Unlocking the Potential of Your Salesforce Partnerships: A Conversation with John Sisson

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Discover the art of maximizing relationships with Salesforce Partners, as we invite a distinguished veteran of the Salesforce landscape, John Sisson, who has a staggering 21 years of Salesforce experience under his belt along with over $70 million of combined sales. Together with our regular panelists plus partner pros including, Fred Cadena and Peter Ganza, we embark on an enriching journey exploring ways Salesforce customers can get the most out of their Salesforce partnerships.

We delve into the issues encountered by Salesforce partners while dealing with clients and how partners can help clients regain their faith in Salesforce. We also cover the crucial topic of how to maintain effective communication in partner-client relationships. 

Our episode offers tips for successful Salesforce partner relationships and the secret to identifying and averting bad clients. We get into the nitty-gritty of negotiating deals, managing relationships and understanding the project management triangle. We also discuss the importance of asking the right interview questions and the art of making yourself an attractive candidate. Towards the end, we touch on the role of vulnerability in a Salesforce career and how it can lead to success. This episode is laden with actionable advice, perfect for anyone looking to enhance their Salesforce journey!

Episode Transcript

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 (00:21):
Welcome everybody .
This is your host, joshMatthews.
I'm joined by my wonderfulco-host, vanessa Grant.
Hi Vanessa, hey Josh, hey,what's going on?
No, vanessa, are you at like aMidwest Dreaming or anything
like that right now?

Vanessa Grant (00:36):
No, that would be terrible because I have COVID
currently, so that's a littlefrowned upon at conferences
these days.

Josh Matthews (00:44):
It tends to be.
Well.
We appreciate you showing upnonetheless, and hopefully this
doesn't cause you to break asweat any more than the fever.
So hang in there.
You're amazing and weappreciate your dedication to
being on here.
So this is going to be a reallyfun show, and I know this for a
fact because our very specialguest is my friend, my client,

(01:06):
john Sisson, and I'm going to doa quick little intro on John.
John has over 21 years of mynote says bullshitting, but
that's not what it is 21 yearsof Salesforce experience.
He's done more than 3000implementations.
He's done over $70 million ofcombined sales within Salesforce
and within the partnerecosystem.

(01:28):
He's a wonderful person, verysmart.
Welcome to the show, john.
Pleased to have you.

John Sisson (01:32):
John, I appreciate it, and there may be a little
bullshitting in there, buthopefully not a lot.

Josh Matthews (01:38):
It's just a little bit.
So we know that this is thisshow is not for kids, but
whatever, that's okay.
So also on our esteemed panel,we have our regulars, including
Peter Ganza.
Say hi, peter.
Oh, peter's team of thing justgot messed up from speaking.
Peter X spaces, twitter spaceswhatever you want to call it.

(01:59):
It's not perfect, but we've gotFred Cadena, a regular.
He's the host of an awesomepodcast called banking on
disruption, so check that out.
We've got Jason Zikewitz, aregular on our program who
offers wonderful insights, and,jason, hopefully I think you
might have just started your newjob here recently, which is
pretty cool.
I see other folks that I reallylike that are regulars, such as

(02:21):
Tyler Huff and Casey Ballissa,so we're going to go ahead and
just get launched.
Today's program is dedicatedespecially to talking about how
Salesforce customers can get themost out of their relationships
with their Salesforce partners.
Okay, now please mute yourphone if you're not speaking
right now, so make sure thatmute buttons on.
Thank you very much, but that'sa really important topic

(02:45):
because almost everyone who'sgot Salesforce has worked with a
Salesforce partner, and somepartners are one person or two
people and three people, andsome of them can be massive,
massive big four consultingcompanies and there's a lot of
differences in how peopleexperience those implementations
and those relationships.
So we're going to get somewonderful insights from John, my

(03:07):
co-host, vanessa, and fromanybody else who wants to speak,
whether you're on the panelcurrently or not.
So that's what we're going todo Now.
Quick introductions from me.
My name is Josh Matthews.
I run Salesforce staffing youcan check us out at
thesalesforrestrecruitercom andI love hosting the show.
So let's go ahead and just divein, john.

(03:28):
Quick background on you.
Let's hear it.

John Sisson (03:31):
So, as you said earlier, this is I've done CRM
for about 25 years and in that25 years I've started a company.
About 21 years ago that was oneof the first hundred partners
on the planet for Salesforce andwas fortunate enough to watch
the rise and literally built acareer off of Salesforce and so,

(03:52):
from that perspective, havedone about 14 different
verticals you know 3000, beeninvolved around 3000 projects
and, most importantly, had achance to build some great
relationships with Salesforcereps and teams over the last 20
years.

Josh Matthews (04:09):
That's fantastic and it's extremely impressive,
and I'm kind of curious whatmade you desire to get involved
in the ecosystem to begin with?

John Sisson (04:18):
I wish I had this amazing answer that could give
you this forefront.
We actually it's funny is weidentified a.
We got paid my company therewas two of us at that time to
help them select Salesforce orCRMs and we did 10, what we
called really kind of fit checksand Salesforce one, all 10.
And it took us to 10 to figureout that there actually may be

(04:41):
something there.
So I guess we're not that smart, but the difference was on the
10th one we were like thisthere's, there's something here
and it's amazing.
And so we actually then gotpaid by one of our customers to
come in and implement and that'sbefore Salesforce will even had
an ecosystem of implementationpartners and then kind of went
from there.

Josh Matthews (05:00):
So Rainmaker, which was your business, that
got started right around again.
That was 19 years ago, 2002.
Okay, all right, and so?

John Sisson (05:10):
and you still currently identify as a?
I do.
I work with a company calledSales Optimizer.
That's a joke, dude.
That's a joke.
That's fair, john.

Josh Matthews (05:15):
Okay, trying to have a little bit of fun.
Okay, let's hear from the otherfolks on our panel too, because
we're going to.
We want you to understand whatperspective they're coming from.
So, vanessa, give us your quickbackground, if you can.

Vanessa Grant (05:29):
Sure, I've also been doing CRM since, I guess,
about 2000,.
But I discovered Salesforce in2010.
And since then I've worked as aproduct donor, currently a
consultant at a sales at alarger sales force partner, and
also co-host the show and dosome click coaching on the side.

Josh Matthews (05:46):
Well, yeah, and you're going to be rocking two
sessions at Dreamforce coming up.
Three sessions, gosh, threesessions.
When did the three added?

Vanessa Grant (05:53):
Yeah, three different sessions, and so I got
a campfire added, and then Ialso.
One of my sessions is going tobe done twice, so I'll be on
stage four times, which I'm notfreaking out about at all.

Josh Matthews (06:05):
Five if you count the Foo Fighters, because I'm
finding it hard to believe thatyou're not going to somehow find
a way up on that state.
It's pretty.
Yeah, that was a fun fact tolearn.
Today we also have Fred Kedenahere.
Fred, give us the quick one,two on your background.

Fred Cadena (06:20):
Yeah, first, quickly, vanessa, I had
forgotten being posted onLinkedIn that you were at that
Foo Fighters like Brutton Centertwo years ago.
You know, exciting.
My background is sorted outkind of accidentally in the
Salesforce I was working infinancial services.
My boss told me one day hey, wesigned the sales force.
We're going to get a salesforce contract.
You start six months and get itup and running, against and

(06:43):
valuing, but it was off to theraces.
No state and financial servicesfor a few years.
After that moves consulting 10years ago by then at a number of
partners, both large and small.
Thanks, as always, josh, forletting me come and consent.

Josh Matthews (06:59):
Of course, ben, and just for you, just so you
know, because I have a cigarduring every podcast and today
I'm enjoying a nub Cameroon, soI don't know if you've had it
before, but it's awfully lovely.

Fred Cadena (07:10):
I am in doors telling many of us though, no
cigar.
So me today.

Josh Matthews (07:14):
Yeah, I guess not .
And then, peter Gonza, go aheadand give us a quick update on
what you do, cause you and Iwere just talking right before
we launched this show.
We're going to see each otherin about 10 days, something like
that, less than 10 days down inFort Lauderdale for the life
sciences dream in which I'mlooking forward to.
But go ahead and tell everyoneelse what you do.

Peter Ganza (07:34):
Hi everybody.
I'm the app exchange whispererhere, formerly known as Peter
Gansler.
I'm a Salesforce alumni and Benhooked on and in the part of
the ecosystem ever since.

