June 27, 2023 • 45 mins
Have you ever wondered how to navigate the challenging world of consulting, deliver exceptional services, and still maintain your sanity? Join us in a captivating episode of the Salesforce Career Show, where we have the pleasure of hosting Mark Baker, the Delivery Leader for MuleSoft at Salesforce. Mark shares his fascinating journey from starting out with a TRS-80 to leading a project management team at Salesforce, along with valuable insights into the realities of succeeding through layoffs.
We delve into the challenges of delivering Salesforce services during times of transition, and the cycle of pain and panic that comes with it. We discuss the importance of taking a long-term view and maintaining equilibrium, as well as the realities of burnout and overworking staff.
Finally, don't miss Mark's recommendations on the best learning path and training for future MuleSoft developers, as well as the importance of customer self-discovery and getting to know their own processes before engaging with consultants. We wrap up the episode with Mark's personal story of leaving his IT job to pursue music and travel in a band. Get ready to be inspired by this incredible journey of success and the importance of taking risks!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Announcer (00:02):
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 showwith Josh Matthews and Vanessa
Grant.
Josh Matthews (00:20):
And the crowd goes wild.
Pretty awesome.
Welcome everybody to theSalesforce career show.
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(00:41):
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What is it?
Ford slash buzzsproutcom?
I don't know.
It's something like that.
Just Google us, you'll find itpretty easy.
Okay, so today I'm very excitedabout in fact, it's not just me,
(01:02):
i'm going to speak on Vanessa'sbehalf here.
We are both very excited abouthaving Mark Baker as our guest,
and for those of you who don'tknow who Mark Baker is, he is
the delivery leader for MuleSoftat Salesforce, and he
kickstarted his tech journeyback in the day with a TRS-80.
(01:26):
I did too, except my techcareer stopped with the TRS-80.
He kept going So good for you.
He's rocked the stage with hisband and now he's leading a
project management team atSalesforce.
His story is trulyinspirational.
He has so much insight not justinto the mothership, but into
how to develop and nurture acareer And really just develop
(01:51):
yourself into the kind ofindividual and the kind of
employee that you want to be,and with that of course comes a
tremendous amount of fulfillment.
So let's do some quickintroductions.
I just kind of gave you anintro Mark, but let's hear it
from Vanessa.
Vanessa, welcome back from yoursojourn to England and Brussels
(02:14):
.
Vanessa Grant (02:16):
Thanks, i'm happy to be back.
Josh Matthews (02:19):
If someone's a first-time listener, tell
everybody who you are and whatyou do, if you can.
Vanessa Grant (02:24):
My name is Vanessa Grant.
I am currently an associateprincipal consultant at
Salesforce partner SIPLIS And Iam also a clicked coach.
I've been a clicked coach forthe last year.
Clicta is being funded bySalesforce to provide kind of
safe, free experiences for folksthat kind of want to get their
feet wet without actually, youknow, possibly botching a real
(02:48):
project.
Josh Matthews (02:50):
I love it.
Yeah, vanessa is actuallyamazing.
What she's not saying right nowis she was just at London
calling in London of all places,and while there, not only did
she make a lot of new friends,reinforce some fantastic
relationships and friendshipsestablished online, but she also
got to be an invited speakerAnd we're going to hear all
(03:11):
about Vanessa's journey, hertrip, her experience at London
calling, some of the things thatshe learned, some of her key
takeaways, as well as answereverybody's questions that they
might have, whether it's forVanessa, me, any of our esteemed
speakers and panel that youmight see at the top of your
screen here, and then me myself.
I am Josh Matthews.
I run the Salesforce fromTrudercom, aka Salesforce
(03:33):
staffing, and with that we'regoing to go ahead and just dive
headlong.
Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Baker (03:39):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm super excited to be here.
Josh Matthews (03:42):
I've been really wanting to get someone who is
intelligent, dynamic, from themothership to come join us When
they get here we'll let them be.
So, yeah, i'm still up.
We still have vacancy, but wesettled for you, yeah exactly.
That's okay by me.
(04:04):
So, Mark, I kind of did a miniintro talking about your TRS 80.
And I think that you actuallyinsisted that it was a color one
, So you know it was.
Mark Baker (04:16):
It was a color computer to start.
I had an IBM PC with dual fiveand a quarter floppy that I took
apart and put it back togetherwrong a few times.
I mean, i was luckily for me.
my dad was an early adopter, sothat's where I got my start.
Josh Matthews (04:32):
Terrific, and were either of your parents, in
technology.
Mark Baker (04:36):
Not even close, not at all, not remotely.
My dad loved tech but he waslike he was one of those people
who's cursed.
He had early cordless phonesthat never worked.
He could never make a computerwork.
His car radio constantly died.
But he didn't pass that on tome.
I got a lot of gifts from himAnd luckily not that Well.
Josh Matthews (04:56):
how was he with the VCR?
Mark Baker (04:59):
He was terrible with a VCR And he offloaded to
me.
Maybe that's where it started.
I never thought about that.
Josh Matthews (05:05):
Yeah, the real key to success.
And you know we hear it all thetime from folks like Malcolm
Gladwell when he's talking aboutoutliers He never really talks
about that whole core oftechnologists that got their
start with programming but notcomputer programming, VCR
programming, programming Yeah,What do you do when you faced
(05:27):
with that blinking light, thatblinking 12-oh-oh?
Mark Baker (05:31):
do you freeze or do you move?
Josh Matthews (05:32):
forward.
That's really That's right, andyou know most people back in
the day, they weren't justchallenged once, they were
challenged every time the powerwent out, because you were faced
with it Every single time,because you had to rely on it,
exactly.
Well, we're all very excitedabout having you here, and one
of the things that we discussedI think we were talking about a
month ago about you coming on tothis show And we were sort of
(05:55):
discussing some of the differenttopics that we could cover And,
of course, one of those topicsis going to be Mark Baker.
But I'd like to start, if it'sokay with you.
I want to start with theelephant that was in the room
last December and January andhas sort of stayed a little bit
in the room.
Maybe just a snout here andthere, maybe just a big giant
(06:15):
foot, and that is the layoffs atSalesforce.
So I hope I'm not putting youtoo much on the spot, but if I
am, you'll be all right.
I'm sure you'll get over it.
Yeah, it'll be all right.
From an insider's perspective.
Now we've all seen we've talkedabout this.
Vanessa and I and other folksup on the panel, we've talked
about this extensively And thereason we've talked about it a
(06:39):
lot is because it's important.
We're talking about people'slives, careers, their income and
a lot of hurt and pain, butsometimes some things have to
happen for the survival of acompany.
What, if you can?
you know, i understand, weunderstand that you work there,
but we're really curious whatyou can share with us.
What was the experience likewatching this happen from the
(07:01):
inside?
Mark Baker (07:02):
Well, that's, that's, that's a.
That's quite an interestingquestion.
I'll tell you.
I'll start and I'll talk aboutyou know what I tell my teams
about layoffs?
because it's, it's nervewracking, there's no other way
to put it.
It's terrifying And in thenature of layoffs and the nature
of a business, right, you don'tknow when they're coming, you
(07:24):
don't know if it's going to beyou.
I went through a period a couplemonths where I was waking up in
the.
When I wake up in the morning,the first thing I would do
before I did anything else is Iwould grab my phone and I would
check Slack and make sure myaccount was still on, and that's
true And I had, luckily, somework.
But it is what it is And it's,and it's not fun to live
(07:49):
underneath that, but it is areality.
And you get in the servicesbusiness.
If you've been around it, it'scyclical, it is, and the best
you can do is stay close to thebillable work, stay close to the
bookings And and you'll be themost protected.
but you know, i've been laidoff in my somewhat storied
(08:12):
career.
I think it's it's three totaltimes, it might be four.
I actually have to count it.
You know it happens and it'sjust something.
Josh Matthews (08:21):
I love it.
It does happen.
but that stress, I mean peoplemanage that stress differently,
right, And so I love what youhad to share just now about
sticking to the billable workFirst.
sometimes we have peoplelistening.
They're really unfamiliar withthe Salesforce ecosystem, So
maybe you can just describe tothem briefly what what you mean
by billable work.
Mark Baker (08:43):
Yeah, you know.
are you a billable resourceMeaning in a services business?
are we sending you out to tobill hours to the customer?
Or the booking side would be.
are you selling services?
Are you bringing money in?
Essentially, are you bringingmoney in in some way, and every
business, even the serviceservices business, has to have a
(09:06):
certain amount ofinfrastructure that is not
billable, in fact, a lot ofinfrastructure that's not
billable.
However, you know, when you'rein a services org, that's the,
that's kind of the dividing lineAre you bringing the money in
or not.
And that's what I mean.
If you're somehow related tobringing money in the door,
you're going to be as protectedfrom layoffs as you're going to
(09:27):
get it Not perfect, but it's asgood as it gets.
Josh Matthews (09:31):
Yeah, that's a very real thing.
I'm curious, vanessa is thissomething that you've seen in
other industries or businessesduring layoffs in the past?
Vanessa Grant (09:39):
I mean, i think that's pretty normal.
I mean, when I used to work inoperations, gosh operations got
shredded every time there was atransaction with the company or
there were layoffs.
It really is what is your valueto the company?
at least in my experience.
Josh Matthews (10:01):
Yeah, we always joke in the world of recruiting.
