Understanding ISV's and the Salesforce AppExchange, with Peter Ganza

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.

Vanessa Grant (00:20):
Hey everybody, welcome to the Salesforce career
show.
I am your host flying solotoday, vanessa Grant.
A little introduction to myself.
I'm a product owner and managerof Salesforce at FinTech
company Mosaic.
Formerly consultant, I've beenin the Salesforce ecosystem for
13 years, also part-time coach,and have actually authored a

(00:44):
couple blog posts this week onone with Adam Miko who hopefully
will get on the show at somepoint in the near future, and
also a new post on the adminsblog on how to prepare your
Salesforce org for an AI drivenfuture.
So that's a little intro fromme.

(01:04):
We have a couple of wonderfulspeakers with us today,
including our guest for the showtoday, peter Ganza.
Do you want to introduceyourself to the folks in the
audience?

Peter Ganza (01:17):
Thank you, vanessa.
Filling in for Josh, my name isPeter Ganza.
I'm an active what would yousay, Vanessa?
Participant in these podcastsand humbled to be the special
guest today.
I've been in the tech industryI'm sorry to say, about 25 years

(01:37):
in terms of a career.
I'm an alumni and have been inthe ecosystem, mostly at ISVs,
ever since.

Awesome.
And Janine Mark Hart, thank youso much for joining us today.
We always love having yourpoint of view on our show.
Do you want to give a littleintro?

Janeen Marquardt (01:59):
Sure thing.
Like Peter, I also have been inthe tech world for more than 30
years, anyway and I'd like tosay that I'm a long time
listener, first time speaker,but I probably speak more than I
should on these calls, but, asyou've said, I have many points

(02:21):
of view on many topics.
Try to stop me, but that's whathappens.
When you've been around a while, you're allowed to speak your
mind and people start to forgiveyou the older you get, right,
at least that's what I'm goingto keep telling myself.

Absolutely.
You are a wealth of knowledgeand while I've been in the sales
force it's weird, it's like theend of the year, so I can say
like 14 years now.
I've also been doing tech sincefor over 20 years at this point
, so we're a wise bunch.
Let's just say that.
So our special guest today isPeter.

(03:03):
You know, josh has always saidGANZA.
I think this is the first timeI've heard you say GANZA, is it
GANZA?

Honestly, vanessa, it's whatever you want it to be,
but, yes, the pronunciation isGANZA.

Okay, cool, I want to make sure I get it right
, but we've been wanting to getyou on the show to share your
story.
You actually have a reallyinteresting sales force journey,
so we're going to be spendingpart of this show discussing
your personal story and maybestart talking through some

(03:47):
interesting topics.
Some of the things that webrought up that we might cover
today would be some topics wereally haven't covered on this
show, including productmanagement, product ownership
and also I don't know that we'vereally dived into the app
exchange a whole lot, and so I'mreally excited to dig into that

(04:08):
.
I think a lot of times whenfolks are interested in moving
towards a sales force career,they often overlook the app
exchange, and so talking throughsome of that stuff would be
really interesting.
But why don't we just start atthe beginning, peter, why don't
you tell us a bit about yourstory?
How did you come to be here?

How much time do we have?

By my clock, say an hour and a half.
If we could condense that a bit, that would be awesome.

Yeah, that works for me.
So real quickly a little bit onthe background.
I started in tech mid late 90s,circa high school-ish type era.
My family was running a VAR, avalue added reseller.

(05:03):
So basically we were puttingtogether computers for
individual consumers and somesmall businesses and I just
liked technology.
It came naturally to me andended up taking over the
business.
I still have the first invoicefor the first computer that I

(05:26):
actually sold.
It was a whopping 10,000 inchange, canadian, I don't even
want to say.
It's not even a phone, it'slike a 486 with a modem, like an
old modem Anyway.
And then that led me to my firstjob.
I didn't know anything abouthow tech companies worked and I

(05:48):
started in tech support atSymantec.
I was familiar with Symantecthey make all the Norton
products right, norton antivirusand cut to the chase, spent
seven years at Symantec threeoffices so obviously here in
Canada I started and then moveddown to Virginia.

(06:11):
Through an acquisition it wasintroduced to product management
.
That's a whole other podcast.
We can get a little bit into it.
But I'm moving to Boston fastforward.
A few other rules, open text,couple startups.
And then one day I was lookingon LinkedIn and I saw this

(06:32):
opening at Salesforce and thefirst thing that came to mind
and I remember telling you thestory my initial opinion of
Salesforce was I didn't likethem because I had this job and
I was traveling to Californiaall the time San Francisco once
a month and this one trip I made, everything was expensive and

(06:53):
booked and then I got down thereand I'm like what the heck is
going on?
Obviously everyone knows it wasDreamforce and that was not so
good of an introduction toSalesforce, but it's kind of a
funny story Anyway.
So it was a product marketingrole here in Canada and applied
for it, went through aridiculous amount of interviews

(07:17):
I can talk a little bit moreabout it, but literally eight
hours straight one day andstarted product marketing for
Salesforce here in Canada aswell as Latin America.

Wait, hold on.
Before we go on to the afterthat, can you tell us a little
bit what product marketing is?

Yes, glad you asked .
So in most cases, productmarketing is going to localize
or regionalize the messaging andhow you market the product.
You can do it as a service,obviously, but it's called
product marketing, obviously.

(08:00):
So, perfect example, what I didCanadians like Canadian stories
.
That's not unique.
Germans do Japanese right.
Every country, the stories andthe things that you market need
to resonate with the localmarket, and I'm not just talking

(08:22):
about localization, translation, I'm talking about what
actually matters.
So, in my case, I took what wascoming from HQ and applied it
to the local market the uniquevariables within this market but

(08:43):
, moreover, started telling anddeveloping some Canadian
customer stories.
And when I say customer stories, it's not just a story.
It could be another piece ofcontent, a webinar or that type
of thing.
So it's really the finish off,hopefully answer your question.
It's the nexus, in a waysimilar to product management,

(09:06):
but you're pretty much having totalk to everybody and juggle a
bunch of different things, doesthat?

help, yeah, so I guess what?
So when you did productmarketing for Salesforce, is
that a role that you've seen inthe ecosystem a lot, or is it?
What kinds of companies arelooking for product marketing?

Great question.
So generally, yes would be theanswer to the former question.
Generally, it's going to be inlarger organizations.
Everybody is going to doproduct marketing.
They're going to do thespecifics that you need to do to
get the job done.
But the larger the company,they're going to get to a point,

(09:55):
like in Salesforce's case,right, that they actually
dedicate it to breaking out arole.
So it is very common in theecosystem, especially in
partners, isvs, and size alittle less, but it really comes
down to size, right.

(10:16):
So you're going to have peoplethat are doing those things and
as they grow and scale, theymight eventually break out a
specific role for that.

Okay, cool.
So you did product marketingfor Salesforce.
That must have been prettyinteresting, kind of deciding
how Salesforce was going, thestrategy for marketing for
Salesforce for a while.
So with that, keep going withyour story.

Sorry to interrupt, but no, feel free Interrupt me.
So, yes, it was a ton of funworking at Salesforce.
I mean, I've been in theindustry far too long and tech
companies, semantic, open text,everyone has ecosystems and

(11:06):
widgets and products andfeatures, and I often get asked
by folks what's so special aboutSalesforce.
There's not one thing, right,it's everything put together.
In my instance, we were able tooperate and I say we because it
wasn't just me, I had a greatmarketing team with me.

(11:28):
We were able to operate sort oflike a skunk works, if you will
, or a startup within thismassive company and cut through
the red tape.
We had an amazing leader whobasically broke through any
walls that were in our place andactually were able to execute

(11:51):
and have success on a number ofdifferent things.
Part of that role was workingwith partners, right.
So, long story short, we didthis analysis.
It's called the TAM TotalAddressable Market, and in
Canada we're a manufacturingcountry for the most part, right

(12:11):
, we dig stuff out of the groundand refine it and sell that to
the high speeder.
So the bulk of the business inCanada, at least, the white
space, the companies that wehave not had a presence in, and
I say we as a Salesforce we'remanufacturers and part of that

(12:33):
was working with the partnerecosystem, so bringing partners
working on enablement, cheatsheets for AEs, bdrs, specific
content, so a lot of emphasis onenabling the partner ecosystem
and that got me hooked.
So when I left Salesforce,first thing I did was land at a

(12:55):
small ISV and they hadn't hadmarketing leadership before and
basically, long story short,transformed them uncomfortably,
I'll say, in terms of go tomarket, and I'll talk a little

(13:15):
bit more about this as we gothrough.