Josh Matthews (07:45):
Fantastic.
So, john, we're going to getback to you right now, man.
Again, this discussion is aboutSalesforce customers and how
they can maximize or get themost out of their relationship
with Salesforce partners.
There will be time towards theend.
We're going to do this forabout the next 30 minutes or so
and then the second half, whichwill be released a couple about
a week after this one getsreleased on the podcast.

(08:07):
That's going to be really ouropen Q and A, which we love to
do.
We want to answer your questions.
So, for those of you here, ifyou can be here still in 30 or
45 minutes, go ahead and hang onto your questions.
If you won't be, please goahead and send them to Vanessa
and then, as soon as thispodcast is released, you'll have
the answer to your question.

(08:28):
Pretty simple.
So when you have worked onthese 3,000 implementations and
you've worked with people at alllevels giant projects, little
teeny projects what are some ofthe major pitfalls that you
believe customers fall into?
What do they experience whenworking with partners that's

(08:50):
maybe within their control?
Sometimes you get a badSalesforce partner.
Sorry, some of you guys aren'tthat great.
It's just how it is, but ifsomeone's working with a good
record, bold, decent partner.
What's happening to thecustomer where things aren't
going that great?

John Sisson (09:05):
I think it's a couple of different things.
One is expectations.
Art is the partner you'reworking with showcasing that
they understand your businessand goals, and you and I talked
about this a little bit a weekago.
But the funny part of 54 yearsold is I go to Orange Theory
three times a week and killmyself in class and then glee

(09:27):
Orange Theory and go to Dunkin'Donuts and get a six-pack of
donuts and a Diet Coke because Ifeel good about the least.
Have a Diet Coke and use thatas Orange Theory, as a silver
bullet.
And what's interesting is a lotof people dude.
You always crack dude.
It's a given, it's just a given.
You're going to find me in afast food restaurant after

(09:47):
Orange Theory.
The funny part is people buySalesforce implementation like I
do with Orange Theory.
They buy it as a silver bullet.
They buy it with theunderstanding that they're going
to get a forecast, that they'regoing to automatically
understand what KPIs are, thatthey're going to have this
amazing expectation, that peopleare just going to show up and

(10:08):
want to use it.
And they don't understand that.
There's a lot more involved andso part of understanding with
your partner is understandingwhat are you solving for and
what is success to you, so thatyou can clearly communicate that
to the partner to make surethat you two are aligned.
If not, there probably is goingto be issues.

Josh Matthews (10:29):
Yeah, that makes sense.
Who wants to jump in on thattoo?
Because I am imagining thatthis happens an awful lot, right
, vanessa?
Look, you're doing solutioning.
You really did a lot of work,not just in the ecosystem, with
BA work, but with your clients,so I'm imagining that this is
something that you've run intoquite a bit.
Would that be accurate?

Vanessa Grant (10:50):
Oh yeah, but with the implementations, I feel
like one of the biggestchallenges tends to be you know
how do you talk to those clientsand have them understand what
it actually means to getinvolved with a partner, and
also the education just likeJohn's talking about that comes

(11:11):
with it.
As far as you know, you can'tsolve everything with Salesforce
.
You have to be able to optimizethose business processes and
help them.
What's the expression that?
I'm sure I've used it a fewtimes on the shows you take a
bad business process and throwSalesforce on it.
You just have a faster badbusiness process.
But it's always a challengewhen you're first starting out a

(11:33):
relationship to be like.

Josh Matthews (11:34):
well, I'm figuring out when is the right
time to bring in a partner, evenyeah, it's like if you're
getting a phone when people goout and start dating, they don't
tell everyone all the problemsthat that person who is now
dating them is going to facebecause of who they are.
It's not like you advertisethat.

(11:55):
So how do you overcome that?
How do you set thisrelationship up, john, when
you're being and I know you tobe as transparent as they come?
But I imagine that for somepeople who are whether they're
AEs or doing businessdevelopment or even Salesforce
AEs, when they're trying to sellthis silver bullet, but they're
packaging it like a silverbullet versus packaging it like

(12:18):
what it is software, and thatrequires a lot of some
brainpower and some decisionmaking and some time to figure
out.
So what have you done from thesales perspective or in your
role in John's SVP over sales atSales Optimizer?
So what do you do tocommunicate that this isn't
going to be like holding handsand running under the rainbow

(12:41):
for the rest of their lives?

John Sisson (12:43):
I think part of that is what Vanessa said is you
clearly have to understand thatit's four parts right.
Its goals and KPIs process, itstool and its training and
coaching, and we clearly try tooutline that as much as we can,
because without elements of thatyou're going to fail.
The other part we do thisliterally on every project we

(13:05):
work on is we document the hellout of requirements, right, and
we help them tie it back tobusiness cases, because they
most of the customers that we'retalking to have an idea of what
they want, but they don'treally understand how it's
solving and they can't judgesuccess and therefore you are
walking into their paradigm andreally don't know and it could

(13:28):
be not good.
And so by doing that, puttingit on paper, it shows three
things One is that you actuallylisten to them.
Shockingly Of this is that youunderstand their business well
and that you understand themwell enough that they feel like
you're on the same page andyou're educating them.
Third, of what is success andwhat's not.

(13:50):
And I think those three thingsare critical because in the
world that we all live in, speedis part of what we do and we
have to be really efficient,especially working with
Salesforce to turn things around.
But it has to be right and wehave to be ethical.

Josh Matthews (14:06):
Here.
Well, that makes sense to me,but that's go ahead and pipe up.

Vanessa Grant (14:09):
I love everything you just said, john, what I end
up running into or at leastwhat I've seen on as Bay of
Consultant for a few years andI'm wondering if how you deal
with this is because when youhave an AE from Salesforce that
oftentimes gets to that clientfirst and ends up selling them a
bunch of different clouds and abunch of different premium

(14:32):
features and without evennecessarily understanding what
the business problems are.
I've had clients that havetheir business problem was that
they bought licenses tosomething that they didn't
necessarily need but then all ofa sudden expected us to
implement it.
How do you approach that, wherethey already have like a pile
of licenses but still don'tquite understand what their

(14:53):
problem is?

John Sisson (14:54):
It's interesting.
When I had my own shop, Ireally thought I understood
Salesforce well, and I do, and Idid I didn't understand
business as well as I thought Idid.
And so one of the things andit's a great point, vanessa,
because the biggest issue I seein the Salesforce ecosystem
right now is that customers feellike they're not getting value

(15:16):
from Salesforce and they'relooking at the tool and
Salesforce reps are strugglingbecause they have customers that
don't want to buy anything more.
And the biggest part of thatit's funny is it's really not
it's a Salesforce issue, butit's not Because of exactly what
you said their processes aren'taligned.
The system is way overbuilt,they've got shelf wear and their

(15:38):
people never received theproper training, and so one of
the things we've tried to do iswe are actually doing three and
I called assessments becausetons of partners do assessments
but these are aligned with aSalesforce spark where we're
going pretty deep into processgoals and tying that back into

(16:00):
business and showcasing thatthis we're doing it for free for
reps, and what we're seeing is,from a manufacturing
perspective, it's allowingcustomers to regain their trust
with Salesforce.
It's giving them the vision andit's giving Salesforce the
ability to kind of extend whatthey do without having to be

(16:22):
part of that.
There's only so many peoplethat can do sparks, so that's
one of the things that we'retrying to do to make us
different but, more importantly,solve that issue because,
you're right, that's a majorissue.

Josh Matthews (16:33):
Yeah, that's keeping a real body.
I like that, Fred.
What are your thoughts on this?

Fred Cadena (16:37):
Yeah, I think it's 100% spot on.
I mean, I think, like, go openand get the thing for a while.
There's just not a lot ofinfield left.
There's a lot of companies outthere that have bought self-wear
.
They're not 100% sure what theyhave.
They're not, you know, marriedout to their use case and I
think anything that we can do inthe ecosystem as partners, as

(16:58):
ecosystem or beta company, tellpeople all this old you know
what they've bought, how toconnect to their businesses and
how to like third, turning thaton.
And then you're going to solvethe.
Is it going to help install the?
But it ran into a lot.
Well, here being John andVanessa, Josh, who work with WoW
, probably this will befrustrated and then we'll go on
and buy some other pointsolutions.

