Salesforce Military Admin Stories

This week on the show we are pleased to chat to Katherine Clark, a Salesforce Admin at Blue Star Families. Katherine has an incredible story to share about her career transition and how a brilliant organization called Vetforce helped her painlessly move from one career to another. We are eager to share her expertise of Vetforce with the rest of the Salesforce community. Katherine has had a remarkable experience with Salesforce, and we hope that her message will both inspire and motivate you. She is also an exceptional storyteller — quite brilliant at setting a scene — so you’re definitely in for a treat with this episode. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Katherine: How the Stars Aligned Katherine calls her journey to Salesforce “a wild path.” Before she became an Admin, she spent three weeks onboard the USS Reuben James where she worked as a government contractor. This job involved delivering training and briefings to help transition sailors from deployment mode back into everyday life — a job Katherine felt tremendously passionate about. Katherine is married to an active duty naval flight officer, which means they often need to relocate, and Katherine was heartbroken about having to let her career go. However, having to say goodbye to a job she loved so much ignited something in her and made her realized that it was time to find a career that would fit her unique lifestyle instead – a career that would be more mobile. “I advanced my research a bit. I was searching for these training opportunities provided to military spouses and veterans, and I landed on a website for something called Vetforce.” She signed up for a position as a developer and as she says, “pretty much instantly fell in love. I just saw that this is the opportunity that I needed to run with and that it would be the next step in my career.” The Aha Moment Katherine admits that when she started, she had never used a CRM or even worked in sales before. “It’s a little surprising that I was even interested in this. I saw the data model and once I learned how everything connected, it just made sense in my head.” Katherine went on to streamline all the business processes of her previous job and realized how simple it all was. “In my first developer org, I just streamlined all the business processes of my previous job, and it was so much fun!” Take One Hour and Use it for Mentorship&nbsp; Admins should consider providing mentorship to someone trying to break into the world of Salesforce. Perhaps this person is studying to be a Salesforce Admin or they just need a little experience. Katherine is grateful that she got so lucky with Blue Star Families. The technology manager at the time was very helpful and allowed her to learn everything she needed to start out as an Admin. “It changed my life. I’m a Salesforce Admin now.” She advises other Admins to be open to the idea of mentorship, even if it is just for one hour per month. Who can you help? “Anybody looking to break into the Salesforce ecosystem, it would just give them a glimpse into what we're going through.” An Easy Transition There are so many organizations that use Salesforce. Katherine believes that with Salesforce, anything is possible. She got to craft her perfect job to fit her unconventional lifestyle. Whatever your passion is, Katherine believes you can create your dream job with Salesforce. In addition to being a military spouse and having a unique lifestyle, Katherine is also a stay-at-home mom who studied for all her Admin exams during her daughter’s nap times and when she was at school. She advises others out there who are also looking to make the change to consider trying Salesforce. “Just because you've been out of the workforce for a couple years, there ain't nothin’ stopping you. Salesforce Admin is the way to go!” Links:  Follow Katherine on Twitter @hello_katherine Blue Star...