The economy gets a cold andrecruiters get pneumonia and die
right, because they'regenerally the very first people
to go.
Well, if we're laying peopleoff, that means that we're not
hiring more people.
But with that in mind, i meanSalesforce is hiring right now.
(10:22):
I mean they have a number ofopen positions.
What's your take on that, mark?
Mark Baker (10:28):
Like I said, the business is cyclical.
That means the whole businessis cyclical.
Hiring services people is along-term prospect When we need
people.
It's going to take six monthsto fill those positions.
End to end from identifying theneed.
Okay, we have more businessthan we can deliver based on our
(10:50):
staff, so we need people.
It's going to take six monthsAnd it's going to come around at
some point And the layoffshappened because we were looking
ahead and we were wrong aboutthe future and the business went
down And so we may be overhiredAnd that's a gross
oversimplification, but that'skind of how it works.
(11:13):
And then at some point it'sgoing to turn the other way And
so we do have open positions.
I think you're going to see,over time there's going to be
more and more And the next yearor two I just have these things
go we're hopefully going to youknow, fingers crossed get back
to the situation where we havemore business to deliver than we
(11:34):
have staff to do it and we'rejust going to be hiring and it's
going to be exciting And youknow those are the wonderful
times.
Josh Matthews (11:40):
So they are.
They call that spring Rightexactly.
And, by the way, everybody,today's the first day of summer,
so happy summer solstice to allof you pagans out there and all
of you, everyone else Right,everyone, everybody.
Mark, in addition to aligningyourself closely to billable
(12:02):
hours, what are some potentialbehavior modifications or ways
of thinking that you either haveadopted for yourself or you've
seen other people at Salesforceor other companies during
layoffs adopt to help them tomanage some of the anxiety and
(12:26):
negativity that comes withseeing people that you care
about having to leave theorganization and manage that
fear of potentially losing yourown job?
Mark Baker (12:36):
So hard, it's so hard.
I've been doing this a longtime.
I've been managing people along time.
I have helped a lot of peoplethrough a number of different
round of layoffs and you know itnever gets easier.
I admit that this recent round,when I was like I said I was
(12:58):
waking up and checking Flakfirst thing, it really took a
toll on me emotionally.
I definitely don't feel thesame way that I did on January
1st, going into the year.
It kind of is what it is.
But what can people do?
I think it's you just got totake the long view.
(13:20):
You always got to be preparedto talk about, to know what your
value is, to have a plan.
You've got to have a long termplan.
You've got to think about, youknow, the future, regardless of
layoffs.
What am I?
where's my value?
what's my value propositiongoing to be for an employer in
the future?
(13:40):
And just try and stay out ofthe really emotional stuff
because there really can be alot of negativity natural,
understandable negativity, butit's kind of toxic And you kind
of got to stay out of it.
The modern social media we havelike Fishbowl, you know, even
Flak to some degree it canbecome kind of toxic And, just
(14:05):
you know, keep out of it as bestyou can so that you, you know
kind of retain your equilibrium.
Does that make sense?
Josh Matthews (14:15):
Absolutely.
It makes a ton of sense to me.
I mean, like it's not my firstrecession either, right, and
I've seen layoffs.
I remember losing 50% of ourstaff at Fortune 500 company.
I was working, at least locally.
We lost 50% of our staff.
And you know, i'm kind ofcurious, and I'll talk about
(14:36):
that in a second.
But I'm kind of curious becauseone of the things that happens
when an organization lets anumber of people go whether it's
10%, 20%, 50%, and sometimeseven just letting one person go
some of that work falls on otherpeople, right, and then we run
the risk of potential burnout.
I have, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
(14:57):
That very thing that I justmentioned is this company.
Right now They let a bunch ofpeople go.
That's making people scared.
They're scared for additionalstability, right, yeah, there's
very little of that intechnology, ok, but you know, i
mean, tell me, like, have youseen any effect from that sort
(15:21):
of the?
OK?
now the workload has just beentaken from these 10% of the
employees and put on theshoulders of the other 90%.
Has that happened?
Have you witnessed that?
Mark Baker (15:34):
You know I've been in services for a long time And
it's funny I think myperspective is a little
different, because we'rebillable And And the fact that a
lot of everyone is focusing onthis you can get burned down and
overworked or be a situation abillable situation where you're
(15:56):
burned down and overworked canhappen on any given project, no
matter what the conditions areat the company that you're
working for.
Like it's kind of unrelated Andin fact what I see more often
is in the growth times.
So one of my previous employersit was actually Gidead from
Silverland who taught me what hecalled it the pain panic curve,
(16:16):
and it's the cycle thatservices goes through that when
either you have more business todeliver than you have people to
deliver it, or you have morepeople on staff than you have
business to deliver them, and sowhen you don't have enough
people, you have all this pain,and when you have too many
(16:37):
people, you have panic becauseyou don't know how you're gonna
make payroll.
The pain is, we have all thisbusiness to deliver and I don't
have enough people to deliver it.
That's really in services whenwe see people getting burned out
, because then as a manager Ihave to ask people to work more
projects than I normally would,to work sometimes more than 40
(16:59):
hours, which is a really I don'twanna do that.
It makes people ineffective.
But when I'm moving peoplearound to try and cobble
together the tetris of resourcesto handle the business, because
if I can't service the businesswe sell, that's gonna hurt our
reputation, it's gonna hurt ourposition in the marketplace,
it's gonna hurt our brand andit's gonna hurt us long term.
So does that make sense?
(17:21):
It's an interesting conundrumbut it's kind of an opposite to
what the normal story is.
Vanessa Grant (17:26):
Can I ask a question?
Yeah, so I know it's For years-.
Josh Matthews (17:32):
Can I just say, vanessa, for years I don't know
why you always ask you're thehost, you're the host, you're
the host, you're the host.
You're not the host, you're thehost.
Sorry.
Vanessa Grant (17:44):
It's my meek, subservient nature, josh, i do.
Josh Matthews (17:47):
I know We love you, love you.
Vanessa Grant (17:54):
So, mark, i will say I think it's probably an
industry wide issue, especiallyin Salesforce consulting.
That kind of consultants getburned to the ground generally
And I know that you've worked atSilverline and you've worked at
Salesforce for a while indelivery, i would say,
especially post-pandemic, whenthere were so much work because
(18:17):
everybody was kind of doingtheir digital transformations
all at the same time in a panic.
There were so manyconsultancies just kind of
throwing bodies on projects.
How do you find the culture isdifferent as far as deliveries
concerned in Salesforce versusother consultancies that you've
either worked with or worked at?
Mark Baker (18:38):
That's a good question.
So my recent experience is onthe MuleSoft side and MuleSoft
delivery and this is the lastthree years.
MuleSoft is a different productAnd delivery.
Mulesoft is a different cadence.
It has different process thandelivering the core Salesforce
(18:58):
product And the twoorganizations.
Mulesoft was acquired I thinkthree or even four years ago No
one fact-checked me, i don'tknow, but it's something like
that.
The integration of the servicesorganizations, it's still
ongoing.
It's going to be a long story.
So but I would point being myrecent experiences on the
MuleSoft side.
(19:18):
I think with the core product,salesforce, professional
services is in a unique positionin the ecosystem in that for a
long time they existed to reallyonly take down the riskiest
parts of the portfolio.
We really had a posture that wewere trying to support the
(19:41):
creation of PSORGs forimplementing Salesforce at our
partners.
We wanted our partners toimplement Salesforce because if
especially the big five or canimplement Salesforce, if they
can make money on Salesforce,then they're going to be
recommending the software Andthat's our ultimate goal.
So Salesforce services isreally about the riskiest parts
of the portfolio.
(20:02):
It was for a long time It wasthe parts that were cutting edge
or new technologies or theparts that our partners didn't
want to touch, or our customerswho wanted a single sheet of
paper with software and servicesall bundled together, so that
in and of itself, made it alittle bit different.
I think, other than that, thefact that Salesforce is the
(20:25):
software company and then allthe other organizations are
straight services, it's adifferent environment.
I don't know.
Does that make sense?
Does that resonate with you atall?
Vanessa Grant (20:37):
Yeah, i mean I guess.
So the MuleSoft aspect, iimagine, does make it a little
different, because you're veryspecific to this one type of
delivery.
I guess I would be curious moreon are there certain things
that the Salesforce culture doesdifferently so that other
consultancies maybe could learnfrom as far as not just
(20:58):
completely burning people out?
Mark Baker (21:01):
Salesforce is.
I think I'm gonna answer thiswith telling a story.
So a lot of the, the brand ofMark Benioff is that he's fairly
progressive.
He is a progressive businessleader stakeholder capitalism,
(21:24):
equal pay, all those sorts ofthings.
I can tell you because I've metthe man and I've actually
delivered projects and deliveredfast reports to him and other
business leaders on some ofthose projects that had that
visibility.
All that stuff is genuine.
He is genuine.
It's not show, it's real.
That filters down.
(21:44):
Salesforce is a fairlyprogressive place and they may
be really progressive for theindustry in terms of burnout.
They do care about people notgetting burned out.
They really were some of thefirst with DEI initiatives,
diversity, equity, inclusion,the equal pay, which has been
(22:06):
pretty storing, and it's prettycool.
Salesforce really cares andthey make efforts.
That said, services is hard,it's just hard work.
It is and it's harder thanother jobs that I've had.
