How to Speak Like a Leader: Mastering Tone, Confidence & Influence

Episode Transcript
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Josh Matthews (00:00):
Say hi, vanessa, what's up?

Vanessa Grant (00:02):
It's the show we're here.

We're here.
What are we talking about today?

Today I would like to talk about tone and the
context switching that peoplehave to do sometimes or don't,
and the reasons why or why not,when you're looking at different
business situations.
So there are times that wemight sound different when we're
talking to our team internally,when we're speaking to a

(00:29):
different department, when we'respeaking to executives, when
we're speaking on an interview,or if we're presenting to, let's
say, at a conference if you'rea dream for us or whatnot, and
so I would love to talk a littlebit about the nuance between
those and whether it's still avalid thing.
Does it matter if I sound superconfident because I'm a woman,

(00:49):
or is it OK to still have alittle hesitancy, like like I'm
hesitating right now?

Sure, all right.
Well, we're going to get itgoing.
Here we go.

Josh LeQuire (00:57):
And now the number one audio program that helps
you to hire, get hired and soarhigher in the Salesforce
ecosystem.

It's the Salesforce Career Show.
So welcome everybody.
You are part of a very specialepisode today, because this is,
in fact, vanessa Grant's lastepisode as a long-running
co-host.
How long has it been?
Two and a half years, threeyears I, I can't it's definitely
been at least three yearsbecause it was yes, it was quite

(01:28):
a long time ago.

I mean, maybe I could also start with a story of
how we came to be, if, uh, ifyou want to get into that I
would love to do that.

Let's touch on that in the second half of the
show, for right now we're goingto dive into this topic of tone,
but I do just want to say youare rad.
It's going to be an awesomeshow.
Thanks everybody for joining uslive.
We've got Josh LaQuire in thewings.
We're going to bring him onboard.
Excellent Thanks for joining ustoday, Josh.

I don't think we're going to agree on all of
this.
So the more the merrier.
I think this will be aninteresting talk today.

Yeah, I'm confident that we won't agree,
but that's what makes it fun.
So you had an experiencerecently.
It actually got picked up byLinkedIn and got some real
traction.
Maybe you can start by sharingthe whole reason why the idea of
tone professional tone in theworkplace became of sudden

(02:24):
interest to you.

So, excuse me, I had a client meeting.
I'm doing a consultingengagement, and somebody who I
work with, who I guess istechnically my manager, pulled
me aside and said, as a peer, Iwould like to talk to you about
your tone, would like to talk toyou about your tone and whether

(02:48):
you're and she said that shehad noticed it in meetings for
weeks, whether it was internal,external, and that she said that
I I think it's called like thatI uptick at the end, so where,
instead of just kind of talkingvery and then this, that and the
other thing, I go and this,that and the other thing.
So, as a woman speaker, shewanted to offer me this advice

(03:08):
to not do that.
And I was then questioning likewell, should kind of did want
to say you know, do you know whoI am?
But it was an interesting.
It turned into an interestingconversation on LinkedIn and I

(03:39):
think where I landed and this iswhere I would love to hear what
you guys think where I landedis I'm actually quite happy with
my tone and I feel it projectsauthenticity when I'm not
completely confident aboutsomething that comes through and
I'm happy to talk to that withmy clients and I don't want to
sound, and I think, but I dothink sometimes maybe there are
clients that pay for maybe thatbig four like Deloitte type
sounding experience, where we'regoing to be the smartest people

(04:01):
in the room, no matter what,and maybe I'm just not that type
of consultant.
You're not, though, but you'renot right.

We know that If you were, you'd be at a big four
.
So there you go.
I mean you're true to yourself,I think, and I think that being
true to oneself is critical.
I also think it's reallyimportant to not have too many
versions of yourself out there.
Talk about being disingenuous.
People can pick up on that alot.

(04:29):
Now.
You can have a variety ofpersonalities, personas,
communication styles, techniques, tones for a variety of
different channels or situations, but there's just a single you
right.
And the more true you are, themore comfortable in one's own
voice and content and delivery.

(04:51):
That just portrays confidenceand everybody's addicted to that
stuff.
I mean, who doesn't love that?

I mean honestly, josh.
It's something that I thinkthat you are exceptional at the
way that you project, the waythat you project, the way that
you articulate your words.
And I'm sure that's I don'tknow, is that something that you
were like born like badass andconfident, or is it something
that you developed over time?
And I'm not saying that I needto start sounding like Josh

(05:19):
Matthews, but I do think thatit's it.
You, in particular, areexceptional in that kind of big
four way.

I appreciate that .
I certainly have never viewedmyself that way.
I have spent a little bit oftime making sure that I'm
comprehending how I'm perceivedby others, and I will tell you
that started really right aroundthe time I started Salesforce
staffing and I was recordingvideo interviews and I was

(05:47):
talking to this guy I wasactually doing a little bit of
coaching on the side too and Iwas like, hey, john, and he
didn't, the guy didn't take tome and I didn't get it.
I thought I'm offering so muchvaluable personalized wisdom
that is going to, I think,throttle this guy's career, not
throttle it forward, throttlehis career forward.

(06:09):
And he just was kind of turnedoff.
And so what I did is I went andwatched the tape of our most
recent coaching session.
I was, in a word, appalled thatwhat and how I thought I was
coming across was so objectivelydifferent, dramatically

(06:35):
different than what I thought itwas.
I interrupted, I wasn't smiling, I wasn't acknowledging, I had
some funny little tics I wasdoing with my mouth, didn't make
me look like a crazy person,but look, I've never seen

(06:55):
someone in a presidential debatedo that much, less win.
And so I had to learn, at acouple different stages to just
you know, I mean sometimes Italk really fast, sometimes I
talk really slow.
It just kind of depends.
I don't overthink that stuff.
But I had to add a couple points.