But Well, actually I'll also pause you
here.
I don't know that.
Everybody knows what an ISV is,so if you wouldn't mind talking
about that a bit, that would beawesome 100%.

Thank you, vanessa.
So ISV stands for IndependentSoftware Vendor and essentially
they make widgets.
In the case of our ecosystem,they build things on the
Salesforce platform or that, notnecessarily on it completely
every time, but something thatworks with Salesforce.

(13:49):
So they're companies dedicatedto essentially plugging a gap
for Salesforce.
And the nice thing about this Iwant to talk a little bit more
about it Salesforce's ecosystemis.
There's no comparison.
I mean, okay, I'm a littlejaded, as are you, but they

(14:10):
embrace it.
They recognize that they cannotdo everything, and pretty much
every company does, which is whywe have channels and alliances
and partnerships.
But the way Salesforce builtout everything around the
ecosystem really took advantageof that and is why the ecosystem

(14:33):
is the way it is.
In fact, I'll just give you onenumber the ecosystem itself.
So ISVs, the IndependentSoftware Vendors, folks that
build widgets, as well as SIs,so systems integrators,
consultants right, if you brokeout the entire ecosystem from
Salesforce, it would be morevaluable than Salesforce itself.

(14:55):
It would have a value over atrillion dollars and yes, that
was T for trillion which islarger than the GDP of I forget
the bottom 60 or 70 countries onthe planet, which is just
insane.
Yes, so sorry that answers thequestion.

Yeah, no, it's good to know.
I always kind of think of ISVs.
I always kind of do the iPhoneexample, like if you've got an
iPhone and you go to the appstore on your iPhone, it's kind
of, the ISVs are the apps ofSalesforce, and App Exchange
would be the equivalent of theapp store.

So that's a perfect explanation, although the one
caveat there is you don't haveto be on the App Exchange to be
an ISV, so you can build awidget and not be on the app
store.
Essentially right.

Tell me more.
I actually don't know that.
I know of ISVs that are not inthe app store.
How does that work?

I mean, the short answer is it doesn't.
I can't explain why anybodywould not want to be on the App
Exchange.
You still have to go throughall the process, security review
, all those types of things.
Off the top of my head I can'tactually think of an example,
but I understand in certaincases there would be companies

(16:28):
that are doing things that theydon't want to basically tell
publicly.
So perfect example thinkmilitary.
There's going to be companiesout there that focus on building
things for Salesforce from amilitary perspective or some

(16:53):
organization that just does notwant to, doesn't need to have
that public presence.
Is a partner, Obviously paystheir dues and goes through the
process, but they don'tnecessarily need leads off the
app exchange.

Oh, got it Okay.
No, that makes sense, awesome.
Okay.
So you started doing marketingfor ISB.

Yes.
So that was the first one.
I spent a couple years thereand learned the lessons the hard
way.
One story in particular I loveto tell.
I have an article on myLinkedIn about this.
Dreamforce almost got me firedbecause when I started, that was

(17:39):
the number one question I gotfrom the executive team what are
we doing for Dreamforce?
What are we doing forDreamforce?
Right, they hired this alumniand just thought the floodgates
would open, anyway.
So I went back to the executiveteam and said I'll tell you
what we're doing for Dreamforce.
We're not doing Dreamforce.
And, yes, I almost.
There was a second day where Ithought, well, shit, I might

(18:01):
have sealed my fate, butcalculated risks are the name of
the game.
There was data behind it.
It wasn't just an opinion.
And I love Dreamforce, as doeseveryone else.
It's amazing, but for most ISVsit simply doesn't produce the

(18:23):
results.
And when I say results, I meandeals, logos yes, you're going
to be on the floor, you're goingto be given away swag and
scanning.
And the sales executive went onand on about that's the main
source of our leads and hundredsof scans and this and that.
And I said great, show me thedata.

(18:45):
How many of those hundreds orthousands of scans actually
converted?
He didn't have the answer forme at that time.
He came back a week or twolater with a sad look on his
face and said the answer was two.
And I said to what he said well, from the last three or four
Dreamforces I think it was fourwe closed two deals and one of

(19:10):
those was took 34 months.
Can you believe that?
Oh my God.

Yeah, so Got a pipeline really.

No, I mean, it's the standard playbook which you
know, I've been through so muchthat doing the same thing over
and over again is what?
Right, you can't beat the crowdby being in the crowd.
Right, you have to do thingsdifferently and take calculated
risks sometimes.

(19:41):
So obviously I had a plan.
The plan was, well, fish wherethe fish are.
And in our case we weretargeting admins.
And, as you all know, I said,well, great, we're going to take
that budget, which was asignificant portion of my budget
, and we did, I think, sixdreaming events in, I forget

(20:03):
maybe seven months or somethingsponsor booth, demo, jam, swag,
you know, the whole nine yardsand generated more pipeline and
more deals than the previousthree, four Dreamforces combined
by a major amount.

(20:24):
And it makes sense, right, it'sfishing where the fish are,
because, you know, vanessa, adream force, right, what do you
do?
You run through, okay, you'renot a prospect, necessarily, but
you're like everybody else,right, you run through the trade
show floor and, of course,everybody wants to scan you and
pick up your swag.
And unless you have a pain or aneed, you're probably not going

(20:49):
to respond to that email, the17th email address you gave.

Now, that's totally the I.
You know, I attended my firsttwo Dreamforces as a product
owner and not as like aconsultant or a BA or anything
like that, so I was the personwho would end up signing
contracts with ISVs.
But yeah, it was there.
There, when you're going intothe Dreamforce, there are just
so many sponsor boothseverywhere and so, unless you,

(21:19):
unless I was actually goingspecifically to solve a business
problem and would startvisiting booths because I did
want to actually see how othercompanies were solving these
business problems, or I hadspecific vendors in mind that I
wanted to get demos from, Iprobably wasn't visiting your
booth unless you had like coolswag or your sales guy was cute.

(21:42):
That was probably it for me,but I will see.
It does get a bit overwhelmingand I don't love that.
They just kind of have thatwhole expo.
I really I don't know.
I've been kind of mulling itabout these days how, with all

(22:05):
the and sorry, I'm going on abit of a tangent here, but this
is something that came uprecently I feel like they split
stuff up so much between okay,here are ISVs, here's the
Tableau area, here's the Slackarea, here's the Sales Cloud
area, and I feel like they don'tfocus so much on how do you

(22:27):
solve business problems, andmaybe it's just the BA in me.
I would love if places werejust like hey, do you have an
issue with your sales team andyour opportunities?
Like, here are all the relatedclouds and vendors for that
particular thing, and go intothis area and find out how to
solve these problems.
Are you having legal issues orare you having accounting issues

(22:48):
?
But anyway, my two cents on howthey organize it, because I
always have so much troublefinding the vendors that I
actually want to see.

I appreciate it, not a tirade, and absolutely on
point there's alwaysopportunities to.
I mean, I'll be politicallycorrect and say there are always
opportunities to improve, butthat's not the point.
The partners are, frankly, I'lljust say, the bread and butter

(23:22):
for Salesforce.
The average Salesforce customerspends one and a half times
their ACV.
Acv is annual contract value.
So you buy Salesforce forwhatever business, whatever you
pay for the year, that's yourACV.
The average customer spends oneand a half times their first

(23:44):
year ACV within the first 18months and that's good all
around.
It's great for Salesforcebecause it becomes stickier.
The more problems are solvedfor an organization, the
stickier it gets.
It also, of course, generatesthem revenue through the partner

(24:06):
, potentially additionallicenses, and it's, of course,
feeding us right folks that areactually in the ecosystem and,
moreover, more importantly,we're solving customer problems.
So let me just kind of get backto finishing off the story.

(24:29):
I learned a lot there.
I learned what doesn't work andafter that a few other
full-time, similar marketing,slash, product marketing roles
at other partners, someconsulting and then, most
recently, I now identify as theApp Exchange Whisperer and I'll

(24:54):
take a little time here and justtalk about that.
The reason I did this lastLabor Day I woke up, I forget,
like Labor Day or something in apanic anyway, and said, oh my
gosh, I'm the App ExchangeWhisperer.
It's not a company, it's just amarketing gimmick.

(25:14):
But it works.
And the reason I say that isbecause for ISVs probably the 80
, 20, I don't know if it's 80,20 rule, but anyway more ISVs
than SIs ISVs on average aregoing to get probably about 50%
or more of their actual dealsthrough the App Exchange.

