The Salesforce Career Show
The podcast dedicated to helping you HIRE, GET HIRED and SOAR HIGHER in the SALESFORCE ecosystem.
Enjoy these live recordings of The Salesforce Career Show from X Spaces and YouTube's JoshForce. A guest + AMA format hosted by Josh Matthews, founder of Salesforce Staffing, LLC, Joshforce and The Expand Exchange and Vanessa Grant, Dreamforce speaker, 9X certified BA, consultant and social media darling. Recordings are 3x per month.
The Salesforce Career Show
Dreamforce - Practical Advice for Maximum Enjoyment
Is navigating Dreamforce a challenge you’re ready to conquer? Join Vanessa Grant and me as we gear up for the ultimate Salesforce community event, revealing practical tips you won’t want to miss. From early booking strategies to dodging last-minute accommodation pitfalls, we’ve got you covered. Our trip down memory lane contrasts the colossal pre-pandemic Dreamforces with the more intimate post-COVID gatherings, while we eagerly anticipate performances by Pink and Imagine Dragons. Networking, learning, and entertainment await—get ready to make the most of your Dreamforce experience.
Remote work has its perks, but the lack of face-to-face interaction can be a challenge. Vanessa and I dive into how conferences like Dreamforce fulfill the need for social connection and professional networking. We share insider advice on navigating such events, especially for first-timers, and emphasize the importance of staying linked to the Salesforce ecosystem. The current job market also gets a spotlight, shedding light on emerging opportunities and the frustrations of automated recruiter responses. Managing your expectations and maintaining motivation can make all the difference in your job search journey.
Maximizing your Dreamforce ROI is all about preparation and engagement. From essential attire tips—think layers and comfy shoes—to smart packing advice like leaving heavy laptops behind, we cover it all. We advocate for strategic session planning, having backup plans, and the importance of networking with presenters. Plus, we share our top tips for staying energized and hydrated, ensuring you look sharp and feel great throughout the event. Whether you’re a Dreamforce newbie or a seasoned pro, these practical strategies will help you harness the full potential of this transformative experience.
And now the number one audio program that helps you to hire, get hired and soar higher in the Salesforce ecosystem. It's the Salesforce Career Show with Josh Matthews and Vanessa Grant, and the crowd goes wild. Welcome everybody. We've got a really fun episode today because we're going to be talking about all things Salesforce, dreamforce, rather Dreamforce, and I've got Vanessa here. Hello Vanessa, hello Josh, it's always funny saying hi to your co-host when you just literally hung up with them. I mean like hi, how are you doing? It's so funny.
Vanessa Grant:I just got here. What are you guys been out to? Yeah?
Josh Matthews:Hey, how have you been all week? Right? So we've got Dreamforce coming up. It's not that far away. I'm looking here and you know, most of us will be flying home. What is it? Four weeks from now, three weeks from now, we'll be flying home Is One, two, I think three.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, Three and a half. I just looked at the calendar and went into panic mode because I was like, oh shoot, I should buy some flights.
Josh Matthews:Oh my God, Okay, yeah, that's a good idea and a place to stay, do you?
Vanessa Grant:have that sorted out, that I have covered, and if my first bit of Dreamforce advice could be as soon as they announce the dates for Dreamforce book, something for the following year advice could be as soon as they announce the dates for Dreamforce book something for the following year.
Josh Matthews:It's so important. You know, I I did it for DF 23. I booked a place in March. Apparently I'm an idiot and I think a lot of people already knew this about me, but this idiot move was I booked a place in March and what it was was an Airbnb and it was a scam thing Like it was. I got scammed on Airbnb and so once I found out that I'd been scammed, I had just, you know, like two weeks or three weeks to go before the dream force and I wound up staying in. I look, it was a rat hole. It was deep, deep mission. Nothing wrong with deep mission, but it was deep mission, a walk up. I've stayed in some bad places. This was uniquely bad. So, yeah, you got a book early. And, vanessa, when do they typically announce? Because I usually find out around March, but don't they announce it much earlier than that?
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, they usually announced a few weeks after Dreamforce is over.
Josh Matthews:Okay, well, there you go, so you can get a nice hotel for like $200 a night instead of $950 a night, right?
Vanessa Grant:When you book it early. Yeah, I ended up, so mine isn't the nicest either, but it is Moscone West adjacent, like I'm a block. I'm across from the Marriott, like a couple blocks away. I have a shared bathroom, but I'm literally staying from Saturday to Saturday, so I've got a whole week and I'm only paying a thousand dollars. That's great, so cheap. Yeah.
Josh Matthews:That's a really good. That's a really good deal. I'm staying at some art something or other, I don't even know, but it looks nice Just a few blocks away and I think, yeah, it was like two, 50 a night or something like that. It's like pretty, pretty reasonable. All right, welcome to the travel show, welcome to the travel channel. You know, vanessa, you've gone to now.
Vanessa Grant:How many dream forces in total, I think this one will be my fifth.
Josh Matthews:Okay, mine too, although I I got a. I've got a little caveat here. I've gone that many. Well, this will be my fifth time going to San Francisco for Dreamforce. However, you know, I did not get in during that post COVID one where you went. You know where there are like a thousand people over there. So I was there, I was hanging out, you know, which was cool, but didn't really get to go inside and participate, but got to have some meetings and, you know, still had a good time. So I'm really excited about this one. Do you remember back in the day, I mean, dreamforce? Now, what are they predicting? Another 50,000 for this conference?
Vanessa Grant:I don't know, but I would say maybe even a little bit more, but certainly more than 50.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, because we were like 45 last year. I want to say it was like 45.
Vanessa Grant:That sounds about right.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, but do you remember DF 19,? 250,000 people, quarter of a million people, guys, quarter of a million people. I mean that's insane. You know the town I grew up in you could fit I don't know like 40 of them, 40 of those towns. You know it's crazy and it was really, really nutty. But I I'm excited about this.
Josh Matthews:Now there's been a little bit of lineup changes. The thing that people are talking about the most is Elton John is not going to be performing. Instead they have put in pink and imagine dragon. So I guess a little something for everybody. That's what it sounds like, you know.
Josh Matthews:I know Vanessa's throwing me a big thumbs down. Hey, I kind of got to, I kind of got to agree. I'll tell you this, though I don't listen to either of them, but I did see Imagine Dragons some video and they got up on stage and this guy talked They've got these young fans and he spent quite a bit of time talking about love and caring and the importance of mental health. My heart definitely warmed over for these people, whether you, you know. I mean they make good music. It's not something. I don't buy their albums or anything. Of course people don't buy albums now. So sorry, did myself there, but I like the message Right, and I think pink is a very positive person too. So fair enough, right, fair enough. What is it other than hanging out with me, vanessa? What is the number one thing that you're looking forward to the most for Dreamforce?