(07:17):
Focus on that and I'll tell you, vanessa, I mean both you and I
on this program been doing itfor four years.
I mean both you and I on thisprogram, we've been doing it for
four years.
That's a lot of hours.
It's hundreds of hours ofpublic speaking.
It's still public speaking.
You're not on a stage, right,but there's an audience, they're

(07:39):
tuned in and you're trying toconvey something.
So I've had a little bit ofpractice, but I will tell you
this, very little.
The most powerful thing was theself-examination, that's it,

(07:59):
and being willing to relax intothe reality that if I wanted
different results I would haveto change how I talk and how I
come across on camera and mytempo and my tone and all of
those things.

Maybe that's part of it then is how are your
results?
And then examine if you need tochange, and maybe that's even
client by client, department bydepartment, audience by audience
.
Are you getting the resultsthat you want?
No, maybe tone is just aconsideration, then.
As far as the okay, what can Ido differently?

Sure, absolutely.
And I think it's probablyhelpful to talk a little bit
about what tone means.
I want to cover this verybriefly and then kick it back to
you and to Josh and to John tocontinue the discussion, if that
works with you.
Tone is specifically the soundof your voice in its musicality.

(08:53):
I heard a very famous I thinkhe's a communication expert talk
about this once.
He was talking about hearinghis mother and father through
the wall.
He couldn't articulate theirwords, he couldn't decipher what
they were saying, but he couldhear his dad and it was boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
And his mom ba, ba, ba, ba, ba,ba, ba, ba, ba, ba ba.

(09:15):
Right, so you've got amusicality to your voice when
you talk.
And everybody knows Bueller,bueller, everyone knows what
monotone sounds like and it'snot very engaging, but what we
do know is that's just a littletiny bit of what's coming across

(09:36):
.
Your words are the things thatmatter the least.
They matter the most, butthey're paid attention to the
least.
Most people who are listeningto this program probably already
know that.
We've covered it a lot,probably done some investigation
yourself.
There's pacing, so there'spacing, there's the sound of
this.
That's just like your speed.
There's your volume, because Ican talk really loudly and it

(09:56):
might not sound like this is theright volume for a program like
this, right?
Then there's the emphasis,which I have an interesting
example I can share later on inthe show, and then a very
critical one is pauses, whichI'm overemphasizing right now,

(10:18):
allowing time for your words toactually sink in so that people
can process it.
I process things auditorily veryfast.
I'm a slow reader.
I'm not a bad reader.
I don't read faster than I talkfor novels and stuff.
So you've got to figure outwhere are you and you've got to

(10:38):
figure out your audience, right?
Someone in this room maybe thealpha, maybe the boss in this
room of 10 people might need tohear things slowly for them to
fully comprehend and make thebest decisions.
So is your pacing inviting thatas well, right?

(10:59):
So a lot of things to look athere today.
I'm going to go ahead and kickit back to you guys.

I'm curious, vanessa, the story you told
earlier.
It sounded to me and we kind oftalked about this in our last
discussion about describingworkplaces toxic, right, this is
the term that's beengenericized, overused, and kind
of blankets a lot of things.
Was that criticism more leveledat how you're communicating and
the content of what you'resaying, or was it leveled at the
actual tone of your voice?

the musicality, as Josh says, right, like I'm
curious if you can expand uponthat a little further.
My sense of it was that it wassaid to me in a this could help
you and so I'm just saying thisto help you.
I don't know that I necessarilyagree with their advice, but I
think the idea was, when we'respeaking to clients, we want to
sound like the smartest peoplein the room, essentially that we

(11:51):
want to sound very confident,and even in internal meetings,
if we're speaking it wasactually also mentioned that in
internal meetings too speakconfidently.
We're completely sure of whatyou're talking about.
And I'm not sure I agree withthat, and maybe that's just not
me.
I think I'm much more of a.
If I'm not sure about somethingor I'm unclear about something,

(12:11):
let's talk about it, let's diginto it more, and that way we
can be on the same page asopposed to I know that you're
paying me, but I don't know,maybe some people get paid.
Everything has to be like apercent.
You know, I'm completelycommitted to, even though, like
it might be a shit show on theback end, kind of a thing.

It sounds like you're speaking.
Somebody was afraid that yousaid something that could damage
your client's perception of you.
Is what I think you're saying.

I think yes, I think that's correct?

Is that person projecting their own fear onto
you?
You said you didn't agree withthe feedback.
Your intuition, didn't alignwith it.

No, and I think this is where some of the
LinkedIn conversation went,where I think so.
Somebody had posted as acomment on my LinkedIn this
three-minute video by Steve Jobstalking about how his challenge
with consultants hashistorically been that these
consultants aren't used toactually owning the thing.
And I think where I come fromas a consultant oftentimes is

(13:09):
that I've been a product owner.
Salesforce has been my babywithin a company before, and so
when I speak about Salesforcethings, I'm not.
I think it's really hard, whenyou're talking about Salesforce
and you're talking aboutconfiguration things that aren't
built yet we're not down tothat user story level, to be
completely confident thateverything is going to be this

(13:30):
particular way.
There's a lot of different waysto skin a Salesforce cat.
I think there's a lot ofdifferent ways to solve problems
and oftentimes I'm confidentabout the direction, but maybe I
don't know the specifics andI'm okay having a little bit of
uncertainty when I'm explainingsomething because I'm sincere
about how confident I am thatit's this thing.

(13:52):
Maybe I'll be confident whenwe're like you know, in in UAT,
like that's the time I'll belike yes, it's working, we did
the QA, it's all good.