From USS Reuben James to Salesforce Admin with Katherine Clark

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking with Jesse Grothaus, one of our newest Salesforce Admins from Vetforce. Join us to learn about how Jesse applied the skills he learned in the army to his role as a Salesforce consultant, how a newcomer thinks about the Salesforce Ohana, and some great tips for preparing for Certifications. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Jesse Grothaus. A Made-for-TV Movie Journey to Salesforce From a young age, Jesse knew that he wanted to be a Special Operations Soldier and, “sure enough, on my 18th birthday I was in the recruiter’s office.” He spent the next eight years doing his childhood dream job while also getting his degree through the army, which led him to tech. He started in tech support and moved into sales, where he first encountered Salesforce. Jesse liked working Salesforce to build reports that could help his team, but his life changed drastically when he was involved in major car accident. He had to take two years off from work to recover, partially because of undiagnosed head trauma. His therapy for that required him to learn a new language and new skills, which is how he came across Vetforce and Trailhead. Learning Salesforce was actually therapy for Jesse, and helped him in his recovery. Part of his condition affected his memorization and abstract memory, so he had to break down for himself, “how do we as humans remember and memorize things?” A wiki site called ArtofMemory.com helped him learn the techniques of professional memorizers, people who can memorize the order of 50 decks of cards. With that help, he passed his Certification and Vetforce invited him to Trailhead DX, where he made the connections that eventually landed him a job in Salesforce consulting. If they were casting the movie, Jesse would love to be played by Hugh Jackman. Vetforce Vetforce came to Jesse’s attention via a friend on LinkedIn, he saw something offering free job training for veterans involving Salesforce, which he had already had experience with through his previous job. The program is a part of the Salesforce Ohana Group and links to veterans in the workforce. “I don’t know if a lot of people know this, but veterans have a big struggle in terms of getting good employment when they get out of the military. A lot of veterans get these awesome, amazing skills in the military but it turns out that ‘kicking down doors’ isn’t necessarily the best thing to put on your resume,” Jesse says. Salesforce wanted to help, so they started offering free training classes and curated Trailhead training courses to help vets get job placements. In Jesse’s military work, he would advise high-level commanders in a particular region on psychological warfare strategy and tactics, “and now as a Salesforce consultant I’m often meeting with high-level business executives and giving them guidance on what I think they should or should not be doing based on their Salesforce organizations to help their business grow.” For Jesse, the most useful skill is “sitting down with leadership, looking at the big picture, and figuring out how we can contribute to their big picture.” Trailhead DX “I had no clue what Trailhead DX was until I was invited to come out,” Jesse says. He didn’t know what to expect. He knew there’d be some great talks, but the surprise was that on day one the folks from Vetforce promised him that by the time he walked out of Trailhead DX he’d have a job. Being at a Salesforce event was so much more than Jesse thought it would be, “It was like drinking Kool-Aid out of a firehose.” The Ohana is a big part of that and is really what makes everything work so well. Jesse puts it well: “Salesforce doesn’t horde business for itself. It doesn’t try to hide its API or make it some big secret. Instead of competition, it encourages a family or gathering around it, and they’re very...

Jesse Grothaus on our Vetforce Ohana

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’ve got Lauren Zolp, Salesforce Product Manager at Figo Pet Insurance, who went from doing her first Trailhead module to becoming fully certified and employed as a Salesforce Admin in 8 weeks, all while her newborn was sleeping. Join us as we talk about Lauren’s incredible journey, the creativity you need to be an Awesome Admin, and the magic of community. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lauren Zolp. From military linguist to Salesforce trainee. “I was really into the arts growing up,” Lauren says, “and you are an artist in your own way as a Salesforce Admin, but it’s quite different than what I had expected.” Instead, she enlisted when she turned 18 and ended up becoming a linguist, learning to speak Urdu. That was her dream job, but it only lasted a year before she sadly medically discharged. “I didn’t know how to tell people about the skills I learned in the military or how to translate them into a corporate role,” Lauren says. She was unemployed for three years, “I was really down and out,” she says, “but I finally saw something for Vetforce.” She didn’t quite know what Salesforce was (she thought it was some sort of online sales job), but since the program offered training for free she figured she didn’t have anything to lose. The power of the Vetforce Ohana. “I was crying at my kitchen table and wondering how, in my 20s, I could be feeling so down and out about my life. I decided that there’s got to be more than I’m feeling in this instance, and there’s got to be a job out there that’s going to make me excited and want to get me up in the morning,” Lauren says. “I got on Muster, which is the Chatter of Vetforce, and it was all these people just answering each other’s questions and talking to each other. I didn’t know anything about Salesforce or Vetforce but I knew that the community was there for each other and that they were there if you needed them to be. It was the first time since leaving the military that you felt like someone cared about you and your success again.” Going to TrailheaDX 2018 and getting a chance to meet people like Ann Weeby, Mike Halles, and Jesse Grothaus was incredible because it really hammered home that the members of the Vetforce Ohana were just as amazing in person as they were online. “That sense of community that you feel online? It’s real. It’s legitimate,” Lauren says, “it’s incredible and I encourage anyone who can go to these events to go because the community is second to none.” How Lauren went from her first Trail to certification in 8 weeks. Coming to Salesforce with no background in it, Lauren was still able to realize the opportunity that working with the platform and becoming an Admin could be. “Day and night I was studying,” she says, “doing all of the Trails that I could.” She had just had a new baby boy at the time, so in between the times he would be up and he would be sleeping she would work on learning the platform (which, if you haven’t dealt with a newborn, is pretty long hours). “Four weeks after I did my first Trail, I landed a job as the sole Salesforce Administrator tasked with implementation for a startup, which was just mind-blowing to me,” Lauren says. Four more weeks later she took her Admin test and passed, so it only took her eight weeks to go from her&nbsp;first Trail to getting certified. “I always want to tell everyone that you don’t have to be a superhuman to learn Salesforce,” she says, “you can do it, you just need to grab it and run with it because the Trailhead platform makes it easy.” Onto the next challenge. “After I got my certification and had that first job, companies began contacting me and trying to get me to work for them, which was just mind-blowing for someone who had been unemployed for so long,” Lauren says. Lauren had a couple of...