Vanessa Grant:Well, the thing I'm looking forward to the most is the Trailblazer community team has sought me for hosting a Salesforce business analyst networking event. So I'll be hosting a networking event for 45 minutes on September 18th from 2 PM to 2 45 PM in the community cove.
Josh Matthews:Awesome, awesome, that's great. Well, I'm stoked for you. Um, I'll tell you what I'm looking forward to the most. It's literally, it's seeing my friends, right, it's seeing the people in the community, my clients, people I've placed people that prospects I'm talking to right now. I love because I sit in this office and I like my office. I got a pretty cool office here. I've got a humidor with my cigars, I've got, you know, a keyboard and electric drum kit. It's a pretty cool office.
Josh Matthews:But I really miss out on, you know, getting to go in and hang out with everybody. I mean, we do it maybe once a year in my company where I get to see everybody and that's it. So I just love the, the, the social connection, more than anything. And in fact, someone was asking me the other day they're like what sessions are you going to? I'm like sessions, what are you talking about? I'm just going to be hanging out out talking to people almost the whole time. The sessions I generally go to, you know keynote and Vanessa's speeches and other friends' speeches and presentations that they're doing, or clients, if they're running presentations, I go to those. But I kind of feel like you can get a lot out of Dreamforce. What are they calling it? Df Plus? I can't even remember. I'm confusing it with Disney, where you you can watch it online. A lot of this stuff.
Vanessa Grant:Oh yeah, the Salesforce Plus.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, salesforce Plus, so a lot of this stuff. It's like you don't have to be there. I mean, how many hundreds and hundreds of sessions are going on? Whatever you want, go read the blog after the session. You could do that. It's not as fun, it's not as interesting. Oh, I know, I was talking about it with Fred Cadena on banking, on disruption, on Monday night when we recorded an episode that's going to drop tomorrow, so we talked a little little bit about it.
Josh Matthews:Now there are a lot of people who go back to dream force every year, but there are also a lot of people who are brand new right. More and more people, many thousands of people, join the ecosystem every year. People who've gone once might feel I don't really need to go again. Or I talked to a guy today. He's like, yeah, I've gone the last two years, I'm going to skip a couple and then I'll go back. What that means is we get a lot of new people who've never been to Dreamforce before and they might want to know how to navigate this amazing. I mean it's an amazing event. It's the largest tech conference. It's the largest conference in the world about AI, right? It's got so many awesome accolades and something for everybody. Literally, there's something for everybody, except maybe ice skaters. Maybe there's not so much for them, but there's something for everybody. And to make it a little bit easier for what it's worth, I created a little I don't want to call it an article because it's really a download and it's Insider's Practical Guide to Dreamforce Success audience. Maybe not all of them, but some of those insights today with our listening audience, and then we're going to Vanessa is going to share a lot of her insights, too, on how you can get the most out of dream force and you know things to avoid, things to be careful of, and whether you're going or not this year. That doesn't mean hang up, don't you know? It doesn't mean turn off your Spotify or whatever, because you may want to go someday, and a lot of the advice and recommendations from past experiences that Vanessa and I are going to be sharing today can be applied to really almost every, almost every conference that you go to. Okay, so I think it's. I think it's going to be a really valuable episode.
Josh Matthews:Before we launch in, a couple of quick little housekeeping things. First, job announcements. We had, I don't know, 400, 450 people applied to a project manager role that I posted a couple of weeks ago Just everyone, just so you know. That got filled today. The guy signed. We're really excited about that. So that is gone.
Josh Matthews:We did get a couple new opportunities. One's a six month opportunity, another is a two month opportunity, but these are in Miami. So if you're listening and you're in the Miami area and you're a Salesforce professional and you either have project management and or product like senior product management experience, definitely reach out to me or more specifically, to Steven Greger. You can get him at Steven with a V at the salesforcerecruitercom. We also have a senior Salesforce engineering role. This person is going to be responsible for about eight people. It's a contract. It's probably going to go longer than what they're expecting, but it's a contract and it's going to be onsite at least three days a week. Again, that's also in the Miami area. On top of that, we also have a health cloud solution architect. If you're hearing this right now and you're interested in it, apply tonight. Apply tonight, because people are getting interviewed. This isn't going to stay on for very long. And on top of that, we have a nonprofit Salesforce consultant role with one of our favorite clients. These guys are fantastic. People go there and they don't come out right. It's like the mob you get in there, they never let you out because they love it so much. So definitely check those out.
Josh Matthews:And then the other thing I wanted to talk about. It might take me a minute to pull it up, but my little company. We ran a poll on LinkedIn recently and it was literally, it was just an absolute amazing result. We've done a number of polls over the last three or four months, thanks to Rockstar, my awesome marketing firm, that I just love. These guys and it's really you was what is your biggest frustration when applying for jobs? And I thought, before we dive too much into the DF stuff, what do you think, vanessa? Can we talk about this a little bit?
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, what were the results?
Josh Matthews:I'm going to tell you. So. We had 634 people voted and we had four options for them. Number one, at the top, was lack of response, followed by lengthy applications, automated rejection emails and unclear job descriptions. Okay, so the lack of response was the number one biggest frustration, capping out at 57% lack of response it's the ultimate ghosting experience. Right, you'll feel like it's Halloween all year long. All you got to do is apply to jobs and never hear back from them. You know, happy Halloween. Okay. Then we've got lengthy applications that came in at 20%. Automated rejection emails at 18%, and that's sort of like you know, if you'd stack that with lack of response, like it's a response, they just don't like how they're being responded to. And then the final one, at five just 5% unclear job descriptions. What do you think about that?
Vanessa Grant:Well, I guess, uh, this one's hitting a little close to home this week, Josh, so let it out, vanessa, let it out, let's go.
Vanessa Grant:So last Monday I actually had a weird series of events. So just to sidetrack like just a little bit, I had a weird series of events where I I hit this wonderful like 15,000 followers on LinkedIn I'm feeling on top of the world and then the next day I got laid off. So last week was my last week in my organization and I've been looking for roles since and you know, I will say I think when I was happily employed, I was thinking that maybe the non-response would be my number one. Now, actually having to apply to a lot of things, I think my biggest gripe would be the lengthy applications Like it drives me bananas that I have to fill out, you know, every, every bit of my resume so that a machine can read it. It feels so impersonal and I have everything on my resume already, so it just feels like I'm putting in a lot of work so that a machine can you know, ai can look at me and decide that I'm not worthy without actually doing any actual human analysis.
Josh Matthews:Right, yeah, Super frustrating and I can tell you. First of all, I think the company made a big mistake when they let you go and I think that they're going to.
Vanessa Grant:It's not going to take them very long to realize that it really won't like it won't you know, and let me make it clear too, like this wasn't I was like fired, like they eliminated my role. They're going in a different direction. Like that is. You know, that's that's just that company's journey, so it wasn't a personal thing.