Right, I wonder.
I'm just going to throw thisout to the panel for a second.
Vanessa just said some reallyinteresting things, right.
Very interesting, it's the ideathat you can communicate at
times with a little bit ofappropriate doses of lack of

(14:23):
confidence.
The question I'm going to askthe panel and we've got John
Klein and Josh LaQuire with ustoday is is it better for
someone to communicateconfidently but then express
words of uncertainty versuswords of confidence and tone or
affect of uncertainty?

(14:44):
Does that make sense?

Jon Cline (14:47):
It does make sense.
I think I would tackle it and,like in typical consultant form,
it depends.
The first thing I think is,vanessa, you highlight this idea
of being a know-it-all as beingan expectation of a Salesforce
leader or consultant.
I personally think that'ssomewhat uninformed, although

(15:07):
being a learn-it-all to me seemsto be a much more appropriate
posture.
And, additionally, recognizingwhere our gaps are, what we
don't have sufficientinformation in, where we feel
that there might be gaps andwhere there are potential areas
of the map that have not yetbeen illuminated, to me should
bring a lot of confidence to theteam, because the knowledge of

(15:27):
what we don't know is almostmore valuable at times, as it
relates to risk, than theknowledge of what we do know.
And so I think our posture ofhow we go about that and
encourage other people toparticipate goes to your second
question, josh, which is shouldwe ever have elements where
maybe our tone of voice, insteadof ending on a lower note, one
of confidence, we end on maybe aslightly higher note, one of

(15:52):
less confidence, so that weencourage other people who might
be feeling the same way to jumpin and participate with us and
not ever feel like that it's adisagreement or they're having
to differ from us in order toparticipate in the conversation.

Agreed.
Really good insight, john.
I wonder if we can do a quickexample, right?
So let's think of a statement.
Someone come up with astatement that we might say.

I need to look at a forecast of revenue for my
company.

There we go, okay , and who wants to deliver it
with a con?
I mean, I thought that waspretty confident, josh, but who
wants to deliver it?

and maybe exaggerate a little bit so the
effect can get through the radiowaves.
Here I need to look at aforecast of my company.

Okay, so that's a question.
Yeah, that's not very confident.
John, you want to give?

Jon Cline (16:38):
that a show?
Sure, we might say.
I'm thinking possibly we mightwant to look at the revenue for
our company and think aboutslicing and dicing that in
various ways.

Okay, I thought that was very good.
I'm going to critique that,though, a little bit.
John, are you okay with that?
Of course, always.
I think that possibly that'stoo many words.
The more you use verbosity tomake a clear point, the less
confident it will come across,right?
So I think we may need to lookat blah, blah, blah Right Versus

(17:11):
the preamble words, which arereally used to buy time, so you
can think more.
And people know thatsubconsciously, wasn't?
My role, I don't need a nitpick, I just want to.

Jon Cline (17:21):
No, it wasn't my role there.
It was one of the points justwanted to make tonight.
Yeah, it wasn't my role to bethe less confident person there.
Oh, what's that?
I thought.

Yeah, yeah, I don't think that's actually John
.
John would definitely have saidthat more confident.

Yeah.

Josh, let's hear your most confident but
professional, not crazy versionof that.

I want to kind of make sure I understand what
you're asking, because I thinkwe're talking about a lot of
different things here.
I am playing the role of theconsultant talking to the client
, right?
Or is this a different type ofrole that we're?

having a conversation.
You're the consultant.
You're going to just say thephrase that you came up with and
we're going to look at it.

Yeah.
So I'm going to kind of prefacethis real quick that, for folks
who are watching this andlooking at their own careers,
when you administer or developSalesforce for a company, you
are a consultant.
Whether you work for a companyor on their payroll or you do it
externally, your job is to helpthe business to use this
platform and technology in themost effective manner possible

(18:26):
to achieve a set of objective.
Now, going back to this chat,if I'm a consultant and I'm
talking to a client and I wantto project confidence, but also
I think John, you said thisreally well you don't want to be
a know-it-all, you want to be alearn-it-all.
I'm going to I love that, yeah,because your job is not to come
in with the false confidenceand confidence.

(18:48):
I know everything.
By the way, you're going to geta lot of people in the room to
shut down and be quiet if youalready have all the answers,
because, guess what, they're notgoing to want to talk about it.
Why am I going to tell this guy?
He already knows everything?
What you want to do is warmpeople up enough to say hey, I
think there's a lot of differentways we could solve this
problem.
Help me understand better.
If you want to look at revenueand forecast revenue, what's

(19:10):
most important for you to seehow should this work?
Who wants to interact with thisinformation?
When does it need to bepublished?
You can start asking questionsthat show that, hey, this guy
knows he's clearly asking veryspecific questions about the
question I just asked, but notgoing in and asserting knowledge
of what's asked, but notasserting I already know what

(19:32):
you need to look at.
This is going to be a timeseries.
This is going to be a totalrevenue by month forecast and
we're going to use Salesforceforecast to do this or we're
going to use a pipeline report.
So, yeah, to kind of go back towhat you asked earlier, josh,
in this role as an internalconsultant, external consultant,
we have a need stated by theclient.
They want to look at a forecastof revenue for the company.

(19:53):
I would more posit it as wellhelp me understand a little bit
better who's using this, how dothey need to use this?
How do they need to see theinformation?
What information do they needto see?
I would start asking questionsand kind of leaning into a line
of inquiry.
That would sincerely help meunderstand the business better
so that, as an admin or as adeveloper, I can bring the right
solution forward, because, toyour point, vanessa, there's a

(20:17):
million ways to solve a problemin Salesforce.
What's the right way to solvethis problem?