(25:37):
And when I say through the AppExchange, someone goes, finds
whatever widget and literallyclicks on a call to action learn
more, watch a demo and becomesa lead and then goes through the
process.
For SIs they're not going toget the leads necessarily

(26:00):
directly in the same way as anISV, but at some point in the
process of looking at SIs,looking at consultants, they're
going to have looked at the AppExchange listed.
So put those things together,all the things that I tried and

(26:22):
had success with, frankly, inthe previous companies that I'd
worked at various partners.
What I'm doing is basicallyproviding App Exchange
assessments.
I call it an App Exchangeassessment because that's the
pillar of it, but it ends upbeing far more of a go-to-market

(26:43):
assessment if you will Thinkabout how do people actually
find your App Exchange listing.
So you're talking about Googleand Organic and are you on
YouTube?
Are you on LinkedIn?
All the other things, right?
Events, app Exchange marketingprogram team.

(27:04):
There's a whole bunch of otherstuff there.
Anyway, we've been doing thatfor the last just over a year
and having an absolute blast.

Love it.
What makes an ISV successful?
What's the secret sauce?
Because there are a lot of ISVsout there.
It's always hard to throwsomething out there and you hope
that people are going toresonate with it, but I imagine
there has to be a lot ofstrategy involved.
You can have a good product,but if nobody knows about it,

(27:43):
then it's just a good productthat nobody knows about.

So there are two types of ISVs and everyone knows
this story, but I'm going totell it anyway.
Think about what happened whenthe pandemic started.
So the first type are andthere's no wrong answer, I'm
just telling you as it is.
The first type are conservative, are gun shy, they'll have a

(28:19):
reasonable business forthemselves, for their family,
and they're okay with that.
That's where the first ISV thatI worked at was at Conservative
, don't want to invest, justgrow organically.

(28:40):
There's the second type thatthese are the people that are
mortgaging their house to notsell out to the VC's or taking a
loan, doing whatever it takesto grow the business, to build a
strategy and try things.

(29:03):
You don't know until you try.
That's one of the things thatjust drives me nuts.
Every partner I've consultedwith or worked at, we heard that
that doesn't work.
Well, have you tried it?
To me it just seems so basiclogic.
If you tried it and it doesn'twork, take that, spend and put
it into something else.

(29:23):
Once a strategy works, great,double down.
So those are the two types ofpartners.
The reason why I mentioned thepandemic is because that was
clear.
With organizations, everybody,unfortunately, has these stories
.
Everyone knows someone who gotlaid off.
I was in the same boat.
Then you look at whatSalesforce did.

(29:47):
What's the first thing thatMark Benioff said?
He said we're not layinganybody off.
Number one take care ofyourself and your families.
I'm far more in that camp asI'm sure you are as well.
That's the connection there.
I'd love for you to just jumpin, or anybody else.

(30:08):
I see we have some folks herethat are speaking often.
I'm just curious if anybodyelse as far as what?

specifically, Peter?
The two types of companies.
Right, I have noentrepreneurial blood in my body
, but I'll let Jeanine speak.

Peter, do you mean in terms of what happened
during the pandemic, or do youmean in terms of the types of
start-up companies?

The former right At the beginning of the pandemic.
Everyone has those stories,right.
Go ahead, Sure.

Okay, well, I don't know Vanessa and I were.
I don't know if Vanessa wasactually at the same company I
was when it started.
I don't know, oh no.

Not at all If we're talking about major career
pivots and issues.
I've got a few of thosePandemic.
I was a contractor and mycontract was in it immediately.
I was working for a company thatbuilt high-end medical
aesthetic devices for facials.

(31:17):
People weren't reallyinterested in getting facials
getting too close to people.
I think that's a bit true.
I found myself immediatelyunemployed when the pandemic hit
.
A little bit before thepandemic hit I also I worked for
a VC-backed SaaS organization.

(31:40):
Actually, my career startedthere for 17 years.
I've told this story before, butI got laid off when I was 10
weeks pregnant.
That ended up having to be amajor career pivot for me, just
dealing with how do you move on?
What does the next phase ofyour career look like,

(32:01):
especially if you've been at aplace for a really long time and
it's a good time to reexamine.
Have your passions changed?
Are there different things topursue?
I will say, having gone througha few different pivots over the
course of my career, now Iremember the feeling of like

(32:24):
everything is over.
I've reached the peak of mycareer.
I was a VP of business ops andI was like that's it.
I've peaked.
I'm never going to make thismuch money.
I'm never going to be this highup in an organization.
I'll just be an executiveassistant somewhere.
I swear to God I had thisconversation with my husband
that I'll just be happy being anexecutive assistant somewhere
for the rest of my career.

(32:44):
Man, I think I just figured itout along the way and I'm
peaking now.
I've not had any more peaks.
It's been there could be, more.
There could be more?
Yeah, I'd say never.
But careers aren't over in your20s, they aren't over in your

(33:07):
30s and I don't think they'reover in your 40s or 50s.
You can just keep going and aslong as you have that ambition
and continuous learning, theworld is your oyster.
I think yeah.

Well, I think it's interesting, Vanessa.
It sounds like it was afterthat, then, that you came to the
company that we worked togetherat.
Is that true?

Yeah, that was my pandemic company.
My contract died and I was like, please, consulting firm,
please take me in.

I had been actually in Salesforce
consulting for years and yearsat the time of the pandemic hit
the company I was at.
Much like Salesforce said takecare of your own, we're going to
take care of you, we're notgoing to do layoffs.
What it did to your question,peter, was basically first the

(34:01):
executives all took some amountof pay cut unknown or I don't
remember Then ultimately gaveeverybody a pay cut.
We all took a 5% pay cut andthat was we weren't happy about
that, especially because, intheory, there could have been

(34:21):
layoffs because we had just beenacquired by a large
conglomerate.
People were dropping like fliesand leaving the company for
other places.
We probably did lose theequivalent of what we would have
had they just done layoffs.
Instead of losing the bottom Xpercent, we were losing the top
X percent because they had cuteverybody's pay.
I don't know if that'snecessarily the best strategy.

(34:46):
So A they cut all of our pay.
We were doing more work becauseall of our top performers were
leaving.
I didn't leave because I hadonly joined the company in
October of 2019.
So the pandemic hit around thesame time.
They made the announcement ofthe acquisition.
So I wasn't ready to goanywhere just yet.
It was not good.
So I actually stuck it out forabout two and a half years in

(35:10):
total before starting to move on.
So I've got kind of a mixedfeeling about that approach.
It really depends on a lot ofthings.
I get that the heart is in theright place for that, but also
it put a real strain on those ofus who stayed because,

(35:33):
especially with the greatresignation, a lot of people
left found better jobs forbetter pay because they had cut
our pay.
So I don't know I don't know ifother people have that- I
appreciate the insight.

There is no right answer, Right, I mean it just it
was always unique to eachbusiness and I obviously I just
painted a picture of those twotypes, but that was fairly
apparent.
But getting back to Vanessa'squestion, what makes an ISV
successful?

(36:08):
The second thing I want to talkabout and I talk about this
every day because I see it everyday Most ISVs and you can't see
me, but I'm spreading my armsout they can do anything.
They're all want to behorizontal.
We make a platform, whateveryour widget is, whatever

(36:32):
industry we can do anything andeveryone says the same thing as
I do a similar thing, you know,with the white glove treatment
and quick start, but that's notas bad in the size.
So but back to ISVs everyonethat I've worked at, everyone
that I worked at that was thefirst thing that I addressed.

(36:54):
So the first ISV I talked about, where I said we're not doing
Dreamforce.
They were just too broad andwould take any deal with a
heartbeat.
They were outliers, right thatthey would build something
separate for.
And hey, it's a logo andthey're using our product.

(37:16):
Well, that's fine.
But as a recovering productmanager, that may catch up with
you later.
But, more importantly, I can'tgo to market with horizontal.
We can't be everything to allpeople.
The most success that I've hadand what I told ISV partners

(37:38):
often is I don't care what youthink you do, I care what you're
selling, all right.
So look at the data.
The data never lies.
Recovering product manager dataTrump's opinions any day, right
.
So in that first ISV sat downwith sales, looked at the data

(38:01):
what customers are actuallydoing, what did they pay for and
what are they using?
And three jumped out veryquickly.
Not three customers, but threethat go to markets.
And of course, there's someoutliers there, but you don't go
to market with an outlier andthat's part of the biggest

(38:23):
change that we made wasconvincing them that, yes, you
can say you do everything andtake a deal from anybody with a
heartbeat, but I can't stop youfrom doing that, but I can't go
to market with that.
I need to be able to go tomarket with one, two, no more
than three things.
And when you focus on whatyou're good at, what you have

(38:46):
customers doing well, thatresonate, that they're willing
to tell stories, that they candemonstrate ROI, that's how ISVs
can be successful.
At least in my experience, it'sfocus.
Don't care what you think youdo, I care what actually sells.