Josh Matthews:My supervisor's happy to give a reference, but yeah you were laid off that's I was laid off yeah, not the same thing as getting fired for performance or anything like that.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you know, talk to me, talk to the audience if you want. I mean, this is, this is a unique experience. This is the first time and what we've probably had, what? 52, 53 recorded episodes and we've probably actually held about 150 to 200 actual shows by now. Can you believe that? How long we've been doing this now and at no time, I think I don't think anyone's. I mean, have you experienced being laid off in these last three years? I'm trying to remember.
Vanessa Grant:No.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, okay, I have not. So this is the first time one of the hosts of Salesforce career show is actually in the job market, so we might get some really interesting insights and potentially a lot of empathy. Going on here right now, what's the biggest you know? I'll just ask you this what's the biggest cloud and what's the biggest silver lining on that cloud with this experience for you?
Vanessa Grant:Biggest cloud? What do you mean by biggest cloud?
Josh Matthews:Yeah, sorry, not CPQ, not field service. Okay, dark gray, you know cloud raining on you about this experience of getting laid off.
Vanessa Grant:Oh, that.
Josh Matthews:What hits the hardest of getting laid off.
Vanessa Grant:Oh, that what hits the hardest. So I'm coining a new phrase and I'm calling it imposter syndrome, which is, as soon as I was laid off on LinkedIn, I received so many people that were like you know, tagging in people, this isn't going to last long, you know. Oh, it's the GOAT, va, wow, some other company's going to be really lucky to have you. Oh, it's the GOAT VA, wow, some other company's going to be really lucky to have you. And for me, the imposter syndrome delta, which is what I'm calling it is the difference between that space where everybody's super supportive and then the space of another company that felt like it was okay to let me go and didn't value in that way, or was okay to let me go and didn't my value in that way, or was was able to let me. So that's the difference between those two. It's a weird kind of to be I'll just say it because it's our show and we can't kind of a mind-fucking space yeah, yeah, yeah it's that's been but the silver lining.
Vanessa Grant:I have been, in all honesty, in happy tears every day reading the kind messages of support from people that I don't even know personally, just because they follow me online. They listen to the show, they receive value from something I click, whatever it might be, received value from something I clicked, whatever it might be, but I've had some impact on their career and they've said really really kind things and offered support. And even his employees they're not employees, previous employers and coworkers of mine have come out and that's actually really helped as far as bridging that divide, that imposter delta, the imposter syndrome delta that I'm talking about where I'm like am I really as good as the public thinks I am?
Vanessa Grant:And having the former coworkers come out and give other people that they know that's been really helpful in that regard. But yeah, every day people are just saying the nicest things and that's been. The silver lining is how supported I feel in this community and and I feel extremely, extraordinarily lucky to have, you know, have the, the support that I do from you, from the listeners of the show, folks that follow me online and you know I it's it's honestly the. I feel kind of the the fruits of the work that I've put into the community. It was never done with the expectation that it'd be paid back yeah yeah, but it's people coming through regardless and it feels really good.
Josh Matthews:Well, I'm looking at this post where you announced what had happened and I was one of 1,135 people who threw up a like or a heart or something like that on your post. You had 59 reposts, 166 comments. I've never seen anything like that in my own career, like ever from any kind of. You know, if I get 30 likes, I'm like oh my God, I'm winning. You know like this is pretty incredible. So you know I I'm glad that you have this amazing community of supporters and you know I would take the community of supporters that you have over you know one company and one boss and their decision making any day. Right, like fair trade, like if you had to give up all of these people who support you and but you got to keep your job. I don't know that you would and I definitely wouldn't recommend it. Do you see what I mean?
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, no, absolutely. It filled me with hope this week and so it especially with that support reaction from from my post and the followup post I you know, if I can't turn this into a really great opportunity in the next couple of months, you know, then there must be something wrong.
Josh Matthews:Oh no, you'll, you'll be fine, You'll be fine.
Vanessa Grant:And of course you've got. You've got my support, and Stevens and everybody else on the team here too, so I'm feeling really hopeful and excited for what the next move might be.
Josh Matthews:Well, good, all right guys. Well, you heard it. If you have an opportunity, why don't you just tell people real quick what you do and what your best favorite job would be, or two or three versions of where you think if you landed in a role like x, you know, blank, not the, not the company, what would that look like?
Vanessa Grant:so maybe someone's listening and they're like, oh my god, I could get vanessa grant so I'm not the most technical salesforce professional, so I'm not, like you know, want to be hands-on in the system every day. I'm much more a person who's good at teams. I love agile software delivery. I love this team. Product ownership roles are great for me. I love coming up with internal team processes so that we can deliver Salesforce projects and day-to-day support in a more optimized fashion. I love mentorship and coaching. So having a team of people to support to be better and to be better as a team that's all the stuff that I love. I love coming up with processes and I love working with end users and leadership in order to optimize their Salesforce investment.
Josh Matthews:Okay, I love it. I love it Very good. All right, thank you for sharing, thanks for being a little bit vulnerable here on the program today and let's dive back into. Before we go full on into Dreamforce, let's dive back into this survey for just a moment. There were a fair amount of comments on this one and I, I think and I don't mean this in a bad way like at all but people were you got really you could feel the energy when they talk about lack of response, right. You could feel the energy when people talk about fake job postings. And there's this, there's this idea, and I want to, I want to just clarify this for all of our listeners so that when they don't hear back, right, they can kind of gird themselves a little bit. Now there is technology to be able to communicate with every single applicant and notify them when a position has been filled.
Josh Matthews:I know for the public that's not good enough because 18% or whatever it was said we don't like these automated responses. The problem is clients of recruiting firms and internal talent acquisition people Companies can't spend as much money on live people calling every applicant and having a conversation to let them down that they're not getting an interview. It's an impossibility. Maybe if it's a really weird hard job and there were five applicants, fine, this PM role I mean that I advertised we had 400 applicants. You're going to get an automated response. Okay, you're going to get an automated response. I'm not sending 400 different ones. I'm not making 400 calls. It would take me way more than a full week to do that. Meanwhile, if I'm doing that, I'm not placing people in jobs, right. So I understand it's frustrating. I get it Fair, fair enough, okay.
Josh Matthews:But the ability to reach the mass market now look, salesforce is Salesforce. Jobs are different than a lot of jobs because they're predominant not predominantly, but maybe predominantly remote, right. That means that our pool for a candidate comes from the entire United States of America. We got at least 48 states, time zone wise. That we're probably looking at. And even if it's just time zone specific, if it's time zone specific, it's either West Coast or East Coast, usually, like that's usually what it is, because that's where everybody lives there's just going to be way more applicants. If I post a job in Miami, a PM job for an onsite role in Miami, and I get 20 applicants 25 applicants I'll be stoked, stoked, right. That'll be good, that's a good result, but when I post it nationally, I get 400.