It is undeniably You've gotcustomers and one of my things
is we're going to make ourcustomers successful despite
(22:27):
their own best efforts.
to the contrary.
It's a joke, but it's not ajoke.
There's travel.
Travel is different.
I guess after the pandemicNobody's traveling nearly as
much as we used to.
Maybe it'll come back.
I don't know, but that wasalways really hard.
A lot of services work is a lotmore than 40 hours a week.
It is what it is.
The big five.
(22:48):
that's part of the brand andthe job At Salesforce.
it was never like that.
I don't know if I'm answeringyour question, but I've said a
lot, so I don't know.
Vanessa Grant (22:59):
No, I think it's a good point of how ultimately
it is just that top-down culturewhere it's as long as you are
at an organization that reallydoes value the personal lives
and health of their people,which is sadly a more
(23:21):
progressive type of culture,Then hopefully that does prevent
some burnout.
It's nice to hear that workingin professional services at
Salesforce does have that typeof culture.
I would love to just in generalit's been on my mind as far as
(23:45):
how we make change within theindustry itself overall, Because
we're all delivering Salesforce.
You might be doing aprofessional services project or
it could be going to adifferent consultancy, But it's
historically just known how inSalesforce projects just people
(24:06):
get chewed up and spit out a lotof times.
Mark Baker (24:09):
I'll say that, in my experience, services is not
for the faint of heart.
It's not.
I find the people that stay inservices as a career have
certain qualities that makes itdifferent than the people who
are tourists in the role.
One of those qualities is theylike to work hard.
(24:30):
It's not that they don't mindworking hard.
They like to work hard.
As a manager for the serviceand the lifer, the thing that I
need to guard against more thananything is the person who is
going to work themselves intoburnout because they can't stop
themselves.
They're due to themselves.
Somebody who won't delegate,who won't take their foot off
(24:53):
the gas, who won't take theirfinger off the pulse, who won't
work in 60 hours a week.
That's like a personality traitof the people that are really
successful in services and stickaround if that makes sense.
Vanessa Grant (25:06):
How much responsibility do you think it's
on individuals versusmanagement to make sure that
people are taking time forthemselves versus putting their
all in the project?
Mark Baker (25:19):
I think we all it's on both, but for different
reasons.
I always tell my team it's yourlife, it's your career.
You have to have your hands onthe wheel.
If your hands aren't on thewheel, you're never going to get
to where you want to go.
That's one of the things that Ialways work with my people
about.
Anyone on my teams, i'm alwaysdoing everything I can, having
(25:43):
conversations and working ongrowth for them.
Are your hands on the wheel ofyour career and your life?
Are you monitoring your ownburnout?
Because, also, you're going toknow what's important to you a
lot better than I ever will.
But that said, as a manager, i'ma steward of the business.
I don't want to get my peopleburned out.
(26:08):
I want to let them burn outbecause once someone really
honestly gets burned out, it'sreally hard to recover.
If somebody honestly gets tothe point where they are chewed
up, then they're not going to beas effective.
They are much more likely toquit.
They're likely to turn in badwork, bad customer satisfaction,
(26:30):
all that stuff.
I think we both bearresponsibility Some degree.
I'm supposed to be the adult inthe room, so to speak.
I know things, hopefully aftermy long career, that a lot of
people themselves.
They don't know.
They don't know If that makessense, but we both bear
responsibility from differentangles.
Vanessa Grant (26:51):
Thank you, i think those are the same.
I do have actually a questionfrom the audience for you, mark,
if that's all right.
I have some thoughts on this,but would love to hear yours,
mark.
What are the best learning path?
slash training for futureMuleSoft developers.
Mark Baker (27:11):
Whoa?
that's a great question.
Mulesoft has a lot of trainingthemselves.
I would always take classesfrom MuleSoft training if
possible.
I'm going to be honest and I'mgoing to say that I am not super
technical.
My technical prowess came onthe Salesforce core side and
(27:32):
mostly on the functional side.
I was never really an honestdeveloper.
I wasn't a developer in mycareer but I was entirely
self-taught.
I've never dealt with CICD, forexample.
I never had to deal withdepositories or anything like
that.
And the MuleSoft product istechnical.
It's no BS, it's a technicalproduct.
So if somebody really wants toknow and wants some granular
(27:56):
detail, it helps to have a CSdegree.
I think It helps to at least bevery familiar with subjects
that you would learn whengetting a CS degree.
I do know all the people thatcan tell you in great detail
kind of dev to dev or nerd tonerd on what you really need to
know to be a MuleSoft dev.
(28:17):
But there you go.
Hopefully I answered that.
Vanessa Grant (28:23):
Yeah, i'll just also throw out there the.
So the first thing I did andthis is kind of how I tend to
approach my learning is I try tofind the influencers in the
space, and so I want to do ashout out to.
There's a MuleSoft ambassadorprogram.
So if you're interested inlearning MuleSoft, i would
highly recommend putting in thewords MuleSoft ambassador into
(28:44):
LinkedIn and it'll give you alist right off the bat.
I had, i think I don't know likea pretty hefty number of
results of people that these aregoing to be the folks that are
going to be regularly speakingon MuleSoft.
So they'll be doing webinars.
I'm sure that they'd be open tohaving conversations about
MuleSoft and can direct you toresources.
(29:06):
So, like I spoke to MelissaShepherd earlier today and I
said, hey, what should I do ifI'm interested in being a
MuleSoft developer, after shekind of pulled her drop off the
floor and I said no, no, not forme.
Then she said that there'sactually a lot of really good
courses on the MuleSoft site.
So of course we've gotTrailhead and there are some
(29:28):
Trailhead courses on it, but Ididn't realize that if you go to
the MuleSoft site, that there'sactually some self training
that you can take straight fromthe MuleSoft site, so like
trainingmulesoftcom.
Mark Baker (29:38):
That's right, and shame on me.
I should know the stuff, buteveryone that I talked to
already knows MuleSoft, so it'snot something I get out, that's
right.
Vanessa Grant (29:49):
No, fair enough, I mean, and you actually
answered.
Another question I had was howtechnical do you have to be to
do MuleSoft, Because I know thatthere's a lot of kind of low
code click stuff that you can doThat's true, there is the low
code stuff.
Mark Baker (30:04):
There's Composer and there's a few other things
that are coming out And thoseare low code.
We don't really touch those inservices.
Some of the automation stuff,too, is less code, it's more
click.
We don't touch that stuff inservices, so we don't have a lot
of visibility there.
So when I think about MuleSoft,i'm really thinking about our
flagship product at any point,and that is very true.
(30:26):
But also, no one's talkingabout being a Composer Dev.
If somebody wants to be aMuleSoft Dev, they're talking
about at any point.
Vanessa Grant (30:33):
Got it.
I do have one other questionfrom our audience for Mark,
which is what is one majorrecurring implementation risk
that you see on projects thatyour team delivers And there is
a follow up to that is, what canthe project team on the client
side do to help mitigate thisrisk?
Mark Baker (30:53):
Well, that's a good question, I think, on the core
side.
So I get so philosophical onthis stuff.
I've been doing this for a longtime.
I get so philosophical So Imean this is going to be a
philosophical answer On the coreside.
A lot of the times it is thatthe customer doesn't know what
they don't know, and then itincludes about themselves.
(31:17):
They don't know what they want,but they don't know that.
They don't know what they want.
They don't know what they need,but they don't know that they
don't know what they need, andso they don't know what to ask
for.
And it's just this slow processof discovery where everybody
kind of discovers everything aswe go, and it includes kind of
(31:40):
the client's discovery aboutthemselves.
This is a constant theme thatclients they don't really think
about their own process untilthey try to change it or
something super broken.
So you don't really pop thehood and think about your engine
until you pop the hood andthink about your engine.
And so we're on the ground,we're on the clock and we're
(32:04):
asking you okay, what's yoursales process?
And the answer is often oh, wedon't really know.
Who do we ask about it?
We're not entirely sure.
And that's a massive riskbecause the clock is ticking,
we're spending money, there'spressure is growing and we're
having to answer these remedialquestions, and so I guess I
would say if customers weregonna remediate the biggest risk
(32:28):
about themselves before they goto a project, it would be to do
as much discovery aboutyourself as you can, to know who
does what, who owns what, whohas a stake, who's a proper
stakeholder, what are yourprocesses, what do you do now so
(32:48):
that when the consultants geton the ground and start to move
forward, we're not having tokind of build that stuff We can
take okay, we know where you arenow and we can just concentrate
on moving you forward.
That's gonna put everyone inthe best position to get the
best value that I can spend andeveryone's gonna be as happy as
possible.
Josh Matthews (33:08):
That's outstanding.
Vanessa Grant (33:10):
Yeah, i feel that applies to like every
consulting engagement, right,you know?
that's kind of like yourbusiness analysis to a certain
extent.
Make sure you understand yourown processes.
And something I hear all thetime which anytime I've busted
it out in an interview it'salways been well received is
that you take a bad process andthen throw technology on it.
You just have a faster badprocess.
(33:32):
So have you optimized yourbusiness before you brought the
technology team in to update it?
Mark Baker (33:38):
It's so true And it's one of.
I'm a huge believer in Agile,and again, at the philosophical
level, at the principal level.