Jon Cline (20:21):
Sure, and can I highlight a little bit of the
political layer that is on topof a simple question, like Josh
just asked?
Of course you can so for example, a manager might say something
like I need to have a forecastof the revenue for my company.
They actually might be new inthe role and not really have a

(20:42):
clear idea on what they want,but somebody told them over
coffee yesterday that if youwant to be successful in this
role, you better go ask for this.
So they're asserting somethingand requesting it to their
consultative Salesforce leadright, whether that's an
in-staff person or otherwise,that's a great point, and they
might actually not know whatthey want, but they don't want

(21:05):
to be put in a embarrassing orcompromising position where they
have to disclose that.
So what you did, josh, is great, because when you start asking
questions about it, sometimesthere's a mutual discovery
happening where your stakeholderisn't actually the expert on
this topic.
You are more of an expert onthe topic, but you want to leave

(21:27):
them and keep them in theposition of being the
stakeholder and never kind ofchange the reins there.
And so by asking those questions, it gives them the ability to
save face while they go through,never having to disclose that
they actually didn't know in thebeginning what they wanted, but
now you can talk about and sayyou know what all data has
meaning and meaning has motion,and so what that means is that

(21:50):
this data comes from somewhere,somebody is a custodian and an
owner of it.
It is more or less accurate asit moves along, and then it
comes into kind of your scope ofpurview about what you're going
to do, what are the actionsyou're going to take from it,
who else needs to know anythingabout it?
How long does it have relevanceto us?
Are we going to compare it backto something else in the future
?
And now you're giving thembite-sized abilities that they

(22:13):
can say I didn't know what thatentitlement of this big report,
but I know each of these littlequestions that you're asking me,
and you start to now compose asheet of music, one note at a
time where they actually neverknew how to play the instrument
in the beginning.
And it's a great mutuality ofhow you're bringing the client
or the stakeholder to theposition they need to be in and

(22:34):
letting them save face in thefact that they probably didn't
know what was going on anyway,that's good, john.

It's a really deep insight into it.
It's basically, if you lackconfidence, ask more questions
is sort of the shorthand of it,so that you can really
understand.
And you said something.
You were talking about musicand kind of talked a little bit
about tone.
I want to make sure that we'retalking about tone today, that
we're talking about verbalcommunication, how your voice

(23:03):
projects, how you communicate asense of confidence to the
people that you need to at theappropriate times.
This is a professional show, soit's about people in their
profession.
There's lots of videos out therefor how to talk to your spouse
or your kids or your friends.
So when you talk a little bitabout music, it instantly made
me think about a video I'd seenI think it's probably four years

(23:27):
old, I can't remember, but avideo I'd seen.
I think it's probably fouryears old, I can't remember, but
a video I'd seen and thisperson was talking about voices
and he said you know he held up.
You know a hammer is.
What do you do with this?
You use it.
You know he held up a, a wrench.
You use it, right.
And I could.
My room's a mess, but I'd showyou all my musical instruments

(23:48):
over here.
What do you do with that?
You play them, you play them.
You don't use your voice, youplay your voice.
Right, it's a true instrument.
And I recently recorded a songwith my son, oliver.
He sat drums and lead guitarand I did rhythm and bass and
did the mix.
And when I was singing the songand I'm not a good singer, but
I'm going to give everyone alittle trick so that you can

(24:09):
have a better voice for yourmeetings and a better voice for
your conferences and also forsinging.
So stay tuned because I willshare that little warm-up that
is highly effective and takesless than a minute to do.
And when I was singing this,when I listened to my first
recording, it dawned on me thatI don't open my mouth wide and I
don't.

(24:29):
I kind of keep it all up in thefront and I don't enunciate.
I think I look silly when Ireally broaden my mouth, so I
tend not to do it.
I don't love my teeth.
I think my teeth are fine, butI don't love them, and so I kind
of people will hide their teeth.
They won't open their mouth somuch, not as much air comes

(24:49):
through and it's way harder toget that kind of range right.
Like I can sing a range ofabout eight notes.
I am worse than Neil Young.
I'm a terrible singer.
I'm probably somewhere close toWhat's-His-Face from Velvet
Underground God, what's his name?
Someone remind me?
Anyway, you don't have to have abig range in your talking voice

(25:17):
.
You need to have more than onenote and you probably shouldn't
have 400, right, like it's fineif you're Will Ferrell or Jim
Carrey, but in a professionalsetting you don't have to have a
lot of range.
You do have to be able toproject, you do have to be able
to take pauses.
You do have to be able toenunciate, skip unnecessary
words.
I really view this whole thing,vanessa, as confidence right.

(25:39):
People who act confident getwhat they want and people who
act unconfident get what theywant.
That's a technique learnedgenerally.
By the time you're three yearsold, you have learned a
technique to get what you wantby not projecting confidence
right.
If I go into enemy territory,whatever that may be, and I act

(26:02):
like the big man on campus, it'sprobably not going to go so
well, right?
There are times you want tomake yourself small and times
that you want to make yourselftall and the situation will
dictate it.
You'll feel it.
You know that feeling, vanessa,when you get up on stage and
you're just like it's justthat's.

(26:23):
You're so good at acting likeyou're not having any nerves
when you're on stage and I knowthat stage fright was kind of a
big part of your experience onthe speaking circuit for some
time.
I don't know that you'veovercome it, but you've
absolutely magically dealt withit because no one in the
audience and I've been I don'tknow how many of your speeches
plus sat with you here 25 timesa year and you can't tell, right

(26:48):
.
So there's something aboutpractice and confidence that
people want that.
But you can play up to the lackof confident thing that works.
People do it all the time andit's generally nefarious and
it's generally underhanded orchildish, right, or symptomatic
of challenges in your upbringing.