Yeah, janine, did you want to say something?

Yeah, actually , and I 100% agree with
everything you've just said.
And what's really interestingabout that is that it totally
applies to the SI world as well,because so many SIs spread
themselves to thin we do all thethings and where they're going
to really find their successesif they focus themselves.
And this is literally what Ipreach.
When I go and I talk to a newSI or even an old SI and I say,

(39:33):
how is it, do you want to besuccessful?
How do you define yourself?
Like we do all the things toall the people, you can't be
successful that way.
You've absolutely got to defineyourself.
You've got to narrow your focusenough that you can deliver
successfully.
So 100% agree with you.
Applies to all the places andall the things.
So spot on.

Thank you.
I love that you said that,because I was trying to be nice,
because Vanessa's here, but SIshave the same problem.
I've done assessments for quitea few SIs and, honestly, I
think I posted this on LinkedInthe other week.
If I hear about the white glovetreatment one more time I'm

(40:14):
going to go and buy some whitegloves, because they all say
that and they all talk abouteverything.
Right, we can do anything Everycloud, this, that or the other
thing.
One of my most recent clientsthat's been amazing is
Wisewolves.
So they're an SI came in and didan assessment and that's the

(40:36):
first thing that came up.
They had on the app exchange,literally the cookie cutter.
We can do everything.
And I had a great conversationwith the founder, michael, and
said, well, what are youactually doing?
Who are you?
And after a little bit ofintrospective and looking at the

(40:59):
data, I said, well, we're ahealthcare SI.
And I said that's your lead.
Right, you're doing this.
You're doing amazing work infield service with HLS.
Let's flip the script, right,are you taking any deals for all
of these ancillary things thatyou talk about?
Maybe?
Well, the answer was no.

(41:19):
So, well, let's focus and guesswhat I got them to sponsor.
And I actually went down to thefirst life sciences dreaming
and that, literally, jean.
That's a perfect example ofsomeone who takes the feedback
and actually runs with it, right?

Yeah, absolutely, and actually do you think that
maybe we could talk a little bitabout what kind of jobs are in
ISVs?
Because you know, I guess, withthis being the career show, and
I do think that ISVs areunderrated as far as a way to
break into the Salesforceecosystem.

(42:02):
One of the big pieces of advicethat I often give to career
transitioners is to go on to theapp exchange if they're,
especially if they have sometransferable skills.
Let's say that they know a lotabout health and life sciences
or they've done government workbefore but maybe don't have work
in tech in their career.

(42:24):
A lot of these transferableskills are really applicable to
these SIs and ISVs, and so goinginto the app exchange to see
what these companies are doing,how they're solving problems
that maybe people have dealtwith in their careers in other
areas where they might be ableto apply some of their previous

(42:48):
background, I always think islike a nice way to enter the
Salesforce ecosystem, as opposedto kind of going through that
lowest common denominator oflike, okay, I'm going to start
as an admin, which is kind ofwhere I feel like everybody
thinks they need to start.

Definitely, and it spans the gamut in terms of
roles, right.
So let me just tell you about,from my experience, right, the
first ISV.
They had tech support, they hadQA, they had development not
Salesforce development, butgeneral developers doing web

(43:33):
stuff and whatnot and they had aSalesforce admin just one,
because they had an Oregon.
Maybe once in a while theywould need to do something
special for a customer, butthat's a much smaller one, right
?
Maybe 25-ish people.
That's really common.
The larger you get and I'm notgoing to generalize, but the

(43:57):
larger you get, the more roleswill be available, obviously,
and that doesn't necessarilymean they're going to be
Salesforce.
Specific roles, yes.
Are there ISVs that have lots ofadmins?
Need them to be able toimplement and support their
customers?
Yes, because of what theirwidget does, it's more common, I

(44:21):
would say, on the SI side, andI'd love for you and Janine to
jump in because you might beproviding managed service or
doing more customizations.
So, from an ISV perspective, toget back to your question, yes,
I think it's a phenomenal placeto start because it can be any

(44:44):
role, even documentation, right,and it's at a Salesforce
partner.
It doesn't necessarily mean youhave to be an admin or
developer or an architect.
You can be a tech support.
It's a technology company, butit gets you into the ecosystem
and where that takes you.

(45:05):
As the three of us have talkedat Nazium and Will Moore about
the PIVOTS career PIVOTS right,You're going to find out, but I
totally agree with you.

Yes, and I've actually even seen, especially
for some of the larger ISVs,they'll also have some customer
success roles.
So when you have an ISV that'sconnected to your Salesforce org
, you usually will have arepresentative at that ISV
that'll check in and make surethat you're leveraging the
features and optimizing them.

(45:39):
They want to make sure thatyou're actually using the
licenses that you've bought,because they want to keep you on
as a customer.
So there are those kind ofcustomer success roles and that
also will put you in a positionto work with companies that are
on the Salesforce platform andstart building that network.
So that's a great work ofSalesforce professionals.
I've actually also personallyinterviewed for business analyst

(46:01):
roles at ISVs.
A lot of these ISVs especiallyif the integration with
Salesforce or let's say, rollingit out to those Salesforce
users is a little bit morecomplex or there's more
customization involved, a lot oftimes they'll need folks that
understand the Salesforceplatform so that when the

(46:25):
licenses are bought it's notlike, okay, we just turned the
switch on and now we can usethis AppExchange product.
A lot of times you do needpeople like BAs that will work
on the ISV side to understandwhat the business problems are
that they're trying to solve andwork with the developers on the

(46:46):
ISV side to make sure that thecustomization is done properly.
There may be professionalservices on the ISV side to get
that stuff rolled out, but Ithink a lot of the development
lifecycle that you'd see inreally any Salesforce org can
also be applicable to ISVs.

(47:07):
There is that strong connectionwith rolling those kinds of
projects out into other companySalesforce orgs that end up
buying those ISV licenses a lotof times Agreed.

and it's funny you mentioned customer success
because I think maybe six monthsafter I joined that first ISV,
we built a customer success team.

Nice, and so I guess are there any like nuances
for working for an ISP.

As opposed to like a regular tech company and an SI
.

I guess, in terms of like, like, when you're a
Salesforce admin or BA for, like, any company that's just you
know that has Salesforcelicenses, I think you're really
focused on the industry, for youknow, because you're trying to
optimize those Salesforcelicenses for the industry that

(48:08):
you're working in.
So right now I'm at a FinTechcompany and so that's really the
industry that I'm payingattention to.
Those are the businessprocesses that I'm focused on,
because we want to make surethat we can use Salesforce well
to you know, maximize therevenue for our particular

(48:29):
organization.
I feel like with an ISV,especially the more closely
linked it is to Salesforce likeif it's built on the Salesforce
platform that there might besome nuance as far as market
impacts, based on how Salesforceis doing, maybe be beholden to
Salesforce releases or changes,or how much does that actually

(48:54):
impact the ISV market?

A great question and you partly answered it and
I'll explain how.
So the watch, we'll start withthat.
You nailed it when you saidbeing specific to whatever
industry, whatever you knowsegment in terms of technology

(49:18):
that you're in, the nuance foran ISV is, in most cases, nine
out of 10, you're planted in theSalesforce ecosystem.
Right, that in itself is anuance because Salesforce has
quite a few, so that's not a badthing.

(49:38):
It's frankly why I'm still init.
Right, the most successfulpartners ISV partners piggyback
on top of Salesforce, and I havean article on my LinkedIn that
talks a little bit more aboutthis.
But there are so many wayspeople are terrified.

(50:00):
Isv partners, for the most part, are terrified to do anything
with Salesforce becauseSalesforce will find out what
they're doing.
Right, it makes no sense to me.
They look at it like thecompetition and Salesforce

(50:20):
recognizes this In a lot ofcases.
I talk about the three ways todo things specifically from a
Salesforce and from an ISVperspective.
Right, the first is okay, outof the box, basic from
Salesforce.
Yeah, it might get the job done, but you know it's lacking the

(50:41):
middle ground.
The good is generally an add-onor another product from
Salesforce.
Maybe you need an SI tocustomize it.
It's a little better.
And then the best is an ISVthat's dedicated to just that X
right?
Whatever it is, industry,market segment challenges, you

(51:03):
name it right.