But part of the reason isbecause this concept of emergent
architecture, like architecture, that's gonna emerge as we go
along, and that's also becausewhen we design a product, it's
(34:02):
pure theory And even if you knowwho you are and you know what
you want, and you talk to us andeverything you told us is true
and we say we're gonna give youthis, we're gonna give you X
thing, and what we tell you isactually what we deliver, it's
still theoretical And it's notgonna be until you put it in
(34:22):
someone's hands and they startusing it, that it gets out of
theory into the real world, intopractice, and only then can you
realize you know what thisisn't actually what we need.
We need something different,and sometimes it's just the way
it is.
Josh Matthews (34:39):
I gotta say, mark, having you on this show
was a really smart decision.
I really love the way you tellstories, the way you just attack
the questions and say it likeit is and say it with enthusiasm
.
It's been thrilling to have youon the program.
We only have a few minutes leftof the segment where we're
(35:01):
really.
You know it's Mark Baker, gueston the podcast, and I wanna
make sure that we can understanda couple more things about you.
One love to know about yourband.
You traveled in the band.
What were you doing?
what were you playing?
what kind of music was it?
I know this isn't Salesforcerelated, but maybe there's a
(35:22):
tie-in to music and technologyhere.
So tell us about that, if youcan, real briefly.
Mark Baker (35:28):
Well, i've been a few over the years, and two big
ones.
So before I started my musiccareer, i was I call myself, you
know, your garden variety ITdork in San Francisco, in the
Bay Area, and it was 2005,.
I was in this band.
The band is called MigsM-I-G-G-S.
You can hear Migs on Spotifyadult oriented rock, which isn't
(35:51):
even really my genre, but Ioften play kind of.
I often gravitated personallyinto music that's a little more
arty, a little weirder, and Iwanted to be in a band that I
saw people like, which is funnyto say out loud, but that's it.
And I found that I joined theband and I love the guys and we
all have great time.
And I was doing servers and Iwas doing death side support, in
(36:15):
fact, i think in 2004, i wasrolling out laptops for Charles
Schwab This, you know, it wasjust a weird job.
And I had an opportunity to goon the road with Migs and it was
entirely self-funded.
It wasn't glamorous it soundsso cool.
It was completely unglamorous.
We were in a van, weself-financed, we were burning
(36:36):
through all of our own capital.
We had a manager who washelping us out and investing in
us, but we were burning throughher capital, playing in bars,
self-booking not playing foranybody, not glamorous, but I
did it, i quit.
So I quit my job.
I did it And I knew it wasn'tgonna last.
I knew it.
It was just something I wantedto do before I died.
(36:58):
Well, i grew up on my deathbed.
I didn't want to say that, ididn't take a chance.
And so doing that.
And this is back in 2005,before really the internet was
on your phone.
Driving from Phoenix, arizona,to, let's say, santa Fe, new
Mexico, is a long drive, and soI bought myself a laptop.
(37:21):
I put the lamp stack on thatlaptop.
I taught myself HTML, CSS, php,because I knew when I came home
I was going to not want to goback into the server room, and I
did.
I came off the road about ayear later, went back into the
workforce and got my job as an.
HTML developer, html PHP.
(37:42):
And through dumb luck, onerandom thing led to another.
about two or three years laterI learned the Salesforce
platform, and that's when I alsostumbled into services, and it
was because of that band I wasable to have the skills to find
it.
So I don't recommend everybodydo it, but if you have the
(38:03):
opportunity, don't pass it up, iguess.
Josh Matthews (38:07):
Man, i love that story And can I ask you were
you classically trained or canyou read music?
Mark Baker (38:15):
I was not classically trained.
I was lucky enough to bemusically educated a little tiny
bit, honestly, in elementaryschool.
my elementary had a good, solidmusic program.
I also took piano lessons whenI was young.
I was not classically callingit classically trained, so far
(38:36):
over-sells it Like he had to beplaying the theme from Mission
Impossible And I also didn'treally care.
It's a good song.
It's a really good song.
It's a good song.
It's super fun to sing theMission Impossible theme song
around the campfire.
But I can read music.
it takes me a minute, right,It's like I read music, like I
read Spanish.
I found it out in my head andthen I'm kind of useless, but I
(39:01):
can read music.
if that answers your question.
Josh Matthews (39:03):
It does and thanks for answering it.
I always like to pick people'sbrains on this because
throughout my career almost 25years of headhunting in the tech
space there are so manymusicians who are developers
right.
Mark Baker (39:17):
Yeah, I have a degree in music And it's because
it's a symbolic language.
Josh Matthews (39:21):
You have a degree in music, Vanessa.
Vanessa Grant (39:22):
That's what my degree is.
I have a degree in music fromNYU.
Josh Matthews (39:28):
Who are you?
I don't even know you.
Oh my God, you're on the show.
Wow, that's good.
Maybe there's a link here.
You guys make me jealousbecause I'm Mr Cordchart myself.
Mark Baker (39:42):
Well, that's why she not only sounds good, but
also can make sound decisions.
Vanessa Grant (39:46):
Oh there you go.
Josh Matthews (39:48):
Oh, that's good.
She sounds terrific.
And in just a moment, guys,we're gonna wrap up this segment
of the podcast and get readyfor part two.
I have one more question forMark before we do that, and, by
the way, if you have additionalquestions, for if you have
additional questions for Mark,it's okay, he's gonna be here.
You can ask him in the nextsegment.
We're just gonna do this newlittle thing here.
So the question I've got foryou, mark, is listen.
(40:11):
The people who listen to thisshow.
They come from all walks oflife.
They come from over 20, 25different countries listening to
this program, and the majorityof them are curious about how to
advance their career or how toenjoy their career more.
So here's your platform.
Right, if you could give anyadvice to the general public or
(40:34):
our audience the one or twothings that you've done that you
believe have advanced yourcareer and brought you into the
career that you really love.
What were those decisions orbehaviors?
Mark Baker (40:51):
Wow, no pressure.
Okay, the one or two things.
So I guess I'll give some ofthe advice that I've been giving
of late.
I'm a little bit older, i'm alittle bit more senior, as one
of my mentors used to say.
I've got a little more snow onthe roof And I think I let go of
(41:15):
ambition, other than theambition to look forward to what
I'm going to be doing on Mondaymorning.
Because if you look forward towhat you're going to be doing on
Monday morning, then you knowif you love what you do.
It's not work, that's all thatstuff, blah, blah, blah.
(41:36):
I don't know if that's true ornot.
However, if you can lookforward to what you're doing on
Monday morning, then it's notdrudgery, right?
You're not going to have allthe anxiety over the weekend.
Oh, i can't believe.
I'm going to go to work Andreally that's what I seek to
build.
That's what I seek to hirePeople who want to do the job
that I have on offer.
(41:57):
Those are the characteristics Ilook for in jobs that I go after
.
I'm actually going to beenjoying the work, the work that
I'm going to be doing day inand day out, and everything else
tile, money, everything else itkind of falls out of that tree.
Now the tree is.
(42:19):
You know, i live in the BayArea, i've got two kids and a
massive mortgage And so it'sreally easy to say that money
falls out of that tree.
But I need a lot of money tofall out of that tree to keep
everything running, so it's notsuper cut and dried But even so,
you know, i got into this joband consulting.
(42:40):
I got into Salesforce because Ienjoyed it, i enjoyed the
challenge And I like solvingproblems And it's gone up and
down at cyclical But I just kindof chase my own enjoyment And
as long as I don't hate what I'mdoing, then any other moves I
need to make, they can be slower, they can be kind of at my own
(43:03):
pace And everything just kind ofworks out.
I guess that would be my bestadvice.
Josh Matthews (43:10):
I think that's incredible advice, mark.
You've been a fantastic guestAnd you're embodying embodying
the anti Garfield sentiment thatI have, because I hate lasagna
and I love Mondays And it soundslike you love Mondays.
I don't know what your pastaaffiliation is, but I'm with you
(43:31):
.
I mean, i look forward toMonday.
I get to work right, i get tobe with my team.
I have this incredible teamSome of them are listening right
now And it's a huge thing.
So much of it has to do withliving in the present, finding
what's good, find the thing tobe grateful for, and if we can
all do that, moment to moment orMonday to Monday, we're going
(43:53):
to establish an attitude andcertain behaviors will stem from
those attitudes and certainrelationships will stem from
those behaviors And we're allgoing to find ourselves
fulfilled.
Doesn't mean that Casey andCasey and I were just talking
about this and I might botchthis, but sometimes, when we're
(44:14):
working towards a goal, right,we're trying to climb this big
mountain and we're trying to getto the very top of the mountain
And I don't know if any of youhave ever gone on a hike and
thought that you were near thetop, only to realize that
there's another 1000 feet ofvertical snow covered land to
cover.
But it can feel sometimes whenyou're on this trail for those
(44:35):
of you on trailhead you'll getthis that you think you're
almost done and then you're not.
You think you're almost doneagain a month later, two weeks
later, and then you're not.
But what it does.
Maybe you don't reach themountaintop right, but maybe you
get to be really good at hikingAnd if you can be really good
at hiking or really good atworking, those Mondays are going
(44:55):
to get chewed up and you'rejust going to crush it.
This has been a wonderfulepisode.
Everybody stick around becausewe're not going anywhere.
But I am going to do a coupleof little commentary to wrap up
this episode and then we'regoing to launch into part two.
So, mark, thank you so much forbeing a wonderful guest on the
show.
You're welcome back anytime.
