Mastering the Basics, Overcoming Burnout, and Thriving in Salesforce

Finally, we tackle the importance of continuous learning and breaking bad habits to amplify your success. Discover the necessity of broadening your skill set beyond certifications, encompassing foundational concepts in computer science and data modeling. Through practical advice on networking, personal branding, and self-trust, this episode delivers insight for anyone looking to excel in their Salesforce career.

Matt Pieper: 0:00 Part of my side is certs are great if you know the knowledge right. Get the knowledge, understand it and then get your cert, because it makes it so much easier than just cramming for a piece of paper, especially if you don’t even know if you’ll like it right. Announcer: 0:23 And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It’s the Salesforce Career Show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant. Josh Matthews: 0:38 Welcome everybody. We have a special guest, matt Piper no F. He’s on the show. What’s up, matt? Matt Pieper: 0:44 Hey, not too much of myself. Josh Matthews: 0:46 Doing great. We’re going to do a little intro for you in just a moment. We’ve got Vanessa Grant back in the saddle. Welcome, Vanessa. Vanessa Grant: 0:53 Hi, I’m just going to start. Sorry, josh, it was Matt Pieper. Josh Matthews: 0:57 Pieper, not Piper. Vanessa Grant: 0:58 Yeah, pieper, am I right, Matt? Matt Pieper: 1:01 Yeah, yeah, like I said, I roll with it, so I appreciate the call. Yeah, at least we should get it right. Josh Matthews: 1:05 Wait, you roll with Peeper or you roll with Piper. Matt Pieper: 1:07 Peeper is the correct one, yep, all right. Josh Matthews: 1:09 All right, got it. Okay, god, I have messed up every guest’s name for probably six months. Right, you’re like this guy’s a recruiter, get out of here. Well, we’ve got an interesting show. We’re going to get some updates from Vanessa on her experiences recently at Dreamin’ in Color. I think, peter, you might want to pipe up, talk a little bit about Life Sciences Dreamin’ that’s going to be coming up. We’ve got Salesforce Dreamforce on the horizon, and first we’ll just start with a couple announcements. Josh Matthews: 1:50 First of all, I didn’t see much in the way of news this last week related to Salesforce. I mean, there’s some shareholder stuff. I guess Benioff had put forth his compensation plan or shareholders’ compensation plan. Shareholders rejected it. That’s the only stuff really going on. And then it’s all the usual AI, data cloud, partnering with IBM and things like that. Otherwise, no real massive news. Josh Matthews: 2:07 For those who might be listening for the first time, or maybe they didn’t catch the last live show or last week’s podcast, which was all about happiness, which I hosted with Andrea Allen, we have a new website and you can find it at salesforcecareershowcom. On there you’ll find past guests. You’ll see future guests that are coming on. You can also request to be a guest. Just fill out a little form, shoot it over to us and we’ll have a little look, talk to you and see what being a guest might be like here on the show. We’re excited to have Matt in the house. When we posted this on LinkedIn, a bunch of people were like Yay, matt Pieper fantastic, can’t wait for the show. So he’s here right now. I’ll go ahead and give him an introduction, then we’re going to go ahead and dive in, I think. First I want to catch up on Dreamin’ in Colors. Let’s just go there right now. How was it, vanessa? Vanessa Grant: 2:59 Oh, it was really great. I mean, I feel like I burned out pretty hard after TDX in March and so this was my first conference where I’m like okay, I’m back, I’m going to do this. I had two speaking sessions, but it was really motivational. And just for folks that don’t know, dreamin’ in Color it’s in a different location every year. I believe this is the third year that they were doing it. It was in New Orleans and it’s really geared towards Salesforce professionals of color. They mostly black, but also this year they had Sonia in color, which is the Latina track which I was on. Despite my Vanessa Grant name, I am half Colombian. So it was really great and I think it was a good chance for people to connect with each other, to network. There were a lot of great vendors there and a lot of great sessions, but I would say a lot of it was also very empowering. Vanessa Grant: 3:52 I think you know, a lot of times, especially in technology, it can feel a little intimidating in certain spaces. I mean, I know on a daily basis I will oftentimes be the only female, certainly the only Latina female. It can be a little bit, I mean, not like a blocker or anything like that, but certainly it’s nice sometimes to feel like you’re with people who can all understand where you’re coming from in this ecosystem and that maybe you don’t look like everybody else. And what are the ways that we can elevate people that are in our networks? What are ways that we can empower ourselves? How do we bring our authentic selves to work, especially when maybe we’ve been told that our authentic selves wouldn’t mean good things for us in our careers? Plus, also a lot of really great Salesforce content. I sat in on an analytics course. I did a whole 45-minute workshop on user stories. Yeah, there was a lot of really great content as well. So good Salesforce networking and technical content and, I would say, general career guidance and empowerment. Josh Matthews: 5:02 That’s terrific. I mean, what was the biggest highlight, would you say? Was there someone’s session that just really hit the mark Like, oh man, this is, this is Dreamforce, worthy content, anything like that. Vanessa Grant: 5:16 Oh gosh, you know what the the opening keynote. I heard so many people talking about this guy. He’s not a Salesforce guy, he’s like I think he’s a communications guy for the NAACP and just such an engaging speaker and everybody was in the room and everybody could relate to things that he was saying. Just talking about how you know the like, how he at one point he did something. He was like all right, everybody, look up into the sky, what do you see? Well, what you don’t see is a superhero Cause nobody’s going to see of you. You have to be your own, you know, and and just stuff like that where he was just so motivational and just the way that he talked through things. Vanessa Grant: 5:59 Everybody left that opening keynote feeling really excited, just I mean. But I think that’s just the power of a really engaging speaker. Who his name was, was it? Oh shoot, it was like Trayvon, let me, I’ll find it, but I think maybe Williams, but I will, I will find it. But yeah, he was, he was just so, he was so good. I’m gonna find his name and I’m sure that he’s done a ton of speaking sessions before, but gosh, he, he, he really kicked us off so so beautifully. Josh Matthews: 6:29 I love that. Yeah, you know, inspiration can come from so many areas and you know, one of the things that’s really interesting about inspiration is how long does it last? Right, when we get inspired, inspiration it’s just the kickoff, like this is the thing for me to take action on this thing right now, typically, and then it carries its own momentum, right? You know, it’s a really powerful thing and I think it’s a lot of the reason why people go to dream and events and follow certain YouTubers and, you know, get personal coaches and this sort of thing, because even though we’re all capable of so much and even so much more than than we’ve already achieved, it’s very difficult to to see that. But inspiration is, is kind of that juice, it’s that rocket fuel that says you can do it, you know. Vanessa Grant: 7:22 Yeah, and I think so I found his name it’s Trevon T-R-O-V-O-N-C. Williams, and he’s a communications executive. We’re at the NAACP and what was also really great was to hear from him, who you know he is constantly in situations where he’s nervous sometimes about the messaging that he has to put out and the backlash that might come from it. And hearing how somebody who is coming to us so confidently still is scared before he does things but saying do the things that are scary. You know, be okay to pivot, be okay to fail, but be okay to stretch yourself, because that’s where growth happens, that’s where authenticity happens. Yeah, that guy blew me away and I think he blew a lot of folks away that were that were there. It was a really fantastic session. Josh Matthews: 8:13 That’s terrific, and had you been to, had you been to New Orleans before. Vanessa Grant: 8:17 I’ve been to New Orleans before, but just for for personal stuff. This is the first time I went for a conference. But they had a great. The opening party is. They call it the cookout it’s. They had it at the French Quarter at a really lovely restaurant with, you know, crawfish and great seafood and open bar. They even had, like a New Orleans like jazz band come in towards the end, lots of dancing. Yeah, it was really. Vanessa Grant: 8:44 It was a good time was a good time, it’s a, it’s a good conference. So it’s besides the inspiration and the technical expertise and the great vendors. There was also a really good taste of the new orleans culture while we were there. But uh, and they’re taking a, a poll now to see if it’s gonna be in new orleans next year. Maybe they’ll move to. They were even talking about moving to, like puerto. Oh, wow, so we’ll see It’ll be. It was. It was a really great. It was a really great session. And then I did a road trip from Dreamin’ in Color