference between managing a team of one person and 500, right? Like, you know, so being as specific as possible. Um was that something you were referring to earlier when you were trying when you talk about kind of generic resumes?

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Oh, yes. I mean that that and and that problem also uh exists at the management layer as well, right? I I've put uh I thought I'd seen it all until uh recently reviewing some manager resumes, and it's like managed a team, uh coordinated UAT processes, like you know, and it and just like what's the what's the accomplishment? How do you uh how do you quantify it? I I would say, you know, it it is great to be able to put dollars and cents to things, but sometimes depending on the level or just what the change is, it it can be very difficult. But I think what hiring managers are looking for is they're not looking for a preciseness like a nat like at the NASA scale, like we're not trying to land a uh a shuttle on the moon or anything like that. So a rough estimate. And then whatever metrics that you put or you disclose, you should be prepared to talk about those um in an educated manner. Like you shouldn't be, you should if you were asked, if you said that you saved 40% of time on your deployment time, well, you should be able to say, well, okay, how did we do that? Well, we stopped running all uh, you know, we stopped running all apex tests for every code deployment. Instead, we are you know just running the the tests that are uh applicable for the code that was changed, and that immediately cut it down. It's like, well, okay, that that is a reason why, you know, so be you're able to explain why you have those metrics um that are listed on your on your resume in that in that in that manner.

SPEAKER_01 41:46

Perfect. So um so what would be your advice, Chris? Having done this a couple of times now, you know, managing decent sized teams, a lot of hiring. Um, what would be your advice to other leaders around building a Salesforce team with minimal turnover and ultimately keeping resources happy, progression, and things like that?

SPEAKER_04 42:12

Um, well, it's something that I'm continually trying to figure out. I think it's uh it's kind of like uh to it's like a if I was to use my favorite thing, food, it would be if you've ever thrown used a crock pot. A crock pot is you know like this thing that gradually warms up a soup or a casserole of something, and usually you're putting in multiple different types of ingredients, no one ingredient uh shines. And so from a management structure, you're you're looking at um reward, acknowledgement. Um, so can you can you as a manager recognize the amount of effort that went into a piece of work? Um, whether it was delivering it, analyzing the issue. Um sometimes it's just having the patience to to coordinate with another team or coordinate with um with some individuals who are testing things out. Um so there's the acknowledgement side of things. There is recognizing the strengths of your individuals. Like what are what are the things that they're all that that each individual is really good at? Like what are they, what do you know that they can shine in? And you you don't always have control to give them every type of project or need or request that's gonna play to those strengths, but you do have some. And so those few cards that you do have, you need to play them. So uh the individual who's expressed all of the interest in AI will then give them the, you know, if you have a couple spare cycles, give them a couple apps, AI apps to go evaluate and come back and report on that. You've got someone who's a data professional. Or just does all of your data manipulation. Well then have them explore, you know, what third-party uh data management apps are out there that can solve uh the main needs of the organization. Because we all know there's there's dozens of apps out there, but what are the ones that we as a team or as an organization experience and all the pain points and all of that? So I do try and um take that effect uh or take that approach with management is kind of like aligning. There's always you always have a little bit of fungible time throughout the year to kind of align those uh exploratory projects to exploit people's uh needs or strengths. Um and finally, I'd say it's the the honest check-in, you know, it's having the it's not sometimes having great fun conversations all the time, but recognizing that like this this issue or whatever was was not handled well or could have been handled better. What are the different ways that you can put in place to avoid that? I think that that's always like the best position to have is kind of like what happened, what is what happened, and it sucks. But I am here to prevent this from happening again. So how can we do that? And getting that you get that kind of buy-in with uh the other person where it's not this like management individual contributor, but you're kind of like both working towards a common goal, which is not not cause the problem again. And then you can recognize the growth the next time that that situation may occur, and it can come, it can turn into a situation where you're giving them praise in public about how they handled something.