Interview: Lauren Zolp's Vetforce Trailblazer Story

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re talking with Misty Fierro, Senior Salesforce Analyst in Sales Operations and Commercial Analytics at SolarWinds to learn how she overcame the experience barriers that were limiting her career. Join us as we talk about the power of the community, the amazing Vetforce and Merivis organizations, and getting the experience you need to get the job. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Misty Fierro. Working Salesforce after 12 years in the Army. This is the last in our series of interviews from Texas Dreamin’ (so there’s a bit of background noise on this live recording). We’ve talked to some amazing people with some amazing stories of how they got to be where they are today, and Misty is one of them. “I had a nontraditional route into the Salesforce ecosystem,” Misty says, starting with being in the Army for 12 years. After her service, she was teaching at a college and had lunch with a friend of hers who happened to be... Stephanie Herrera. Plot twist! “She forced my hand into a change,” Misty says, and after attending a Vetforce class and a Salesforce 201 session she called Stephanie and said, “I’m quitting my job, this is it!” She took the first job in Salesforce she was offered and hasn’t looked back. How Vetforce and Merivis build a community. Misty had been a part of Girly Geeks meetings before Vetforce started up. “I was like ‘I don’t know why I’m here, but I’m here. But finally, when I went through Vetforce I realized why I was there,” she says. That first job that Misty took in Salesforce in customer service, and she says that for her the hardest part of her journey was getting her foot in the door and actually getting a job as an Admin. Throughout that struggle, Vetforce was an extremely motivating force in Misty’s life. “One thing you’ll find with veterans is we know how to bond together, we know how to motivate each other,” she says. That gave her the drive to start working in the nonprofit world and build a Salesforce instance to give veterans coming through Vetforce and Merivis some practical experience. Merivis is another amazing training program for vets. Misty was a part of the first class, where she met Hector Perez, Jr. “Knowing Hector and his motivating presence, and what his nonprofit does for the community, it just makes you want to give back and ask yourself what are you doing for anyone but yourself?” Beyond Salesforce training, they teach you things like how to interview, how to network, how to use LinkedIn, and other things that vets have probably never had to deal with before. Gaining experience by doing good. On the weekends, Misty helps run two dog rescues: Justice4Mutts, and Texas Tailblazers. “We get a lot of stuff done with a little bit of resources,” she says. Around the time Misty was attending the first Dreamforce, she had identified a problem with communication in her nonprofit. At the event, she learned that Salesforce will provide a nonprofit instance to 501(c)3’s. “I put the instance in place, but the only problem was I didn’t know what I was doing,” Misty says. She ended up recruiting other veterans to help, and they figured it out together. She’s continued to get help building out the instance from Vetforce and Merivis, which helps her nonprofit and also gives vets the experience they need to build their careers. Resources  Vetforce: https://veterans.force.com/ Military Veteran Recruitment Strategy module on Trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/modules/military-veteran-recruitment-strategy Salesforce Community Groups: https://success.salesforce.com/featuredGroups Misty getting Gillian to workout in the Texas heat with Astro: https://twitter.com/gilliankbruce/status/1007249675035070464  Twitter  Misty: @mistyfierro Gillian: @gilliankbruce Salesforce Admins: @SalesforceAdmns  We want to remind you that if you love...