to Southeast Dreamin’. I didn’t go to Southeast Dreamin’, but I did drop off Pei. Sure, I know, pei, was it from London yeah? Vanessa Grant: 9:19 Yeah Me. Pei and Susanna from Salesforce just go into Graceland in Dollywood. Josh Matthews: 9:26 Oh, that’s right. How was Graceland? Vanessa Grant: 9:29 Depressing, to be honest. Josh Matthews: 9:31 Yeah, I thought it might be. Can you see some of that? I know that we talked maybe a month ago a little bit about how it almost went under right, Like literally a matter of weeks ago. Did it feel that way? Was it in disrepair a? Vanessa Grant: 9:46 matter of weeks ago, did it feel that way? Was it in disrepair? Not in disrepair, but it was very sad, because Elvis’s grandparents are buried there, his parents are buried there, he’s buried there and now his daughter is buried there and his grandchild is buried there. So it’s like five generations of like people that were just had really sad lives. Josh Matthews: 10:00 Yeah. Vanessa Grant: 10:01 Whereas, like, I went to Dollywood two days later and Dollywood was full of joy and and and you know great things. Josh Matthews: 10:07 But, how many people are buried at Dollywood? Vanessa Grant: 10:11 Uh, that I don’t know. Well, there you go. Josh Matthews: 10:13 That starts. It starts with that, right, yeah. Vanessa Grant: 10:18 But, but I think it it goes to the one of the things that I talked about in one of my sessions, which is the idea of it is easier to ask for help and easier to network and easier to be remembered when you’re not with people on a human level as, as you know, latinos, as as women, as moms, as people that are really into I don’t know crochet, whatever it is, sure you know it’s it’s a lot easier to ask a friend for help and support and guidance than it is to ask somebody that you throw on a pedestal professionally. Josh Matthews: 11:03 Absolutely Well, and you’ve faced that before at conferences, where people are like, oh my God, I don’t, I can’t believe I get to meet you Right, and you’re like it’s just me, it’s just me. What are you talking about? Vanessa Grant: 11:14 Yep, and I did that. Actually, that happened to me also at a Dreamin’ in Color as well. I was like we’re all just Salesforce professionals here, salesforce professionals here, like I’m just here as a professional, you’re here as a professional it’s nice to meet you. Maybe we’ll work together someday. Josh Matthews: 11:26 Looking forward to it you know, yeah, yeah, for real, I don’t suppose someday there’ll be a catholic jew dreamin event, which I would definitely attend hey, you know what. Vanessa Grant: 11:38 Go for it, josh. You can build that dreamin event I. Josh Matthews: 11:42 I’ve got enough on my plate right now. I think I’ll just go to a couple this year instead. I think that makes sense. I just want to do a quick shout out. Elizabeth Knott’s on here with us. Welcome, elizabeth, it’s good to see you again. I think it’s been a little bit so. Vanessa Grant: 11:55 I’m going to throw you a little speaker invite. Josh Matthews: 11:57 If you want to pop on. Vanessa Grant: 11:59 I saw Elizabeth at Dreaming in Color too. Josh Matthews: 12:01 That’s awesome. Well, I’ll tell you what I’ve never been to New Orleans. Casey’s never been to New Orleans, I don’t think she has. The most we know about New Orleans is what we learned from watching Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. That’s it. I guess it all takes place in New Orleans. That’s the most. Anything that I know about New Orleans at all is from that show. How sad, right. But everyone I know who’s been there just absolutely loves it and really enjoys a visit. I’m glad you got to go there and have an incredible road trip. You’ve had a number of incredible road trips this year and it sounds like this was one of them. Vanessa Grant: 12:32 Yeah, it was great and just a shout out to Tiffany Spencer and the rest of the organizers for a great event. I will say coming to this event post-burnout. It was a really good place to Coming to this event post-burnout. It was a really good place to feel reignited in my love of Salesforce and even just to get back on my Salesforce BA community, which I started, got immediately burnt out and then kind of turned into the oh my God, so much anxiety around this thing. I’m re-motivated to get things kicked off with my group and I just took a poke into the membership, since I’ve only had one session so far, which I’m embarrassed about, but is reality because of the burnout, I have over 500 members at this point, people that are, I know, with only one meeting done. So this is I’m re-motivated to get things kicked off and I’m grateful to Dreaming in Color for making me re-engage with my Salesforce experience. Josh Matthews: 13:31 Yeah yeah, how many people attended? Vanessa Grant: 13:35 Oh gosh, I don’t actually know. I want to say it was probably over, I don’t know, maybe like 1,000? Really, maybe a little less. Josh Matthews: 13:44 That’s not small. Yeah, it was a pretty big conference. That’s a pretty-. Vanessa Grant: 13:46 No, no, it’s like I don’t know. It’d be like four tacos in my yeah, okay. Josh Matthews: 13:51 So yeah, so that’s almost a thousand, about a thousand people. Yeah, for real. Okay, yeah, that’s not nothing. I like that. Well, thank you for the updates. Josh Matthews: 14:06 I’ve got a little update announcement for any of our listeners who might be hiring managers. These are the folks that understand that they’re only as good as the team that they build, that their career can only grow and blossom based on the quality of people that they have surrounded themselves with. Part of that is selecting the right company to go to. But if you’re a hiring manager, it’s really about the team that you build, and that’s what we do with my company, which you can find at thesalesforcerecruitercom. We help leaders and managers make really excellent decisions on how to build the team of their dreams so that they can have a happier life, they can have more peace, they can accomplish more, they can get through the hard stuff and they can do it as a team with a lot of love and support and feel feeling really good. And so to help help support the ecosystem, we are doing a summer special. Josh Matthews: 14:56 The summer special is open to five new clients and I’ll tell you what it is. We’ve reduced our rates to just 20% of base salary. Six-month guarantee, six-month payment terms. I don’t think there is a staffing firm particularly focused on the Salesforce ecosystem that can come close to that offer or come close to the quality of candidates that we deliver to support these leaders who are trying to do the right thing by their companies, by their families and by the team members that they already have on staff. So if you’re listening to this and you’d like to be one of the five, I can tell you that it’s not a one-time deal, that those terms will last for a full 12 months for any of your hires during that time, and the first come, first serve, right. So if you’re interested, you can reach out to me, message me, josh, at the salesforcerecruitercom. We’ll have a conversation and see if your firm and your needs actually match with what we do and do really well. Josh Matthews: 15:52 So I wanted to put that out there a little bit and now I’d like to dive in with Matt Pieper. I got it right this time. I really have to pause and slow myself down or else my pronunciations just go out the window. So Matt is the director of enterprise engineering at LeafLink, where he leads a dynamic team responsible for orchestrating the entire lead to cash process within a marketplace. His background is in traditional software engineering. That’s what led him to explore Salesforce development and architect roles. He oversees this talented ensemble of professionals including backend Python developers, salesforce developers, admins, architects, and, when you get beyond the code a little bit, he’s an avid traveler. He’s a very passionate photographer. Matt. You’ve got your own photography website, don’t you? I sure do, he does, and that’s what. Where would people go for that? Matt Pieper: 16:45 Yeah, it’s literally mattpeepercom. Or, of course, there’s the Instagram, which is Matt Peeper Photography. Josh Matthews: 16:51 Okay, and Peeper is P-I-E-P-E-R P-I-E-P-E-R, not the way I pronounce it. Okay, and he’s a devoted foster dog parent. So lucky dog to have you as his, as their dad. Let’s go ahead and dive in Now. You worked at LeafLink. Matt Pieper: 17:10 LeafLink. Explain what they do. Yeah, so LeafLink is a marketplace like most other consumer packaged goods marketplaces where we match retailers with buyers of goods, except we’re in the cannabis vertical. So think of your local dispensaries that need their pre-rolls, their flour, their babe cartridges from growers and distributors within their organization. So very niche market. But we build both those marketplace solutions and payment solutions for these businesses and we’re excited for you know, several states coming online this year. Josh Matthews: 17:46 Every year man. Every year it’s like yeah, we got three more states this year and you know, five years from now you’ll have them all probably. Matt Pieper: 17:55 Here’s hoping. Josh Matthews: 17:56 Yeah right, wonderful Now. So how many years in total have you been operating inside of the Salesforce ecosystem? Matt Pieper: 18:03 Oh so Salesforce ecosystem. First time I got thrown into the deep end was 2009. Now, so, man, what is that? 15 years, 15 years. Josh Matthews: 18:15 That’s right. When the