You just show up.
(45:16):
We'll add you as a speaker.
Love to hear your perspective.
So thank you, and I'm sure ifall of us could just drop our
phones and put our handstogether, you'd hear a nice
round of applause.
So thank you again for being onthe show.
If you have just listened tothis podcast, stay tuned because
in less than a week, we'll bereleasing part two.
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 showwith Josh Matthews and Vanessa
Grant.
Josh Matthews (00:20):
And the crowd goes wild.
Pretty awesome.
Welcome everybody to theSalesforce career show.
This is a live show that wehost on Twitter Spaces And we
release it on our Buzzsproutchannel and it goes to every
single podcast platform outthere, including Spotify, which
(00:41):
is, i think, number two in theworld.
It goes to Apple Music, numberone in the world.
It goes to Google, but you canfind us at the Salesforce career
show.
What is it?
Ford slash buzzsproutcom?
I don't know.
It's something like that.
Just Google us, you'll find itpretty easy.
Okay, so today I'm very excitedabout in fact, it's not just me,
(01:02):
i'm going to speak on Vanessa'sbehalf here.
We are both very excited abouthaving Mark Baker as our guest,
and for those of you who don'tknow who Mark Baker is, he is
the delivery leader for MuleSoftat Salesforce, and he
kickstarted his tech journeyback in the day with a TRS-80.
(01:26):
I did too, except my techcareer stopped with the TRS-80.
He kept going So good for you.
He's rocked the stage with hisband and now he's leading a
project management team atSalesforce.
His story is trulyinspirational.
He has so much insight not justinto the mothership, but into
how to develop and nurture acareer And really just develop
(01:51):
yourself into the kind ofindividual and the kind of
employee that you want to be,and with that of course comes a
tremendous amount of fulfillment.
So let's do some quickintroductions.
I just kind of gave you anintro Mark, but let's hear it
from Vanessa.
Vanessa, welcome back from yoursojourn to England and Brussels
(02:14):
.
Vanessa Grant (02:16):
Thanks, i'm happy to be back.
Josh Matthews (02:19):
If someone's a first-time listener, tell
everybody who you are and whatyou do, if you can.
Vanessa Grant (02:24):
My name is Vanessa Grant.
I am currently an associateprincipal consultant at
Salesforce partner SIPLIS And Iam also a clicked coach.
I've been a clicked coach forthe last year.
Clicta is being funded bySalesforce to provide kind of
safe, free experiences for folksthat kind of want to get their
feet wet without actually, youknow, possibly botching a real
(02:48):
project.
Josh Matthews (02:50):
I love it.
Yeah, vanessa is actuallyamazing.
What she's not saying right nowis she was just at London
calling in London of all places,and while there, not only did
she make a lot of new friends,reinforce some fantastic
relationships and friendshipsestablished online, but she also
got to be an invited speakerAnd we're going to hear all
(03:11):
about Vanessa's journey, hertrip, her experience at London
calling, some of the things thatshe learned, some of her key
takeaways, as well as answereverybody's questions that they
might have, whether it's forVanessa, me, any of our esteemed
speakers and panel that youmight see at the top of your
screen here, and then me myself.
I am Josh Matthews.
I run the Salesforce fromTrudercom, aka Salesforce
(03:33):
staffing, and with that we'regoing to go ahead and just dive
headlong.
Mark, welcome to the show.
Mark Baker (03:39):
Thank you so much for having me.
I'm super excited to be here.
Josh Matthews (03:42):
I've been really wanting to get someone who is
intelligent, dynamic, from themothership to come join us When
they get here we'll let them be.
So, yeah, i'm still up.
We still have vacancy, but wesettled for you, yeah exactly.
That's okay by me.
(04:04):
So, Mark, I kind of did a miniintro talking about your TRS 80.
And I think that you actuallyinsisted that it was a color one
, So you know it was.
Mark Baker (04:16):
It was a color computer to start.
I had an IBM PC with dual fiveand a quarter floppy that I took
apart and put it back togetherwrong a few times.
I mean, i was luckily for me.
my dad was an early adopter, sothat's where I got my start.
Josh Matthews (04:32):
Terrific, and were either of your parents, in
technology.
Mark Baker (04:36):
Not even close, not at all, not remotely.
My dad loved tech but he waslike he was one of those people
who's cursed.
He had early cordless phonesthat never worked.
He could never make a computerwork.
His car radio constantly died.
But he didn't pass that on tome.
I got a lot of gifts from himAnd luckily not that Well.
Josh Matthews (04:56):
how was he with the VCR?
Mark Baker (04:59):
He was terrible with a VCR And he offloaded to
me.
Maybe that's where it started.
I never thought about that.
Josh Matthews (05:05):
Yeah, the real key to success.
And you know we hear it all thetime from folks like Malcolm
Gladwell when he's talking aboutoutliers He never really talks
about that whole core oftechnologists that got their
start with programming but notcomputer programming, VCR
programming, programming Yeah,What do you do when you faced
(05:27):
with that blinking light, thatblinking 12-oh-oh?
Mark Baker (05:31):
do you freeze or do you move?
Josh Matthews (05:32):
forward.
That's really That's right, andyou know most people back in
the day, they weren't justchallenged once, they were
challenged every time the powerwent out, because you were faced
with it Every single time,because you had to rely on it,
exactly.
Well, we're all very excitedabout having you here, and one
of the things that we discussedI think we were talking about a
month ago about you coming on tothis show And we were sort of
(05:55):
discussing some of the differenttopics that we could cover And,
of course, one of those topicsis going to be Mark Baker.
But I'd like to start, if it'sokay with you.
I want to start with theelephant that was in the room
last December and January andhas sort of stayed a little bit
in the room.
Maybe just a snout here andthere, maybe just a big giant
(06:15):
foot, and that is the layoffs atSalesforce.
So I hope I'm not putting youtoo much on the spot, but if I
am, you'll be all right.
I'm sure you'll get over it.
Yeah, it'll be all right.
From an insider's perspective.
Now we've all seen we've talkedabout this.
Vanessa and I and other folksup on the panel, we've talked
about this extensively And thereason we've talked about it a
(06:39):
lot is because it's important.
We're talking about people'slives, careers, their income and
a lot of hurt and pain, butsometimes some things have to
happen for the survival of acompany.
What, if you can?
you know, i understand, weunderstand that you work there,
but we're really curious whatyou can share with us.
What was the experience likewatching this happen from the
(07:01):
inside?
Mark Baker (07:02):
Well, that's, that's, that's a.
That's quite an interestingquestion.
I'll tell you.
I'll start and I'll talk aboutyou know what I tell my teams
about layoffs?
because it's, it's nervewracking, there's no other way
to put it.
It's terrifying And in thenature of layoffs and the nature
of a business, right, you don'tknow when they're coming, you
(07:24):
don't know if it's going to beyou.
I went through a period a couplemonths where I was waking up in
the.
When I wake up in the morning,the first thing I would do
before I did anything else is Iwould grab my phone and I would
check Slack and make sure myaccount was still on, and that's
true And I had, luckily, somework.
But it is what it is And it's,and it's not fun to live
(07:49):
underneath that, but it is areality.
And you get in the servicesbusiness.
If you've been around it, it'scyclical, it is, and the best
you can do is stay close to thebillable work, stay close to the
bookings And and you'll be themost protected.
but you know, i've been laidoff in my somewhat storied
(08:12):
career.
I think it's it's three totaltimes, it might be four.
I actually have to count it.
You know it happens and it'sjust something.
Josh Matthews (08:21):
I love it.
It does happen.
but that stress, I mean peoplemanage that stress differently,
right, And so I love what youhad to share just now about
sticking to the billable workFirst.
sometimes we have peoplelistening.
They're really unfamiliar withthe Salesforce ecosystem, So
maybe you can just describe tothem briefly what what you mean
by billable work.
Mark Baker (08:43):
Yeah, you know.
are you a billable resourceMeaning in a services business?
are we sending you out to tobill hours to the customer?
Or the booking side would be.
are you selling services?
Are you bringing money in?
Essentially, are you bringingmoney in in some way, and every
business, even the serviceservices business, has to have a
(09:06):
certain amount ofinfrastructure that is not
billable, in fact, a lot ofinfrastructure that's not
billable.
However, you know, when you'rein a services org, that's the,
that's kind of the dividing lineAre you bringing the money in
or not.
And that's what I mean.
If you're somehow related tobringing money in the door,
you're going to be as protectedfrom layoffs as you're going to
(09:27):
get it Not perfect, but it's asgood as it gets.
Josh Matthews (09:31):
Yeah, that's a very real thing.
I'm curious, vanessa is thissomething that you've seen in
other industries or businessesduring layoffs in the past?
Vanessa Grant (09:39):
I mean, i think that's pretty normal.
I mean, when I used to work inoperations, gosh operations got
shredded every time there was atransaction with the company or
there were layoffs.
It really is what is your valueto the company?
at least in my experience.
Josh Matthews (10:01):
Yeah, we always joke in the world of recruiting.
The economy gets a cold andrecruiters get pneumonia and die
right, because they'regenerally the very first people
to go.
Well, if we're laying peopleoff, that means that we're not
hiring more people.
But with that in mind, i meanSalesforce is hiring right now.
(10:22):
I mean they have a number ofopen positions.
What's your take on that, mark?
Mark Baker (10:28):
Like I said, the business is cyclical.