From Army to Admin with Misty Fierro

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we talk to Katherine Clark, Vetforce Product Manager at Salesforce. This is the third episode in our Behind the Customer Stories series for the Admin Keynote at Dreamforce. We’ll find out about her story and how she connects experiences for her users. Join us as we talk about how she connects Vetforce members with the skills and careers that they need as a solo Admin, with the help of automation. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Katherine Clark. Coming home to Vetforce. The last time we had Katherine on the pod she told us about how she found Vetforce and how that opened up the Salesforce ecosystem for her. Now we’ve found her in an entirely different position—&nbsp;working at Salesforce managing the Vetforce instance. When Katherine first saw the job posting, she figured she would share it to find someone else in her network that would be a great fit. “As I was reading through it, I realized that role would be me coming home,” she says, “I would be helping others in the military community do the same thing I did and find their dream role as a Salesforce Admin.” The Vetforce redesign process. “I came into Vetforce at a really interesting time,” Katherine says, “they were right in the middle of this massive redesign project of Vetforce.” Vetforce is run on Salesforce built on Community Cloud, “but it had been designed many years ago and was just ready for a facelift.” When she came onboard they were in the design phase, “it was great for me, as an Admin, that I got to see everything from conceptualization and research to an end project. It gave me so much appreciation as a project manager to see what such a large redesign encompasses.” The redesign process was based on feedback from the Vetforce community. For one thing, they had received the feedback that members preferred time-bound tangible goals, like “I want to become a Salesforce Administrator,” or “I want to become a Salesforce Developer.” From there they can jump into becoming an Advanced Administrator or a Pardot Consultant on their own and advance at their own pace. If this sounds a little like Trailhead to you, you’re right, and Vetforce has several integrations with the platform. How automation helps Katherine as a solo Admin. One of the defining features of Vetforce is the strong community they’ve built. “Something that really helps our community thrive is harnessing the automation that Salesforce provides,” Katherine says, “we use Community Cloud to set up the groups and set up a real place for our members to connect, but then also because of our integrations we’re able to pull in information from other systems and other places.” That lets them automate the delivery of their benefits so, for example, if they see that someone has earned 100 Trailhead badges they can automatically place them in a new group in Vetforce. This kind of automation is really important to Katherine because she’s a solo Admin. “There’s nobody at the desk next to me that I can turn to and ask questions,” she says, so using things like cases and knowledge are big timesavers to help her members get connected to Salesforce skills and careers as quickly as possible. The future of Vetforce. “Number one on my innovation horizon is Einstein Bot,” Katherine says, “I’m really excited about the power of it and what it can do for our community.” We did a three-part series on Einstein Bots for Admins, so we definitely share in the excitement. The personalization is really exciting, especially for a unique community like Vetforce. Personalization and customization is the name of the game for communities, and there’s a lot that Katherine can do as an Admin without having to get a developer involved. “I really enjoy being able to, on a Monday morning, pull in a component and give our community members exactly what they need...