GFC was hitting the big global financial crisis was like oh yeah, let’s do this Right, so that’s an interesting time to get involved. What was that like? Matt Pieper: 18:27 It was interesting, right. So I was just thinking the other day how much the ecosystems changed. You know both from technology and both from you know the resources available. So you know, back in 2009, you know there wasn’t a single consultancy in my state, or at least one that we could afford, so there was no leaning on partners. Then there was no trailhead. So you read deep, deep in the technical documents and no videos, no YouTube really. So I think of it as the caveman days of Salesforce, where you’re kind of poking around in the dark and all learning together. Josh Matthews: 19:09 Yeah. Matt Pieper: 19:09 So yeah, that’s basically it in a nutshell. Josh Matthews: 19:12 There you go. I remember using Salesforce the year it came out, 1999. And I was working for a company called carclubcom. It came eventually to be known as carclub dot bomb because it was part of the dot bomb. That happened in 99 2000 and it’s actually mentioned in benioff’s first book. We talk about that client and man. I did not like it. I remember for years, I you know I was at some points in my career changing jobs and I would say to like, you’re not using Salesforce, are you? Because I don’t want to use that. It was not fun to use, especially on a 56K DSL dial-up right when you were used to much more responsive on-prem servers and things like that. Now, throughout your career I imagine you’ve had certain moments that have been wake-up calls, aha moments, revelations. What’s a big aha moment that you’ve had in your career? Matt Pieper: 20:18 You know, this is one of those self-deprecating moments I think is the moment where I realized I don’t know everything, which makes me sound, like you know, some egotistical. Matt Pieper: 20:31 You know, when you’re, I think, in your 20s, right, you’re seeing the world from you know, a new perspective, you’re surrounded by other high performers and you just take everything and tackle it, right. And you know I’d worked on and we were consolidating a bunch of paper forms and saving hundreds of hours of manual energy a week. But even though we rolled that project out and hit all of our success metrics, I realized that we hadn’t taken everybody along for the ride and had the right change management and pushed them to really understand why we’re doing it, to really understand why we’re doing it, and because of that, I mean, we saved, you know, a lot of money for the company. But you know, most people thought the project was a failure at the beginning. Right, it took that time and energy. You know, saving it after the fact and explaining why we did it for us to, you know, really have that success story. So you know, to kind of recap, right, that all-home moment for me is to learn from others and really lean into their skill set. Josh Matthews: 21:38 And you know, you don’t know everything, so to be curious and ask others, it’s really great advice, and I think, too, there’s a lesson about patience as well. You know, the hard work that we often do now might not pay off for a very long time. I remember when I launched this business. It was maybe three or four months after launching the business that the website got launched, and at the time I told my developer I was like, look, no one’s going to find me, just whatever. I just want some information up there. It’s got to connect with my CRM, my ATS system, that kind of stuff. But I’m not expecting anyone to find me. Josh Matthews: 22:19 And then we started to do some blogs and we started to do some videos and we started to work on SEO a little bit and then kind of forgot about it. And I woke up two years later number one for the search Salesforce recruiter and a number of other things and it’s like, oh, it happened Like you. Just you have to plant those seeds and then you got to let them. Let them grow under the ground. It’s growing, even if you don’t see it, it’s growing Right. And so you’ve got to be patient for those first um, for for all that hard work you know to, to work on its own kind of feed itself, get the natural energy that it needs to bust out, see the light and then start offering some, some good fruit, some good nutrition right To a business. And it sounds real similar to this project that you worked on, matt. Matt Pieper: 23:07 Yeah, I think those are all all great points. I think you know personally, right, as someone with ADHD uh, patients isn ADHD, patience isn’t my virtue I need that immediate dopamine hit and, as I think, transitioning from an individual contributor engineer where I can literally see results as I type them and code them, that was a transition when I became a people manager or a leader. You’re still building, you’re still growing those teams and people, but instead of seeing those results immediately, you know it’s that coaching and mentoring. You know on a high performing team that you might not see for you know six months a year, three years, five years, and so you know it is. You know exactly, like you said, that patience and knowing that you know even those micro movements you do each day have an impact over the course of a career. Josh Matthews: 23:55 They do. One of the things I saw on your Twitter feed that I was really impressed with was your commitment to learning a new language using Duolingo and that you were ranked in the top 1% of users in the last year because of that daily practice, that daily commitment. What language are you learning and do you see a similarity between your commitment to working on that platform to improve your language skills? As you know, a way that people who are listening to this show can apply to their skill sets to develop and get better as employees in the Salesforce ecosystem. Matt Pieper: 24:31 Yeah, so my core language that I stick with through and throughout is Spanish. I picked it up in that habit because we were in Paris with my spouse and she would literally have to order for me everywhere we went, because the French don’t love to speak English and would rather prefer French, and I was just amazed at how, you know well, she was able to traverse, and that inspired me to pick up Spanish, a language that I’ve been taught for, you know, 10 years in grade school and retained zero of it, right? So, yeah, so Spanish is my core for the past. You know three years now, and then I, you know, mix in languages as we travel around the world. So you know, we’ve done Italy, we, you know Italian, we’ve done German, but Spanish is that day to day. But you know, that’s pretty much how I learned to code, too right Is you know putting in that effort day by day. Matt Pieper: 25:26 You know picking projects to learn and putting in that. You know those 10,000 hours, and so with Spanish, I do more than duolingo. You know I try to find, you know, news, articles and music, so I can help build that practice, which is to bring it back to work. Sadly, because we’re americans, you know that’s what I, you know, teach people to do right is as you learn a new language, whether that’s flow, whether that’s you know, ba skills and diagramming. You know, don’t just learn the book materials. Figure out those projects you can execute and do it, because that makes your brain think in a different way and actually has you retain that knowledge. But you know it’s difficult to think of those projects. So I always say, you know, just borrow from work. You know, if you’re witnessing something you know, think how would I build that differently and take it and lift it. So that’s really you know. To wrap both up is I believe in you know, that everyday practice and building a habit and really that’s how you continue to grow that tree from your earlier analogy. Josh Matthews: 26:22 It’s true. Yeah, it’s absolutely true. And it’s really difficult to learn how to break a bad habit and instill a new one. I just had my first golf lesson in 15 years and you know, it was certainly humbling and awesome all at once. And I’m talking to this fella, and he’s a neat guy. He’s been all over the world, he’s trained a lot of top professional golfers. He even told me a great story about teaching Baryshnikov golf. Of all people and for those who are maybe too young to recall, baryshnikov was a famous, the most famous ballet dancer in the world. Male or female, he was the most famous. He came from Russia and he eventually defected, at the height of the Cold War, to the United States. Josh Matthews: 27:11 They kind of made a sort of a movie about it called White Nights with Gregory Hines, and anyway, this guy was telling me some stories and he was talking about what it takes to break a habit and he shared a study that was done. I’m not going to go into too much detail, but basically it was 500 repetitions, 500 positive, correct, accurate repetitions to develop this new habit or break a habit and build a new one, 500. And if you keep messing up, it could be 1,000, it could be 1,500 repetitions, and so you know, the lesson that I got from that message today was about patience with yourself and patience with others around you who are trying. They’re trying to do things differently, they’re trying to improve their habits, they’re trying to get better at work, they’re trying to get better in their communication, they’re trying to get better knowing where on the screen to click right All those things. Josh Matthews: 28:07 But that is a lot of repetitions to get to the point of comfort, and Stephen, if he was