Josh Matthews:So I just want to ask people what did you think was going to happen Right, like, what do you? What do you think was going to happen? What do you think is going to happen out there? There's a lot of competition right now. We just saw a couple of weeks ago we are now over 4% for unemployment. 4% is not a terrible number. That's sort of a middle of the ground, we're fine kind of number, but we're over that now and we might be a little bit higher than that.
Josh Matthews:In tech Now, two years ago Salesforce I would tell people I'm like, yeah, look, unemployment's 3%, 3.5%. It's 0.5% in the ecosystem, though, because that's what it was like Right and it's not like that anymore. It doesn't mean that you shouldn't use a recruiter because you can just find whoever you want. That's not at all what I'm saying. Top people are really hard to find. It's hard to get their attention, it's hard to sell them, it's hard to get them excited about your role and it's hard to identify them because they're often very, very, very busy, right? They're not scrolling all day. So the reality is is like it's a different. It's a slightly different market, but it's not. It's still not a horrible, horrible, horrible, horrendous market and we are seeing some signs of turnaround. But at the end of the day, I really want people to understand what someone does.
Josh Matthews:Steven puts in a ton of hours. I put in a ton of hours, I mean I generally work till seven at night pretty much every day of the week, minimum right, and some on the weekends too. So the reality is is there's just not enough people? Now, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but is is there's just not enough people? Now, I know I'm beating a dead horse here, but there's a lot of animosity and you got to be careful here. Like, and I mean it, if you're going to listen to anything on this show, listen to this, right.
Josh Matthews:When you don't get responses, when you don't get the rejection letters, when you don't get notified, when you don't get the phone calls and the invitations to actually sit down and interview, it will affect your emotions, right? It's easy to have a certain set of expectations going into the job hunt and, within a week or two weeks, be disappointed, right? Humans have this amazing capacity to think positive and think optimistically, and for the most part, that's what we do. But happiness is when expectations meet reality and if your expectations are off, you're going to be disappointed. Right Now it's good to have good expectations because that can be motivating, that can drive you, that can give you the actual juice that you need to get all the things done to jump into that interview and crush it. You know, to like look after your health, to get your sleep, to do things that make you happy, to be really positive, right.
Josh Matthews:But I talked to a guy today. I talked to a guy today and he was like so he was, he's been looking for four months. He was so sour on business culture, right, and he was like I don't care what I do, I just want to find a place where, when I arrive at the company, it's the company that they said it was going to be. And because that's not happened for him more than once in the last three or four years, he's really sour and he thinks that now, through his very narrow window of awareness. Now he thinks this is the way of the world and it's not. It's not even close to the way of the world, like not even close. That's like taking a survey of one person. You know what I mean.
Josh Matthews:So we've got to step back right. We've got to understand, okay, the people I'm expecting calls from, what might they be up to today, what might be top of mind and most important for them? Because it feels like it's not me, and you'll be right, it's not you, okay, it's their client, it's their internal client or it's their external client, that's their top priority. That's what they're trying to fix. And if you didn't make the cut, you didn't apply fast enough, your resume didn't stand out enough, you didn't reach out to them on LinkedIn, you didn't develop an, a personal connection with them, you didn't, you know, somehow get get through some sort of side door or back door, through acquaintances that might know this person, that might know this company. I mean, vanessa, the job that you're leaving, that role, you knew because of a friend who worked there.
Vanessa Grant:Right, that's correct. It was just they reached out to me. I wasn't even looking at the time.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, but they knew of you because of him, right? Yep, that is correct. Okay, so it's you know, and this is no, I'm not joking this is probably how your next job is going to come about too. It's probably not going to be from some application. That's just the hard truth, okay, All right. So I just want people to understand that, like, set fair expectations, put in a lot of work, keep your expectations low, but your attitude up and that's a hard thing to do, especially when you're facing. How am I going to pay for this? And oh, I promised, you know, I was going to take the family on a vacation in January to Disney World. That I don't know if I can afford it anymore. How am I going to pay for my mother's nursing home? Like all this stuff. It's very stressful, sympathetic, okay.
Josh Matthews:One thing that you can do is you can jump on to YouTube or go to the salesforcerecruitercom, click on insights, okay, and watch. I just lost my. I lost my job. What am I going to do? Part one and part two, right, so you can watch those videos. I think it'll help. You can invest in yourself.
Josh Matthews:I'm going to get so focused on having the best resume I'm going to get. I'm going to go listen to the podcast that we released two weeks ago, which was all about basically the top third of your LinkedIn profile. I'm going to go. It's an hour and a half long, I get it. It's a long time to invest. Spend the time. What else are you going to do? Listen to the show and then take action. I'll take you half an hour, 40 minutes. Get your profile all decked out. Just put everything that you possibly can into having an advantage right, and only when you've done every single one of those things and you've been applying every single thing that you've learned. And it's still four months down the road. Okay, it's fine. Have a bad day, be upset, drink too much for a day. Whatever you got to do to get over the hump, do it okay, but don't let it affect you. You know eight to five, monday through Friday, when you're out there pounding the pavement trying to find a role. Does that make sense?
Vanessa Grant:I think it makes sense.
Josh Matthews:Okay, all right, shall we talk one more little plug before dream force, and that is that we just released our last, our most recent episode. That got released today. If you're listening to this live, or maybe you're listening to this show for the very first time, if you just listen to the program right before this one man, it's a. It's a good one. We had Trevor McAlder. He's my personal executive coach. He's from the Tony Robbins research group. We had him on.
Josh Matthews:We talked about mindset, we talked about hiring, we talked about a lot of amazing things, and I think it's a great episode. It's now available for all of you listeners to check out on your favorite podcast platform. So definitely check that out and, by the way, if you like it, give us a thumbs up. If you really, really liked it. Or you want to share some input, please go ahead and do a comment and then tell your friends. I don't know, I don't know how all these algorithms change, but your input deeply matters to our reach.
Josh Matthews:Okay, and this show is pro bono. This show is to help people hire, get hired and soar higher in the ecosystem. We do it out of love. We do it because there's a gap, there's a need. Right. There's a little bit of a vacuum in this space where people can get authentic, real information on how they can successfully navigate their careers within the ecosystem. That's what this show's about, but not enough people, I don't think, are getting access to this show because they simply don't know. Right. It's kind of like Vanessa getting the job because someone told her about it.
Josh Matthews:So if you guys can do us a favor, tell a friend. If you've got an episode that you really like, post it back up on LinkedIn, throw it up on Twitter, right? Okay? And then the last thing I'm going to say is that I heard from a woman and I want to say she's in Paris I'm actually going to get to say hi to her at Dream Force, because she's not Dream Force at Florida Dreamin and she took the time to write, and I think she wrote to you too, vanessa, to thank you and to thank me because she's she's landed a new job and she swears it's because of what she's learned by listening to this show. Do you recall that? Did you hear from her?