Katherine Clark Connects Experiences at Vetforce

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re coming with the first of a special two-part episode, live from TrailheaDX. We sit down with LaRon Butler, Technical Account Manager at Litify, and Kelley Babbs, Technology Director at Blue Star Families, to talk about entering the Salesforce ecosystem, how to capitalize on the skills you already have, and changing careers. Join us as we talk about the power of community supporting each other, how VetForce helped them build a career in Salesforce, and the challenges they faced along the way. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with LaRon Butler and Kelley Babbs. Wish fulfillment through Salesforce. Growing up, LaRon dreamed of becoming a radio broadcaster, and we’re happy to give her a little wish fulfillment by bringing her on the pod. In the meantime, LaRon joined the Army in 1998, “and I pretty much spent most of my adult life working and serving in the military in one capacity or the other,” she says. “More recently, I decided it was time for a career change.” She got back from Korea in 2016 and tried to get into sales. She had a background in IT as a system admin and, because she spent a few years in real estate, she realized she needed to update her skills, and all of her research pointed towards Salesforce. “I kept calling Salesforce over and over until someone returned my call,” LaRon says, “I kept seeing courses online and all I wanted to know was if I could use my GI Bill to take the classes.” When she heard back the rep told her about a free program called VetForce. “Once I got certified in October, 2018, I went to my first job fair the next day,” she says, and also ended up connecting with the Merivis Foundation, which has supported her through forty-plus interviews (!). Building a career that can move with you. Kelley, on the other hand, always wanted to be the first female president. She also spent time serving in the Army, both directly and as a military spouse, which meant a lot of moving. “I kept trying to reinvent myself every time we moved somewhere,” she says, doing everything from teaching to being a cable installer. She had a teaching gig lined up in Massachusetts when they got orders to relocate to Texas, which meant she needed all sorts of additional training to be able to teach again. “I felt defeated,” she says, “I was like, ‘when am I going to have a career?’” Kelley reached out to someone she knew at Blue Star Families to see if they had any volunteer opportunities. Instead, she was encouraged to apply for a role where she could spend a year learning Salesforce part-time from home. She started out working with a Certified Admin, but when they moved to a different role the job fell to her—another accidental admin. She needed help, and that’s when she came across VetForce. She passed her certification in 2016 and her role just kept growing with the organization. Learning Salesforce step-by-step. One of the first things LaRon built was an app to help her with her real estate transactions. “I got the idea from some people who kept saying, ‘Build something that means something to you,’” she says. For Kelley, she needed to tweak an object in Blue Star’s org that didn’t use contact data correctly. She was able to make a small tweak that eliminated tons of manual labor, which so clearly demonstrated just how powerful Salesforce could be. For LaRon, the main challenge with learning the platform was taking use cases and putting them into practice. “That’s why it was important for me to get to work,” she says, “not only to pay the bills but to really showcase my talent and my mind.” For Kelley, it was validation rules. “But also, just knowing that I didn’t have to know everything,” she says, “you just have to know where to find it, you don’t necessarily have to know the answer.” You can always reach out to the community for...

Vetforce Bravery With LaRon Butler & Kelley Babbs

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we're back with more of our live episode from TrailheaDX. The conversation gets deeper with LaRon Butler, Technical Account Manager at Litify, and Kelley Babbs, Technology Director at Blue Star Families, as we talk about getting hired as an admin and what traits organizations are looking for. Join us as we talk about the ins and outs of interviewing and hiring, how to cultivate confidence, and transferring your skills from a military background to get hired in tech. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with LaRon Butler and Kelley Babbs. Eight long months of interviews. We wanted to take this opportunity to talk about getting hired and marketing yourself as an Awesome Admin because LaRon and Kelley both have unique perspectives. LaRon is early in her journey, while Kelley started as an admin but has transitioned into leading a team that includes them. “It feels great until you don’t get the job or you find out you don’t have enough experience to get the job,” LaRon says, “I thought I was going to save the world when I got my certification and it was going to start tomorrow.” Instead, it took LaRon more like eight months to find a position that worked for her. She had worked in IT for the Army and the government, “I just assumed that my experience and my transferable skills were more than enough,” she says. “Eight months is entirely too long for someone like me who has a technology background to land my first job,” she says, “and if it wasn’t for this community I would have given up.” LaRon kept making it to the later rounds of interviews only to not get hired. Eventually, she realized that she needed to ask for help from her peers and mentors. Military folks need to translate their skills a little differently to really make it clear just how much they’re responsible for. She also realized she needed to level up her skills beyond the Admin Certification, so she went back to VetForce for help. She’s now builder certified and community cloud consultant certified and has set her sights on customer success next, and those skills helped her land her new position. Looking for that Awesome Admin. For Kelley as a Director of Technology, we wanted to hear what she looks for on the other side of the table when she’s trying to hire that Awesome Admin. “First and foremost, I look for someone who’s excited,” she says, “if you’re not excited about the tools we use then you can’t get our users and our volunteers excited.” As we talked about last week, it’s not necessarily important that a new hire knows anything and everything, but they do need to know how to learn more. Kelley is also big on personality: “Be a fun human because we have to work together all the time.” That comes down to confidence and being able to make a strong connection in the interview process. Finally, she pays special attention to the VetForce community because for Blue Star giving back is central to their values. “The person who has ten Salesforce certs always looks at you, they’re always willing to share how they got there and what they know,” she says. For LaRon, she’s changed her attitude coming into interviews. “Initially, I didn’t want to brag or be overconfident,” she says, “now I take control over the conversation a little bit more, I ask them engaging questions, I showcase my personality, I let them know that I’m excited about what they do and that their work is important.” Focusing on the conversation helped her get out of the mentality of “being a dictionary” and worrying about having all the answers instead of building a relationship. Learning to translate your skills as a veteran. "I forget all the time that no one speaks the same language as me,” Kelley says, “so I can’t say, ‘My husband’s going TDY and then he’s going to PCS.’” One of the ways that she helped...