on speaker right now, would easily be able to tell you about the repetitions it takes to become competent in a musical instrument, because he was a jazz trombonist all through college. So you know this kind of have some grace for yourself, like allow yourself, you know, potentially hundreds of mistakes while you’re on the road. Just don’t quit, just don’t stop right, you keep doing it. And you’re on the road, just don’t quit, just don’t stop right, you keep doing it and you’re just going to wake up one day with these skill sets that make you a badass Kind of cool stuff. Vanessa Grant: 28:40 So when I was at Dreaming in Color, one of the sessions that I saw was a Pay my Limbs session. Vanessa Grant: 28:45 She had like top Tinder secrets to finding the right match in your career or something like that. Vanessa Grant: 28:51 It was a cute session but one of the, I think, takeaways that she had early on she is a pretty prolific content creators, particularly on LinkedIn, you know, with her posts, and one of her signatures really is that she does these kind of stick figures and she has a stick figure kind of for each persona. Vanessa Grant: 29:08 That would be on a Salesforce consulting project. And she was describing about how, when she first started on the stick figures, you know she didn’t really quite know what she was doing. She felt a little bit uncomfortable, kind of drawing them digitally or how she was going to do it, and all she did was decide that she was going to do a drawing every day and she says now she can bust them out so much quicker and they’re an integral part of her content creation. Now she has so much fun with them. All of her stuff is branded with this stuff and it really is a testament to you know, just even if you don’t feel like you’re great at something today, like if you keep doing it for a year, you know what You’ll be better, for sure. Josh Matthews: 29:50 Absolutely. I mean, take some top 10 most famous YouTube people ever and go watch the stuff that they were producing in 2007, right, or 2009. Just watch that stuff, you know it’s like oh yeah, it’s just a repetition thing to get good at anything, even this podcast. I mean, I’d already been running Clubhouse for I don’t know six months a year. I can’t even remember when you joined as co-host, vanessa. I think we’re doing a lot better than a couple of years ago. What do you think? Vanessa Grant: 30:22 I don’t know. I’m still nervous every time, Josh, but I’m still working. No, I’m just kidding. No, I think you’re—, but so is Travon right? Josh Matthews: 30:34 You just said so is Travon Williams right? Travon C Williams? Yeah, that he still gets that way. I don’t get nervous, I just sort of lament when I botch it, usually technically right, yeah, yeah, I will you know. Vanessa Grant: 30:43 And to the other thing, as far as changing bad habits, I don’t think I told you, josh, I’m a month vape-free now. Josh Matthews: 30:51 Oh, I didn’t even know you were on the vape. Yeah, you must have known. Oh, yeah, I must have known. Well, congratulations. Vanessa Grant: 31:01 Not the vapes that maybe LeafLink. Josh Matthews: 31:03 Not the LeafLink vapes. Yeah, nicotine. Vanessa Grant: 31:07 Let me just clarify. Josh Matthews: 31:10 Well, congratulations. You know when you can get it. A month Now. I am a nicotine fiend. I chew Nicorette and smoke cigars like it’s going out of style. I’ve just accepted, that’s who I am. I learned that from Robin Williams’s role in the Fisher King. He said you got to figure out are you a smoker or not a smoker and then stick with it. So I’m sticking with it. Josh Matthews: 31:29 I’m trying to do the thing that hopefully won’t kill me as fast as cigarettes, but it’s a really big deal to make it 30 days, because that first four or five days that’s the physical withdrawal and then when you get to 30, it’s the social stuff. That’s the all the triggers that make you want to reach for it. Your mom calls go grab a smoke. You want to read a book, go grab a smoke. You just had a difficult call with whatever a team member or a client go grab a smoke. You just ate, got to get that food taste out of your mouth right, like it’s just how it works, and so it’s a really big deal. So congratulations to you. I think that’s awesome. I don’t know if this is clapping or a laugh track. It’s clapping. Yay for Vanessa. Vanessa Grant: 32:11 Sounded like hissing for a second. Josh Matthews: 32:12 Yeah, yeah, I got to work on that file, I suppose. Vanessa Grant: 32:17 But I think, just again, more of a testament to things do get easier the more that you do them. And I was even like looking at you know, like even speaking sessions, you know, because we just did the submissions for Dreamforce this year and I was like, wow, I’ve been speaking for like three years now, it is so much easier. Yeah, here, and I was like, wow, I’ve been speaking for like three years now, it is so much easier. So, yeah, anyway, just just amplifying, I’m, I’m, I think that’s a really big takeaway Just keep doing something, it will get easier. Josh Matthews: 32:44 You’re amplifying Matt Pieper’s voice. I love it. Vanessa Grant: 32:46 Well done I need to be doing that more often. Matt’s got a Matt Matt. Matt always has a good take. So especially on LinkedIn, I don’t know if anybody is not following Matt, but please follow Matt and I’ll throw out there. I actually discovered Matt through Jack McCurdy’s Gearset podcast, devops Diaries. Matt, besides being super intelligent about where the tea leaves are moving as far as the Salesforce ecosystem goes, gosh Matt, you know so much about DevOps. It’s awesome. Super, super fan. Matt Pieper: 33:27 I appreciate those kind words I think I say usually on my posts, right? I don’t know, I’m just a grumpy old dude who’s been around the block and just likes to share what I’ve learned, right? I don’t know, I’m just a grumpy old dude who’s been around the block and just likes to share what I’ve learned, right, so others don’t have to go through the same trials and tribulations I have. But I certainly appreciate those words. Josh Matthews: 33:42 How could you possibly identify yourself as a grumpy old dude? Honest to God, what are you hanging out with a bunch of 25 year olds? You’ve never been grumpy with me, so there’s that, and you don’t look old I. I’m sure I’ve got you beat on age, buddy, but so if you’re old. Matt Pieper: 34:01 What’s that make me? I do work with a bunch of 25 year olds. I work in tech for the the past decade, so it’s every year I I learn new lingo and and new new slang, so that keeps me young at heart there you go now. Josh Matthews: 34:14 You went to university of louisville. What year did you graduate? Matt Pieper: 34:17 uh, so I was a non-traditional student, so when I say what year I graduate, it actually is nowhere near my age, but I, after I feel like in tommy boy right, like lots of people, go to school for eight years, matt, they’re called doctors, but I I graduated my under my both my undergrads in 2010 from from louisville, and then I got my mba from ohio state in 2013 good for you. Josh Matthews: 34:44 Yeah, my brother went to ohio state. The ohio state the ohio state is for his master’s, in fact. Matt Pieper: 34:49 Yeah, that’s awesome, yeah I I don’t get the the haters because it’s also the university of louisville, it’s. You know their actual title as well, so I’ve never understood why people dislike the ohio state as much I think it’s just from from. Josh Matthews: 35:03 you know d1 football, because you know, like you know, when they do the big announcements or not, even, not even ncaa, like nfl, when they do the announcements and everybody says their, says their university, and then, and then they, you know, and then it’s always the Ohio state. So you know, maybe it’s that, I don’t know. Matt Pieper: 35:23 Yeah, it doesn’t hurt that we we tried to trademark. You know the word as well. Josh Matthews: 35:27 Yeah, trademark T-H-E. Good luck with that. Matt Pieper: 35:36 Well, so someone trademarked a letter, so there you go, that is true. Josh Matthews: 35:37 That is true, strange days, and we’re on that platform right now. Let’s talk. I’d like to switch gears for just a little bit here. Matt and we didn’t talk too much or at length too much, about what the market might be like for certain people in the ecosystem right now, and during this conversation, which wasn’t very long and happened about 1030 this now, and during this conversation, which wasn’t very long and happened about 1030 this morning. But during this discussion, we both agreed yeah, it’s not. Today’s market isn’t the same market. It was 12 months ago, certainly not the same market. It was two years ago for those who are looking to grow their career in the ecosystem. Josh Matthews: 36:11 Now I’m going to put a little caveat in here before we talk about this, and I will. Josh Matthews: 36:16 I will tell you that the top people, top 10% of people in any ecosystem, they’re always hard to find, they’re always hard to to to get their attention and they’re always difficult to get them to move, because part of why they’re, you know, the best of the best is companies that they work for know it. They don’t want to let them go. So it and often because we know from, because I know everybody listened to the last podcast that got that got released about happiness. We also know that these top performers are also generally happy people, and so how do you get someone to leave a company where they’re happy to go to another company to be more happy? It’s a little bit difficult, so