Does that help?
Yeah, so are you saying that aspart of being an ISV, they
almost have to be careful thatSalesforce isn't going to like
oh wow, this ISV is reallysuccessful, so Salesforce
themselves are going to try andrebuild it?

So that's an interesting question.
So they don't actively do that?
Obviously, nothing nefarious.
Salesforce acquires partnersall the time.
I think last year they boughtlike 70 partners, isv partners.
You didn't hear about itbecause they were small, right,

(51:43):
but if a partner does reallywell and they're driving success
and they're making Salesforcemore money and getting clients
more sticky and expanding andsolving a problem that has a
market, salesforce may buy youand, to be honest, that's the

(52:04):
strategy for quite a few peoplethat start ISVs right, and it's
a great strategy.
You do something well,salesforce is going to acquire
you and obviously they're a veryacquisitive company when it
comes to building the same typeof thing.

(52:24):
I can give you a perfect example.
So I worked at a PII partnerpersonally identifiable
information.
So think data privacy, gdpr,sandbox, data, masking,
compliance, all those types ofthings right, and this is before

(52:45):
what Salesforce recently did.
They built clouds for that.
They built solutions for that.
It's not because the partner Iwas at was extremely successful.
They were successful.
It's not that competitors ofours, I can say at the time,

(53:06):
were in the similar boat.
They were all getting by anddoing quite well.
It's because Salesforcerecognized that thing.
In this case, data privacy wassomething that their customers,
regardless of partners, wereasking them about.

(53:27):
So it's not like they, it's notthe way you describe it, right.
They're not going to go and say, oh crap, these guys are very
successful, we're just going tobuild this out.
I know they don't look at it ina various way like that.
It really all comes down totheir customers, right, and if a
partner or partners happen tobe already doing that, they love

(53:52):
that, because competition isgood, competition is great and
Salesforce this is the one thingabout the app exchange and the
ISV partners that I absolutelylove.
Everyone can get along right.
There's enough share of thewallet for everyone, because

(54:16):
Salesforce does certain thingsreally really well.
I don't have an example, butI'm just saying in general let's
look at the data privacyexample.
Then you'll have partners thatthey'll do something a little
bit more that certain customerswill need.
What I'm trying to get at isthere's an answer for everybody,

(54:39):
right, and you know this betterthan anybody even has to.
Customers have unique needs,obviously, and Salesforce can't
solve all of them, even with anSI, even with customizations.
In a lot of cases it just comesdown to BBP, my former product

(55:00):
manager, a recovering productmanager acronym Buy Builder
Partner.
So that's kind of my tirade onthat topic.

And you know what , having worked with a bunch of
different organizations, I feellike that Buy, builder, Partner
is always such a challengingquestion Because I think a lot
of companies, if they haven'treally put Salesforce at the
heart of their businessoperations, a lot of them are
just inclined to build, whichsurprises me.
Do you have any advice for howto evaluate a situation and when

(55:37):
to buy, when to build, when topartner?

Oh, I just got goosebumps with that because I
saw this and see it all the timeand I just do like the face
palm right, because why wouldyou build this?
Right?
In terms of, there's no singleanswer, there's no broad stroke,

(56:01):
right, it always comes down toat least from my experience it
comes down to the data, right.
The challenge, at least whatI've seen, is that in these
cases, isvs are driven byopinions.
Right, you've got co-founders,former developers you know,

(56:28):
built something cool, they lovetheir baby and they just want to
build everything.
Right, that's very, very common.
If you look at I don't havestatistics, I might actually try
and figure this out one dayMost, I would comfortably say
most smaller ISVs were founded,started by a developer right, or

(56:52):
a development-orientedco-founder, and that is just
part and parcel in why theygenerally tend to lean more
towards the build right.
It's just, it's in their DNA,they don't know any other way.
Right, but in terms of, there'san exercise, obviously you know

(57:16):
this quite well, as do quite afew of our listeners.
There's so many factors that gointo it.
Right, there's positives andnegatives to buying, building or
partnering.
No matter which way you sliceand dice it, it really comes
down to what are the biggest,what are the biggest challenges

(57:40):
and, frankly, what are thebiggest pains that are going to
come out of buying, building orpartnering?
Right, there's no, there's noone broad stroke that you can
just cut.
That it's unique to everybusiness.
With that being said, you know Ialways default to, if it's you
know, co-founders or formerdevelopers.

(58:02):
Yeah, you're going to have achallenge, you're going to need
to educate them, and the bestway to do that is with data.
Right, it's not.
Opinions are great and valuable, but when it comes to strategic
, you know, decisions like thisit's about the data, it's about

(58:23):
the cost, the time, the impact,all of the different numbers
that go into decision, and Ifthey still end up building it,
well, they end up building it.
I've been through many of thosecases.
Some I don't want to say, Ihave one, but some lean my way
and some lean their way at theend of the day.

(58:47):
They all got whatever done.
Maybe it wasn't as elegant asit could have been, or it might
start some seeds that would growlater on and have to provide
you some challenges that youdidn't foresee.
But yeah, it's a sticky subject.
That's like a whole otherpodcast.

Yeah, no, and it's funny, like without those
data points, without actuallydoing the research on what's
already out there and the costs,and even just down to the cost
of like, what is it going tocost to maintain it if we build
the thing?
Because you have to maintain itif you build it.
It seems silly to move forwardwith things.

(59:31):
I think that touches on thewhole product management,
product ownership side of things.
I've actually like I rememberthere was an organization that
was actually starting toconsider building out an
e-signature solution.
I was like guys like DocuSignexists, conga exists, there's so
many companies out there thatdo e-signature, why are we even

(59:54):
considering building this?
And that was just an easy one.
But these kinds ofconversations happen in
organizations all the time.

Peter Ganza (01:00:04):
And I remember you mentioning that story a while
back.
I don't know if it was on apodcast or when we had spoken,
but that's common.
As you said, it happens all thetime.
I know people who have done thesame.
I know partners who have builttheir own events platform or

(01:00:27):
alternative to FSL field servicelightning Not that they were
selling it, but they built itfor themselves instead of
getting it from Salesforce.
I don't understand it either,but that's part of the reasons
why we're all unique and eachcompany is unique, every partner

(01:00:54):
I've worked at, let's say, if Ilooked at all the ISVs that I
worked at similar sizes, theywere all completely different in
terms of how they were run,what priorities were important
to them, how they were staffed,and it blows me away, right.

Vanessa Grant (01:01:16):
So for folks that might be interested in maybe
working for an ISV, a lot oftimes they will be going on the
app exchange and seeing thelisting what can you tell about
an ISV from their app exchangelisting?

Well, that's a great question.
I don't want to give away mysecret sauce, but there's a
couple of things you can gatheras someone looking for a career
opportunity.
The first I already talkedabout, which is are they focused
?
That is not a red line.

(01:01:53):
I'm not saying all they say.
They can do everything.
Stay away from them, no, butit's an important part of the
story to recognize the otherthings to look for.
Frankly, I would look at ifit's an ISV, spend some time.
Well, obviously, review theentire thing and, of course,

(01:02:16):
their website and their LinkedInand socials, whatnot, as you
normally would.
But the reviews can be verytelling and it's a sticky
subject in the ecosystem because, I mean, I've been putting out
some data points on the appexchange.
You can find them on my websitebut there are no one-star

(01:02:42):
reviews, there are no two-starreviews, there are no three-star
reviews.
Literally, it's all five-star,five-star, five-star.

What do you think that is though?

Vanessa, it's the bane of my existence.
So a couple of points.
I've worked at partners andthis is common where they
literally put into the contractsmandating thou shall give us a
five-star app exchange review.

(01:03:14):
I wholeheartedly do not agreewith that.
I would never do that.
If you're going to get a greatreview, it's because you did a
good job, not because it's asubsection line item in a
contract.
So there's a whole bunch thatare on that level.