Marketing Your Skills With LaRon Butler & Kelly Babbs

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve got Skye Evans, Cloud Consultant at Cloud for Good and a member of our amazing Vetforce community. She’s here to share with us what it’s like to work on a remote team, and some tips and best practices to get started. Join us as we talk about how to create a cohesive atmosphere for your whole team, what you can do to try on remote work for size, and why boundaries are extra important in a distributed environment. You should  subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Skye Evans. &nbsp;Solving Salesforce problems for good. “I make good things happen for nonprofits on Salesforce, that’s what I do every day,” Skye says. As a Cloud Consultant at Cloud for Good, she’s a mix of a project manager, Salesforce admin, troubleshooter, and magician. It’s all about working with clients to discover their pain points and then developing the best and most elegant way to solve those problems on Salesforce. After that, it’s about training clients to get the most out of their implementation to make sure that new efficiencies translate into their workflow. Why remote work requires more intentionality. Skye’s not just on the podcast for her amazing job, however. She’s also an experienced remote worker. One of the first things to understand is the difference between a remote team and a virtual company. Remote teams are often groups of individuals who work together with other people in a central office. In a virtual company, however, everyone’s distributed so there isn’t that difference between the people who see each other every day and the people who work from home. “As a company, being really thoughtful about how to make sure people who aren’t physically located in the office are being included and you have a really robust communications plan is important,” Skye says. “One of the best ways to do that is to have regular, standing, short meetings,” she adds, because you’re able to plan changes around them and make sure that everyone's on the same page. The difficult part is that being in an office comes with a lot of visual cues that are helpful when you’re trying to get someone’s attention for a quick thing without totally distracting them. For a remote team, that means having a conversation about not only what are the best ways to reach out, but also how to keep calendars to help everyone not step on each other’s toes. Setting the right boundaries. One of the biggest keys to working from home is being diligent about maintaining a separation between when you’re working and when you’re not working. Even if you spend most of your time right now in an office, you’ve probably given in to the temptation to pull out your phone and respond to a few emails when there’s nothing on TV. Having a place where you specifically go to get work done can help you establish those boundaries. “I think a lot of folks who work remotely almost feel the need to prove themselves more,” Skye says, “so there’s a tendency to overcompensate for it.” Instead, you need to find ways to draw that line and stop working when it’s time to take a break. In a more fully remote environment, it can be hard to establish the same kind of vibe that collocated teams create. One thing that’s helped Skye is to schedule social virtual meetings. “We refer to them as ‘virtual coffees,’” she says, “think about the kind of interactions you would have an office if you’re standing at the coffee pot making a cup of coffee and another employee comes over.” Skye will often schedule these kinds of meetings across teams to give people who don’t normally work together a chance to get to know each other, and she’ll even do them with clients, too. For Skye, it’s about building that foundation of trust that helps them have confidence in her to follow her advice. Resources  Trailhead   Virtual Collaboration    Social  Salesforce...