what we’re going to talk about won’t necessarily apply to those folks, but let’s talk about what you’re seeing in the marketplace as far as challenges that Salesforce professionals might currently be experiencing in either acquiring a first job or switching out of the current role that they’re in or getting a promotion. What are you seeing? Matt Pieper: 37:17 Yeah, I think it’s a very topical topic right now. I think we’ve all seen the digital transformation of the past two decades, and then especially pandemic and post pandemic, where companies were almost printing cash to help with these transformation projects and that brought staff right. Josh Matthews: 37:40 There’s a lot of free government money going on too. Yeah, cheap rates too. Matt Pieper: 37:46 Yeah, you know, and you know what the average tenure of a CIO is two to three years, right, because that’s as far as they think, and then those projects turn over, and then sales right. When they start to slip, you see those internal systems roles get cut, and so we’ve seen all of those headwinds, right, so I think it’s not as easy for those entry-level roles anymore, right, where you can just come in and we have time to train up and doing that right, because a lot of companies, you know their senior talent, even their mid right, is focused on delivery. We also saw, you know, unfortunately, some consultancies get hit and a flood of talent onto the market, and so, you know, a lot of those got picked up by customers. So I’m just not seeing that ground swell, as I, you know, be used to. But, that being said, I think if I were looking, you know, to either enter the market right or be that mid tier, it’s really focusing on non Salesforce specific skills. Okay. Josh Matthews: 38:46 That’s interesting. We’ve talked to Vanessa has talked a little bit about that. I’m, before I say anything, what are the? Let’s just pick three things that maybe people could do right now to help bolster their knowledge, their capability to do a good job. I’m saying this in a very specific way, matt and audience, because sometimes people go out and they’re just cert junkies. They just want to go get another certification. They think the more the merrier. It’s not always the case. It’s really about acquiring the skill sets to provide the most value for the company that’s going to employ you, right? So what are, say, three things? Whether it’s search, tech, knowledge, whatever it is, what are the top three that you would recommend to people? Matt Pieper: 39:30 Yeah. So I’ll preface these three answers with I’m a big believer in the T-shaped skills paradigm, right, where you and I think it’s another one of those Amazon things that I think they coined and we all stole in the tech world but you know, you know a little bit about a lot of things, right, and that’s really the flat level of the T. That’s really the flat level of the T. And then you know a lot about one or two particular things and that’s really the vertical part of that T, and so we talk about T-shaped skills a lot in my world. So when I look at the three things that I would say to dive into, it’s related but unrelated to Salesforce right, which is general computer science and data modeling paradigms, right, going out there and stealing from you know computer engineering programs, like how do you, how do these core systems work, right, outside of the drag and drop in the database, like really, how does this work? Josh Matthews: 40:28 Yeah. Matt Pieper: 40:29 Because that sets you apart from a lot of folks, right? Because we know what to do in a system, but we don’t explain how it works and what those deep skills are, and that sets you apart, right? Josh Matthews: 40:42 Well, it’s like I turn my water on, you know, in the kitchen, and the water just shows up. I’m not quite sure how it gets there. I’ve got an idea. It gets there. I’ve got an idea. I did read enough of Ulysses by James Joyce and he spends about 20 pages describing how the water got from one, from the lake into you know, the guy’s teapot, right? So there’s that, but like really really getting it, and so you’re talking about being very grounded in computer science is what it sounds like. Matt Pieper: 41:10 Yeah, yeah, I mean, you don’t need to be you know, going deep into neural networks and understanding the ins and outs of particular nodes or even notation theory, but knowing things such as database performance and latency network, the seven layers of an OSI diagram. An OSI diagram Because, especially if you’re looking in a tech market right or a tech role in Salesforce in a tech company, that’s the language your engineers and the product engineering team speak and you show yourself as valuable, not only on maybe the business systems or the GTM or the RevOps side, but also some transferable skills over there and that makes you more of a you know that utility or Swiss Army knife. Josh Matthews: 41:54 Yeah, that makes sense. And and you know, do you know the? You know, do you know what open systems interconnection is is a great question. When you’re screening people, someone says that they’re a bad-ass developer or they’re a great architect. Ask them this and you’ll figure it out real quick whether they know even some of the core basics. It’s’s like what’s a bass clef to a musician you know, you gotta know, you gotta know this stuff yeah, and it’s you know. Matt Pieper: 42:22 Part of that is I always stress on my teams right, you know, you’re not just sales force, you’re, you’re part of a enterprise engineering or business systems team. Right, we support multiple platforms, we support the business, and so the more you pick up those skills, the more broad you are. The second thing I would say is, especially now that flows are flooding the market, learn engineering. You don’t have to know code, but know the SDLC or the software development lifecycle. Matt Pieper: 42:51 Know why testing is important. Know why we use for loops. Know why we use breaks out of testing is important. Know why we use for loops. Know why we use breaks out of those for loops. Know why we use error handling and please, please, please, use error handling. If you don’t know anything about error handling, reach out to me. I will spend as much time as possible to teach you. It’s that important Flow is code. We can say it’s no code, all we want, but under the hood it’s code, it’s doing everything I would do as an Apex developer and you need to learn those skills. Go to Code Academy, write very easy intro level courses, very easy to follow along. Yeah. Josh Matthews: 43:26 And I’m going to jump in and plug. I’m just going to plug real quick that we actually have an episode that you can listen to. It’s actually a video. You can find it just type in Josh for us on YouTube and it’s how Salesforce flows can enhance your career and help your business. So and that’s with Christina Nava. So you can definitely check that out. If it’s an area that you’re unfamiliar with and you kind of want to just like, well, give me 40 minutes or half an hour to just like get, get this from a pro and understand what I’m getting myself into, I think it’s a really great episode to check out. Matt Pieper: 44:01 Oh yeah, awesome, I’ll, I know, I’ll check it out. The third skill I would say is sales. And this is weird coming from from me, right, I’m a finance and an engineer, but knowing sales, especially if you’re supporting a GTM team, is great, because then you know those processes. But, outside the obvious, you’re always selling yourself, right, whether that’s your promotion, whether that is a project that you want to do, whether that’s maybe some tech debt you want to burn down for your boss, you’re always selling yourself. And so knowing those particular skills and how to frame it and how to tell that story more importantly, is invaluable, especially if you’re on the job hunt. Right, what sets you apart? You know, the best sellers aren’t passive, right, they’re not just submitting resumes. They’re submitting that resume and following up, and following up with action, right, and making it easy for their customers to execute on it. Josh Matthews: 44:55 Don’t make them think right, Absolutely. And we actually have Dylan Ferguson, who’s go-to-market expert. He’s with Fullcast. He’s going to be our guest in two weeks from today. Same bat time, same bat channel. And you want to learn how to crush your revenue goals and learn all about GTM? That will be the show to come to. Vanessa Grant: 45:19 So it’s a really topical thing that you’re bringing up right now. Yeah, I’d actually be curious. Matt, I know that you have an MBA. I have an MBA. I, while I don’t think an MBA is necessarily required for success in the Salesforce ecosystem, I have found that process of getting my MBA to be really valuable as a way to sell myself to people that actually have money to pay me to do things. Because I can speak a certain way. It’s almost like learning a different language than I grew up with. Josh Matthews: 45:46 Yeah, you’ve brought that up before, vanessa about how getting the lexicon down right so that you’re not caught in alphabet soup or word soup where you have to look up absolutely everything. It’s like when you’re talking the same language as business leaders and you’re responsible for the system that helps them to sell, then it makes sense to understand that language. Vanessa Grant: 46:10 Yeah, matt, did you find that you benefited from your MBA at all, or how did you learn to kind of communicate your value? Matt Pieper: 46:18 Oh man. So my spouse and I joke