(01:03:35):
The other reason is, as it canbe easy to see and this is why I
suggest looking at the reviews,you can tell reviews that are
frankly fake.
And the reason I say that Idon't have an example off the
top of my head.
I don't have a percentage, butyou're going to see and this is

(01:03:56):
the great part about the appexchange reviews you can
generally see the name of theperson, who their company is,
but you can click on that personand it's going to take you to
their trailblazer profile andthat's where the goal is.
If you, let's say, there's 10reviews on a particular ISV, if

(01:04:20):
you go through the 10trailblazer profiles and they're
all fresh and there's no headshot and they got no badges,
well, what does that tell you?
Right?
On the other hand, you're goingto see reviews that have a head
shot, that are from a ranger,that are from a Vanessa, that

(01:04:46):
have badges, that have been inthe community, that are MVPs
that are responding thecompany's responding right.
They're going to comment backand forth.
So that's one of the reasonswhy I suggest looking at the
reviews.
I'm not I mean frankly, Idisagree with it.
I would never do that.
But I've worked at partnerswhere they contractually

(01:05:07):
obligate reviews.
It's a problem, just knowsabout it, and they are going to
be making some changes in thenext.
I can't put a timeline to it,but there's some review changes
coming to try and make thatbetter.
But, as I said, those twothings, it will become pretty

(01:05:28):
clear.
Because I'm pretty sure you'rejust like me, right, if
someone's got 10 clearly fakereviews, that would be a red
flag for me not wanting to workthere.

Yeah, janine, do you want to?

Janeen Marquardt (01:05:45):
Yeah, I mean I would say on the topic of
reviews, and I believe I have alot of opinion about reviews in
all the ways, but I would agreethat the review process is well
leaves a lot to be desired for alot of different reasons.
But I would agree you want tosort of triangulate those
reviews and really no matterwhat your purpose is whether

(01:06:06):
it's to work there or whether todetermine whether or not the
product is worth using youcertainly want to check it out
on another source, like a G2 orsomething like that, or a
Glassdoor, if you're looking fora place to work.
So definitely check othersources, ask around, check
LinkedIn who do I know thatworks there?
Who do I know that's been there?
Or use the product.

(01:06:27):
Try to figure out some real lifeexamples instead of using the
App Exchange from a reviewperspective because, in all
honesty and I've put an idea forthis before it's not useful for
sorting in any way because,like you said, everything's got
a five-star review, everybodyhas got the same kind of

(01:06:48):
information.
You can't really narrow downthe results by anything that's
actually useful, so it's notreally that great.
So you definitely need to takea look at other sources of
information, and I find LinkedInto be really, really useful.
Who do I know that's used it orworked there or otherwise has
seen it, and G2 has really spenta lot of time and effort

(01:07:10):
building it up.
Now that's not to say G2 hasn'tquote unquote paid for some of
those reviews in a certain wayby incentivizing people to leave
them, but they haven't paid forthem in a way that's unbalanced
.
They've just said if you'veused it, we'll pay you just to
write a review, not we'll payyou more to write a better
review.
So take that with a grain ofsalt.

(01:07:33):
Of course.
Hopefully you're gettingsomething from somebody who's
actually used the product togive you a better idea, and they
don't charge you anything tolook at those reviews or those
quadrants.
The way you might have to payfor a Gartner.
Yeah, I think it's a littlemore accessible.

I will say I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I
have traded a G2 review for swagat their vendor booths at
Dreamforce 4.

Absolutely.
But I mean every one of uswho's ever worked at the ISV
equivalent right, the brand newproduct company.
You've got to be creative toincentivize people to start
using your product.
That's the only way to getpeople to start using your
product.
For those of us who've everdone product marketing before,

(01:08:23):
love it.

There's less of a problem on the SI side, I find,
because obviously you can havethe same sort of general review,
but you're going to haveproject reviews and those are.

Yes.
But here's the thing as an SIpartner, you have to have a
certain number of reviews tomaintain your status, and so
you're still having to A getreviews and, b maintain a
certain level of review in orderto maintain your status as an
SI partner.
And so you will still find, toa certain degree, the same kinds

(01:09:01):
of conversations taking placewith your customers.
If you're not maintaining acertain C-stat, you're like,
okay, well, what can I do to getthat review up?
We often would.
If I knew I wasn't going to getmy five-star review, I wasn't
going to send that customer theopportunity to give me a review.
So I was only sending thosereview requests or those, yeah,

(01:09:25):
the review requests to customersthat I knew were going to give
me a good review.
So it's still skewed.
If I had a pissed-off customer,I wasn't going to ask them to
review me on the App Exchange.

And they wouldn't take time to put in that
negative review right.

Well, remember , people will write you a review
If they want to give you onestar, if they want to give you
five stars.
Most people don't want to writea review.

That's two, three or four stars typically, and the
other thing to note is mostpeople don't know this, but
anybody can leave a review onany listing.
They don't have to haveactually purchased the product
or use the service.
You can actually work at thatcompany and write a review for

(01:10:12):
your own listing.
In that case you need todisclose that, but you can say,
hey, my product's the shit, butI happen to work here.

So reviews, kind of, you have to kind of read
between the lines to decide ifthey're good.
So mostly focus on are they afocused company, leveraging some
other sources.
So to Janine's pointtriangulating the information
that you get, see if you knowanybody that's worked there or

(01:10:46):
used that app before and see ifyou can get some more firsthand
experiences.

It's, you're painting a picture right.
So all of those things matter.
And if you put them alltogether, totally agree,
linkedin is fabulous.
I absolutely love LinkedIn.
I'm on LinkedIn every day.
I have to be.
It's gotten me the sales forceright.

(01:11:17):
I'm pretty sure I can do themath, but most of the roles that
I had at partners were onLinkedIn.
So LinkedIn is fabulous.
Of course, if you have a mutualconnection or third level, 100%
, that's great.
The app exchange is more justfor, I would say, looking for

(01:11:43):
red flags.
Now I say that I'm 25 years in,I can be picky, right.
I can say I actually don't wantto reach out to this partner
for, let's say, an app exchangeassessment because clearly

(01:12:04):
they're all fake reviews.
I don't, that's my red line,but I'm not at the start of my
career, right?
And Vanessa, you and I talked alittle bit about this in terms
of different styles of work.
I'll say it just to be nice Badmanagers for run organizations

(01:12:31):
You're going to have those.
You can't pick.
You can't pick and choose howan organization is run, you have
to go through it.
It's like I use this analogy Idon't have children, but you say
to the child don't touch thestove.
It's hot.
Well, if I told them threetimes, I would say you know what

(01:12:52):
?
Touch the stove because you'regoing to burn yourself.
You're never going to touch thestove again.
Maybe that was a bad example.

No, in the parenting world we like to call
that natural consequences.

That's how I learned, because every time my
parents said, no, what do youthink that did to me?
That would make me want to dowhatever it was even more so,
and stitches and hospital visitsand all that kind of fun stuff.

Later, I've had it where you shouldn't let the
baby eat sand.
Once he eats the sand andrealizes that it's gross, he's
going to stop eating the sand.
That's going to happen maxthree times and then we're done.

Three times Probably.
I like the stove as hot example.
I use it a lot because I thinkwhen a child is first learning
language and learning things,the concept of hot is as foreign
as the concept of blue.
You don't hot doesn't have anymeaning until you experience hot

(01:14:06):
.
So you can tell them don'ttouch it, it's hot, Don't touch
it.
Hot as many times as you wantuntil they understand.
The hot burns their hand andhot is going to make them cry
and hot is going to hurt.
They're not going to understandwhy they shouldn't touch hot
until they touch hot and burnthemselves and cry.
Then they won't touch hot again.
And so sometimes you have tolet it happen.

(01:14:28):
You have to give them a warning.
They have to understand thathot means something that they
shouldn't do, and then theystill have to go through with it
at least that one time.
If they keep doing it you'vegot a different problem.
But they have to experience hotand put the word hot together
with the pain of hot and theresults of hot, as, as Vanessa
says, consequential learning.
I call experiential learning.
It's important becauseotherwise hot has zero meaning

(01:14:51):
until they experience what hotis.
That's why I call it a supplyto cause again.
Yeah, um yeah, until you, untilsomething like somebody might
say to you don't go work there,terrible place to work, bad
culture, and you may go.
Oh yeah, I've worked at a wholebunch of places with bad
culture.
And then you go to the placewith the really, really bad
culture like, oh, no places Iworked before.

(01:15:11):
We're just kind of like mildlypainful.
To work at this place wasterrible, right, like till you
work at a toxic place.
You don't, you might not reallyunderstand, yeah.

I love, I love that you, that you brought that up,
janine, because some people, andit's the minority are
successful in those types ofenvironments.
I'm not, you know, I'm prettysure you wouldn't be the same
with Vanessa, but I know peoplewho just did what they had to do

(01:15:42):
and they didn't have all thoseissues.
But it's easy for us to say,but in terms of you know the
audience that are trying to getinto the Salesforce ecosystem,
work at a partner or some way.
It is valid.
I would strongly stay away frompeople that do fake reviews,

(01:16:08):
like I said, but that's just me.
You might, you might have toright.
Everyone's got to keep thelights on right.