SPEAKER_02 45:48

So how how much do you think of I mean, obviously, maintaining talent uh is is a big topic. Sometimes you just can't. Do you do you have like a like a sweet spot of of what's good tenure for a team member? Um right at some point you gotta promote them or they just outgrew their position and maybe you don't have that spot. So one like how do you how do you handle that? Um and then the second part is how do you how do you deal with team gel? Team gel um is probably in my opinion one of the most undervalued thing, or it's it's not something that's generally um I would say like they don't really it's not something that's that's like like in a on a manager's like to-do list or to look at, right? But how well the team works together um is just super, super important. Um and I think the the culture and how well the team gels combined with again um knowing that maybe I have a future here or maybe not, or what's my next step they will kind of all tie together. So what what are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_04 47:05

Yeah, um, all right, so that was those two parts. As far as maintaining the team and the tenure and all of that, I don't know if there's like a hard and fast rule about like how many years someone has uh you know gotten to a point. I don't think people are not like growing ripe on the vine, uh so to speak. Now they they may be getting bored, and I think as a manager, that's that's your duty is to find ways to continually challenge them. And in this current era of AI tools being uh there's a plethora of them, and they don't cost a lot, and you can get a lot of insights out of them, it doesn't take a lot of work to be able to start to spin up some ideas and some new approaches. So, that to me is how you keep team members is by constantly finding new things that grow them professionally or teach them skills. And I I will have the honest conversation where I'm like, look, if this is a skill that you have, and whether you're at this company next year at the same time or not, it it's listed on your resume. And and I kind of try and take that approach of being a just a human and wanting, you know, wanting the best from them. But right now, the best is like really what the organization needs and what and and what the what the team needs. But that may change in the future, and they that individual has to manage their own, like what's best for them. Um, to the question about getting teams to work well together, that's a great one. I don't think I've cracked that one, especially in the remote world, uh, because my my default I found myself thinking of of how I'd respond to that great question. And and I was like going back to, well, it starts with like breaking bread together. And a very uh an old CIO taught me that technique, which is you know not a not something that's gonna blow your mind, but yeah, gathering everybody and and before a large initiative starts to have a meal together, whether it's lunch or dinner or happy hour or anything like that, and um get to know each other outside of the workshop or work or anything like that really goes far. Um, but I haven't had that luxury um in the remote world, at least for the last couple years. So, in that, sometimes it starts with creating little team committees, you know, depending on the team size, you're pairing up individuals who perform the same uh job or in similar roles so that they can collaborate and maybe they're working on an initiative together. So, like it's very common for developers to do peer code reviews, but on the admin side, that there's there's this same thing exists. Like we can have peer code reviews, flow code reviews, and we've established that kind of process uh at my current organization. Helps to kind of break down those the barriers uh between the team because they're they're all learning, they're all they're all participating. Um, even though one person may have authored the the automation, they're all benefiting from like the group discussion. And it can be about flow code review, sometimes it's about just technical debt, sometimes it's about some other topic altogether. But those uh those are a couple techniques I think that that I've used to uh to kind of establish how how people can work well together. It's not perfect and I'm still learning.

SPEAKER_01 50:43

What about um just to go back to kind of tenure, Chris? Um I I think most would agree that you know less than one year, job hopping is probably not a good thing. Um, but equally being a Salesforce admin for 10 years might also not be a great thing, right? Salesforce is is used so differently, depending on the size of the org, how new or old they've been with Salesforce, right? Um there's so much more you can pick up than sticking in one use case on how one company uses Salesforce for 10 years. At what point do you think, like, okay, let's say more so for maybe someone who who's not the finished article, right? Uh everyone can learn, but let's say not a senior higher in this scenario in this question, but more so for like a junior mid-level. What would you say, in your opinion, you've took a chance on someone, you know, they've known a little bit of Salesforce, a couple of years experience. At what point would you think, you know what, fair enough. You've kind of rewarded the fate by putting you, you've worked hard, and I'm not bitter that you're moving on to seek a new job, right? Um, you got a number of years you'd you'd expect in terms of service payback, um, you know, for that.