Vanessa Grant:I may have my inboxes kind of bananas right now, but I love that.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, there's a very lovely, sweet message for you sitting somewhere in that deep, deep vastness of the LinkedIn inbox, so definitely check that out. I thought that's amazing. Right, I love helping people, helping people across the globe. Man, how cool is that? I think it's awesome. All right, I just patted us on the back because someone else did. Now I'm telling everybody about it because I'm not bashful. Let's talk Dreamforce. Vanessa, go Go Do it. Say something cool.
Vanessa Grant:Dreamforce is overwhelming if you don't go in with a plan. Yeah, look, I said that.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, okay, yeah, you're absolutely right. So there are a lot of guides out there right now. Okay, salesforce Ben has, I don't know, three of them. I think there are a lot of people that are writing articles and blogs about how to get the most out of Dreamforce, and we recommend you check them out. Right, you're going to be out there for three solid days. You're going to spend a bunch of money or your company is on hotels, transportation, the actual event. You're paying anywhere from 1200 to $2,000 to be there. It's, it's an investment and you're going to get out of it what you prepare for. Right, you're going to get out of it what you prepare for, and so planning is key. So a couple key things here. One, register for sessions that you really want to go to early, if you can register. There are some sessions and events where you just have to stay in line, right, like if you want to see McConaughey speak, I remember going and Obama was speaking. I mean there was a lot of people were in line an hour and a half, two hours.
Vanessa Grant:Right, yeah, and you know what I think with the, the keynotes, the, especially the the general dream force keynote, but also the admin keynote and the architect keynotes get in line early. And of course, if there's a celebrity speaking on a panel, I find those are more the kind of the inspirational ones. But if you want to go see that celebrity, get in line early. And then the other one that I would recommend is if anybody's interested in well architected sessions which are going to be hands on sessions I did a few of them in Tahoe Draven they're fantastic. Even if you are not super technical, not super hands-on in the system, even if you're new in the system, you will get value from them. But that also means that they fill up fast because you are going to be hands-on with folks that are very trained, well-architected ambassadors. But totally worthwhile to go to this.
Josh Matthews:Perfect. Yeah, planning is key. In addition to some more notes on planning here too. We just talked about registering for sessions register for the parties and the events early and show up early, right? So I love going to the cigar party on Thursday night. Last year my friend was late registering. He couldn't get in. We eventually were able to get him in, okay.
Josh Matthews:I went to the World Tour New York City this past year, registered for an event, got accepted into it, spent 15, 20 minutes outside chatting with a friend, went to go inside. They were full, they were at capacity. It's sort of like the airlines they overbook these meetings or these events, assuming some people aren't going to show up, but invariably the really good ones, some people. Even if you registered now you've got no plans right, so you've got to have a backup plan. My backup plan was to go see the Neil Diamond Broadway show. That's what I did instead and honestly, I probably had a better time than anyone at that party.
Josh Matthews:But you've got to register early for these events and you've got to show up on time or early, because you might find yourself in a chilly San Francisco autumn evening shivering outside the door while all your friends are inside Mapping it out. What's it like, vanessa, when you've got a meeting over at the Marriott and lunch at Fong's and then then you know you've got another session and you can't remember if is it on the second floor or the third floor. I mean, the Moscone Center is huge. You will be spending a lot of time on your feet If you don't know where these sessions are and events are. You might not get to where you want to go in time and it'll cause frustration. You'll be sweating when you show up. You know it's not a good look.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, also, I imagine they're going to do it again this year, but last year they had a bunch of sessions that were more industry focused at the intercontinental, and that one you have to kind of wait for the elevator. Um. So, again, if you want to get into the session, there were some sessions that I tried to get in there, but by the time I hit the elevator and actually got up in line, it was already way full. Unfortunately, they're not always the best at gauging demand for sessions, and so if there's something you truly cannot miss, make sure you were there early and make sure that you have mapped it out so that if you're like, okay, well, there's this session in Moscone West on the third floor, and then there's this other thing at the Intercontinental, so that's 15 minutes afterwards. Maybe it's time to start picking your favorites.
Josh Matthews:Yep, yep, and if you have to pick up and leave a little early, then do that, unless your intention was to go shake hands with the presenter, which I know. When I was chatting with Fred Cadena the other day, he's like look, these are the reasons why I go to certain sessions, and sometimes it's because he really wants to learn something, sometimes it's because he really wants to meet the person who's presenting, right, so plan accordingly. If you want to meet these people, you want to have some chit chat after? I know after your sessions people swarm around you like fricking Rocky. Okay so and it's happened to me a little bit, maybe not so much, but people come up and you can spend 20 minutes chatting with people after a session. So, again, plan accordingly. The other thing, go ahead.
Vanessa Grant:You know, I'll throw something for the speakers out there. If you were inundated not inundated like it's a parable, but like if there are a lot of people coming up to you after a session, or if you're somebody and you're just kind of waiting for the person to free up, or if you're somebody and you're just kind of waiting for the person to free up. A thing I learned from Michelle Hansen is say, cool, I'd love to chat, but they've got to get set up for the next person. Why don't you walk with me if they have questions about? My? Session has kind of been a little bit more of an efficient way, so I can kind of get out of the way, because they really do try to turn around these stages pretty quickly.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, and I'm going to tell you a little trick on that too Bring two or three clipboards with you and when you're walking with these people, have them, hold the clipboards and walk just slightly in front of them while you're talking. It'll make you look like you're really important.
Vanessa Grant:I got to try that I'm just kidding.
Josh Matthews:Okay, guys, so map it out. Also, load up your contacts. What I mean by that is you're you're going to know people that are going there. You're going to want to hang out and chat with them. Maybe you've only got them on email, right? Well, before arriving and landing in San Francisco or driving up to San Francisco, make sure you get their cell phone numbers and plug in the contacts in your phone. Because if you're trying to like, oh God, they said they were going to be here and I know they're going to reach out, and what are you doing?
Josh Matthews:You're messing around on, like I've got I don't know seven email addresses, like I'm floating around, scrolling through, and if I get 300 plus 400 plus emails a day, it's like, okay, you know, I think that they were going to write me. You don't want to go through that. Just get on text or your Slack or whatever. Okay, get your contacts loaded into your phone. It's going to be way, way easier. You can put them in a group my dream force people group, you know, on your, on your iPhone or whatever. So that's another way to just be able to make the connections and link up with people. I mean, how many times have have you gone to Dreamforce, vanessa, and you were like, oh yeah, we'll say hi, I can't wait to meet you out there. And it doesn't happen.
Josh Matthews:Every Dreamforce every Dreamforce, right, Because people are busy, but having the contact in your phone ready to text with their correct name and the whole thing. And if you don't know their whole name or you can't remember it, you'd put a little, put their last name or their company as something that will jar your memory. I do stuff like Mike neighbor, his last name's neighbor. I don't know his last name, I know he's my neighbor. So if I can't remember his first name, I did just type in neighbor and they're oh, it's Mike. So you could do little hacks like that as well.