Sometimes there are situations where you
have to take, as we used to sayin the olden days, a J-O-B right
, so in which you just have tohave any job will do.
It doesn't really matter howbad the reviews are, how toxic
the environment is, if they'regoing to write your paycheck.
Sometimes that's not even thecase.
But sometimes, if you're goingto get a paycheck and all you
need is a paycheck, you'll putup with basically anything for a

(01:16:39):
couple of months because yougot to eat.
And if you recognize thatthat's the situation, then
that's fine too.
Just also recognize it might befor the short term and just be
willing to move on and erase itfrom your resume someday.

Love it, and I'm just the back of my mind
thinking about, yeah, thosecouple of places that are not on
my list.
Right, me too Go ahead.

Nessie, I don't know that I've ever talked about
it, but, like when I, after Igot laid off and I was
determined, I thought that myfuture was as an executive
assistant, I did take anon-sales force job for about
five months and at this pointit's long enough.

(01:17:24):
I actually got I won't sayfired because they officially
laid me off, but it was prettymuch fired after five months
where I was in this like smallSaaS organization that the one
of the founders was like ascreamer and I should have
picked it up.
Like I did pick it up.

(01:17:44):
Actually I could understandlike this guy was just like a
grumpy guy, just based on myinterview with him and I saw the
red flags and again, I justneeded a J-O-B because I haven't
had a newborn at home.
I didn't actually know where mycareer was going.
It was like this little tinyorganization and I was like you
know what I'm?
Just I'm going to ignore thered flags and just go for this.

(01:18:07):
And I mean this man likethrough a temper tantrum at me,
like had like a very much oflike a Napoleon complex and I
think at one point, the, the,when, when I guess the shit hit,
the fan was he looked at theother co-founder and he's like,
because they were arguing aboutme literally in front of me,
because I was pushing back CauseI was like nobody speaks to me

(01:18:29):
this way, like you're notallowed to speak to me this way,
and I started settingboundaries at work and he didn't
like that, even though I hadbeen the best at that role that
they had seen before.
Like this place, like literallydidn't have a paper shredder,
didn't have box cutters, likeone of my jobs when I first got
there.
They're like well, when, justto give you a sense, like you
can actually have SaaSorganizations that that do this

(01:18:51):
stuff Just a side funny story.
Like when I first walked in andthey were giving me the
orientation, another red flag Igot was the.
The person I was replacing waslike yes, here's our, here's our
bathroom and we have all ofthese washcloths here to dry our
hands.
When all the washcloths getdirty, you're going to have to

(01:19:12):
take them home and put themthrough the wash and then bring
them back clean.
And I was like, why don't youhave a paper towel dispenser?
Like the fact that I actuallyhad to have this conversation at
this like technology companyblew my mind, but I ended up
getting laid off quote unquotefrom that company when I started

(01:19:33):
setting some boundaries afterI'd been there for a while and
the the screaming Napoleoncomplex guy looked at the other
co-founder, was just like fine,you can, you can stay, but I'm
never speaking to you again.
And then he looks at the otherco-founder.
He's like fine, if you want todeal with that, you talk to her.
And like that was it.
I was gone two days later, but Ishould have known from the,

(01:19:57):
from like the, the washcloths,like maybe this is not a well
run organization.
So yes, if you need a JOB,sometimes after a year and a
half of me not working, likethat's just kind of what I
needed at the time and I neededto get burnt a little bit.
But it was a weird experienceand like okay one building up my

(01:20:19):
confidence, like apparentlythere are places that that I can
still add value to.
I think I needed that lesson,but also don't ignore the red
flags, and I'll.
I definitely keep those thingsin mind a little bit more now
too.
Yeah, also known as a Mick JOB.

Mick JOB, there we go.

And we've all, we've all been there.
The other thing I wanted to tobring up is that the universe
doesn't care about your plans,Right, and I know this.
I don't I don't want to sayunfortunately, because it's
actually unfortunately, but youknow, one day I found out there

(01:21:00):
was an orange size brain tumorin my head and I was like what,
the where the fuck did this?
What, what are you talkingabout, Right?
So then I can sort of keep thatin mind, Right?
That's another little variableto the whole pivoting career
conversation here.

Well, I mean, that's a that's a huge thing,
peter, and and you know that'sthat's something that I mean
obviously you know.
You know, obviously yours is isquite exceptional.
But like, how do you, how doyou deal with with these kinds
of life curves when it comes toyour career?

That is a great question.
I get asked about it and I, I,I talk about my story all the
time.
I I'm able to share my my storywhere quite a few people that
have been through similarsituations I cannot.
It's a lot more common than youthink, I believe.
The statistic in Canada is 12people each day are told that

(01:22:03):
they have something to braintumor, or maybe 20.
Anyway, it's an alarming number.
Honestly, I don't really have agood answer, and let me let me
explain why.
When, when, when the doctor toldme you have a benign meningioma

(01:22:26):
the size of a lemon and I waslike okay, great, can I go out
for a cigarette, cause I, I likeI've been in here for hours and
I'm smiling I'm always smiling,right and she said, well, I
just told you you got a lemon inyour head, you're 34 and you're
, you're smiling.

(01:22:47):
You're asking me what's nextand I said, yeah, I, I just want
to get out of here, I want to,I want to go home.
I drove here.
She's like well, you're notdriving.
We got to transfer you inambulance to, you know, the
other hospital.
I said, no, no, no, no, don'twaste an ambulance for me.
She's like no, no, no, no, no.
She pushed some button and youknow, some security guard showed
up and literally put me out ofgardening to be in an ambulance,

(01:23:08):
anyway, I just like, in thatmoment even she was baffled
because she said do you see allthe holes in the wall?
There was this one office, likescantily call it an office,
anyway, it was a dry walled roomand there was all these holes

(01:23:28):
in the wall, anyway.
So she said you see all theholes in the wall?
And I said you know what, doc?
Yeah, I kind of did, I didn'twant to say anything, but it's,
it's kind of ghetto.
And she said that's from grownmen, screaming, crying, freaking
out, punching holes in the wall.
And I tell them they got agrape or a dime size brain tumor

(01:23:49):
and we just stopped patchingthem.
I just told you you got a lemonin your head and you're smiling
and saying you want to driveand what's next?
That's just who I am.
It's, I don't know any otherway.
And the other thing I wanted totalk about I spent six days in
hospital, six nights, sorry andI was in an ICU room right by

(01:24:15):
myself for I forget the firsttwo days or something right and
then they put me in a semi room.
Anyway, I ended up in a wardroom so there was, I don't know,
maybe eight or nine otherpeople who had, you know,
neurosurgery right, Mostly braintumors.
Anyway, you could tell thedifference in that room because

(01:24:37):
there were people couldn't stopcrying.
There were.
There was a guy that literallywas freaking out, screaming, had
to be tied down to to the chairor he was gonna, he was gonna
leave.
He drove me crazy.
I couldn't sleep because he wasjust going on and on and on and
then they were… no People likeme.

(01:24:59):
I suppose I'm the minority, butit happened.
What good is being angry orbeing negative going to help?
If it's my time, it's my time.
I went into the surgery withouta care in the world.

(01:25:21):
I had a barbecue at my housethe week before and I felt
terrible because all my friendsshowed up.
I was looking around andrealized, oh shit, it's
literally like the last supper.
I can tell where the looks ontheir faces.
The last thing I'll say.

(01:25:42):
I'm happy to talk more aboutthis, but when I woke up from
surgery, I opened my eyes andthe first thing I thought was oh
geez, I probably should havewritten some stuff down, maybe
passwords or a will Nothing,literally.
I had done nothing.
I just went in clueless, evenwhen I have to add this, sorry,

(01:26:06):
before the neurosurgeon came, hehas to do some legalities.
He had these pieces of paperand he said okay, I got to take
you through this and you need tosign it.
He started going through thelist of potential problems that
might arise after or sideeffects and he literally started

(01:26:28):
going through the list ofeverything blind, deaf, dumb,
quadra, para.
I literally stopped him and Isaid you don't need this
negative energy.
I get it If I come out.
I come out If I don't just tellme where to sign.
I want you focused on takingthis faulty hardware out of my

(01:26:50):
head and sticking in that harddrive in its place.
Yeah, it was supposed to beabout a seven-hour operation and
ended up being more like 12.
I had a badass scar 38 staplesear to ear.
I just leave an S and I love it.
It's part of me.

(01:27:10):
It's something that happened.
I could never understand anyother way than to embrace it.
That's just who I am.
I know it's not.
Most people don't like thatexplanation, but it literally

(01:27:31):
comes down to that.