about this all the time because we both went to the same grad school and got the same piece of paper and we always laugh about it. So the particular content I don’t think I particularly use daily. Right, content I don’t think I particularly use daily. I’m not putting together a marketing campaign or putting together derivative schedules, because I was a super nerd and learned corporate finance in my MBA. Matt Pieper: 46:46 But I will say, knowing what people who use that language think and act is a very tremendous value, right, whether being able to talk to a cfo or talk to chief marketing officer and use their language. Right, my mba was was very in person and on purpose. It was talking to people and from different walks of life than me every day. Right, I came out of the military, you know, went into engineering for a little bit and then went to grad school, so I was still very, very wet behind the ears and talking to as many people as possible was with tremendous value and that’s something you get to do without having an MBA. Right, you can just go on LinkedIn, go to networking, listen to podcasts and get it. But yeah, the vernacular I use Synergy and Buy for Kate and Leverage at least once a week, vanessa, so those were totally worth all the money for that MBA Buy for Kate. Josh Matthews: 47:40 That’s awesome, man. Good questions, vanessa, really good ones. So you shared, you know, understanding the GTM language. Basically, you talked a little bit about understanding how information systems work SELC, you know. Is there a certification that you’re like? Like Vanessa, is a big fan of people going out and getting their getting some sort of scrum cert right. Is there something like that that’s outside of the typical, typical Salesforce ecosystem that you would recommend people investigate, rather than maybe 60 grand in two or three years on an MBA, something that they can achieve, you know, this summer, something they can achieve in the next six months? Matt Pieper: 48:20 Yeah, you know, this summer something they can achieve in the next six months? Yeah, so you know, part of my side is you know, certs are great if you know the knowledge right, get the knowledge, understand it and then get your cert, because it makes it so much easier than just cramming for for a piece of paper, especially if you don’t even know if you’ll like it, right. So I say, go out there. If your company has access to LinkedIn Learning, use it. There’s some pretty decent videos out there, some pretty bad ones. Same thing with Udemy, but go down the rabbit hole on computer science. Matt Pieper: 48:52 I think MIT and Harvard both actually, and Stanford all have computer science certificates open for free. And you’re looking at some of the top-notch engineering schools right. If you’re looking at the business terms, there’s a lot of brief MBA classes out there where you can learn that material without diving in. Sure Excel knowledge right, if you can teach anyone Excel. You’re golden Python, right, if you’re in there. But dabble a little bit, find out what interests you and then go down deep. But I say, use all those free programs. There’s enough out there now that you don’t need to spend the cash if you don’t have to. Josh Matthews: 49:32 Yeah, it’s like why go to college when there’s YouTube? Josh Matthews: 49:35 right, Except that you just might be signing up for the wrong classes, yeah, or chat GPT, and I I’ll tell you guys, I am a massive fan. I’ll say I’m gonna say this every single week all summer I am a massive fan of perplexity. I don’t google anything at all anymore, at all like none, unless I’m maybe doing like an audio. Hey, you know, sir, like google this for me. Like who’s that actor from that movie? Like that’s it. Otherwise, I’m using perplexity. Anyone here who’s got a speaker microphone that they’re on right now? Is anyone on this show other than me using this product? Vanessa Grant: 50:11 Since you turned me on to it, I’ve actually been using it, particularly when I’m like helping my my younger son on on his papers, cause I love that it cites where it got the information from so that way we, when we’re talking about like, okay, I have to, we, we have to work on writing out something on charles dickens, all right, well, was this accurate? Vanessa Grant: 50:34 if chat gpt gave it to me, I don’t know, unless it gives me all the sources but perplexity automatically doesn’t. Then I can dig in further and go okay, that’s a good source, and also teach him what, what quality sources look like. Josh Matthews: 50:46 Yeah, and it’s great for just your personal life. I mean, whether it’s tech or figuring out resume or like what’s out there, you can get real time data in a in a way that’s very digestible and can help you just move forward without having to scroll down past 10 sponsored links you know, you don’t know what you’re going to get. Josh Matthews: 51:06 And at least now, when you say you know, I like to say, well, you know. It’s not like I learned this from the internet. I learned this from perplexity, like a really smart system that figured it out the most important common stuff and kind of got rid of all the garbage. Vanessa Grant: 51:21 Well, I also use perplexity to ask it what you know, tell me about Vanessa Grant, who works in the Salesforce ecosystem. I was like I wonder what the internet thinks of me, and perplexity was very happy to oblige. Josh Matthews: 51:32 Yeah, that’s. That’s an interesting thing. I don’t think I’ve done done that before. And it had sources, which was great, yeah, apparently and for anyone who doesn’t know who Vanessa Grant perplexity does right. Vanessa Grant is a prominent figure in the Salesforce ecosystem and she’s known for her extensive experience and contributions to the community. And it gives you a ton of information. This is so cool. Vanessa Grant: 51:57 Right, I’m typing in Matt right now. We’re going to see what the internet has to say about that, there you go If it doesn’t have grumpy old man in it. Matt Pieper: 52:04 I’m going to just be disappointed. Peter Ganza: 52:06 Yeah, I want in on this game, by the way. Okay, man. Vanessa Grant: 52:10 Oh, seasoned professional with extensive experience in the Salesforce ecosystem involved with Salesforce for over 10 years goes through your insights, a little bit of your career history, and this is the part I wanted to see if it was going to pick up on it. Matt is also active in sharing his thoughts and experiences through various platforms, because what I have definitely noticed since Matt kind of came onto my radar is how much more you post and also how much more, I would say, or maybe less filtered your posts have been over the course of the last year where you’re sharing a lot of your thoughts, but particularly like a lot of thoughts that will cause engagement within folks in the ecosystem and I do find that so interesting and just I learned so much by reading your you know the comments on a lot of your posts, just because people will come in with different viewpoints and it’s another great way to educate yourself on happenings in this ecosystem and where some of the challenges are and different perspectives on things. Matt Pieper: 53:09 Yeah right, we talk about brand and selling yourself and I don’t know if it’s a good or bad thing, but when we talk about my brand, it is transparent, right and unfiltered. I don’t follow the typical. You know LinkedIn, you know social media influencer it’s a disgusting phrase to me when I say it. You know I don’t have a game plan, I don’t have content, I don’t do any of that. I just talk about what I am feeling, that you know day or that week, and sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Josh Matthews: 53:41 Look man, it’s authentic right. Matt Pieper: 53:43 And people like authentic. Josh Matthews: 53:47 You know, whenever I’m, if I’m writing a blog or something, and it starts, I start to get rigid. I do a ton of research, start putting this stuff in. I’m like God, this sounds like shit, like this doesn’t even sound like me. It’s like it’s like you’re gripping the bat too tight. Right, just loosen up. And and I get it, man, because I can say some things that can be a little bit provocative. I might, I might offend, you know, millions of people. They wouldn’t be offended because they’d never listened to me, but I might offend millions of people accidentally, accidentally and and never really know. And so, you know, you learn to kind of like rain it in rain, it in rain, it in. And then the older you get, the more you learn to loosen the reins, loosen the reins and just kind of trust yourself. But this is like learning anything right. Josh Matthews: 54:30 Years ago I was 14 years old. I was 14 years old and I was learning how to fly glider planes. Right, this is an airplane with no engine, get towed, they let you go, and then you have to go fly it around and land the thing. And these wingspans are 70, 80 feet. It’s massive, massive things. Josh Matthews: 54:50 And one tiny little adjustment you start swinging and then you try to correct and now you’re basically like a crazy yo-yo, right? You keep over-correcting, over-correcting, over-correcting. It’s a great way to crash, right, just like driving. You know, you stick your kid in the car, you put him behind the wheel, tell him to to go, they gun the gas, they slam on the brakes, they turn really hard. Everything, as we age and get more competent with things, is about subtlety and and relax, relaxing into it. It’s just like those 500 reps that we talked about, right, matt? Those 