Vanessa Grant:I also. So a couple of things, if you don't mind me adding to this. I actually keep a list of the people that I definitely want to stay in touch with over my time at Dreamforce. So because a lot of times I can get pulled in so many different directions that it's hard to remember to check in with folks and see if they're available or check in on their availability. So having that list and then just kind of going down like so, so having that list and then just kind of going down, so if I can't make it into the Salesforce Bend party, I got stuck outside I start going through my list hey, what are you up to tonight? Hey, do you want to grab a drink? Do you want to get lunch? So I have my list ready.
Vanessa Grant:And for you folks that are maybe a little bit shyer, jean Muller actually did a session at Midwest Dream in a while back, which I thought was clever. Jean was new to the ecosystem at the time and is a bit shy when it comes to approaching people that she does not know very well. So she actually created a bingo card for herself, so kind of gamified it with all the people that she was hoping to meet at the event that she was going to and she put their face and a little blurb about them and it was a good icebreaker when she actually came up to them and said hey, you were on my list, but I wanted to meet.
Josh Matthews:That is really awesome. I love it. Very, very, very dope idea. Good job, jean.
Josh Matthews:All right, let's talk about getting comfortable. You're going to be pounding the pavement. You might pull eight miles, 10 miles in a day at Dreamforce, depending on where your meetings are, how many meetings you've got, how far you're walking from your hotel or Airbnb or wherever you're going to be staying. So you're going to be on your feet a lot. So you're going to want to get really comfortable, right, I recommend comfortable shoes. Throw a few band-aids in the backpack. Don't bring new shoes like break them in first, like do not wear brand new shoes to Dreamforce. Major, major, major rookie mistake.
Josh Matthews:The other thing is just the temps in San Francisco. Now I lived there for about two years and the temps can fluctuate quite a bit. If you get a little bit of that fog rolling in in the evening, I mean, it's going to drop significantly. So you're going to be sweating at lunch and you're going to be freezing at 6 pm. So layers, right. I recommend chucking in a little light windbreaker or a little fleece, or you can do what I do. I wear a wool undershirt. It actually keeps me kind of cool during the day, but it keeps me pretty toasty in the evening, any kind of like. I just put on something that, like, if I was going to go skiing, my undershirt, that's what I'm, that's what I've got on, right, so it keeps you warm, keeps you dry. Um, do you have any recommendations? As far as no-transcript.
Vanessa Grant:new garbage Dreamforce. I think they're focused on the comfortable shoes. You cannot be stressed enough Comfortable shoes. I don't think that you necessarily need to wear the trailblazer hoodie. I think a lot of folks feel like, oh, because I'm at a Dreamforce, the trailblazer hoodie is the uniform. I almost kind of feel like you almost stand out more. If you don't do that, you know it's you kind of blend in with the hoodies to a certain extent. But having some sort of a hoodie or a blazer or something that you can maybe tie around your waist or put in your backpack, I think is is really helpful, because the temperature does fluctuate quite a bit, Even bringing like a second shirt in case you get too sweaty while you're waiting online.
Vanessa Grant:Oh yeah, brings extra deodorant, packed deodorant.
Josh Matthews:There you go, Stinky pits.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, totally oh and, like the boob, sweat is the worst when you're like.
Josh Matthews:That's what I yeah, I struggle with the moob sweat.
Josh Matthews:Yeah insider's tips? Not really, but okay, yeah, yeah, and I want to talk a little bit more about clothing and attire here in just a second, but just sticking with being comfortable. Something I had to learn is don't bring my four pound 16 inch laptop around all day long. And then I'm too far from the hotel to drop it off and I'm lugging it to a bar. And then I'm too far from the hotel to drop it off and I'm lugging it to a bar. Like, don't do that. You can get by with your phone, right. If you have a lightweight tablet, like that's great.
Josh Matthews:Unless you're like going into dev sessions and things like that, I really think that you don't need your laptop. In general, you should be able to block out your clients, let them know you're going to be busy, you're not going to be responding to emails, notify everybody so that you don't have to get on there and do work, work while you're there. Now, if you're going to have client meetings and you need a laptop to run your you know, run your deck and things like that, fine, fair enough, but for the average uh, uh, going to Dreamforce you probably do not need to walk around with your laptop, your phone, your smartphone is going to be just fine. What do you think?
Vanessa Grant:I totally agree. I've brought the laptop and then never opened it up once. And if anything, I think bringing the laptop will almost encourage you to make you feel obligated, like you have to open it up and check work stuff. And I think when you're a dream force dream force happens once a year there's so much to do and so much to experience You'll never get to it all. Try and leave work at work, get those out of offices, and if you need to take notes on something, there's going to be a bajillion vendors that are going to have a notepad. Bring a notepad or just take notes on your phone. Take pictures of the slides. That should be sufficient.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, and you know what? My friend who's on the podcast with me, and Fred, the other day shared something with me. It's a digital voice recorder. It's called Plaud P-L-A-U. They're $159 on Amazon. They can generally overnight it to you.
Josh Matthews:This thing is amazing. Now I haven't sprung for it. I've got a new wedge that I'd rather buy for my golf bag than this, but for $159,. This thing is magnetized, it can attach to the back of your iPhone, it can automate and what it does. It can hold I don't know like 200 hours of audio. And what's amazing about this product is it'll take that audio and use AI to convert it into text for you automatically. So you just log in or you click on the app and everything that you just recorded is right there and then you can click summarize, right. So this is.
Josh Matthews:I still might spring for this thing prior to Dreamforce, but because I don't go to a lot of sessions, I don't know how valuable it will be for me. But you can record every single session and get full on notes and that, combined with snapping some photos of the screenshots during the sessions, you're going to be able to remember, recollect and capture a lot of the critical information that you flew to San Francisco for in the first place. So again, that's PLAUD P-L-A-U-D 159 bucks. Check it out. Watch a little video. My friend loves it. I may still get it. I may still get it, I don't know, but it's pretty awesome and you can let it know. This was a meeting, this was an interview, this was a session, this was a conference thing, right? So it will know how to organize those AI notes from the recording automatically, because you set it up for success by hitting some button.
Vanessa Grant:I think that's awesome.
Josh Matthews:Yeah.
Vanessa Grant:I'll also throw in, as a speaker, one of the things that they ask us to do. I'm on the admin track, so I don't know how the other tracks work, but certainly on the admin track they ask us for a PDF of our slides. So I think if you use the Dreamforce app at some point those slides also will be shared.
Josh Matthews:Okay, yeah, there you go. That's good, that's very good, all right, so that's it for like getting comfortable, but a few other little items that people should bring with them Definitely a portable phone, battery charger and cable. You know, you can bring a plug and a cable, but I'd bring one of those little battery packs to finding plug sockets near where you're going to want to hang out for 20 minutes to get it booted back up. It's pretty difficult.
Vanessa Grant:Can I give you a tip from Ian Gotts?
Josh Matthews:Yeah, please.