(17:20):
They change the problem thatthey already have sales force
licenses for and now they'repaying for two sets of licenses.
Oh and, by the way, now theirdata is taught to get.
So they've got the dataassistant appoints and you
should have the data on salesforce, and it takes them further
away from what they're tryingto get to, which is that we do
the also.
So I love, I love all of that,John.
That's fantastic.

Josh Matthews (17:41):
Yeah, this stuff is real nightmare scenario stuff
.
I mean, I can't imagine being abusiness owner and being okay
with wasting that much money ona system that doesn't work or
not taking the step back.
And you know, as, asprofessionals in the ecosystem,
we're all responsible.
I, you know, I'm not a salesforce partner People know that
because we're recruiters herebut but the, you know, partners

(18:04):
make up about 70% of our clientbase.
And so over the last five yearsI've I've heard an awful lot of
stories and I heard one veryrecently where a client of this
is a friend of mine.
He runs some sales and solutionsfor a smallish partner and they
were trying to overcome anissue with their their time card

(18:25):
something to do with time cardsand the way that they wanted it
built out would have been a60,000, you know, $60,000 add on
to the implementation and andwork that they were already
committing to.
But my friend was able to comeup with a $6,000 solution.
Maybe it's not quite as fancyor slick, but it solves the

(18:45):
problem.
It solves it like reallyreasonably well for $6,000, but
getting the CEO to see that thisis a better way to go instead
of just burning a third of hisbudget on the implementation, on
this one little thing.
It's like it's difficult.
So that kind of leads me tothis.
What happens when you're on thepart, you know in the partner

(19:06):
space and you're dealing with astakeholder who is just flat out
unreasonable and burningthrough dollars and they're
going to hurt what's?

John Sisson (19:15):
what do you do?
That's a fantastic question.
I mean the answer to this andthis just goes back to you have
to do things on the forefrontand and part of all of our
experience has to be.
These are four reasons why whatyou just said is not a good
idea.
I'll give you an example.
We got called in by aSalesforce rep young and

(19:36):
impressionable and wanted helpfor a company that wanted to buy
CPQ or Salesforce's quotingsystem.
And we talked to them and youknow, a minimum quoting a decent
CPQ thing at a minimum is abouta $50,000 implementation.
Yeah, they had no products setup, they had no price books,
they didn't need anything to dowith CPQ in regard to God and

(19:59):
selling or other elements.
And I kept asking her I'm likewe could solve this with native
Salesforce.
And we went back to Salesforceto make sure that they were also
aware and aligned with that too.
And they were.
And the customer was like, yeah, I don't care, I just want to
buy it.

Josh Matthews (20:14):
What like?
I don't even understand that.
It's just stupid.
It's just a whole big bag ofdums.

John Sisson (20:20):
You can't fight stupid, right?
No, you can't.
We're not going to do theproject on that because it's
going to fail right.
And that's the challenge as yougo through this is.
It is making sure that withSalesforce and the customer and
it's never perfect but thatyou're being truthful and
ethical.
You have to be, because allthree of us Salesforce and the

(20:42):
customer have to win to besuccessful.

Josh Matthews (20:44):
Yeah, that makes a ton of sense, man.
So, john, have you had to sayno to a client, in other words
say hey look, we're not theright partner for you.
There's a little bit of yourmoney back.
Have you ever had to do that?

John Sisson (20:55):
Not really, but it's.
I've wanted to a lot, you know.
I think the challenge isbecause we work with two
customers right, and thenVanessa said it.
You're working with aSalesforce rep who's counting on
you for you know their success.
It's not as easy as just to saytake them to take my ball and
go home.

(21:15):
It's not, and so you have tofigure out.
But you have to be truthful asyou go through it.
You know, this year and thisyear with the economy I actually
had in the first time it wascombative I had somebody tell me
to shut up and go back to workand crazy conversations because
they were under so much strainand nothing to do with us, and

(21:38):
so we just had to work our waythrough it and get to a place
that made sense.
And the good news is we'regoing to deliver something of
success for them and forSalesforce.
But it took a hell of a lot ofwork.

Josh Matthews (21:49):
Yeah, so you had to go through that man.
That's like no fun, fred, goahead Dan.

Fred Cadena (21:53):
I was just saying I agree 100%, and I'm saying this
I'm not trying to suggest thatit's even, but I had a fair
amount of success when, whensituations like that come up and
there's just fundamental lackof alignment between either what
Salesforce is positioning to acustomer or what a client says
we want to buy, they're doingthis at a good fault.

(22:14):
To just, you know, be be equal,to try to start with Salesforce
as you are with the client.
They're like you know, I'veenjoyed working with you and
working together.
In the future, I'd like you.
I know that I'm not going tomove this successful.
You know I don't think I'm theright partner for that, and hey,
you know it is.

(22:35):
I can provide a referral to apartner, whether it's because we
just don't have the skill to doit or because we just don't
think it's the right solution,and I have found in the wallet
where that thought was paid moredividend, while, you know,
continuing down the road andthrough a bad situation.

John Sisson (22:51):
And that's actually Josh, if you don't mind me
jumping in.
That's a great point because Itook it as we were already doing
the implementation right.
I do that all the time and it'sa great point, Fred.
We got brought into a Fortune250 to do.
They basically gave us theright to do Salesforce's
e-commerce solution.
It was ours to win.
We don't do it, we don't havethe skills for it, I don't know

(23:13):
the, I don't even know how to doit, and our first point was
we're the wrong partner right.
And we went back to Salesforce.
We aligned on that.
We made sure that they got theinformation they needed and was
successful, because, to yourpoint, all you have is your name
and once you do that and ifyou're not pushing back on the
sales side, it's guaranteedfailure.

Josh Matthews (23:36):
Yeah, it's transparency, communication.
You know the hallmarks ofsuccessful business.
You just got to stick with that.
Let's get Peter's perspectiveon this Great topic.

Peter Ganza (23:47):
I just love everyone's angle on this.
An interesting item from myperspective is, in a lot of ways
it comes down to the initialselection of a partner.
Right?
I do assessments all the timefor partners, isvs, and that's
why it drives me nuts in a greatway, because you know, if I

(24:08):
hear one more partner talkingabout the white glove treatment,
I'm going to go buy some whitegloves.
Right, they try to take anybodywith a heartbeat.
Right and just from a peermessaging perspective, do what
you're good at right, look atwhat sells.
I don't care what you think youdo right, I care about what
your customers do and that'syour main.
Go to market.

(24:28):
It doesn't have to becomplicated and then focus on
that, because then when peoplefind you right, you're going to
be the subject matter expert.
You're going to understand thatand you know you're not going
to go down a path like we'retalking about here.
Right, and it just it bogglesmy mind every day, but that's my
input.

Josh Matthews (24:46):
Well, yeah, and look at the Vanessa in just one
second.
I just want to jump in realquick.
Everybody's got to remember,like we all remember elementary
school.
You remember high school.
You remember those people thatyou went to school with that you
didn't like they're all inbusiness now, okay, and they
might not have changed.
So that's what we're dealingwith.

(25:06):
It's not like everybody growsup and becomes a nice adult.
Those jerks in high schoolmight still be jerks, some of
them might not be.
But you just just keep that inmind.
Go ahead, vanessa.

Vanessa Grant (25:16):
Well, I just wanted to throw a question out
based on this conversation,because I think it would be.
I mean, I would like to knowwhat your perspective would be,
john, as far as when should apartner walk away from a client
and when should a client walkaway from a partner?

John Sisson (25:31):
Pre-implementation, post-implementation.

Vanessa Gra (25:33):
Post-implementation so say you've already got the
deal signed, and because I thinkit is hard sometimes where you
start getting into a project andthen maybe new stakeholders
come in or folks get a littlebit antsy about sticking to the
processes that you're trying toimplement.
We're doing things the rightway, because maybe they have

(25:55):
kind of more old-fashioned ITpeople that have a stake in it
or some executives that are likewell, why isn't this done yet?
Things like that.
And I know that there are timesin projects that you either
find that you're going in andit's not a right fit with the
partner that you've selected andmaybe need to pivot, or the
other way around, that maybe youand the client just aren't

(26:16):
aligned philosophically.
When is the time for maybehaving those conversations and
walking away, and is that evenpossible?