Rules of the Remote Life With Skye Evans

This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ll hear from Hayley Tuller, a Project Manager at Arkus and a part of our Salesforce Military community. We learn how she’s applied the lessons she learned from twenty years in the Navy to her career in Salesforce. Join us as we talk about how to eat the elephant one bite at the time, how Hayley approaches radical ownership, and the idea of upward leadership. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Hayley Tuller. Starting with a service mindset. “I think I did have a bit more unorthodox background than most folks do, although I think the Salesforce community is one of those places where everybody comes from a surprising place,” Hayley says. Her story begins when she enlisted in the Navy, where she spent twenty years in service as an Arabic linguist and a cryptographer and ended up deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, among other places. In 2012, Hayley took advantage of the GI Bill to get into nonprofit work. “It felt like a natural transition for me—I had a service mindset and I felt like I had a lot to offer in terms of data analysis and operational management,” she says, “from that I got into databases and nonprofits and it was probably a very short road from there before the Salesforce community found me, and here I am today.” How to manage lots of priorities. “The military taught me a lot about how to make decisions for priorities and manage lots of taskers,” Hayley says, “but I think one of the biggest things I got out of it is that a lot of it is your mindset.” The first rung on the ladder can feel like the longest reach, but getting there can make everything after it look a lot better. “We used to joke, when I was on deployment, that the only way to eat an elephant was one bite at a time,” she says. One major skill Hayley learned in the Navy that has been helpful in her professional life is risk assessment. “It’s really just a way of looking at the tasks that are in front of you and assessing the likelihood of a problem and the impact of that problem, and using those two factors decide what you need to pay attention the most,” she says, “and when you apply that to everything you do you get a lot of clarity really quickly.” One of the biggest tips Hayley has is to get everything in one place so you can see it and make decisions accordingly. Radical ownership. “Probably the biggest thing I took away from my Navy career is this sense of what a lot of people call radical ownership,” Hayley says, “when I was in the service we just called it accountability.” It’s this idea that the buck stops with you—if you’re responsible for something it’s not OK to throw your hands up in the air and quit. You can ask for help, but you’ve got to work through any difficulties you encounter along the way, and you just might surprise yourself with what you’re able to accomplish along the way. The idea of upward leadership. “Leadership is not something that we just do in a downward focus—we don’t just lead down—you have to lead up as well,” Hayley says, “upward leadership is about being there to support your supervisors, actively asking those questions, stepping forward when you see things that can be solved, and helping them be equipped to make the best decisions that they can possibly make.” That comes down to trust, loyalty, and the ability to be assertive and say what needs to be said if there’s a problem. At the same time, when it comes to leading people under you, Hayley says “the biggest gift you can give to the folks that you work with and who work for you is belief in themselves.” One of the hardest things you have to do is step back and let a subordinate do something and trust that they’ll succeed, but it’s so rewarding to see them succeed. Trailhead:     Social:  Salesforce Admins:  Hayley: Gillian:   Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or