500 reps of accurate things that you need to do to change or improve a bad habit. So, whether it’s pay doing her stick figures, vanessa, who’s probably done 500 speaking engagements by now, I would assume, right or Matt, with what you’re talking about, it’s all about getting the reps in, trusting the process and then kind of letting go and trusting yourself to. You can go on autopilot. Matt Pieper: 55:46 I’m on autopilot, right now and and that’s a valid point too and I think you know, while we’re talking about tools like perplexity, right, or co-pilot, they’re great tools, right, just like a hammer is a hammer and a screwdriver is a screwdriver. They might be a very smart hammer or a very smart screwdriver, but don’t lean on them too much while you’re learning new skills. I’ve learned through all the mistakes and errors that I’ve done and then going back and asking myself why right? And going through those five whys we saw this evolution with Google right, then Stack Overflow, stack Exchange, trailer, community, ohana, where it’s easy to ask and search for your answer and it’s less pushing on your own brain to learn those things. Matt Pieper: 56:33 Now, if it’s a formula that you’re going to use a thousand times and you don’t care, just Google it and use it, right. But if you’re learning a concept, struggle with with it, just struggle for it and then, when you get stuck, use your tool to a minimum and then get unstuck. And continuing to get unstuck, because if you just ask a computer for the answer every time, you’re gonna get a lot of unoriginal thoughts and answers and that won’t set you apart, especially when posting guys like oh man the rocket, like like we can see the chat generating. You know the AI and generated posts that aren’t filtered. Right. Use your voice and use it as a tool, just like you would spell check or anything else. Pick up that skill, but use it as a tool, not to replace yourself. Josh Matthews: 57:16 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Don’t confuse McDonald’s with fine dining, right, like it takes a lot. You got to spend more money on the groceries. You got to really, you know, spend more money at the restaurant or spend more time in your own kitchen and make really good food. You can get food. It’s really cheap. It’s kind of like going to Google for the answer, but to really have it, be thoughtful, creative and maybe have a dramatic, a much more dramatic impact. Whether it’s a post dinner code doesn’t matter. Spend a little bit more time and, by the way, it takes a lot more time than people think. Tell me if this is the case for you. Josh Matthews: 57:52 Vanessa, peter, I’m I’m interested in your perspectives as well on this. How many times have you had someone come to you and say, hey, I need some help with my career or with this skill set, or what have you? Whether it’s I want to be a better admin or I want to be a better BA, or I want to get a better job or want more money, whatever it is, how many times has someone come to you with this problem and then you’ve asked them how long have they worked on it and what have they done? And they’ve done almost nothing right. How long has this problem been? Josh Matthews: 58:23 That’s a great question, great. How long have you had this problem and what have you done so far to solve it? And you’re going to really understand someone very, very quickly that way. So you know sort of a key point to all the listeners out there like you got to think creatively, you got to push yourself, you got to put yourself out there, but push yourself. You got to put yourself out there. But tell me, vanessa, peter, matt, have you been exposed to that sort of thing where people just want help, they just want to ask, but they, they, they won’t do for themselves what they’re asking of you to do for them. Vanessa Grant: 58:49 Oh yeah, constantly, I mean it’s. I would say I probably get one of those at least every, I would say, week or two, where honestly it’s they’re reaching out to me cause I guess I just happen to be right in front of them on online, as opposed to actually like opening up another tab and doing a couple of Google searches or a perplexity search or something, before reaching out to me with questions that they’re wanting me to do the homework for them, and I don’t love that. I mean I can, usually, at least at this point at least, I’ve got a couple of like super, super generic resources like hey, have you seen Trailhead? And sometimes that’s enough. They probably shouldn’t be reaching out to me for that answer, but yeah, yeah. Josh Matthews: 59:36 Expand Exchange. That’s another good one. Vanessa Grant: 59:38 It’s Expand Exchange Also also, also also a good one. But yeah, it happens really frequently. It’s it’s mostly people just I don’t think thinking through the, the conversation that they’re about to have with me, just kind of going like oh there’s somebody, she probably knows stuff. I’ll just ask, without really thinking through you know the mental load or the burden or the? You know what I’m asking of them, that I should actually be doing? Josh Matthews: 1:00:03 myself. Yeah, yeah, I get a bunch of those every single week and it’s like, yeah, I got a video for that one. I got two podcasts that’ll answer that other question. Like, have you even looked like? Have you tried to find this information? You know what about you, peter? Peter Ganza: 1:00:20 I’d say at least one a week and it’s, I can pretty much say, almost always Geared towards, you know, let’s say, an admin or an architect that wants to get a job at a partner right Because I work with partners right, and it’s depressing that it’s always the same shit. It’s I have this many certs and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you know, send me, get me a job. And I literally just always say the same thing. I’m like it’s not about certs, okay, great that you did that. That says a lot. But do something. I mean be different. Be you know, be genuine. Go and build something. I mean be different, be you know, be genuine. Go and build something. Go and find a partner, find you know an issue that they may have and build something cool for them. I don’t give a shit A blackjack game for the CEO who happens to like blackjack, whatever, but do something, you know. And yeah, that’s my take. Josh Matthews: 1:01:16 Yeah, and I will say for all those people who you may have just been called out by everyone here, that is not to say that, like for a lot of people, they have done all the work for themselves, they have researched and now they’re stuck. Okay, now you come and ask Vanessa, ask Peter, ask Matt, ask me, ask Steven, right, then it’s okay. You know so there are people who are not shy, they’re willing to lean on other people for their time, take their time to get some sort of a benefit, even without, you know, sharing any kind of return value, and that’s okay sometimes, right? So it’s okay to, it’s okay to ask. You just want to do a little search on your own first, just a little bit, because it shows that you’re committed and that you are accountable. Right, you’re taking ownership to a degree, as Vanessa. I’m just going to point out what you said Trayvon said earlier at Dreaming in Color, which is look up in the sky, there’s no superheroes coming down. Vanessa Grant: 1:02:18 Yeah, and I would also say, in addition to trying to get as far as you can, before you reach out to somebody, also make sure that the person you’re websites dedicated to that. I think there’s also sometimes I’ll get questions like, hey, can you tell me how to be? You know, you know, can you tell me about developer jobs? And I don’t know if they, like you know, took the wrong turn on LinkedIn or something, but I don’t that. That is definitely not my. You know, I’m definitely not developer all day Like. There’s lots of folks like Warren Walters or Matt who who would be better people to talk about developer careers, business analysis. People can come to me anytime and I’m and I’m thrilled to answer those questions. Vanessa Grant: 1:03:13 So I would say just make sure that you and just because somebody asked me something that maybe isn’t in my wheelhouse, sometimes I might even try to answer, which isn’t necessarily even great either. So because you just want to make sure that, even if you are getting a response, that it’s going to be a thoughtful response from somebody who actually knows what they’re talking about rather than just saying something because you asked them. Josh Matthews: 1:03:34 Well, that’s why when people ask me, well, tell me about Salesforce I just I give them Matthew McConaughey’s number. I’m like, this guy knows everything about Salesforce, Just call him. Matt Pieper: 1:03:43 He is the sheriff. Josh Matthews: 1:03:44 He is the sheriff. Peter Ganza: 1:03:46 It takes. It takes a lot. I mean that’s. That’s a bad example. But the ones that I get, and probably Vanessa, for the most part they’re trying right. Yes, and that that takes, you know, that says something. Josh Matthews: 1:03:59 So I pretty much always respond and I know I sounded kind of dismissive but no, I reach out because, Look, if someone’s under 25, yeah, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. If you’re 40 and you’re coming to me with that, then it’s like come on, Google Perplexity. Peter Ganza: 1:04:18 And the other thing I just wanted to add was I always talk about this all the time from first-hand experience is go to events, go online user groups, go to dreaming events, whatever. You can network without an