John Sisson (26:24):
It's not easy and it's not because it kills your.
It's a we all serve twocustomers, right?
You're serving the ecosystem,you're serving the customer, and
then you're serving Salesforceand you have to make sure that
you're successful with both.
I haven't had that.
I've been fortunate that Ihaven't had it a lot but one of
the reasons is and it's allaspects around the amount of

(26:49):
upfront work that we do to learntheir business, to understand
the goals.
It's making sure that we'redocumenting everything through
the process, that we're gettingsign-offs as we go through this
in regard to design andconfiguration, uat and aspects,
so that we have something tosupport us as part of those
arguments still happens, right,but the idea of it is is that

(27:12):
we're trying to be much smarterabout what we're doing, and Josh
is right, it's all aboutcommunication and communicating
early, and as soon as we startseeing those kinds of things,
then we're calling everybody tothe table to make sure we're
working through them.

Josh Matthews (27:26):
This is weird stuff, right, like.
This is tricky stuff, because Ihonestly don't think people
talk about this.
I listen to a bunch of podcasts.
I've never heard anybody talkabout this, right, so I'm glad
that we're actually, I hope thatother people have.
But I'm glad that we're gettingto tackle this subject because
the reality is is I, you know, Italk to partners every single
week from all over the countryand, on occasion, all over the

(27:48):
world, and sometimes they'recomplaining about their partner.
Sometimes they absolutely lovethem and, john, you brought up,
you know, like, when faced witha challenging issue like this
$6,000 solution for a $6,000solution for a $60,000 problem
that we talked about just a fewminutes ago and you talked about
saying like, hey, okay, hereare the four, here are the four

(28:11):
reasons why that doesn't makesense.
But I'm kind of curious, forthose of you who are in the
partner space, how many peopleare actually, after the ink is
dry on the contract with thecustomer, are saying, okay, guys
, like, if things go wrong, it'snot going to be because of us,
right?
If things go wrong?
These are the three most commonthings that will create failure

(28:35):
, disappointment, increase costs, lengthen the length in the
project, whatever it is, andthey're almost always going to
be around communication or thestakeholders and their team not
putting enough time into thethings that need to happen for
the steps.
So then you can actually holdthem accountable.
You know, it's almost like thislittle written agreement like

(28:58):
hey, look, when things go wrongit's going to look like A, b or
C.
And then when things do gowrong and let's face it, there
are a few implementations where,where folks aren't running into
some kind of a challenge or anissue usually around
communication Then you can sayhey, do you remember?
You know, July 15th I sent youthat thing.
Then we talked about it and youread it and you said you read
it right.

(29:18):
So I'm bringing up issue B,because that's what we're
experiencing right now and italmost absolves the partner from
from failure.
Right, because you've alreadyaddressed it.
I call it taking bullets out ofthe gut, right?
So what do you think about that?
Who here knows a company that'sdoing something like that?

John Sisson (29:37):
I would bet you that all of us are trying it's
just, do we do it perfectlyevery time?
No, but I think we are.
I think that's the goal andthat's what we work on
internally is it is the TedLasso coaching moments right?
It is when these things gosideways.
It's and you're right, it'salways communication what could

(29:59):
we have done better and how dowe do it?
And there are times we have togo back to customers and say we
didn't do a good job.
We have to fix it.
That's part of our gig.

Josh Matthews (30:08):
Thanks for sharing that, john.
Go ahead Fred.

Fred Cadena (30:10):
Yeah, same and I.
I never sat on all on all ofthat.
That is where things gosideways.
And for me and I wouldn't saythat I've never worked at a
company where this is universalbut in in my building the
relationship up to the sale,that's a big part of the talk
track.
Like I don't try to sell, youknow rainbows and bubble and

(30:31):
everything's going to get under.
Well, my buyers are typicallyfairly sophisticated people with
diverse leaders, fairlysophisticated IT buyers.
They think with that they'renot getting out through a sales
force project before maybe theyhave, but they know everything's
not going to go great.
So, even during no-transcript,you know the early to mid stages
of the sales side.

(30:51):
Well, I'm talking about how weneed to partner closely together
and what that looks like andwhat I'm going to want out of
the relationship.
And I asked them like what doyou think I want out of this
promotion?
So up to you, because it reallylike once the aim's trying, so
most too late, right, likeeverybody wants to get you know
some of the ground.
Go in and let go and look atlike those expectations have to
be set early and awful and,quite frankly, if I say

(31:14):
something that they don't want,or if they say something that
I'm not willing to do or that Idon't think is the right.
I mean, it's better to knowbefore we sign the contract, and
so I'm easy to know.

Josh Matthews (31:29):
Great input, Fred .
Look, we're at the top of thetop of the hour.
It's been half an hour thatwe've been on the show so far.
So just a quick, a quick littlerecap.
We are visited by my friend andmy client, John Sisson, who's
the SVP of sales over at SalesOptimizer.
Also, we've been hearing fromFred Cadena, Peter Gonza and my

(31:49):
cohost, Vanessa.
Check out theSalesforcerecruitercom.
Subscribe to this podcast.
If you're on the live showright now that we host here on X
Spaces I'm trying to trying toget that into my lexicon here X
Spaces, Twitter Spaces, If youlike, listening to the live show
, but you don't catch everyprogram, you can find us on
Spotify, you can find us onGoogle and you can find us on

(32:12):
Apple Podcasts.
All of these things Do us afavor.
You know we want more people tohave exposure to this program,
so share this podcast with yourfriends and give us a little
thumbs up and maybe even alittle review if you're getting
value from this program.
We're going to go ahead andcontinue our discussion, which
is talking about Salesforcepartners and their relationship

(32:35):
with their customers and whatcustomers can do to have a
better experience working withthose Salesforce partners.
So let's start.
Let's just kind of go back tothat original thing, John.
Think of, if you can think ofan experience that you had on a,
you know, working on animplementation or working with a
customer, Think of the best one, like the one that just went so

(32:58):
smooth as smooth as my voiceand tell me, like, like, what
were the qualities of thepartner?
What kinds of stuff were theydoing that helped facilitate a
really easy relationship andexperience for them, not just
with you but with Salesforce aswell?
It's a great question.

John Sisson (33:19):
So we have a.
There's a company called BAEthat we work with that there's a
sales on the Salesforce website.
There's an overview of theprojects that we help them do.
And the thing that wasinteresting was is we had
somebody we and not a smallcompany but the great part was
we had executive sponsorship.
We had we had real definedgoals in the person that was

(33:42):
leading it on.
The BAE side was all in, shewas, she was fun, she was fair,
she was critical when she had tobe, but it was always based on
the performance of the team anddelivering on what we said it
was.
And because we understood whatthe mission was and because we
had we were fortunate to havegood teammates.

(34:03):
We also worked with Salesforceservices on this that we all
focused on it, but she broughtan energy to it.
That was really fun and, moreimportantly was it kept it
focused and she was good aboutbringing in the right people at
the right times to to reallyfoster the project.

Josh Matthews (34:22):
And so if someone wanted to emulate this, this
client that you had.
What types of like?
How do you make it fun?
You know how?
How do you bring someone in atthe right time?
Well, it's, it's a greatquestion.

John Sisson (34:35):
It starts with literally having understanding
what are you solving for it?
Secondly, then, havingexecutive sponsorship.
It's third, having somebodylead the charge, right.
One of the things that we'veall understood and seen is, when
they don't have a primaryperson in charge of their
project on their side, we'regoing to have issues, there's

(34:56):
going to be delays and there'sgoing to be miscommunications,
right?
And then we worked throughsignificant documentation and we
worked through and had multiplesets of conversations during
the week to do this, but it isall of those pieces that drive
success.

Josh Matthews (35:12):
And so, john, is there a higher likelihood of
success if there's a dedicatedlet's just say there's a
dedicated director of businesssystems or a dedicated internal
project manager, you know, onthe project, versus working with
, say, a smaller firm, a smallerclient, where the CEO is in
control.
Like, is there a massive deal?

(35:33):
Like, do you sense that thereare more issues when the CEO is
the one controlling the projector quarterbacking the project
internally?
It?