3 Things the Navy Taught Me to be a Successful Salesforce Admin

This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Ciara Skiles, a Senior Consultant and Business Analyst at Cirrius Solutions Inc. We learn how her experience in retail translated into a career in Salesforce. Join us as we talk about how a career in retail taught her to break down barriers and communicate successfully, why it’s so important to be genuinely interested in the person and the result, and how your community and friends can support you in your career. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Ciara Skiles. Jumping from retail to a career in Salesforce. Just like Mike, Ciara has a background in retail. “When I was in college I did what most college students do, I worked a typical retail job,” she says, and since she had already been promoted into a supervisory role she decided to give it a go after graduation. That lead to a ten-year career specializing in workforce management and operations. “I was a go-to resource in my community to help struggling stores,” Ciara says. In 2012 Ciara met her husband, an active duty service member in the Navy, which lead to a lot of moving around. They’ve lived in Charleston, SC, Newport, RI, Jacksonville, FL, as well as time abroad in Spain and Japan. In Japan, she attended a Hiring Our Heroes event where she heard about the Salesforce Military program. She quickly got her certifications and took a job as a Senior Consultant and Business Analyst at Cirrius Solutions Inc where she’s been working since late October. The skills Ciara learned that translate across careers. “When I found out about Salesforce Military, I was almost turned off by it,” Ciara says, “but when I did more research I found out that Trailhead is actually geared towards people who don’t necessarily have a tech background.” It also turns out that retail is a great training ground that translates into any number of careers. From managing personalities including training people who are working their first job to retirees with advanced degrees who are just trying to get out of the house a couple of days a week, Ciara’s seen it all. “One commonality that I saw across the board is that you really need to figure out how to break down barriers and build trust quickly,” Ciara says, “and I think the key to success for me was that I always went into it with a genuine interest in the person and their end result.” That involves talking to a lot of customers and figuring out how to get them what they really want. “When you’re dealing with stakeholders who may have a broken process who come to you for help, a lot times they feel really insecure and unsure of how to proceed which puts them totally off-kilter,” she says, “I always try to very clearly communicate that I’m on your side, that I’m here to make your job easier, that your success is my passion.” The amazing community that supported Ciara’s journey. Thinking outside of the box is a big part of Ciara’s toolkit. “I’ve always been a natural problem solver, so if I see a friction point I want to do what I can to alleviate it,” she says, “which is what I think made me a really successful retail manager.” It’s the same with consulting—identify the big pain points and solve those first, then clean up the small issues later. There’s no template, however, so you need to coordinate with different departments to make sure everything is in alignment. Through her entire Salesforce journey, Ciara has been able to rely on the support of a strong community of military spouses. “If you have a problem that you need to fix, call a group of military spouses,” she says, “give them twenty minutes and you will have five viable solutions with plans and Powerpoints and spreadsheets and all of the tools and resources you would ever need to make it happen.” Those skills translate directly into a career in Salesforce, and Ciara is proof that you don’t need a tech...

3 Things I Learned from Retail that Made Me a Successful Salesforce Admin with Ciara Skiles

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re joined by Yves Stewart, a Salesforce Consultant at Slalom. We learn how to get out of your own way and dig into your problem. Join us as we talk about why you just need to get started, the importance of surrounding yourself with the platform, and the importance of having patience with yourself as you learn. You should  for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Yves Stewart.&nbsp; How Yves got started as an accidental admin. “Before embarking on my Salesforce journey, I just never thought about me being this techy person,” Yves says, “I always felt that that wasn’t me, it was for everyone else. But I accidentally became an admin, and it was the best accident of my life.” She was working for a manufacturing company in the energy sector when she met a Salesforce dev and MVP who pushed her to take a serious look at the platform. When they had to leave the company, Yves stepped up to the plate to take over as an admin. Yves’s first big “aha” moment dealt with approvals—they were in the middle of their annual sales meeting when the approval process went haywire. She took a deep dive into the process and sort things out, solidifying her role with the sales team and giving her the confidence to move forward on the platform. “I no longer had to think of myself as an accidental admin,” Yves says, “I actually was an admin who was knowledgeable.” Jumping in and learning as you go. Yves’s company had a major need to keep everyone in sync in the field, which lead to her developing a component that allowed her team to create tickets even if they didn’t have connectivity at their current location. They could put in a request and get all the information they needed as soon as they got a WiFi connection, eliminating what was previously a paper process. “It was very exciting because it allowed us to not work in segments but instead bring all the groups together,” she says, “it allowed everyone to get a complete view of the customer and have people coming from all different angles to make this a win-win situation all the way from the beginning to the end.” The big problems can often be the most challenging to make headway on, and Yves’s advice is to get out of your own way and just start. “You have to start somewhere in order to make it happen,” she says, “actually lay down a roadmap and give yourself some steps to get there. You don’t have to have it all figured out, you just need to get started.” The power of the Salesforce community. Starting out is always tricky and for Yves, as a solo admin, the Salesforce community was a major help in guiding her on her journey. She went to a Houston user group meeting where she learned about the Salesforce Military program. As a military spouse herself, she was able to get connected with a community of people who could relate to what she was going through and help her out. If you’re just starting out, Yves has some sage advice. “Learn about the product and the platform—it’s a phenomenal tool,” she says, “you don’t have to be an expert in everything, you just have to be able to understand the basics of how it works.” It takes time, but you can keep learning through Trailhead and other programs and continue to grow. Social:  Salesforce Admins:  Yves:  Gillian:   Love our podcasts? Subscribe today or  For full transcript, go to

Salesforce Military Admin Stories

The Salesforce Admins Podcast