That means the whole businessis cyclical.
Hiring services people is along-term prospect When we need
people.
It's going to take six monthsto fill those positions.
End to end from identifying theneed.
Okay, we have more businessthan we can deliver based on our
(10:50):
staff, so we need people.
It's going to take six monthsAnd it's going to come around at
some point And the layoffshappened because we were looking
ahead and we were wrong aboutthe future and the business went
down And so we may be overhiredAnd that's a gross
oversimplification, but that'skind of how it works.
(11:13):
And then at some point it'sgoing to turn the other way And
so we do have open positions.
I think you're going to see,over time there's going to be
more and more And the next yearor two I just have these things
go we're hopefully going to youknow, fingers crossed get back
to the situation where we havemore business to deliver than we
(11:34):
have staff to do it and we'rejust going to be hiring and it's
going to be exciting And youknow those are the wonderful
times.
Josh Matthews (11:40):
So they are.
They call that spring Rightexactly.
And, by the way, everybody,today's the first day of summer,
so happy summer solstice to allof you pagans out there and all
of you, everyone else Right,everyone, everybody.
Mark, in addition to aligningyourself closely to billable
(12:02):
hours, what are some potentialbehavior modifications or ways
of thinking that you either haveadopted for yourself or you've
seen other people at Salesforceor other companies during
layoffs adopt to help them tomanage some of the anxiety and
(12:26):
negativity that comes withseeing people that you care
about having to leave theorganization and manage that
fear of potentially losing yourown job?
Mark Baker (12:36):
So hard, it's so hard.
I've been doing this a longtime.
I've been managing people along time.
I have helped a lot of peoplethrough a number of different
round of layoffs and you know itnever gets easier.
I admit that this recent round,when I was like I said I was
(12:58):
waking up and checking Flakfirst thing, it really took a
toll on me emotionally.
I definitely don't feel thesame way that I did on January
1st, going into the year.
It kind of is what it is.
But what can people do?
I think it's you just got totake the long view.
(13:20):
You always got to be preparedto talk about, to know what your
value is, to have a plan.
You've got to have a long termplan.
You've got to think about, youknow, the future, regardless of
layoffs.
What am I?
where's my value?
what's my value propositiongoing to be for an employer in
the future?
(13:40):
And just try and stay out ofthe really emotional stuff
because there really can be alot of negativity natural,
understandable negativity, butit's kind of toxic And you kind
of got to stay out of it.
The modern social media we havelike Fishbowl, you know, even
Flak to some degree it canbecome kind of toxic And, just
(14:05):
you know, keep out of it as bestyou can so that you, you know
kind of retain your equilibrium.
Does that make sense?
Josh Matthews (14:15):
Absolutely.
It makes a ton of sense to me.
I mean, like it's not my firstrecession either, right, and
I've seen layoffs.
I remember losing 50% of ourstaff at Fortune 500 company.
I was working, at least locally.
We lost 50% of our staff.
And you know, i'm kind ofcurious, and I'll talk about
(14:36):
that in a second.
But I'm kind of curious becauseone of the things that happens
when an organization lets anumber of people go whether it's
10%, 20%, 50%, and sometimeseven just letting one person go
some of that work falls on otherpeople, right, and then we run
the risk of potential burnout.
I have, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
(14:57):
That very thing that I justmentioned is this company.
Right now They let a bunch ofpeople go.
That's making people scared.
They're scared for additionalstability, right, yeah, there's
very little of that intechnology, ok, but you know, i
mean, tell me, like, have youseen any effect from that sort
(15:21):
of the?
OK?
now the workload has just beentaken from these 10% of the
employees and put on theshoulders of the other 90%.
Has that happened?
Have you witnessed that?
Mark Baker (15:34):
You know I've been in services for a long time And
it's funny I think myperspective is a little
different, because we'rebillable And And the fact that a
lot of everyone is focusing onthis you can get burned down and
overworked or be a situation abillable situation where you're
(15:56):
burned down and overworked canhappen on any given project, no
matter what the conditions areat the company that you're
working for.
Like it's kind of unrelated Andin fact what I see more often
is in the growth times.
So one of my previous employersit was actually Gidead from
Silverland who taught me what hecalled it the pain panic curve,
(16:16):
and it's the cycle thatservices goes through that when
either you have more business todeliver than you have people to
deliver it, or you have morepeople on staff than you have
business to deliver them, and sowhen you don't have enough
people, you have all this pain,and when you have too many
(16:37):
people, you have panic becauseyou don't know how you're gonna
make payroll.
The pain is, we have all thisbusiness to deliver and I don't
have enough people to deliver it.
That's really in services whenwe see people getting burned out
, because then as a manager Ihave to ask people to work more
projects than I normally would,to work sometimes more than 40
(16:59):
hours, which is a really I don'twanna do that.
It makes people ineffective.
But when I'm moving peoplearound to try and cobble
together the tetris of resourcesto handle the business, because
if I can't service the businesswe sell, that's gonna hurt our
reputation, it's gonna hurt ourposition in the marketplace,
it's gonna hurt our brand andit's gonna hurt us long term.
So does that make sense?
(17:21):
It's an interesting conundrumbut it's kind of an opposite to
what the normal story is.
Vanessa Grant (17:26):
Can I ask a question?
Yeah, so I know it's For years-.
Josh Matthews (17:32):
Can I just say, vanessa, for years I don't know
why you always ask you're thehost, you're the host, you're
the host, you're the host.
You're not the host, you're thehost.
Sorry.
Vanessa Grant (17:44):
It's my meek, subservient nature, josh, i do.
Josh Matthews (17:47):
I know We love you, love you.
Vanessa Grant (17:54):
So, mark, i will say I think it's probably an
industry wide issue, especiallyin Salesforce consulting.
That kind of consultants getburned to the ground generally
And I know that you've worked atSilverline and you've worked at
Salesforce for a while indelivery, i would say,
especially post-pandemic, whenthere were so much work because
(18:17):
everybody was kind of doingtheir digital transformations
all at the same time in a panic.
There were so manyconsultancies just kind of
throwing bodies on projects.
How do you find the culture isdifferent as far as deliveries
concerned in Salesforce versusother consultancies that you've
either worked with or worked at?
Mark Baker (18:38):
That's a good question.
So my recent experience is onthe MuleSoft side and MuleSoft
delivery and this is the lastthree years.
MuleSoft is a different productAnd delivery.
Mulesoft is a different cadence.
It has different process thandelivering the core Salesforce
(18:58):
product And the twoorganizations.
Mulesoft was acquired I thinkthree or even four years ago No
one fact-checked me, i don'tknow, but it's something like
that.
The integration of the servicesorganizations, it's still
ongoing.
It's going to be a long story.
So but I would point being myrecent experiences on the
MuleSoft side.
(19:18):
I think with the core product,salesforce, professional
services is in a unique positionin the ecosystem in that for a
long time they existed to reallyonly take down the riskiest
parts of the portfolio.
We really had a posture that wewere trying to support the
(19:41):
creation of PSORGs forimplementing Salesforce at our
partners.
We wanted our partners toimplement Salesforce because if
especially the big five or canimplement Salesforce, if they
can make money on Salesforce,then they're going to be
recommending the software Andthat's our ultimate goal.
So Salesforce services isreally about the riskiest parts
of the portfolio.
(20:02):
It was for a long time It wasthe parts that were cutting edge
or new technologies or theparts that our partners didn't
want to touch, or our customerswho wanted a single sheet of
paper with software and servicesall bundled together, so that
in and of itself, made it alittle bit different.
I think, other than that, thefact that Salesforce is the
(20:25):
software company and then allthe other organizations are
straight services, it's adifferent environment.
I don't know.
Does that make sense?
Does that resonate with you atall?
Vanessa Grant (20:37):
Yeah, i mean I guess.
So the MuleSoft aspect, iimagine, does make it a little
different, because you're veryspecific to this one type of
delivery.
I guess I would be curious moreon are there certain things
that the Salesforce culture doesdifferently so that other
consultancies maybe could learnfrom as far as not just
(20:58):
completely burning people out?
Mark Baker (21:01):
Salesforce is.
I think I'm gonna answer thiswith telling a story.
So a lot of the, the brand ofMark Benioff is that he's fairly
progressive.
He is a progressive businessleader stakeholder capitalism,
(21:24):
equal pay, all those sorts ofthings.
I can tell you because I've metthe man and I've actually
delivered projects and deliveredfast reports to him and other
business leaders on some ofthose projects that had that
visibility.
All that stuff is genuine.
He is genuine.
It's not show, it's real.
That filters down.
(21:44):
Salesforce is a fairlyprogressive place and they may
be really progressive for theindustry in terms of burnout.
They do care about people notgetting burned out.
They really were some of thefirst with DEI initiatives,
diversity, equity, inclusion,the equal pay, which has been
(22:06):
pretty storing, and it's prettycool.
Salesforce really cares andthey make efforts.
That said, services is hard,it's just hard work.
It is and it's harder thanother jobs that I've had.
It is undeniably You've gotcustomers and one of my things
is we're going to make ourcustomers successful despite
(22:27):
their own best efforts.
to the contrary.
It's a joke, but it's not ajoke.
There's travel.
Travel is different.
I guess after the pandemicNobody's traveling nearly as
much as we used to.
Maybe it'll come back.
I don't know, but that wasalways really hard.