John Sisson (35:40):
can be.
Yeah, I mean it is, and I meanthat's the reality.
We like it's sales optimizer,we do the you know the fortune
hundred, and we do some smalland medium sized business, and
those organizations that haveSMB is what Salesforce calls it.
They have all the needs of theBAE's but they don't have the,
the internal resources tosupport it, they don't have the

(36:01):
IT bandwidth, they don't have alot of the things that the
bigger companies do, but theystill have the same needs, and
so that does cause an issue.
And in those situations we haveto be very straightforward.
That says you know, as a, as apartner, we cannot continue to
do delays and a not charge youfor them and B you know, not

(36:23):
have major ramifications on yourproject.
And that goes back to yourpoint of constant communication.

Josh Matthews (36:29):
I never know how to transition after someone's
answered a question.
Well, so I always say likefantastic, terrific.
But it is true, it's likereally good stuff.
What if we do a real quickround here?
I think this would be kind offun and we can start with
Vanessa, your number one adviceto customers, salesforce
customers when working withtheir partner, and I don't care
if everyone's number one adviceis exactly the same, that's fine

(36:51):
.
But go ahead, let's, let's dothis.

Vanessa Grant (36:54):
We'll go quick to Vanessa and, when you're done,
fred, and then we'll go back toJohn, oh geez, it's hard to
settle it to just one, but Iwould say having clear
requirements and I'll throw onemore in, just cause I have to is
having a really clearunderstanding of agile
methodology, if that's how we'regoing to deliver the project.

Fred Cadena (37:14):
I'll say, I'll say just partner, you know and work
with clients to treat me like avendor and I've worked with
clients to treat me like apartner, and there's a big
difference on this partner.
Well, he transparent, he can bea little.

Josh Matthews (37:27):
And so can you expand on that, Fred, Like what
cause the audience might notknow the difference?
Sure Right.
So yeah, I mean let's hear that.

Fred Cadena (37:35):
I just think that like to work with client that in
the it says to be usually atthe bigger, the bigger fly up
with that necessarily that youtreat their sales force partner
in a very adversarial fashion.
They're not fully transparent.
They, you know, they kind offeel like they're going into a
used car new issue for maybe,like the car mechanic and you
know, oh, if I say too much he'sgoing to try to upsell me on

(37:57):
SOPS.
I'm going to try to.
You know, do do this or that andand and that I work with
clients and in much moreinvolved with category the vast
majority that really are aretransferred and open and and
talk about what their challengesare and and I really, you know
I've been very lucky that in mycareer I get to pick a lot of
who I work with and who I don't,so I've not really had to work

(38:20):
with a lot of the one thatthey're more on the bigger side,
but when I have stepped intorescue projects that have gone
south or to take care of thingsthat that you know got a little
bit of off the rails and sheusually can cause me some warby
and visceral relationship wherethe client is looking for the
partner, like they're going totry to take it down into, and I

(38:42):
and I'm saying it's a two waystream, you know, and you know
not all partners are greateither and there's problems in
partners, not always, you know,good actors.
But really just just treating itlike a part of like, like like
anybody else that you would wantto to, to get advice from,
versus somebody who's your trial, you know, just buy, you know

(39:02):
ours, and buy capacity with son.

Josh Matthews (39:04):
That's helpful.
It reminds me of something Ilearned years ago from a
psychiatrist, a guy I reallyrespected.
I mean, this is one of the mostnext to my dad, he's probably
read the most books of anyone Iknow and he he shared.
He said listen, josh, it's realeasy.
Whoever's most vulnerable winsRight.
That's where transparencyreally starts.

(39:26):
He said that we know and 100%.
Oh, I didn't say it, I'm justquoting someone else.
I thought you said a great Fred, but it is, it's, it's.
You have to risk something toget something.
It's all risk reward when itcomes to communication.
Do I say this and risk beingostracized?
Or do I say this and find that,oh my God, we're, you know like

(39:48):
totally meant to be in businesstogether, like whatever it is?
Yeah, Okay, Thank you, Fred.
Peter, what's your what's?

Peter Ganza (39:57):
I was going to suggest talking to you, I mean
taking a step before obviouslysigning the paperwork.
But talk to before you buy.
You know a partner's customersright and have that conversation
with them.
I just feel like that's a goodway to at least gauge what the
working style will be like andkind of the relationship.

(40:20):
I mean I'm more on the preamble, if you will here, right on the
marketing side, but a lot ofthat sets the tone right for
when you sign the papers andwhen you get into the actual
implementation.
And you know, from myperspective I don't really care
what the partner or the anybodysays.

(40:40):
Talk to an actual customer,someone who's been through it.
Don't just rely on, you know,epic Change Reviews or this AE's
recommendation.
Talk to them.
I client.

Josh Matthews (40:49):
But Peter, everyone on the app exchange has
4.9 stars, so aren't they allgood?
Sorry, we'll have a no.
No, no, I know, go off on this.
Yeah, that's a whole differentpodcast, I know, right, yeah,
okay, all right, john Sisson,you're number one.
You might have said it already,but go for it again anyway.

John Sisson (41:08):
I'm going to echo what you know.
The three other folks said it'sspot on.
I think it's, but it is oneknow what you're solving for.
Like, what do you want to getout of it?
And it's can't be.
I want a system and a CRMsystem.
It's what business impact areyou looking for?
And I love what both you andFred said is Be it's okay to say
I don't know.
Right, all of us that areprofessional and really want to

(41:32):
do well for customers will gothe extra even further.
When people look they're likehey, we're really counting on
you to do this and we don'tunderstand it.
Help us understand it.
That's way better thanpretending you do, because we
know you don't.

Josh Matthews (41:46):
It is.
It's so critical, it you know,like he just does.
It's so critical.
And you just said something andI kind of got fuzzy in my head
here for just a second.
But it's like that.
Who was it?
Was it Vanessa, or was it youor Peter, I can't even remember
at this point.
But this, this idea that youknow what you're trying to do,
and you like, I think you justsaid like, and it can't just be

(42:07):
that you want to CRM system.
It's like you want to makemoney.
Why, like, if you don't knowwhy you want to make a bunch of
money?
Like, then you've got, thenyou've got problems, and people
know.
It's like, well, I wantsecurity, or I want to be able
to pay for my kids college, or Ihave a special needs child that
is going to need lifelong care,or like whatever it is.
Or it might just be like Ireally want a big fat, giant

(42:30):
boat because I love boats, right, like that's my reason.
So, like you could just be assimple as that.
But the money is just a thing.
Crm is just a thing, right?
So what's that thing going todo for you and how is it going
to alleviate pain, solve aproblem, generate revenue, like
whatever it is.
Have that answer and be realspecific about it, because, at

(42:50):
the end of the day, no one'sjust chasing money.
If you're chasing money formoney, you got problems.
If you're chasing CRM for CRM,you got problems.
Right, you've really got to geta little bit more granular, not
a lot.
It's only one level away, it'sone question away.
It's not the five Y's, it's theone Y, right?
So you know, do that, okay.

(43:11):
So if someone does have aquestion, there's a couple of
things you can do.
You can DM me and I probablywon't see it.
You can DM Steven Gregor,because Vanessa might need to
leave a little bit early today.
So, steven, thank you for beingon the show.
Steven's part of my team atthesalesforcerrecruitercom so is
Jesse.
Jesse's listening right now.
Thanks for listening, jesse,and I also want to just give a

(43:31):
little verbal wave to my friend,larry Lee.
It's nice to see you, larry.
Let's keep going a little bitfurther, right?
So what are some of the signsthat a partner can recognize in
a customer or in a potentialcustomer that says run, you know
, run away from this client.
You know what do.

(43:53):
What are good steps orquestions to ask or things to
dig into a partner when they'reengaging with a client.
I can tell you here we don'tjust interview our candidates,
we interview our clients.
We don't want to take someonefrom a good job and stick them
in a good job.
We don't want to take them froma good job and stick them in a
great job, or a bad job andstick them in a great job.

(44:13):
But we're looking for great atthe end of it all, and not every
potential client that we mighthave is going to be great.
So we want to vet them andscreen them out before we start
announcing to the world thatthey're awesome, which would be
a lie, because that's not how wedeal with it right.
It's not what we do and I'mkind of curious what can
partners do to protectthemselves from bad?