Vanessa Grant:He said you should bring one of those. What are the things that you plug in? And then it has a whole bunch of different plugs on it.
Josh Matthews:A hub.
Vanessa Grant:A hub. Sorry, I'm like. So like I'm not a hardware person, but he says he brings a couple of those and it's the best way to make friends at the outlet.
Josh Matthews:Look at that. Hey, you going to the outlet today?
Josh Matthews:I am Right, I'm going to buy some summer essentials and charge everyone's phones Pretty awesome outlet. Yeah, no, that's great. I love that idea. Oh, look at that. That's. That's a very cool idea. Look guys, band-aids, advil, a comb or brush, like something like that Vanessa just recommended. You might want to bring an Advil, a comb or a brush, something like that Vanessa just recommended. You might want to bring an extra shirt if it's hot or if you're hot footing it all over town and you want to feel a little bit fresh, but you don't have time to go back to the hotel. Just a light backpack, butt pack, whatever you want. I think it's really important to bring some hand sanitizer.
Josh Matthews:I went to COVID force last year. It was a nightmare. I got sick. People I came into contact with got sick or got me sick. It wasn't a good look. You've got people flying from all over the country or all over the world, Everybody's high-fiving shaking hands. I mean it is a, it's a Petri dish out there. Stick to the elbow bumps. Shaking hands is great, but if you shake someone's hand without making them feel self-conscious or embarrassed, make sure that you're squirting a little of that hand sanitizer on before you start touching your face and sticking your fingers in your mouth. Stay healthy. Don't get sick at Dreamforce it's easy to get sick there. Try and Stay healthy. Don't get sick at Dreamforce it's easy to get sick there. So try and stay healthy. I do want to talk a little bit more in depth about dress code. Is that cool you down with that?
Vanessa Grant:Absolutely.
Josh Matthews:Okay, look, we don't have to spend a lot of time here on this. But the shortcut here is dress to attract the people you want to network with. Shortcut here is dress to attract the people you want to network with. Dress to attract the people you want to network with. If you want to attract people in hoodies with purple hair, show up in a hoodie with your purple hair. If you want to attract people in business suits, show up in a sport coat or nice slacks or dress shoes, whatever you want. I'm talking for anybody. I don't know how to dress women, so you might have a different perspective on this.
Josh Matthews:But you look, if you're on the job hunt or if you're looking to hire people or looking to acquire clients or you're looking to like, I don't think dress code is everything, and for a lot of you listeners I know this for a fact for a lot of you out there, it's just like I'm just going to be comfortable and you never put a single thought into it. Okay, and that's just fine, especially you coders out there. Who cares? Right, like, so what? All right, but especially on the West coast. But you might run into someone from New York city or Boston or even Philly or Chicago, where people spruce up better than Portland does. Right, they just do, okay, not, it's not just, like you know, rip t-shirts and flannels for everybody across the entire country. You know, particularly for a lot of people overseas, you're going to see people coming from overseas dressing a little bit sharper in general than the average American right in general than the average American right. So dress the way that you want so that you can attract and connect with the people that you are trying to connect with, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, right?
Josh Matthews:I even did a little perplexity search. Everyone here probably already knows it's my favorite research tool right now, and this is what it said. It said while clothing is not the sole determinant of success, it plays a significant role in shaping perceptions and influencing both personal and professional outcomes. Dressing strategically in a way that aligns with personal and professional goals can provide a competitive edge in various aspects of life. I think they said it right there. Okay, you can be. You can disagree, you'll be wrong, just so you know. You'll be completely wrong, right, if you disagree with this, but you might not care, in which case that's fine. Don't think about it again. Just fast forward to the next little part of this show. But a lot of people show up to this $2,000 event looking like they just paved the driveway. I wouldn't do that.
Josh Matthews:You know, yeah, you do not need expensive clothes to look and feel great. I promise you. Casey buys all my clothes for me. By the way, literally I haven't made a clothing buying decision in a very long time. She buys all my stuff and, by the way, she makes me look way better than I could do on my own. But she's a fashionista, she's very good at this, she's very creative and she's very skilled at this. So I've got my own stylist right here in my house, which is awesome. Okay, not everybody has that, so don't worry. Okay. No rips, no tears, no phrase. Clean shoes, good condition, right. Same for your belt If you wear one, don't have it look like it's about to snap in half.
Josh Matthews:Go wrinkle-free whenever possible. Getting too baggy, don't be a ray gun right. Wear clothes that fit your body and if you want to disappear in the crowd, wear your hoodie. That's what you can do. If you don't want to be bothered by too many people or whatever, just put on your hoodie, right, and you won't get noticed. It's pretty true.
Josh Matthews:Okay, if you want to really stand out and I love this this advice, this recommendation, the best way that you can, the best way to dress if you want to stand out are the following. Number one have good posture. Stand up straight to make eye contact. Three, smile Okay Good posture. I contact, smile, you do those three. You could dress in a $2,000 Armani suit and if you don't have good posture, make eye contact or smile, it's lost on you and you wasted your money. Right? You could even have rips and tears and frays and be wrinkly, but if you're smiling, making eye contact and you have good posture, it doesn't matter. It's going to say way more about you. And guess what, guys? It's free, it's totally free. All it causes a little bit of stretching, maybe Okay, I think this is our last little part here and maybe there's more stuff to cover but it's basically maintaining your energy and staying healthy. So, vanessa, what are your top recommendations for this?
Vanessa Grant:Bring snacks.
Josh Matthews:There you go, bring snacks.
Vanessa Grant:Sorry, my kid was printing something so I wanted to mute really quickly. But bring snacks, bring stuff that's not going to explode in your backpack, of course, like granola bars and things like that. Josh, if I recall, during world tour, you had peanut M&Ms.
Josh Matthews:Oh yeah, I'm a peanut M&M fan. I only eat it when I'm traveling because it's not good for me. My body doesn't really like sugar, but that's my go-to fast on the fly energy food if nothing healthy is around. Typically, what's in my little day pack are energy bars, electrolyte powders. Right, You've got to stay hydrated guys. You've got to hydrate like crazy, like crazy.
Vanessa Grant:So hydrate, hydrate, hydrate. Absolutely second the electrolyte packs, particularly if you are part of the night crew at Dreamforce.
Josh Matthews:Yep, if you're going to get toasty at night, right, you definitely want to hydrate through the day. Here's another thing Don't start drinking water the day of dream force If you're going on a plane that's like you're just going to. I go on a cross country trip. I always come out like a wilted flower. I don't know what it is, the air is dry. I just they never give you any water on these fricking trips. It's the stupidest thing. It's like I got to wait an hour to get four ounces of water. It's like thanks for nothing, airline.