(27:10):
Right Versus coming across likeyou don't have to come across
as arrogant.
Arrogance and confidence areconflated.
They aren't the same thing.
Why wouldn't?
Everyone, I think on this panelwill have a feeling about what
comes to mind when I saysalesman.

Yes.

Right, yeah, usually it's not good.

So I'll give you a part two to the story.

Can I just finish this one part?
I feel like I've got a danglingparticiple here.

Oh yeah, sure.

The idea that there are really great salesmen
who help you uncover the productthat you need.
And then you get that productand it serves you for the
purpose.
But you say the word salesman,people have an automatic
visceral reaction of like now.
Why is that?
It's because the vast majorityof salespeople that most people
have interacted with are at abest buy or a gap.

(28:04):
They're 22-year-old.
Kids are 18.
They don't know how to sell.
They can be pestering.
You get telemarketing calls.
So you have a visceral responseto the word salesman.
But you like salespeople becausewhen they're really good, you
don't even know that they'reselling.
Do you see what I mean?
So there are certain times that, even with your voice, you need

(28:25):
to go in and just be like I'mfeeling tight, I'm feeling small
and I'm going to fake the shitout of this thing until I get my
first laugh or I get my firstnod of anyone in the audience,
and then I'm just going to lookat that person the whole time
because that's my source ofconfidence.
I'm going to keep doing that.

(28:46):
So thanks for letting me finish, vanessa.

I'm passing the torch to you.
No, no, apologies, I thoughtyou were done because I wanted
to kind of jump off thesalesperson.
I don't know, jump off isprobably not the right word, but
either way, because I thinkthat's part of the thing where a
good salesperson isconsultative.
And I think that's where, asconsultants and again to Josh's

(29:10):
point, josh LaQuire's point, theidea if you're doing
project-based work, whetheryou're a business analyst,
whether you're an admin, whetheryou're an actual consultant,
you are having to beconsultative in a lot of
different ways.
But when your consultative tonesounds more arrogant and more of
that salesman type, I think,particularly for certain

(29:31):
audiences, it the most confidentperson in the room tone,
Because I think, especially ifthey're trusting me with
something technical, it's againit comes across like more

(29:54):
believable.
And maybe that's an audiencething.
Maybe for executives, you kindof want to do that super
confident thing.
But if you're speaking to theIT team at your and that they do
IT projects all the time,you're not going to want to.
And my part two to the storywas we spoke to somebody else
that was more on an IT team andthey said oh, I like this much

(30:16):
better.
None of the consultants speak,and so the word consultant speak
, I think, is the same thingthat you're just referring to as
, like that salesperson speak.
Where it's the I'm not soundingauthentic because I'm trying to
sell you something, eithertrying to sell you my like, the
illusion, or the how I want youto see my expertise, or I'm

(30:38):
trying to actually sell you aservice.

Yeah, it always makes me think of my buddy,
Damien Heald, who's been one ofmy best friends for decades and
we sold cars together at aSubaru dealership in the mid
nineties it's quite some timeago and I learned a lot in that
job for a couple of years.
Damien was always number oneand I know I probably brought
him up before we might've evenquoted him about a month ago

(31:03):
with some of my favorite Dquotes.
But I remember going to thisgal that we worked with named
Vivara and I was like what's upwith Damien?
He started maybe three monthsbefore me.
He crushed it hardcore right,Like he won every Christmas
contest.
He got the trips to Hawaii.
I got the computer right.
I came in number two, which islike steak knives, and I asked

(31:26):
Vivara two, which is like steakknives, and I asked her I was
like what does he do that helpshim to communicate so
effectively?
And she said he just talks tothem like they're friends.
Man, Like that's it.
And I remember recording somevideo something for the website,
I don't know a couple years agoand the best advice I got was

(31:48):
when I'm looking at the camera,to just look at the camera and
talk like I'm trying to explainsomething to a stranger I just
met in a bar.
Right, I'm not swear, I swear alot.
So I'm not swearing, I'm notover emphatic because there's
nothing at stake for me here andI'm just communicating like the

(32:10):
person has reasonableintelligence and I can tell them
what's what, and because I'vegot a beer in my hand or old
fashioned, probably not talkingtoo fast either.
So just something I thought I'dthrow in there a little bit.

Jon Cline (32:24):
That's good.
I certainly think that we mayhave misnomers about what it
means to be confident.
I mean going back to yourearlier example of music.
I think breathing is actually areally important part of
maintaining good tone because,for example, I'm not a huge fan
of roller coasters myself, likeI go to magic, mountain and

(32:46):
stuff and I go to the animalshows.
I'm not a thrill seeker in mylife.
So when I'm going to get on aroller coaster because my family
wanted me to get on it, orwhatever, I can physically feel
the fact.
I'm like, okay, this is makingme nervous, maybe my breathing
is becoming a little shorter.
I'm definitely not relaxed andso I'm letting that situation

(33:07):
really impact my ability to kindof maintain that even keel tone
.
And I believe a lot of people dothis, a lot of people that I
work with.
This happens to them.
They get short of breath.
They are much more focused onbeing finished with whatever
they're going to say, even ifit's not that effective, they
just want to be done.
Even if it's not that effective, they just want to be done.

(33:29):
So if they hustle through it,if they stumble, if they stutter
, if they skip a few words, butthen they finish, they can check
it off and be like okay, I didit.

Totally, man.
That's that happened.
That's a great insight.
That happens all the time.
They can't wait to get off thestage right or out of the
meeting or have their turn.
Do you guys remember being inschool and they'd be going
around doing roll call?
Remember that feeling when youget three names away from you?