John Sisson (44:33):
clients, I think.
First, I mean it's funny.
I was on a call at four o'clocktoday, right before this, where
we went through and it's acompany that has four different
business units just smallercompany, probably $100 million,
and they're like you know what?
We don't really usually useimplementation services.
We just our goal is we're goingto use it right out of the box,

(44:55):
even though it's fourcompletely different businesses,
and my hope is that people willjust use it and when they adopt
, it will come.
And my feedback was it's 100%failure, it's going to.
It's going to fail.
Right, it's not.
This is not Kevin Costner, thisis not field of dreams.
If you build it, they'll come.
It has to fit your businessobjectives and the funniest part
for them is their number onechallenges.

(45:15):
We can't accurately forecastand we're losing 90% of the
things that we put out, andthat's their.
Their solution is they're goingto put something in place that
literally their hope thatthey're.
They're playing as hope.

Josh Matthews (45:30):
Yeah, that's a crappy plan and hope's a
terrible plan.
And if you're listening to thisand you've never heard that
before, one I'd be shocked.
And two, if you, you probablyheard it before and then
probably forgotten, because Iknow more people who hope than
the people I know who plan.
Right, I mean wishing andhoping.
It just doesn't work.
So how so you had thisconversation?

(45:51):
Now, how do you protectyourself as a partner from from
implementing some of futurefailure?

John Sisson (45:57):
At that point.
What's interesting is, we gotbrought into Salesforce.
We will help Salesforce winthat deal.
They're going to self-implementand we we're going to give them
our recommendation.
Right, they're open to that,and we're going to tell them the
right way to do it so that whenit, when it goes sideways,
hopefully that we're getting aphone call.
But the answer of this is it'snot trying to say I told you so,

(46:18):
but it kind of is to say I toldyou so, that's all we can do.
Right, and so at leastSalesforce gets their deal
Ethically.
We've told the customer whatthey need.
And third, I'm not putting mystaff in a situation where I'm
setting them up for failure.

Josh Matthews (46:33):
Yeah, that's good stuff.
Any other thoughts on this guys?
Vanessa, Fred, Pierre.

Fred Cadena (46:37):
I just you know I'm not a different job, I just
like the way that I think aboutit.
You like, almost like thescientists right, Scientists
don't want to disprove things,that they all look at them
Stratically.
I want to win every meetingthat I could win, but I go in
trying to prove to myself thatthis is not the right client and

(46:58):
me and look for warning signs.
I said a lot of time at thestuff where you're having
conversations about what theywant and then I am not operating
from scarcity, but if I runaway from this deal, if I
realize you know the strategy ofset they don't be a WB, right,
you have to be okay with that.
But I think the criteria is alot of success brought on.

Josh Matthews (47:21):
Hey, you know we talked about this, fred.
I want to say I can't rememberif it was last, our last show or
the show before that, but wewere talking about negotiating,
right, and that whoever iswilling to walk away has the
control.
They have the power, right.
And so, you know, partnersreally should recognize and I
would say almost not all, butalmost every provider of

(47:44):
services should keep that inmind that they don't have,
there's no obligation tonecessarily work with every
customer, especially if it'sgoing to take your rep.
Take your numbers cause stress.
I know so many partners that,especially the young ones, right
, the ones that are and I'lljust say, two to seven years old
, or one zero to seven years oldright, and you could have seven

(48:06):
years of experience as apartner, but really you're so
small that it's really one yearof experience seven times in a
row, right.
And I see these deals that theytake where they're doing, you
know, five hours of work a monthfor 30, 40 clients and trying
to make a business out of it,and wondering why people, why
the consultants, keep quittingright, because you've got these

(48:28):
tiny little companies that aregrandfathered in given like
making mouse hours every monthand then they're the biggest
headaches versus, you know,doing meaty deals and I'm not
saying it has to be 250K plusevery time, just saying a little
bit more meaty than $1,000 amonth.
You know which, in myexperience and I've never worked

(48:52):
for a partner other than as anadvisor in human resources or as
a headhunter but I can tell youthat the majority of headaches
that I have heard about comefrom two places One giant major
client that is just a nightmareand it just it's how it is.
Or lots of tiny little noisemakers that are super

(49:16):
challenging to deal with, andthose are the ones you've got to
watch out for, because there'salways an end.
Vanessa, you'll know about this.
You've got a difficult quiet.
Yeah, your next six months isn'tgoing to be the most fun, but
then it's going to be done.
You're still in your company.
I'm going to say it's a comfyjob, but you're still in your
job, right?
Versus?
Oh no, this is how we operate.
We're going to deal with thisMickey Mouse stuff all day long,

(49:36):
for eternity, until the CEOwakes up.
So you know that's anyway.
That's my thoughts.
What do you think, vanessa?

Vanessa Grant (49:44):
Well, I was actually just going to bring up
have you ever seen the projectmanagement triangle?

Josh Matthews (49:49):
Are you asking me personally or are you asking me
yeah, Okay.
So yes, I've seen it, but no, Idon't remember it.

Vanessa Grant (49:55):
So with the project management triangle,
it's the idea of you have scope,cost and time and if you, if
you reduce, you know, if youincrease one of those or need
more one of those, then youreduce the quality.
And so I think, especially atthe beginning of the
conversations when you're, whenyou're speaking to potential
clients, it's really importantthat they have an understanding

(50:16):
that if they're not going togive you enough time, the
quality is going to be crap.
If they're not going to havetheir scope clear and a boundary
around it, they're going to runinto problems.
If they are going to have, ifthey're going to be super stingy
on costs but their timeline isnot reasonable, it's we're going
to run into problems.
And I think catching that stuffearly with the client is really

(50:38):
important because, yes, youmight get stuck in a bad project
for six months and and, yeah,there's a light at the end of
that tunnel, but you don't wantto lose your, your quality
consultants along the way.
Because it's as a consultant,it's demoralizing when you're
working on a tough project or aproject where you're like I
don't, I don't know that I feellike we're going to be

(51:00):
delivering something that's highquality or something that the
users are really going tobenefit from.
I mean a lot of consultantsthat I know.
You know we go into thisbecause we like to help people.
We like the idea that maybethere's going to be a team, that
their eight hours a day at workis going to be easier on a day
to day basis.
And it's hard when we'reworking with difficult clients

(51:21):
that maybe don't understandwhat's needed in order to
deliver a project successfullyand it doesn't feel good for
those six months and you justdon't want to lose your best
people due to bad deals.

Josh Matthews (51:34):
No, if finding great people is really difficult
, just ask me, ask Steven, askJesse on the panel up here.
Like it's hard.
You know, if it was easy, I'dbe doing something completely
different with my life.
And what you're talking about,really, that triangle kind of
reminds me of something old fromback when Steven and I were
working for a Fortune 500company and we used to always
say the same thing to clientsyou can get who you want when

(51:58):
you want for the price you want.
But actually no, you can't likepick two right, it's who you
want when you want, or it's whenyou want for the price you want
, but it might not be who youwant and you've got to kind of
like this is where you have tofigure out what's most important
, because I can get you someonetomorrow to do that job, but the

(52:19):
price isn't going to change,but the quality is right.
So now you've got someone,three weeks earlier than if she
gave us a little bit ofbreathing room to really deep
dive and identify the best ofthe best of the best within the
United States or Canada for therole.
You've got to figure that outand generally when people are
picking, selecting whether it'sas a partner or a Salesforce

(52:43):
customer or a Salesforceheadhunter like we are, you know
, hunters like we are, thenyou've really got to have sort
of your non-negotiables.
Again, we can do who you wantright now, but it might not be
the quality, but we're all aboutquality and our price is the
same, whether it's crappy or not, but the reality is it's not
crappy.
So you've got to like kind ofhold true to those tenants and

(53:06):
generally, the thing that's youknow, time is the thing that's
the most flexible and the mostinflexible, right, people can
find money when they need tofind more money.
They can't find more time.
And if you need to do, forinstance, if you're a business
owner, you need to do X amountof business in a month to keep
that business running, you canstill get the same amount of

(53:27):
business, but if it's spreadover six months instead of three
months, you're going to have aserious cash flow, right, and we
run into these same things, Iimagine, with an implementation.
Do you agree?

Vanessa Grant (53:36):
Absolutely.

Josh Matthews (53:36):
All right.
So, vanessa, why don't you posta good question to the panel or
to John, and then we'llprobably wrap this up in the
next 15 minutes, I think.