A lot of services work is a lotmore than 40 hours a week.
It is what it is.
The big five.
(22:48):
that's part of the brand andthe job At Salesforce.
it was never like that.
I don't know if I'm answeringyour question, but I've said a
lot, so I don't know.
Vanessa Grant (22:59):
No, I think it's a good point of how ultimately
it is just that top-down culturewhere it's as long as you are
at an organization that reallydoes value the personal lives
and health of their people,which is sadly a more
(23:21):
progressive type of culture,Then hopefully that does prevent
some burnout.
It's nice to hear that workingin professional services at
Salesforce does have that typeof culture.
I would love to just in generalit's been on my mind as far as
(23:45):
how we make change within theindustry itself overall, Because
we're all delivering Salesforce.
You might be doing aprofessional services project or
it could be going to adifferent consultancy, But it's
historically just known how inSalesforce projects just people
(24:06):
get chewed up and spit out a lotof times.
Mark Baker (24:09):
I'll say that, in my experience, services is not
for the faint of heart.
It's not.
I find the people that stay inservices as a career have
certain qualities that makes itdifferent than the people who
are tourists in the role.
One of those qualities is theylike to work hard.
(24:30):
It's not that they don't mindworking hard.
They like to work hard.
As a manager for the serviceand the lifer, the thing that I
need to guard against more thananything is the person who is
going to work themselves intoburnout because they can't stop
themselves.
They're due to themselves.
Somebody who won't delegate,who won't take their foot off
(24:53):
the gas, who won't take theirfinger off the pulse, who won't
work in 60 hours a week.
That's like a personality traitof the people that are really
successful in services and stickaround if that makes sense.
Vanessa Grant (25:06):
How much responsibility do you think it's
on individuals versusmanagement to make sure that
people are taking time forthemselves versus putting their
all in the project?
Mark Baker (25:19):
I think we all it's on both, but for different
reasons.
I always tell my team it's yourlife, it's your career.
You have to have your hands onthe wheel.
If your hands aren't on thewheel, you're never going to get
to where you want to go.
That's one of the things that Ialways work with my people
about.
Anyone on my teams, i'm alwaysdoing everything I can, having
(25:43):
conversations and working ongrowth for them.
Are your hands on the wheel ofyour career and your life?
Are you monitoring your ownburnout?
Because, also, you're going toknow what's important to you a
lot better than I ever will.
But that said, as a manager, i'ma steward of the business.
I don't want to get my peopleburned out.
(26:08):
I want to let them burn outbecause once someone really
honestly gets burned out, it'sreally hard to recover.
If somebody honestly gets tothe point where they are chewed
up, then they're not going to beas effective.
They are much more likely toquit.
They're likely to turn in badwork, bad customer satisfaction,
(26:30):
all that stuff.
I think we both bearresponsibility Some degree.
I'm supposed to be the adult inthe room, so to speak.
I know things, hopefully aftermy long career, that a lot of
people themselves.
They don't know.
They don't know If that makessense, but we both bear
responsibility from differentangles.
Vanessa Grant (26:51):
Thank you, i think those are the same.
I do have actually a questionfrom the audience for you, mark,
if that's all right.
I have some thoughts on this,but would love to hear yours,
mark.
What are the best learning path?
slash training for futureMuleSoft developers.
Mark Baker (27:11):
Whoa?
that's a great question.
Mulesoft has a lot of trainingthemselves.
I would always take classesfrom MuleSoft training if
possible.
I'm going to be honest and I'mgoing to say that I am not super
technical.
My technical prowess came onthe Salesforce core side and
(27:32):
mostly on the functional side.
I was never really an honestdeveloper.
I wasn't a developer in mycareer but I was entirely
self-taught.
I've never dealt with CICD, forexample.
I never had to deal withdepositories or anything like
that.
And the MuleSoft product istechnical.
It's no BS, it's a technicalproduct.
So if somebody really wants toknow and wants some granular
(27:56):
detail, it helps to have a CSdegree.
I think It helps to at least bevery familiar with subjects
that you would learn whengetting a CS degree.
I do know all the people thatcan tell you in great detail
kind of dev to dev or nerd tonerd on what you really need to
know to be a MuleSoft dev.
(28:17):
But there you go.
Hopefully I answered that.
Vanessa Grant (28:23):
Yeah, i'll just also throw out there the.
So the first thing I did andthis is kind of how I tend to
approach my learning is I try tofind the influencers in the
space, and so I want to do ashout out to.
There's a MuleSoft ambassadorprogram.
So if you're interested inlearning MuleSoft, i would
highly recommend putting in thewords MuleSoft ambassador into
(28:44):
LinkedIn and it'll give you alist right off the bat.
I had, i think I don't know likea pretty hefty number of
results of people that these aregoing to be the folks that are
going to be regularly speakingon MuleSoft.
So they'll be doing webinars.
I'm sure that they'd be open tohaving conversations about
MuleSoft and can direct you toresources.
(29:06):
So, like I spoke to MelissaShepherd earlier today and I
said, hey, what should I do ifI'm interested in being a
MuleSoft developer, after shekind of pulled her drop off the
floor and I said no, no, not forme.
Then she said that there'sactually a lot of really good
courses on the MuleSoft site.
So of course we've gotTrailhead and there are some
(29:28):
Trailhead courses on it, but Ididn't realize that if you go to
the MuleSoft site, that there'sactually some self training
that you can take straight fromthe MuleSoft site, so like
trainingmulesoftcom.
Mark Baker (29:38):
That's right, and shame on me.
I should know the stuff, buteveryone that I talked to
already knows MuleSoft, so it'snot something I get out, that's
right.
Vanessa Grant (29:49):
No, fair enough, I mean, and you actually
answered.
Another question I had was howtechnical do you have to be to
do MuleSoft, Because I know thatthere's a lot of kind of low
code click stuff that you can doThat's true, there is the low
code stuff.
Mark Baker (30:04):
There's Composer and there's a few other things
that are coming out And thoseare low code.
We don't really touch those inservices.
Some of the automation stuff,too, is less code, it's more
click.
We don't touch that stuff inservices, so we don't have a lot
of visibility there.
So when I think about MuleSoft,i'm really thinking about our
flagship product at any point,and that is very true.
(30:26):
But also, no one's talkingabout being a Composer Dev.
If somebody wants to be aMuleSoft Dev, they're talking
about at any point.
Vanessa Grant (30:33):
Got it.
I do have one other questionfrom our audience for Mark,
which is what is one majorrecurring implementation risk
that you see on projects thatyour team delivers And there is
a follow up to that is, what canthe project team on the client
side do to help mitigate thisrisk?
Mark Baker (30:53):
Well, that's a good question, I think, on the core
side.
So I get so philosophical onthis stuff.
I've been doing this for a longtime.
I get so philosophical So Imean this is going to be a
philosophical answer On the coreside.
A lot of the times it is thatthe customer doesn't know what
they don't know, and then itincludes about themselves.
(31:17):
They don't know what they want,but they don't know that.
They don't know what they want.
They don't know what they need,but they don't know that they
don't know what they need, andso they don't know what to ask
for.
And it's just this slow processof discovery where everybody
kind of discovers everything aswe go, and it includes kind of
(31:40):
the client's discovery aboutthemselves.
This is a constant theme thatclients they don't really think
about their own process untilthey try to change it or
something super broken.
So you don't really pop thehood and think about your engine
until you pop the hood andthink about your engine.
And so we're on the ground,we're on the clock and we're
(32:04):
asking you okay, what's yoursales process?
And the answer is often oh, wedon't really know.
Who do we ask about it?
We're not entirely sure.
And that's a massive riskbecause the clock is ticking,
we're spending money, there'spressure is growing and we're
having to answer these remedialquestions, and so I guess I
would say if customers weregonna remediate the biggest risk
(32:28):
about themselves before they goto a project, it would be to do
as much discovery aboutyourself as you can, to know who
does what, who owns what, whohas a stake, who's a proper
stakeholder, what are yourprocesses, what do you do now so
(32:48):
that when the consultants geton the ground and start to move
forward, we're not having tokind of build that stuff We can
take okay, we know where you arenow and we can just concentrate
on moving you forward.
That's gonna put everyone inthe best position to get the
best value that I can spend andeveryone's gonna be as happy as
possible.
Josh Matthews (33:08):
That's outstanding.
Vanessa Grant (33:10):
Yeah, i feel that applies to like every
consulting engagement, right,you know?
that's kind of like yourbusiness analysis to a certain
extent.
Make sure you understand yourown processes.
And something I hear all thetime which anytime I've busted
it out in an interview it'salways been well received is
that you take a bad process andthen throw technology on it.
You just have a faster badprocess.
(33:32):
So have you optimized yourbusiness before you brought the
technology team in to update it?
Mark Baker (33:38):
It's so true And it's one of.
I'm a huge believer in Agile,and again, at the philosophical
level, at the principal level.
But part of the reason isbecause this concept of emergent
architecture, like architecture, that's gonna emerge as we go
along, and that's also becausewhen we design a product, it's
(34:02):
pure theory And even if you knowwho you are and you know what
you want, and you talk to us andeverything you told us is true
and we say we're gonna give youthis, we're gonna give you X
thing, and what we tell you isactually what we deliver, it's
still theoretical And it's notgonna be until you put it in
(34:22):
someone's hands and they startusing it, that it gets out of
theory into the real world, intopractice, and only then can you
realize you know what thisisn't actually what we need.