agenda, right, just like you were talking about earlier, the group was talking about early on. You know, don’t have an agenda, just meet people for the sake of meeting people, go for a drink, bond and whatever you have. You have no idea. Well, you probably do, but years later and just random stuff happens and I have more than one example of, oh, I just happened to meet this person and then a couple of years later, oh, he thought of me and had this job and boom, boom, boom. Literally just the universe comes together in the weirdest way. So, network without an agenda. Josh Matthews: 1:05:03 Yeah, and it’s so cool. The great thing about a network is there’s no two networks are alike. Vanessa, peter, matt, me, stephen we’re all in the same ecosystem, but my network is significantly different than any of yours. Each of yours is significantly different than any of yours. Each of yours is significantly different from one another’s. So when you have a network, just know it’s your own. You’re responsible for it. You’re responsible for culling it when it’s not good, for growing it, when it’s too small, for elevating it, when the people in your network can no longer provide the kind of value or you can no longer provide value to them. Right, it’s your own. It’s your little baby. Look after it, feed it, take care of it. Matt Pieper: 1:05:52 Yeah, I think on that note too right, I’m a huge introvert, right, I fake it when I need to, which is every day, all day. But if you’re an introvert and you’re afraid to walk up to somebody, that’s okay. Find them afterwards or get their name and shoot them a message and start there. And then my advice always is make it about them. People love to talk about themselves, so instead of asking for help, try to figure out a way to ask a question where they can talk about their experience and share it. That way, I think those are always my top two go-tos. Josh Matthews: 1:06:25 Ask questions and, matt, I hope you won’t be offended, but I do want to clarify introvert and shyness aren’t the same thing. They often go hand in hand, but it’s not the same thing, that’s true. Josh Matthews: 1:06:35 So you can be shy and an extrovert and you can be, you know, outgoing and an introvert. So that’s possibility. Just cause we talk about this kind of stuff, I just want to throw a little caveat in there. But these are really great points, guys. This has been a fun show. It’s been kind of a relaxed show, I think, don’t you? Vanessa Grant: 1:06:51 I’ve really, I’ve really enjoyed the show. I would love to have Matt Matt come back sometime. Love, talking to you, Matt. Matt Pieper: 1:06:58 Of course I. I’m surrounded by greatness, so anytime. Josh Matthews: 1:07:01 Matt, you are always welcome on the show. Let’s do a little wrap-up here. We are approaching 7 o’clock. A couple quick announcements For those of you who have made it almost a full 90 minutes. Boy, are you awesome and really special, and clearly you don’t have anything else going on. So thank you for listening. Could you do us a favor? Could you give us a little thumbs up or or like? On whatever platform you’re on, whether it’s Spotify, Apple, you name it, you know iHeartRadio, whatever it is If the platform you’re on allows for a comment, we’d love to hear what you have to say. Josh Matthews: 1:07:34 Where could we improve? What could we do differently? What aspects of the show are the most impactful for you? What kinds of guests would you like to see in the future? What kind of impact, if any, has the show made on you? We’d love to see that. It’ll probably be replicated on the website as well. If you missed the first part, you can visit salesforcecareershowcom. It’s our new website and it’s pretty awesome because it’s very simple, but you can access all of our episodes there. You can see who’s going to be a guest and you can also see who’s been a guest in the past Not all of them. That’s coming. That page is coming, but it’d be great and you can hear what other people are saying. More importantly, you can request to be a guest as well and, by the way, everyone who listens to the live show is welcome to raise their hand and come up on the stage, share your thoughts or ask a question. We love answering questions on this show and I think the live stuff it tends to get quieter in the summer, Don’t you think, Vanessa? Vanessa Grant: 1:08:28 Yeah, probably. Josh Matthews: 1:08:29 You know, I mean it’s also just X too. Josh Matthews: 1:08:31 Yeah, and yeah, it might be X, it might be. It might be the summertime, it’s. Just look, if it’s nice out and it’s 5.30 where you are, I don’t know if you want to sit in your house listening to a live show. Maybe you do. If you do, then that’s great because we’re great for that. But in the wintertime it’s a little bit busier because it’s like, well, what else is going on? But we love running this show. We want to continue to bring you great guests, great content, great insights on how to hire, get hired or soar higher in Salesforce ecosystem. Thank you to Matt Pieper, p-i-e-p-e-r. You can find him on LinkedIn. Follow him, listen to what he has to say, comment on his stuff, give him a thumbs up. Same with my friend Vanessa Grant, same with my friend Peter Ganza, and I got everyone’s name right three in a row. So I’m going to pat myself on the back and maybe go enjoy a nice cigar right now. Matt, thank you for being here today and you are absolutely welcome anytime. Josh Matthews: 1:09:30 Please, everybody be aware that we’re going to be back two weeks at 530 Eastern 230 Pacific. We’ve got Dylan Ferguson, go-to market expert is going to be our guest. We have a number of great guests coming up. We’ve got Chris Ferguson, go-to market expert, is going to be our guest. We have a number of great guests coming up. We’ve got Chris Newdecker. We’ve got a ton of folks. Just go to the website, you’ll see what’s going on. Lots of great, great folks, and we hope that all of them can be as good as our special guest, matt Pieper, today. So thank you, matt, and thank you to all our listeners. You guys are the reason why we run this show and I hope everybody has an amazing next couple of weeks. Vanessa, feel free to shout out any final messages and then we’ll go ahead and sign off. Vanessa Grant: 1:10:06 I’ll just say thank you, josh, for keeping us moving along, and you don’t get enough kudos on this, so thank you, josh. Josh Matthews: 1:10:14 You’re very sweet, thank you. Vanessa Grant: 1:10:18 And just throwing it out there, just because I know folks are getting their announcements or their replies. Congrats to everybody that was chosen as a Dreamforce speaker this year and for folks that did not get chosen, please, I encourage you to speak at local Trailblazer community groups. I know Ian Gotts is putting together a website so folks can put up their content. There’s lots of places that you can still speak at. You can talk to me if you have any project management, consultant, business analyst content that you want to share and come speak to my group. But that’s right now, at over 100 members. 100, 500 members right now, Goodness. But yeah, congrats to everybody and if it was bad news, don’t let it discourage. You Just want to end on that. Josh Matthews: 1:10:58 Yeah, minimally. You got the 35% discount to your ticket right Just for submitting, and I had submitted for a session, vanessa had submitted, she and I for a separate session. We didn’t get either of those, but that’s okay. You know, sometimes there’s very specific things that they’re looking for during Dreamforce. Some things are really well suited for it, other things just aren’t. So don’t worry about it. There’s a lot of competition and getting to say that your Dreamforce speaker is nice to have, but I don’t know if anyone’s ever got paid more money because of it. Maybe they have, I don’t know. I don’t think so, though. Right, so it’s not. Don’t worry, it’s not the end of your dreams for Dreamforce and hopefully we’ll get to see you there. I’ll be there, vanessa will be there. Peter, are you going? Peter Ganza: 1:11:42 I’m going to say maybe All right. Josh Matthews: 1:11:44 Matt, are you? Peter Ganza: 1:11:45 going. I’m going to try my hardest, but it’s not in the budget right now. Okay, Matt. Josh Matthews: 1:11:52 Well, you should have gotten a rejection for a session and it would be a little bit less. Matt, are you going to be at Dreamforce this year? Matt Pieper: 1:11:59 Yep, I’ll be there, and I am also one of those who didn’t get selected, so just keep on doing it, but I’ll also be Buckeye Dreaming later this month. Josh Matthews: 1:12:06 Guys, what do you say If I can go out and get a sponsor? Maybe I’ll talk to Ian. What if we could get a party together for all the rejected Dreamforce speakers? Would that not be fun? Matt Pieper: 1:12:21 Hilarious, that would be great. Josh Matthews: 1:12:22 I think it would be really cool. Let me talk to some of my friends, some of the partners that love to throw these sorts of things together. Vanessa, if you can introduce me to Ian I don’t know him, I don’t think. I think we’re connected, but I don’t know him that would be awesome. Let’s see if we can get something going. I think it’d be a lot of fun. Vanessa Grant: 1:12:38 That’d be fun. And Matt, come speak to my group. We’d love to have you. Josh Matthews: 1:12:48 Of course, awesome. All right, guys. Happy 4th of July to all our live listeners and everybody who’s listening to this on the podcast. We sure hope that you had a great long weekend and we’ll see you in a couple of weeks. Bye for now, everybody.