Vanessa Grant (53:46):
So the one question I have is this person
says that they are about to gofor a second round interview
with the hiring manager.
What are some good questionsthat you can ask the person that
is going to eventually bemanaging it?

John Sisson (54:01):
I'm assuming this is from the implementation
perspective.
I think it goes back into someof the things that you just
touched on how do you runengagements, what's important to
you, but how do you whenscenarios go poorly, what do you
do and how do we combat those?
Those are questions that Idon't most people don't ever

(54:24):
bring up in interviews.
But if I'm gonna work forsomebody and I know it sounds
cheesy but that's why I do whatI do I like to help people right
, and if you wanna know why theydo what they do and how that
impacts them and how they handlereally tough situations,
because it's gonna have a directimpact on you.

(54:46):
So I think those are criticalelements when you're going into
it is understanding that culture, understanding what is success
to them.
I've asked that question athousand times and most times I
don't get good answers.

Josh Matthews (55:00):
But what's a bad answer?
So someone can record, becausehere's the thing knowing the
right question to ask is half ofthe challenge with someone's
career, whether you're theinterviewee or the interviewer,
or whether you're in salesasking the questions or
someone's vetting you out as avendor or as a partner and then
there's the interpretation ofthe answer.
That's the other half, becauseyou can use Google really good

(55:23):
questions but if you don't knowhow to interpret those answers
or understand that some arewhite flags, some are red flags,
some are pink flags, yellow,green, red, like whatever you
wanna describe it, okay.
So what would be some badanswers to that question that
someone should be cautious of?
That should make their spideysenses tingle a little bit.

John Sisson (55:43):
I mean, what is important to you as a business?
What makes success money?
If that's the only thing thatgoes on, that the only driver
and we're all in this to make agood living.
The part of this isunderstanding the questions that
they're going and understandingif there's something context
behind it, because the nextquestion I would ask is well, of

(56:04):
course I do too.
What's your plan to get thereand see if they have one?
You know, my first question iswhat is success for your project
?
What is utopia?
And if the answer is I wannaCRM system, then I gotta do a
lot more work to see if this isworth doing or not.
Right, and so it really isunderstanding and asking
additional questions tounderstand what their

(56:25):
perspective is.
If it was a tough scenario or atough project, how did you
handle it?
You're always gonna get aglossy answer.
Go a little deeper.
When things got tough, what didyou do as a manager to support
your people?
How did that work?
What were the answers to fixthat problem?
That's a really differentquestion than you know.

(56:46):
Tell me about your projectmethodology.

Josh Matthews (56:48):
Yeah, that's a really good response, john.
I love that and I think peopleshould be asking that.
Vanessa, I'm happy tocontribute too.
I mean, I'll share one of myfavorite questions, which is
really design not for a firstinitial conversation for a job,
it's really a second interviewor a third interview question.

(57:09):
And you can find this question,by the way, at the
salesforcerecretercom forwardslash resources.
It should be right in there,and there's a little blog on it.
I wrote this years ago, butI'll just tell you what it is.
And, by the way, this is not abad question for interviewers to

(57:29):
ask interviewees as well.
But it goes like this and I'lljust, let's just say Vanessa's
interviewing me.
I might say hey, vanessa, youknow I want to be careful about,
you know, my coming on board.
I understand I haven't beenextended an offer, but I just
want to imagine for a moment.
Let's say an offer is extendedand I say yes and I start Monday

(57:52):
.
Okay, what am I going to wish?
I knew today that I'll probablyfind out, no matter what, within
the first three months ofworking for you.
That's a really good question,and the reason why is because
they'll float you some sort oflike little pithy BS answer.
Right.
It might be like well, I'm youknow.

(58:12):
It might be like, well, I'm,like what you see is what you
get, like there's nothing tohide, or something like that.
But that's not a real answer,right.
And if they're kind of givingyou a blow off response, it
might mean that you might notget the offer.
Okay, so like, I'm not sayingthat, that's what it means.
But if they don't give you areal, authentic answer and if
you're reasonably smart, you'llknow the difference.

(58:36):
But it might be something likewell, we're getting bought, or
I'm moving to Hawaii and we'relooking at you having different
boss in six months, right.
Or we're looking at acquiringXYZ company, or we're going to
put more focus on our ISVbusiness than our SI business.
That's where we're reallyinvesting.
They're going to tell yousomething, and it should be

(58:58):
moderately valuable.
But that's how you hold theperson that you're asking the
question of accountable, becausenow, if they hire you, you know
you're going to find out or not, right?
So that's my favorite sort ofsecond interview question.
I'm kind of curious, steven,since we've got Steven Greger

(59:19):
here.
Steven is a extremely brightrecruiter.
He's the director of recruitingat Salesforce Staffing.
Steven, do you have a and youmay just be listening and not
have your mic hooked up.
But I'm kind of curious do youhave a really good second
interview question for thisperson?

Jason Ziekowitz (59:35):
I recently read the book too.

Josh Matthews (59:39):
Yeah, I've read it.
It's by Street and Smart andit's an absolutely fantastic
book.
Anyone who wants to build abetter team should definitely
read it.

Jason Ziekowitz (59:48):
It's not just about all the phases of not only
the interviewing but also therecruiting side of it and the
retaining.
So yeah, of course, of coursewe recommend that and it really
provided a paradigm shipped infocusing during the interview,
because you can be coming upwith different questions, having

(01:00:08):
conversations that are focusedon these targets.
When you're looking for acandidate and when you're trying
to make yourself an attractivematch as a candidate, you know,
it's always the traits, arealways what's focused on oh, the
person should be nice and theyshould be polite, and you know.

(01:00:29):
Just a list that just can go onand on.
It's very abstract, but I lovethe targets that it first puts.
So I put in a literation oftargets, tasks and traits.
So, instead of focusing on thetraits first, focus on the
traits last.
First, very critically askedokay, well, tell me what are the

(01:00:51):
targets you're hoping for thisrole to achieve?
What by when you have justifiedthis position to be hired?
So what do you hope this roleto achieve?
This way, just like with animplementation, we can be held
to that success.
So what are the targets youhope to achieve?
What are the tasks this rolewill be doing to achieve that,
so we can align with there andthen great.

(01:01:12):
Okay, what traits do you thinkare needed for those tasks to
achieve that target?

Josh Matthews (01:01:17):
I love that man.
I was actually having aconversation with a really smart
person earlier today and wewere talking about their resume,
and you know, the one thingthat was missing was a great
resume, but the one thing thatwas missing was like well, what
are you known for?
How do you actually go aheadand accomplish those, all of
these great achievements, right,and that's sort of the how, or

(01:01:38):
like, who am I?
That's where your traits comeinto play.
We talked about this a coupleof weeks ago, but, as I think
with when Jordan was on aboutthe difference between culture
versus behaviors, right, and soa trait might be more of a
behavior.
It's a predictive quality,right, under these scenarios,
this individual is likely to doblank right, and that's an

(01:02:03):
overarching framework aboutbehavior that we can now be able
to sort of, set these generalexpectations for individuals
that are on our team.
So good deal, jason.
Well, we've got you on the phonehere.
Yes, it is literally on thephone and smartphone.
We've got you on the smartphone.
So did you start your new job?
I did.

(01:02:23):
I did Congratulations.
So quick recap Jason recentlytook on an awesome new gig.
Tell us about it and tell ushow it's going so far.
We've been tracking this on ourpodcast for the last couple of
sessions.

Jason Ziekowitz (01:02:38):
Very nice.
Well, thank you for theinterest in my journey.
So it's as a CPQ implementationspecialist, a consultant, and
so so far I've not been put on aproject.
I've just been put intotraining for CPQ and so Wait
wait, wait, wait, wait, wait asecond.

Josh Matthews (01:02:56):
You mean you were air dropped into something with
like a two foot shovel and toldto just make it happen.
Just throw it into the deep end.
Yeah, yeah, whoa.
So that's interesting, causethat doesn't happen.
That's cool.
Wait, it almost sounds likeyou're being onboarded.
Is that true?
Are you being onboarded, jason?

Vanessa Grant (01:03:18):
Wait, what's that word mean Right?
Hold on, let me Google it.

Josh Matthews (01:03:21):
Oh God, this stuff's so funny, man.
It's like really like, yeah,you're getting onboarded.
So congratulations, man, andit's going well so far.