(34:00):
I mean, I've never asked anyonethis.
I always started to get likeheart palpitations.
I'd get an adrenaline dump.
Now I'm sitting there with 15other seven, eight, whatever it
is 10-year-olds or 13-year-olds.
I'm probably on good terms withpretty much all of them, they
all know me.
But here comes my name and theheart starts to flutter Just

(34:25):
because you have to speak outloud, the word here or present.
I mean, it's crazy what nervesdo.
And breathing is absolutely key, john, I love to.
I wonder if this is a goodmoment to just take a small
pause from this very, uh,enlightening conversation and

(34:45):
share a little bit about theshow what's coming up.
I think Vanessa wants to tell anice story about how she got
started and then we're going tocome back to this program.
So first announcement I amlooking for a marketing cloud
architect to work on animplementation.
It's probably in the 110, 150krange.

(35:10):
Interestingly, offshore is okay, so I almost never do that, but
there's an opportunity for thaton this project.
And I'm also looking forsolution architects people who
love sales cloud and havecompetencies in running projects
and architecting for solutionsthat are half a million and up.

(35:31):
That's with a small SI, greatbenefits, smart people, work
hard, play hard kind ofenvironment.
So if you're interested inthose, definitely get in touch
with me.
You can apply at thesalesforcerecruitercom forward
slash job.
The marketing cloud role is notup yet.
You can just hit the generalcandidate a little link there

(35:52):
and add your information.
Our program is going to be 45to 60 minutes moving forward.
We have spent years running 90minute programs.
We're going to tighten it up alittle bit.
What that means is we haveabout 20 minutes left in this
show.
I think it's going to be nicerfor people to have more of a
commuter-friendly track thatthey can listen to every couple

(36:16):
of weeks, bring them up to speedon career things oriented with
Salesforce, communicationefficiency and the greater
ecosystem at large.
I also wanted to share that I'mlaunching a new blog.
It's just because I thought I'dtry it out and why not?
And I like spreading myself.
Then on mediumcom.
I could be found there as RealJosh Matthews.

(36:38):
Again, it's Real Josh Matthewswith two Ts.
I've got one blog up so far.
I'll probably be adding aboutone a week, something like that,
so you can check that out.
So what would you like to dofirst, vanessa, would you like
to share your story, or wouldyou like me to share a technique
that people can use to singbetter, speak better and

(36:58):
hopefully have a little bit moreconfidence?

You first.

Okay.
So this is something that Ilearned from a very world
renowned.
I can't remember his name, I'mnotoriously bad at remembering
names.
This is an individual who hastrained some of the top names in
show business, in the sportsindustry fame speeches.

(37:29):
They're 15, 20 minute hall offame speeches.
This is the guy that's probablybeen coaching them for three
months for that one speech, andit's a very simple thing to do.
I'm not going to, I'm just goingto cover part of it.
There's a lot about breathingand breathing deep and breathing
into the side of your rib cage,which singers know about.
Common folks like me don't.
But this one thing, it was socool.

(37:50):
He had all of us sing a songlike happy birthday, and then we
did this one exercise.
We did it twice and then wesang again and, oh my gosh, it
was incredible what an easytrick this is.
So if you're watching on video,I'm going to describe it for our
listening audience.
But if you're watching on video, I'm going to zoom in on little

(38:14):
old me for just a moment andshow you.
You're going to take one ofyour hands and you're going to
put it on your chin, on your jaw.
You're going to take a nice,deep, fluid breath filling up
all of your lungs, as many ofthem as you can.
You're going to tilt your headback and you're going to make a
sound like I'm going to sharewith you just now.

(38:35):
You might want to mute it.
It's not a real nice sound.
It goes like this and you dothat twice.
I'm going to do it a secondtime just to annoy the people
who muted it and thought I wasdone.
Now what I'm doing with my hand, that is kind of cupping my

(39:00):
chin as I'm stretching it,pulling it down and pushing it
back, and that's opening up someof these tendons around your
throat and in your jaw, and thenI can sing right, but it comes
out like way better.
Now I can't sing, but when I dothat I do.
I do a little bit better and Iwould encourage everyone, after

(39:24):
this program, to give it a shot.
And, by the way, if you reallywant to wow yourself, get on
your photo booth on your mac orwhatever you use, get on your
phone and record yourselfvisually and with sound and
listen to the before and after.
And if you can do this beforeyou go into work or before a big

(39:46):
meeting, I think you'll feelbetter, I think you'll be
received better, I think you'llsound more confident and I think
you'll reap all of thosebenefits.
So I'm some of the folks didn'tget a chance to see cause it
was just solo on me.
I didn't get a chance to seesome of the giggles I was

(40:06):
getting here between Josh, johnand Vanessa trying it out.
Let's do it real quick.
Okay, I want everyone we're allgoing to sing.
Let's all sing happy, everyoneon mute.
We're going to sing happybirthday to you.
I'm not going to do it myself,I want the three of you guys to
sing happy birthday to you, justlike the first couple of lines.
Okay, here we go.
Okay, you're hired.

(40:43):
No, you're not.
Now, let's do this.
We're going to keep the soundon and we're going to actually
do this exercise again, grabbingour chin, breathing deep,
hopefully, into the sides of ourribs.
You can do this, laquire.
Sit up straight, sit up tall,big, deep, loud, as high as you
can go to as low as you can go.
Here we go.

I don't think I've sounded more masculine in
my entire time in the kitchen.

I should do this before I go to sleep.
Yeah, you should.
You can't smile and do thisexercise.
We're going to do it one moretime.
We're going to win guys.
Here we go.
One, two, three.

It's a really wide open.
Anybody who's just tuning inthere's a really wide open.

And there's a reason for this.
It's not.

Jon Cline (41:30):
It's not it's not a prerequisite to be hired or
anything.

I don't know if I need to say it's okay, all
right, let's sing happy birthdayon three one, two, three.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you.