SPEAKER_04 51:56

Um I'm trying to assess where what your intention of that question is, not to answer you with the question, but I feel like the answer that is one of those questions where like 50% of the people are gonna be pissed off at the answer, and the other 50% are gonna be nodding yes uh or or you know in in in agreement. So that's a it's a tough one. Um I'd say the times that I the times that I have not been bothered by someone leaving, because at the end of the day, for me personally, I'm always a I'm always a little bit bothered. Um, because I do feel like it's it's my uh remit, my mandate to kind of assemble the team, keep them motivated towards a common goal. And when someone leaves, it's uh you know, it it sometimes feels like a breakdown, like a breakdown in communication. Like I uh I missed some sign or I missed some uh potential conversation that I could have had and that would have would have saved it. But I think the the ones that I I regret the most are the ones that really blindsided me, where it was like, oh, I I I didn't know you were interested in that. I didn't know that these uh things uh frustrated you in in such a manner. Um and and that can come in different forms. Sometimes it's it's been literally things way outside of my control, you know, like organizational structures, like uh, you know, there's uh the the benefits plan um you know is much more friendlier to to working parents somewhere else. That's that's fine. That's nothing I can do um about that, but still I kind of internalize that and say, you know, was there uh an opportunity for me to check in with this individual and you know, and maybe there's more accommodations I can make. So it's to me the the ones that I'm never that uh bothered by are the ones where I do feel like all right, I've I've had the kind of uh fun and the not so fun conversations uh about where they're going. And am I satisfied with the effort that I put in to retain them? And if I'm not, then am I okay with them leaving or or do I regret it?

SPEAKER_01 54:21

Mass, you're mute.

SPEAKER_02 54:24

You may yeah, you make a great point there. Um I think a lot of people aren't proactive enough in communicating where they want to take their career with their with their boss, with their managers. Um, I think there's maybe maybe it's a taboo or misconception, or maybe even a real conception, that it could be viewed at as you're not happy. When you're saying I want to, you know, get to a point where I can do XYZ or you know, get promoted to this role or make more money or right, advance my skills in in such a way. Um so a lot of people just won't talk about it and then they'll just up and go. And it it's you're caught, you're caught off guard. Um though I I think that's a big part of it. What what's your what's your thoughts on that? Do you feel it's your job to coax them to get that information out and make them feel safe?

SPEAKER_04 55:18

What I have learned is that the corporate world doesn't set you up for those kinds of productive relationships. Um and by that I mean you've got in in any given kind of corporate role, though there's usually some kind of annual or quarterly goal setting. Um, and then you set those goals, and then more often than not, the manager will meet with that individual uh no more than the corporately required time, which means usually maybe once. So maybe that's a mid-year or maybe that's an end of quarter type of thing. Um, and then what that does is that leaves a ton of room for stagnation, for progress to not occur, or for things to experiences to accumulate where you're not sharing feedback. So what I've done in the past uh couple of years um is turn it into a more frequent conversation. So I have we have one-on-ones with with all my team, um, and we we meet like every other week uh for for dedicated one-on-one. And we also meet every day for a daily stand-up. So there's a lot of a lot of chatting, a lot of talking, and all of that. But every two months, we actually have a recurring meeting, and it's like we're just gonna talk these goals and objectives. And sometimes that that meeting is uh me and the individual, and there's no talking. I'm just like, give me, give me five or ten minutes for me to write down a bunch of things that you have done according to these, and then we'll discuss them. Um, because maybe I I lose track and didn't have time to kind of keep that up. And and maybe it's for the individual to to ask questions of me. And that has has paid way more dividends for me uh as far as like team engagement. It's also made the end of year and mid-year process like way less painful because you've met way more frequently, so it's there's less room for surprise um in that manner.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

Uh I think I think what you're talking about is like OKRs. You'll have your people like put together their like key goals that they want to accomplish in the next quarter, sometimes personal, even that's what you're talking about. Um, anecdote, the best one I've ever had. I was mentoring someone's was quite some time ago. Um and he I found out he was very good, uh BA. I found that he dropped out of college and I told him, okay, put down as a goal to complete your degree. And he left the company, but then like two years later, he told me, Yeah, he finally finished it. I was surprised. Um, really, really cool. Um, so taking that a step uh further, and this is uh this is something that's actually really good in the Salesforce community, but not necessarily out in the wider corporate um uh corporate world, which is training, particularly junior level people training. Um there's a fear of investing a lot of money into a relatively junior employee, and they're gonna take those skills and then leave just when they're becoming productive or just when you would say getting a return on that investment, let's say. Um what what are your thoughts on that? Um, not necessarily if it's a good idea or a bad idea, but in terms of mitigating that risk to make sure you get right some level of return on that.