Jason Ziekowitz (01:03:30):
Yes, exactly, exactly, for all the things
we're talking about, exactly.

Josh Matthews (01:03:34):
I love it, man.
Well, always great to have youon the show and we appreciate
your insights.
John, we appreciate you beingon the show.
I'd love to hear some finalthoughts, recommendations or
advice, either to partners or tocustomers, on how they can have
a better experience workingwith one another.

John Sisson (01:03:53):
I liked some of the feedback of being just.
I like what Fred said you haveto be open to having the
conversation and my favoritecustomers are the ones that
treat me as a partner, not abidder, right, and, and I think
the more that you can share witha customer that partner, of
what you're trying to accomplish, why it's important and

(01:04:14):
sticking with that vision right,it's the best ones.
We create friendships andlong-term relationships.
But the ones that worse yeah,are really good ones are the
ones that are least share, openand they want to be successful,
and so I think, the more thatthey can share with you and the
more that they're open to beingVulnerable to say, I don't know,

(01:04:35):
help me, but the more thatthey're gonna get out of it and
then then Really making surethat the partner is delivering
on what they're supposed.

Josh Matthews (01:04:44):
I feel like Jordan Peterson could write a
really good book on Salesforcepartners and customers.
Really right like this stuff isjust everything that you're
saying, john, and we've talkedabout this stuff in private as
well.
Everything that you're sharingand I think most of what we've
heard from from everyone on thepanel today has been Pretty darn

(01:05:04):
good life advice in general,and so, whether you're applying
this to interviewing, applyingit to your Romantic
relationships, your relationshipwith your children or your
family or your good friends oryour customers or the people who
work for you, you know it'sit's critical.

(01:05:25):
It's it's absolutely criticaland it's okay to fail sometimes,
as long as you come back tosorry, you know you got to do
things like that, but it'sabsolutely critical, all this
stuff.
So, basically, what you'resaying, john, is, if you're a
good person and you're, you knowyou've got enough Confidence in

(01:05:46):
yourself to be a little bitvulnerable You'll probably be
fairly successful with theimplementation if you've
selected the right partner thatbe close to the truth.

John Sisson (01:05:55):
Yeah, and you know what you're solving for and you
stick to that.

Josh Matthews (01:05:58):
Yeah, I know what you're solving for Well a great
show.
I've really enjoyed this one.
It was a really fun, freshconversation to have something
that wasn't specifically justabout careers, and if you think
that this hasn't been aconversation about Salesforce
careers, then you may have beenmissing the point, because when
an implementation goes wrong, itaffects your career right.

(01:06:19):
When you engage with a wrongpartner or you hire, you know
you work with the wrong customeror you don't set expectations
with stakeholders or your bossor your partner, like whoever it
is, then you're going to facemore likely more challenges than
successes.
So this is still a career show,but it's been a really nice
twist on what I think is a meatytopic that we can certainly

(01:06:41):
come back to again and again onthis show.
John, thank you for being onhere.
You're a good friend, you're awonderful client and a really
terrific podcast contributor, soyou can go ahead and slap that
on your LinkedIn now.

John Sisson (01:06:56):
No, I really appreciate it, josh.
I've really enjoyed it and it'sgreat to hear that we're kind
of all in the same boat.
So, thank you, we are, you know.

Josh Matthews (01:07:06):
I, I don't, I almost hesitate to share this,
but I, I created years ago Icreated a Salesforce excuse me a
LinkedIn group calledSalesforce leadership network,
sln, salesforce leadershipnetwork.
It's an invite only group.
There's only about a hundredhundred and ten people in that

(01:07:28):
group, and it was I put ittogether because I thought what
a hey, I know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna create an awesomespace where people who are, you
know, leaders in the Salesforcespace or the partner space can
interact with other directorlevel and above Executives and
they can solve problems.
And it never really took off,and I know why because they're

(01:07:48):
all in competition, there's onlyso many Implementations to be
done in a given year and no onewants to give away their secrets
.
I think that's a shame, becauseI actually think that there's
plenty of Successes, failuresand advice and recommendations
and support that people atdifferent partners can get from
one another, and God knows theyneed it Right.
So if you're working for afive-person firm, you might have

(01:08:09):
the same Need for supportbecause it's too small and you
don't have people that aresupporting you enough.
And then, if you're in a reallybig company, let's say you're
doing, you know, bigimplementations through whatever
Accenture you might feel like,you can't really talk inside
that group without you know,risking too much vulnerability,
right?
So I created this space so thatleaders could talk.

(01:08:31):
If you want to join, I will addyou.
If you are a director level orabove and the ecosystem, I will
add you.
It's not an HR friendly place.
I'm trying to keep it frombeing a Place for you know,
trying to find your next clientor anything like that, or
posting a bunch of job ads.
It's really for conversation,but it never took off and I
don't know if it ever will.

(01:08:51):
But if we got enough people tojoin and they were vulnerable
enough and interested in enoughin actual success and Tapping
into these other very smartresources again, there's a
hundred smart people on thatgroup right now.
Go ahead and check it out.
It's Salesforce leadershipnetwork group on LinkedIn.
We will be pushing this podcastout no later than next Wednesday

(01:09:14):
and I can tell you that we justreleased today part two of our
session with Jordan Nelson.
If you're listening to thissession live or you're listening
to this podcast but you'venever listened to any other
podcast, definitely check outthis most recent one, but you
might want to go back to thewater right before that, because
it's a long conversation and wealso answer a lot of questions.

(01:09:35):
We had terrific input byVanessa and by friend, by Jason,
on that show as well, so goahead and check that out and
give us a big thumbs up, if shecan, vanessa.

Vanessa Grant (01:09:46):
Final words since it is a career show, I will say
that I, as a Consultant thathas also worked with other
consultants, sometimes onchallenging projects, the one
thing that I have learned alongthe way is that one bad project
is not going to kill a career.
So just want to reassure folksout there that, yes, while it's
challenging, take it as alearning experience and just
know that Nine times out of tenat the, at the end of the day,

(01:10:10):
even if a project waschallenging throughout, by the
time you deliver it Everybody'sgoing to talk about what a
raging success it was.
That that's just kind of how itgoes.
You end up with the.
You know leadership, that youknow that they want to see
everything as a way in andthey're not going to start off.
A Project that's recentlydelivered to their users is
saying, oh man, what a, what amess this was.
So at the end of the day,everybody's going to say yay, we

(01:10:31):
did it and it'll all be okay,guys.

Josh Matthews (01:10:34):
Oh, those are encouraging words, vanessa, and
really important ones too.
Thanks for things, for sayingthat it's a long life, guys, but
you really is, and we learnbest, usually when there's some
sort of pain involved and I hateto say it, but I've yet to be
disproven on this.
So you know, you endure enough,and it gets easier and easier

(01:10:54):
and easier.
How about you, fred?

Fred Cadena (01:10:55):
final words awesome , so I appreciate being invited
to participating in.
You're happened to be like mein Europe, in West Freeman, when
you're getting out on the livedemos right now, come say hi,
I'd love to meet you and I'vegot a session Friday, so well,
good luck on that session, fred.

Josh Matthews (01:11:13):
I'm sure it's gonna go fantastic.
I want to hear all about it.
And if you're going to be atthe life sciences dreamin in
Fort Lauderdale on the 24th and25th, I will be there.
I'm happy to say hi to you.
Peter Gonza, who's a regular onour show, he'll be there as
well.
And if you Kind of jumped in alittle bit late, vanessa's doing
not one, not two, but threesessions at Dreamforce.

(01:11:34):
He really is sales forcesdarling, isn't she?
She's crushing it and we'regonna try and do if she's got
time.
I don't know if she is betweenfood fighters and all those
sessions, I don't know if shewill, but either I or she and I
will both be doing a little.
Hey, meet the hosts of thecareer show at At Dreamforce,
and so if you would like to sayhi to Vanessa or me, just give

(01:11:57):
us a little heads up and we'llmake sure that you're sticking.
You know we keep you informedabout where we're gonna be
During that week.
All right, have a wonderfulweek everybody.
Really appreciate everybody forjoining us today, and a special
thanks to use me, I got a cough.
Special thanks to John Sissin.
Okay, guys, have a great one.
Bye, bye.

Vanessa Grant (01:12:17):
Thanks by Johnny.
You were great.
Thank you so much.