Happy birthday to you, okay and team, so I think
everyone sounded better vocally.

I don't know.
You've got to work on the tempoand the pacing Tempo Parts of,
I think, the conducting.
Maybe I'm limited to conducting.

All right, that was a fun one.

Jon Cline (42:04):
Well, this is a great example is a great example of
right you have.
Sometimes it's like in sportsyou got to miss a shot to make a
shot.
That's right.
And this is a great example.
We're putting ourselvespublicly out there, right For
potential embarrassment, becausewe trust each other, we trust
our listeners and it's so goodto be able to step out, try

(42:25):
something new, take a risk right, get feedback and this kind of
an exercise a great example ofthat of thank you for sharing
that, as I've never evencontemplated.
I've never been a singer oranything like that myself, and
so I will try and use this moreoften just to see, because I
felt like when the secondsinging version, I did feel like

(42:45):
my voice was more in its kindof natural range and I had a
little bit more throughput on mywords.
So thank you.

You're welcome, john.
I'm glad everyone did it.
It was pretty fun.
I've got one more smallannouncement.
Then we're gonna segue rightinto some Vanessa podcast
stories and I wanted to do asmall thing.
We've been giving some thingsaway.
John's been incredible.
He has actually pulled togetherthe cohort.

(43:15):
I've just thrown it up on thescreen.
They're kind of hidden, butwe've got a full cohort up right
now, which is fantastic, andwe're looking forward to getting
an update on that on the nextshow, after everybody can kind
of get into it for a little bit.
I wanted to do something for myfriend, rachel Minion.
Rachel has been an incrediblesupport to me over the course of

(43:38):
2024.
She heads up Rockstar, which isa marketing group that I work
with.
They're very helpful to mybusiness.
They could be helpful to yours,but, more importantly, one of
the things that I work with,they're very helpful to my
business.
They could be helpful to yours.
But, more importantly, one ofthe things that I really
appreciate about Rachel is herdesire to give back.
Of course, that's what we'retrying to do on this program
with you, but she helps outpeople who are going through

(44:01):
cancer.
They're going through chemo.
She has a non-profit and I'mactually going to put up her.
If I can find it here underbanners, I'm going to go ahead
and share her email address.
It's rachel atbeyondbasicneedsorg.
So this is a non-profitproviding support to cancer

(44:21):
patients wherever they are intheir journey.
Their chemo care kits aredesigned to inspire, uplift and
help those undergoingchemotherapy thrive.
100% of donations go directlytowards providing these kits
free of charge.
A chemo care kit is designedfor cancer warriors undergoing
chemotherapy.
Each kit contains a port pillow, comfy socks, lip balm and a

(44:45):
variety of goodies that thesewarriors deserve.
So if you would like to donatein kind, if you have products
and it can be anything, I listeda few but if you are in
manufacturing or surplus ordistribution, if there are
seconds, misprints, things likethat of products like these that

(45:06):
you believe people goingthrough the very difficult
challenge of chemotherapy wouldbenefit from, please reach out
to Rachel at beyondbasicneedsorgand start a conversation with
her about how you can helpsupport all of the many patients
that her organization has beenhelping for quite some time.

(45:27):
Little public serviceannouncement, and now back to
Vanessa.
All right, vanessa, you've gotsome stories.
We want to hear it.

I just wanted to kind of go back this being my
last show as a co-host, itdoesn't mean I'm going to be a
total stranger.
I wanted to maybe look back atsome of the maybe, how I got
here and also what I've learnedfrom part of that experience.
So it was lockdown time.

(45:57):
We were doing Clubhouse.
I had just gotten ontoClubhouse because that was one
of the ways that we couldconnect with people.
Clubhouse was a platform thatwas on an iOS where you could
kind of do kind of a radio show,kind of call-in style.
People would listen and thenoccasionally they could raise
their hand and you could bringthem up onto the quote-unquote
stage and it was more likecall-in radio show style.

(46:20):
And Josh had started aClubhouse show with a couple of
other Salesforce recruiters.
I was part of the TrailheadMentorship Program at the time.
I had a few mentees and so Iwas there every week listening
just because it was gold thethings that I was hearing as far
as things that I could pass onto my mentees.

(46:40):
Because, yes, did I knowSalesforce?
Did I know how to runSalesforce projects?
Yes, but did I know the bestway to act at a Salesforce job
interview?
Did I know how to did.
I know how I should structure aresume, and these are things
that I could take the nuggetsfrom the show and bring them to
my mentees, and I think the oneof the first lessons is showing
up.

(47:00):
I showed up every week and so alot of times when you're
connecting and you're networkingwith folks, I think it's
important to not just ask forthings.
I think part of it is alsobeing supportive.
You want to be a contentamplifier and so being excited
that I was going to be listeningto the show, supporting the

(47:21):
folks on the show, and I justended up raising my hand a lot
because I had something to sayor additional advice, especially
when the advice was in regardsto certification, something that
I knew more about, where Idon't know anything about a
resume or an interview at thetime, but I could certainly
support you guys in speakingabout resumes.
And then, as the show keptgoing, it kind of turned into a

(47:43):
natural progression.
We met in person at Dreamforce2021, the one that was like
1,500 people.
That's right, and then westarted getting together for the
Twitter show, which thenevolved into a podcast.
So another lesson learned therefor me was I had always said, I
mean, for years I said, oh, I'mnot a content creator.