SPEAKER_03 58:58

Hmm.

SPEAKER_04 59:00

I I don't know if I've ever looked at it and used the that kind of terminology around getting my return uh of that. I do, I do uh I do associate with the investing in people. And I can't admit to being frustrated when I feel like that maybe investment um has walked out the door. But I think I I don't know if I would change my answer. It's uh comes back to how like do you feel as a hiring manager that you did the best to lay out this individual's like a career path um that you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. So that's what I'm saying. In your best, in your best, the power that you have, you do you cannot control all aspects. And maybe that project didn't get funded, um, or maybe that um you know, maybe that executive left, and so that big initiative that you had queued up for that individual is is just completely toast. So it's oftentimes the reflect the self-reflection on the manager that that I feel needs to happen, and I don't feel like that does. Like what would what would you do differently? I had I've had during the during 2022 um or 2021, that was an era that Carol, you probably know, is what was it called? The Great Resignation. Like I had the sports analogy rebuilding year, 80 or 90, 80, between 80 and 90 percent of the team resigned. And it was and but when it was the first resignation, I was kind of like, all right, I'm sorry to see you go. But by the eighth or the ninth, I was like, oh my gosh, is you know, like, what am I doing here? And it was very hard on me because I felt like I'm doing all the right things. Um, and so I had to have that conversation. I couldn't, you know, there was a lot of things going on in the market outside of my control with um with salaries and um, you know, and and and crazy hiring. But I look back at that time and say, I don't know if I was really having a lot of great conversations with the team at that time about where like where they wanted to go and like how could I play to their strengths? I felt like if I was to be more critical, I was a little bit more autopilot manager. Like, well, here's the work, and you know, this is this is your duty to do the work. I mean, that that that's part of it. But to me, the great managers or the great leaders are the ones that can say, do you understand the value behind this work? Like, can we improve this so that it's not so crappy to do next year or next time next someone else has to do this? Like those types of things, those types of approaches, in my experience, just flip the thinking uh of the other per of the person on either side, where it's like, oh, there's actually like they actually care uh about me as a human or about how this gets done. And people I I find people to to increase their loyalty significantly when when you show that that that there's that kind of level of care. And it's not this just how much uh how much value can I get out of you, how many flows can you crank out, how many deployments can you can you get, or how many lines of code can you write?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:27

Yeah, that that is that is true. Um I'm gonna I'm gonna pivot back to the other question. So I I just want to clarify my previous question. When I was talking about return on investment, I'm talking about you made a real investment in this employee, not hey, read these books on your downtime type of investment. I'm talking I hire someone and I'm putting them under a senior level person to shadow them for three months where they're gonna have literally almost no productivity, except that they're building them to become like a real expert in something, or I'm sending them for a three-week training course right out somewhere where you gotta put them in a hotel and pay for the course, and you're losing, right? You're paying them for those three weeks, or right, that's the kind of investment that used to be really, really common um in this country. And again, it's still somewhat common um in uh in the Salesforce space, much more than uh the general corporate uh corporate world. Um doctors now they're required to go to conferences. That's the kind of thing um right that I'm that I'm talking about when I'm talking about investing in in people where it's like you're literally right taking someone, they don't have a skill set, you're going to literally get them trained up and then moved into a role.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:55

So tell me then your question, then that for regard thanks for that clarification, but you're kind of asking how how do you handle that situation?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:05

If it's not something you've done, that's fine too, right? Again, it's not it's not super common nowadays, but again, I I think one of the reasons that it became not common, and I think you it's it's one of the the greatest thing that used to be part of um you know part of the corporate culture in this country was that level of of training. Um but one of the reasons that uh it diminished was because of the let's call it the job hopping culture, right? And again, it's because what am I doing? I'm going to invest in someone um right. So, for example, a junior salesperson, like nobody's hiring someone with no sales uh sales experience to become a salesperson because it takes three years of training. So I'm not gonna do it, is basically what happened. Um, so that's the kind of investment that um that I was kind of talking about. If you would make those kind of investments, um, and maybe you know how we can bring that back, um, if that's a better question. I know it's a hard question.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:05