Yeah, just you know, it's.
I love that, peter, and I lovethat about you, and even just
you coming on and sharing yourstory, I think brings hope to
people, you know, bringsinspiration to people and it's,
you know, I guess sometimes ifyou have to be the person who's

(01:27:57):
screaming and tied to the gurney, you know sometimes that you do
what you have to do, let thefeelings pass through you.
I'm sure there's multiplestages of dealing with those
kinds of big feelings, but atthe end of the day you just kind
of have to make the best of itand try to do it with a smile on
your face and move on with yourlife.

It wasn't easy, I.
I mean, there's differentpersonalities and, like you were
starting to describe, right,people go through.
There's no wrong emotion, right?
It's not like I'm saying thosepeople are bad, that's just how

(01:28:42):
they deal with it.
Right, but I just don't knowany other way.
That's how I was raised, notpurposely, that's just the way
that I look at all things inlife.
And in that last podcast,remember when there was the back
and forth, I was just terrifiedof that.

(01:29:03):
Remember we spoke after aboutit, right, because and that's
part of I'll say I'm toopositive, right, like that's one
of the shortcomings of you know, that kind of mindset.
It impacts my career in havingthose discussions.
It's the same thing as what Iwent through with the brain

(01:29:24):
tumor, right?

Yeah, I actually had a co-worker my first job who
had a brain tumor malignant,unfortunately but you know, I
think for them it was.
They just wanted to come backto work and feel normal.
It's so Sorry, it's like it'srough and I think it all comes

(01:29:55):
down to you know, at the end ofthe day, while we're
professionals, we're also wholepeople when we come to work and
I've always been a big advocate,you know, as a manager and as a
team member, to make sure thatwe're keeping in mind that you
know life happens even whenyou're at work, and to treat

(01:30:17):
people like whole, people thattreat them like parents, treat
them like, you know, folks thathave lives outside.
You know they're husbands,they're wives, they have family
emergencies, they have joysoutside of work, but they still
bring that into work and it'salways important to keep in mind
, I think 100%, 1,000%, agree.

I learned that.
You know I was naive and Ilearned the hard way that the
most important thing in life isyour health right.
And you're no good to yourself,you're no good to your family,
to anything, unless you're youknow reasonably, you know

(01:31:03):
healthy and happy.
I was naive up until that point.
Right, invincible, didn't go tothe doctor, didn't like taking
pills, I mean.
But it's by far and away themost important thing.
Nothing matters.
You're no good to anybody elseif you're not healthy.
And when I say healthy, part ofthat is being happy at some

(01:31:28):
level.
Right, being content, beingable to reach out and have
positive conversations and workthrough whatever challenges.
That has nothing to do withwhere you went to school or what
jobs you had, or it wasn't justyour parents, it wasn't your
upbringing, it's everything allof that put together and how you

(01:31:54):
deal with those things.
Right, it's not born bread,it's like a muscle, right?
You gotta develop that overtime and just stay healthy.

And you know, if you don't mind, I'll detour just
a little bit to some prettymajor Salesforce community news
that's happened in the last 24hours.
I think it came out, peter, didyou hear about Gemma Blizzard?

I did not but, honestly, the last couple of
days I was swamped and, ofcourse, something happened.

Please, so you know, to what we were discussing
.
I mean Gemma Blizzard gosh, Imight get a little choked up
here.
She was a pillar of theSalesforce community.

(01:33:01):
She was diagnosed with breastcancer and just a bit over a
year ago found out that it wasterminal and Mark Benioff
actually tweeted announcing thatshe had passed last night.
And you know, I think shereally was a big testament to

(01:33:25):
maintaining that positiveattitude and despite everything
that she went through was suchan inspiration to this community
.
She founded Ladies BeArchitects because she saw a
need for more women's CTAs andthat's a legacy of hers that'll

(01:33:47):
live on.
So you know, for anybodyinterested in an architect path,
whether you're male or female,ladiesbearchitectscom, she wrote
an entire book called HurricaneGemma my Life and Fast Forward,
describing her trailblazerjourney and her cancer journey.

(01:34:07):
You know, and that book I meanI tore through that in one night
.
It was again inspirational,even before I became friends
with her.
I remember going to MidwestDreaming and Melissa Hildes was
passing out necklaces that Gemmahad given to her and there were

(01:34:28):
these gold necklaces that wereof sunflowers and if you opened
up the sunflower inside it saidkeep fucking going.
And that was really her motto,you know, just, despite it all,
just keep going and keep doinggood things.
And she loved this community ina way that's rare.
You know, it was such aninspiration.

(01:34:54):
I was so fortunate to befriends with her over the last
year and even just that she, youknow, opened up her life to let
me in for the time that I got,was it really mattered to me as
a human being and as aSalesforce professional and as a

(01:35:14):
woman in tech.
So just wanted to spend alittle bit of time on the show
before we close things off, justcelebrating her journey, which
was wonderful, and, you know,pointing people to all the
resources that she's leavingbehind for this great community,

(01:35:36):
from her book, from her YouTubechannel so it's a Gemsy Beth
G-E-M-Z-I-E-B-E-T-H is herTwitter handle and her YouTube
handle.
There's a shirtforceorg shirtthat, where the proceeds will go
to cancer that she helpeddesign, that was designed with

(01:36:00):
ladies B architects.
And even, just like herLinkedIn, her Twitter, her
website, jemablazarcomG-E-M-M-A-B-L-E-Z-A-R-Dcom
there's just so much greatinformation.
And on consulting, on businessanalysis, on diagramming, she

(01:36:23):
even put together a whole courseduring the pandemic and she had
cancer during the pandemic, youknow.
She still had it, you know, butshe put together a course on
Learn Salesforce with Gemma forfolks that were transitioning
during that period.
So we're talking about careerpivots again.
Like she really did so much forthis community and she was a

(01:36:44):
great friend and will greatly bemissed.
And I'm glad that Benioff gotthe announcement out because I
feel like she would have likedthat.
But she was in this communityfor a really long time and it
really shows like having thatfierce attitude and just I don't

(01:37:06):
know it's kind of hard to putin the words, but actually I
just wanted to kind of closewith something that she had
written to me in the book thatshe signed for me, which was you
know, keep being you, keepgrowing and lifting others and
just love.
Love what and who you want, butmake sure it's yourself too.

(01:37:26):
And I think those are reallyimportant things to keep in mind
and just keep fucking going,guys.

Thank you for that, Vanessa.
Can you maybe share the linkson the chat?

Yep and I posted on LinkedIn and on my Twitter
feed it's been now all of thelinks to Gemma's resources, as
well as her Spotify playlistwith podcasts that she's been on
discussing her cancer journeyand her Salesforce journey and
consulting and all the thingsthat she was amazing speaking on

(01:38:03):
.
But yeah, it's definitelyrocked the Salesforce world this
week and I thought you know notto steal your thunder, peter I
just you know it just again.
It's all a testament to justkeep that attitude and keep

(01:38:24):
inspiring others and thank youso much, peter, for sharing your
story and your journey and allthe things that you've done and
talking about career pivots andISPs.
It's important that we you knowwe bring people along on the
journey with us and keepinspiring.
Thank you.

And by all means not stealing thunder would be
the last thing that I would eversay.
That was beautiful, eloquent,needed to be said and it's right
, in line with what we all say.
You know outside of, you knowadmin path or this server or
that server or specific partners, or that, at the end of the day

(01:39:05):
, it's all about being positive,being respectful and getting
back on the bull.
Whenever shit happens andunfortunately, you know, in
general shit happens and yougotta just love and get back on

(01:39:25):
the bull and get going.
I often tell people, peopleoften tell me this is my last
comment, but you know, weren'tyou depressed, kind of what
keeps you going?
And wasn't it difficult?
And of course I'm like fuck,yeah, it was literally the worst
thing in my life.
I wouldn't wish it's on myworst end, I wish it's on my

(01:39:45):
worst enemy, but what pushed methrough other than you and the
amazing community, of course isI wanna see how the ride ends.
I'm not giving up.
I wanna see what is in store.
Where does the story actuallyend?
Right?

Yep, well, thanks again.
So much, peter, I appreciateyou being on.
Janine, thank you so much forjoining us and you know for-.
Thanks, janine.
Yeah, and to everybody else inthe Salesforce community, you
know, sending lots of love.
It's rough when one of our own,you know, dies tragically, but

(01:40:30):
I think that's where the wondersof the community were there for
each other and please, you know, reach out to each other, be
there for each other and justkeep fucking going, guys.
Thanks everyone, thanks Vanessa, thanks everyone.

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