(48:04):
I mean, for years I said, oh,I'm not a content creator.
And I think there's alsosomething to be said besides
being a content supporter,besides networking in a way of
supporting the folks that areproviding good things out there,
because makes them moreinclined to build a relationship
with you, and that's kind ofhow you and I started building
this relationship.
And then also the idea of nothaving self-limiting beliefs,

(48:38):
the I'm never going to be acontent creator.
Then look at me.
I'm like we're a year intodoing a podcast.
We've supported I don't knowhow many people in the
Salesforce ecosystem, which hasbeen such a blessing and such an
extension of the mentorshipthat I started out doing all
this stuff.
And plus, I mean, of course,the most valuable thing is the
friends you make along the waytoo, like you and Casey have

(49:00):
been such a gift to me in mylife.
So I just wanted to touch onall the great lessons that I've
learned along the way, howyou've empowered me to support
others in the ecosystem in a waythat I didn't think I would be
able to when I first startedlistening to your show and just
thank you so much for thisjourney together.

(49:21):
It's been really quiteremarkable.

It's been really quite remarkable.
Wow, vanessa, thank you so much, and I mean for the words you
just shared, but for these pastseveral years of being so
consistent, so ready, so willingto help, and it's been a
beautiful thing.
I've never seen it before in mywhole life I've never watched

(49:47):
someone from the outside growingtheir following, finding their
voice, achieving big goals.
I mean I've seen people achievebig goals.
But I just mean Vanessa is asocial media darling and when I
met her, she was simply a gueston my podcast and it's been an
incredible.

(50:07):
I feel like I found an earlystar To your point.
It was such a natural thing.
You just started raising yourhand.
You could answer things that Icouldn't and still can't, and
it's going to be.
We're going to be making someadjustments to the show.

(50:27):
As we know, no one's going tofill your shoes or your own.
We're going to bring in acouple, we're going to bring in
another pair of shoes and Iexpect that parts of the show
will be different and feeldifferent, because how could it
not so?
From the bottom of my heart and, I think, from all of our

(50:49):
listeners 70 plus countries,four years, thousands and
thousands of downloads andsharing.
I thank you, we all thank you.
You have helped so many people.
You better get that freakingMVP for crying out loud.
If you don't, I'm going to bepissed and we're going to have

(51:11):
to launch a campaign in April.
Apparently, that's what youneed to do.
We're going to launch acampaign in April.
You are always welcome on theshow at any time.
You'll always have aninvitation.
We are really looking forwardto having you back when some of
these crazy life changes thatyou've been going through for

(51:33):
the last few months settle down,you get into the swing of
things, and when you uncover agreat topic or something of
significant value, we hope thatyou'll come on and be a star
guest again, as well as apanelist.
So thank you, vanessa.
I do want to say I had a lot ofgrandiose ideas.

(51:58):
I kind of went into LeslieKnope creative idea land and, oh
, I can create a montage of allthe best things that Vanessa has
said, and I can create amontage of all the best things
that Vanessa has said and I cansplice it, and I thought that is
a 50 hour project.
Matthews, maybe you should justsay thanks, and so that's what
I'm going to do Thanks.
And, by the way, she doesn'tneed a montage.

(52:20):
You might, though, and if youwant to make your own montage,
you would start by going to someof our first episodes and
starting to listen.
Start listening to this veryintelligent woman and all she
has to share with the ecosystem.
Okay, so with that, we've onlygot a few minutes left, and I'm
going to bring our friends backup to the stage and just ask

(52:43):
what have we not covered?
I mean, this is a big topic.
Right, it's a really big topic.
I think that we could.
You can dedicate your wholecareer to this one thing.
We're definitely going to haveto revisit it, but what have we
not covered that each personfeels we really have to convey,
and we have a hard stop in aboutthree minutes, so, so, 30

(53:06):
seconds max.
Josh LaQuire go.

Yeah Well, I think you hit not just on tone but
the power of effectivecommunications and building
trust, knowing your role in theroom, knowing the culture of
your company, the culture ofyour client, the expectations of
what that culture is, which isreally hard to read.
These are intangibles, alsocoming across and taking the
learner's mindset, and it's okayto ask questions, it's okay to

(53:30):
take risks.
Don't try and necessarily moldyourself to what you think
people want you to be.
Who you are, speak your voice.
I think those are all prettysalient topics, so-.

Time's up.
I'm sorry, buddy.
We're going to crank through MrKlein.

Jon Cline (53:46):
Whoops.

Yeah, I think similar.

Jon Cline (53:50):
I would suggest not fulfilling someone else's vision
of what leadership andconfidence looks like.
It's really recognizing yourown fingerprint, your own DNA
and your own point of view inthat meeting and just being able
to be in a position where youcan confidently deliver your own
point of view in a way, andjust being able to be in a
position where you canconfidently deliver your own
point of view in a way thatencourages others to interact.

(54:11):
You don't have to be the onewho's right in the room, but you
can start the rightconversation, and it's a
different focus and it's onethat draws people in, because
you your ability to draw thatout of people is what people are
going to really appreciate.
So the way I look at it is youwant to be the favorite person
on the team, that people justplay better when you're on the

(54:32):
team.
You don't have to be the onewho scores all the points.

Thank you, John Klein.
All right, Vanessa.

I think the big thing is keep practicing.
So keep checking in withyourself, so understanding how
you come across, looking atvideos, to josh's point, but
also don't be afraid to speak upand if you get it wrong, offer
yourself some grace.
The more you practice, thebetter you'll be able to read a
room and read what tone is goingto come.
Naturally, that will that.

That will come with practice I think that's
been some wonderful advice fromthree very intelligent people.
We'll'll be back in two weeks.
We have some wonderful guestslined up for, I think, the next
month.
We'll share more details.
Make sure that you're checkingout the Salesforce career show,
or it's justsalesforcecareershowcom for
what's coming up.
And thank you, vanessa.

(55:19):
We love you.
Have a wonderful, wonderfulweek, everybody.
Bye for now.

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