We need something different,and sometimes it's just the way
it is.
Josh Matthews (34:39):
I gotta say, mark, having you on this show
was a really smart decision.
I really love the way you tellstories, the way you just attack
the questions and say it likeit is and say it with enthusiasm
.
It's been thrilling to have youon the program.
We only have a few minutes leftof the segment where we're
(35:01):
really.
You know it's Mark Baker, gueston the podcast, and I wanna
make sure that we can understanda couple more things about you.
One love to know about yourband.
You traveled in the band.
What were you doing?
what were you playing?
what kind of music was it?
I know this isn't Salesforcerelated, but maybe there's a
(35:22):
tie-in to music and technologyhere.
So tell us about that, if youcan, real briefly.
Mark Baker (35:28):
Well, i've been a few over the years, and two big
ones.
So before I started my musiccareer, i was I call myself, you
know, your garden variety ITdork in San Francisco, in the
Bay Area, and it was 2005,.
I was in this band.
The band is called MigsM-I-G-G-S.
You can hear Migs on Spotifyadult oriented rock, which isn't
(35:51):
even really my genre, but Ioften play kind of.
I often gravitated personallyinto music that's a little more
arty, a little weirder, and Iwanted to be in a band that I
saw people like, which is funnyto say out loud, but that's it.
And I found that I joined theband and I love the guys and we
all have great time.
And I was doing servers and Iwas doing death side support, in
(36:15):
fact, i think in 2004, i wasrolling out laptops for Charles
Schwab This, you know, it wasjust a weird job.
And I had an opportunity to goon the road with Migs and it was
entirely self-funded.
It wasn't glamorous it soundsso cool.
It was completely unglamorous.
We were in a van, weself-financed, we were burning
(36:36):
through all of our own capital.
We had a manager who washelping us out and investing in
us, but we were burning throughher capital, playing in bars,
self-booking not playing foranybody, not glamorous, but I
did it, i quit.
So I quit my job.
I did it And I knew it wasn'tgonna last.
I knew it.
It was just something I wantedto do before I died.
(36:58):
Well, i grew up on my deathbed.
I didn't want to say that, ididn't take a chance.
And so doing that.
And this is back in 2005,before really the internet was
on your phone.
Driving from Phoenix, arizona,to, let's say, santa Fe, new
Mexico, is a long drive, and soI bought myself a laptop.
(37:21):
I put the lamp stack on thatlaptop.
I taught myself HTML, CSS, php,because I knew when I came home
I was going to not want to goback into the server room, and I
did.
I came off the road about ayear later, went back into the
workforce and got my job as an.
HTML developer, html PHP.
(37:42):
And through dumb luck, onerandom thing led to another.
about two or three years laterI learned the Salesforce
platform, and that's when I alsostumbled into services, and it
was because of that band I wasable to have the skills to find
it.
So I don't recommend everybodydo it, but if you have the
(38:03):
opportunity, don't pass it up, iguess.
Josh Matthews (38:07):
Man, i love that story And can I ask you were
you classically trained or canyou read music?
Mark Baker (38:15):
I was not classically trained.
I was lucky enough to bemusically educated a little tiny
bit, honestly, in elementaryschool.
my elementary had a good, solidmusic program.
I also took piano lessons whenI was young.
I was not classically callingit classically trained, so far
(38:36):
over-sells it Like he had to beplaying the theme from Mission
Impossible And I also didn'treally care.
It's a good song.
It's a really good song.
It's a good song.
It's super fun to sing theMission Impossible theme song
around the campfire.
But I can read music.
it takes me a minute, right,It's like I read music, like I
read Spanish.
I found it out in my head andthen I'm kind of useless, but I
(39:01):
can read music.
if that answers your question.
Josh Matthews (39:03):
It does and thanks for answering it.
I always like to pick people'sbrains on this because
throughout my career almost 25years of headhunting in the tech
space there are so manymusicians who are developers
right.
Mark Baker (39:17):
Yeah, I have a degree in music And it's because
it's a symbolic language.
Josh Matthews (39:21):
You have a degree in music, Vanessa.
Vanessa Grant (39:22):
That's what my degree is.
I have a degree in music fromNYU.
Josh Matthews (39:28):
Who are you?
I don't even know you.
Oh my God, you're on the show.
Wow, that's good.
Maybe there's a link here.
You guys make me jealousbecause I'm Mr Cordchart myself.
Mark Baker (39:42):
Well, that's why she not only sounds good, but
also can make sound decisions.
Vanessa Grant (39:46):
Oh there you go.
Josh Matthews (39:48):
Oh, that's good.
She sounds terrific.
And in just a moment, guys,we're gonna wrap up this segment
of the podcast and get readyfor part two.
I have one more question forMark before we do that, and, by
the way, if you have additionalquestions, for if you have
additional questions for Mark,it's okay, he's gonna be here.
You can ask him in the nextsegment.
We're just gonna do this newlittle thing here.
So the question I've got foryou, mark, is listen.
(40:11):
The people who listen to thisshow.
They come from all walks oflife.
They come from over 20, 25different countries listening to
this program, and the majorityof them are curious about how to
advance their career or how toenjoy their career more.
So here's your platform.
Right, if you could give anyadvice to the general public or
(40:34):
our audience the one or twothings that you've done that you
believe have advanced yourcareer and brought you into the
career that you really love.
What were those decisions orbehaviors?
Mark Baker (40:51):
Wow, no pressure.
Okay, the one or two things.
So I guess I'll give some ofthe advice that I've been giving
of late.
I'm a little bit older, i'm alittle bit more senior, as one
of my mentors used to say.
I've got a little more snow onthe roof And I think I let go of
(41:15):
ambition, other than theambition to look forward to what
I'm going to be doing on Mondaymorning.
Because if you look forward towhat you're going to be doing on
Monday morning, then you knowif you love what you do.
It's not work, that's all thatstuff, blah, blah, blah.
(41:36):
I don't know if that's true ornot.
However, if you can lookforward to what you're doing on
Monday morning, then it's notdrudgery, right?
You're not going to have allthe anxiety over the weekend.
Oh, i can't believe.
I'm going to go to work Andreally that's what I seek to
build.
That's what I seek to hirePeople who want to do the job
that I have on offer.
(41:57):
Those are the characteristics Ilook for in jobs that I go after
.
I'm actually going to beenjoying the work, the work that
I'm going to be doing day inand day out, and everything else
tile, money, everything else itkind of falls out of that tree.
Now the tree is.
(42:19):
You know, i live in the BayArea, i've got two kids and a
massive mortgage And so it'sreally easy to say that money
falls out of that tree.
But I need a lot of money tofall out of that tree to keep
everything running, so it's notsuper cut and dried But even so,
you know, i got into this joband consulting.
(42:40):
I got into Salesforce because Ienjoyed it, i enjoyed the
challenge And I like solvingproblems And it's gone up and
down at cyclical But I just kindof chase my own enjoyment And
as long as I don't hate what I'mdoing, then any other moves I
need to make, they can be slower, they can be kind of at my own
(43:03):
pace And everything just kind ofworks out.
I guess that would be my bestadvice.
Josh Matthews (43:10):
I think that's incredible advice, mark.
You've been a fantastic guestAnd you're embodying embodying
the anti Garfield sentiment thatI have, because I hate lasagna
and I love Mondays And it soundslike you love Mondays.
I don't know what your pastaaffiliation is, but I'm with you
(43:31):
.
I mean, i look forward toMonday.
I get to work right, i get tobe with my team.
I have this incredible teamSome of them are listening right
now And it's a huge thing.
So much of it has to do withliving in the present, finding
what's good, find the thing tobe grateful for, and if we can
all do that, moment to moment orMonday to Monday, we're going
(43:53):
to establish an attitude andcertain behaviors will stem from
those attitudes and certainrelationships will stem from
those behaviors And we're allgoing to find ourselves
fulfilled.
Doesn't mean that Casey andCasey and I were just talking
about this and I might botchthis, but sometimes, when we're
(44:14):
working towards a goal, right,we're trying to climb this big
mountain and we're trying to getto the very top of the mountain
And I don't know if any of youhave ever gone on a hike and
thought that you were near thetop, only to realize that
there's another 1000 feet ofvertical snow covered land to
cover.
But it can feel sometimes whenyou're on this trail for those
(44:35):
of you on trailhead you'll getthis that you think you're
almost done and then you're not.
You think you're almost doneagain a month later, two weeks
later, and then you're not.
But what it does.
Maybe you don't reach themountaintop right, but maybe you
get to be really good at hikingAnd if you can be really good
at hiking or really good atworking, those Mondays are going
(44:55):
to get chewed up and you'rejust going to crush it.
This has been a wonderfulepisode.
Everybody stick around becausewe're not going anywhere.
But I am going to do a coupleof little commentary to wrap up
this episode and then we'regoing to launch into part two.
So, mark, thank you so much forbeing a wonderful guest on the
show.
You're welcome back anytime.
You just show up.
(45:16):
We'll add you as a speaker.
Love to hear your perspective.
So thank you, and I'm sure ifall of us could just drop our
phones and put our handstogether, you'd hear a nice
round of applause.
So thank you again for being onthe show.
If you have just listened tothis podcast, stay tuned because
in less than a week, we'll bereleasing part two.
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