Yeah, well, I have experienced that. I don't have a way yet to to to completely like eliminate that. I mean, people are are are going to make their own uh their own decisions, but I do think it uh it's I would probably approach it a little bit about like how I approach IT projects, which when we do an IT project, we always the one thing that's always certain is we're always gonna do a retro. And a retro uh consists of of three simple questions of like, what do you want to stop doing? What do you want to start doing? What would you keep doing? And so you reframe those into like, because I I think what you're saying is that person has made that decision. Um, so it it really is, I think, too late at a certain point. Like you're not gonna, I I don't think that there's a lot of value in trying to. convince convince someone like who has clearly made up their mind. I think you should present the facts as far as uh the opportunities that uh are available to them. Um and then I would also then then have that kind of difficult conversation where uh you're you're asking them for feedback uh on on you uh as a leader you're asking them for um feedback on how do they want to be perceived in the industry and how do they think this role will will help them and I think that from there you may not get an answer that you're gonna be satisfied with but you're gonna get something you're gonna get some nugget of wisdom that's going to make you smarter the next time that goes around and that's to me like the whole purpose of the project retros and those kind of situations is what certain things are going to happen and it's your job as a leader to figure out all right what do I need to do differently so that I minimize the chances of that happening again a lot there I feel like that that could be a topic in itself right um I I guess again that's where I was trying to go with you know at what point do you feel content that your investment was paid off right in in somebody um you know is it is it two three years that's fair uh because it's a it's a two-way thing right you know it's a two-way street if you're gonna invest in a hire I would expect them to then invest back into the company right um and show some degree of loyalty if you've taken a chance on someone or you've helped accelerate them from a junior admin to a solution architect I mean surely that's worth something in return but anyway um last question for you Chris um I'm curious if hiring in different industries if you've noticed any kind of trends from you know hiring during working at a real estate company global business you know billion dollar business with a massive name behind them versus you know a manufacturing company that maybe the average person probably wouldn't have heard of um to no disrespect um intended but but you know JL Jostin's if you walked on the street I think more people would have heard of JL right so did that make your life easier as a hiring manager um you know especially when it comes to hiring sales force and you've you've kind of you know hired people in a uh a market where talent was highly sought after and then again when perhaps it wasn't in both roles so did you feel like having the the the the heavyweight pedigree name behind you of a JLL made your life hiring easier is the question. No, I don't think it did I think um uh it kind of got all like in in the technology roles that are applying there's um like it feels like more than half the people are applying and they don't have that specific industry experience. Um so you're always going to prioritize people like with that who look good on paper to kind of tie it back to what we said earlier. You're gonna you're gonna you're gonna prioritize those people but beyond that it to me I'm I'm looking at like how are they position their the resume how are they how are they aware of their accomplishments and I say accomplishments not tasks because anyone can list out tasks every admin performs the same damn tasks as any other admin in this industry. It doesn't matter whether you have five users or or 10,000 users like you you all perform the same thing assigning permission sets creating custom fields like all of that sort of stuff. So it's to me it's um how are they positioning their uh their their accomplishments and then if it does get into an interview it's the it's like the it's the insightful questions um that's the differentiator because I'll ask a couple different um scenario based questions and um usually you know people more often than not you know do okay at those because it's usually like describing something that they have listed on their resume or particular project. But then when you open it up for questions you can tell very quickly like who has done their homework who is maybe more interested who's more in tune with um the current challenges of the market the industry the um like you know the world itself um that type of thing so I I the takeaways I take from um the this episode in general two things you value really highly um outside the obvious technical skill set is effort and preparation definitely definitely I think there's nothing more frustrating than uh getting on a call with someone who hasn't demonstrated a lot of effort or enthusiasm or even interest um and then the people who who who take no energy or effort to apply um it's kind of like oh you get you get what you put in you get what what you put in and you're gonna get the same from me.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:21

Agreed. Well uh okay listeners that's a wrap uh for for today's episode so um Chris we'd just like to thank you uh for sharing your insights experiences uh with us today and obviously we covered a lot of emphasis on hiring so uh thanks for your time Chris thanks for having me pleasure as always um and then for our listeners please do not forget to subscribe to the CRM Success Show for more episodes featuring leaders like Chris um you can follow us on LinkedIn uh for more exclusive insights including rapid rounds and episode teasers uh before the episodes go live