Josh Matthews:So start hydrating a few days beforehand, because if you're not used to hydrating, as you're chugging this water, your cells don't open up, it just sloughs right off. You're going to be peeing every 30 minutes, right? So whoever thought I would say peeing every 30 minutes on the Salesforce career show, but I just did. So start hydrating, get comfortable with hydrating and then you know by day three and you know when you show up you're going to feel fresh, you're going to have energy, you're going to sleep better, you're going to sound better, you're going to look better. It's all going to be good. We already talked about hand sanitizer. I do recommend. I know I ate those peanut M&Ms. I do try to avoid those. I definitely recommend avoiding anything that's going to lead to sugar crashes. So donuts, muffins, other high carb, high sugar, high glycemic foods, they're not going to be great for sustaining you from like 8.30 in the morning till midnight every day, which is about, I think, what it feels like or goes typically Not for everybody, for a lot of people.
Vanessa Grant:So maybe keep the peanut M&M's for like a world tour where it's like a day and then you're done.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, I'm flying back tomorrow. This is my little treat.
Vanessa Grant:Yep.
Josh Matthews:And there's food around there. You know there's going to serve lunch and all this other stuff. But if you're like me and you nibble throughout the day versus having like a big meal like I generally have one meal a day it's at night and I have a couple, you know, bars or veggies or something like that a little bit around lunchtime just bring stuff that you're not going to sugar crash, right For real. And then I also recommend don't overdo the drinking on days one and two, just like moderate. Be careful, right, be careful Monday night and Tuesday night, because you're going to.
Josh Matthews:Most people are definitely going to be partying on Wednesday and by Thursday, when everyone's really blowing out, you might be recovering from a hangover if you drink, right. So if you don't drink, do whatever you want, but if you are a drinker, try to just exercise some moderation. This is a business function, right. Don't get wasted. Don't get all goofy rookie and get completely wasted at some you know business event, you know one or two and then take it easy and pound some water between drinks. That's, that's my recommendation.
Vanessa Grant:Yeah, yeah, I've. I've seen some weird casualties at Salesforce conference.
Josh Matthews:Oh yeah, yeah, it's, it's not. It's not good. I mean people, people that are late or miss their own sessions because they drank too much and slept through their alarm. You know that happens. People hook up with people they shouldn't. Don't do that. That's always a bad idea. Don't do that, Right.
Vanessa Grant:I ran into someone at a conference that I think they just had a little bit too much, someone at a conference that I think they just had a little bit too much. And so they came up with a rap about Mark Benioff and they liked it so much that they pretty much spent the next half an hour at the venue just telling that rap and singing it out loud, very loudly, for about a half an hour and then liked it so much that they went on to the event Slack channel and posted a recording of it. And I can't remember the guy's name, but I remember that there was just some guy that did a Mark Benny Hop rap and interrupted everybody's conversation.
Josh Matthews:Yeah, yeah, Look, if you've got friends and they're really good friends, they'll tell you what you're like when you've had too much. I know exactly what I'm like. I'm freaking awesome if I've had one much. I know exactly what I'm like. I'm fricking awesome If I've had one, one or two too many. I'm pretty awesome. But there there are lots of friends that I've got, not lots. There are a couple of friends that I've got that it's like I mean, they go, they go zero to 100, real quick, real quick, and it's not a good luck. So take it easy. Real quick, and it's not a good luck. So take it easy, it's a business event and look out for your friends.
Josh Matthews:Yes, it's always awesome to be the sane one for what it's worth. It's really awesome to be the sane one. Look, that's all I got. I think everything else you can find on Salesforce. Ben, go there. It's a bunch of cool blogs and I've seen them coming from. You know everybody's writing a blog about this stuff, but hopefully this was a really good program for those who are going to be going. I like that we got to not cover some Dreamforce stuff for the first 30, 40 minutes and then really deep dive and you know what. This is the kind of program that you can. This can get replayed. We don't like we don't have to do this next year. We can just replay it, you know, and and we'll be good to go. So, vanessa, final thoughts on Dreamforce before we wind this little program of ours up.
Vanessa Grant:If folks are new, I would say, try to check out the Gearset party and Gearset's doing a couple of events that are particularly catered to newbies. Eric Brashfield does his bacon breakfast for newbies. That's course project night night. And there's also the Ecomo my Party that should be on Monday Again cater to folks that it's their first Dreamforce. So for folks that are brand new to Dreamforce, those are the events that I would direct you to so you can kind of pair up with others.
Josh Matthews:The events that I would direct you to so you can kind of pair up with others. Yeah, it's going to be an awesome event. I can't wait to go and, uh, get to hang out with you, vanessa. We'll get to see Fred and a lot of other friends and some really wonderful clients and candidates. I'll say this if you're listening to this and you see me walking around, come say hi. Like don't be shy. I know that this is a thing. People are like oh, I saw you and I didn't want to bother you. It's like I'm not saying I'm the most friendly guy in the world, right, but when it comes to these events and saying hi to people, come on, I'm right up there in the top. Come say hi. I love to say give you an elbow bump, okay, and catch up with you.
Josh Matthews:I think it's the most wonderful thing in the world to bring this community together. Like, really bring it together. We are part of an amazing community. We are a part of an incredible ecosystem. It's got its ups, it's got its downs. That's okay, but what we've got is each other. We really do More.
Josh Matthews:So, and I've been in tech recruiting for 26 years now 25 years, something like that. There is nothing like this in the world People. There's nothing like this in the world and for what it's worth. I hear, you know, I talked to people. Vets have dreamed for us. I don't want to go, they just want me to. You know, salesforce just wants me to buy dinner for their clients and it's like okay, like that's fine.
Josh Matthews:But at the end of the day, we get to connect, as you know, globally, with people who are all involved in trying to do the same thing, which is, to believe it or not, it's to help businesses run more efficiently. Right, that's what we're trying to do here. We're trying to grease the wheels of the economy. That's what Salesforce does. In my eyes, that's what it does, and if you're involved in this ecosystem, you've got something to do with that. Right, you're making sales easier, you're making service easier. You're making communications easier. You're making experiences like going to a hotel and knowing what you might want to do and like, with data cloud and stuff and getting the appropriate suggestions tailored to you. That's data cloud for you. Like. This stuff is incredible software and it has helped, you know, millions of people. It's helped thousands and thousands of people achieve their career goals by being a part of it and the good that has come from.
Josh Matthews:This really echoes and reverberates within communities, within businesses all around the world. Maybe not if you've got a really crappy instance and no one uses it Okay, but for the most part, this is one of the most incredible things on planet earth A community of Salesforce people Salesforce professionals, clients, customers, workers, techies all coming together to learn, to grow and to feel connected, and that's something that we've missed. You know it's been four. What is it? Four years? Four and a half years since lockdown. I think I read that today since COVID lockdown. Four and a half years since COVID lockdown. Can you believe it was that long to go, vanessa? No, jeez, yeah, yeah, it was like April, march, april, May of 2020.
Vanessa Grant:Is it three and a?
Josh Matthews:half years, four years it might be three years.
Josh Matthews:It's four years, okay, so, yeah. So four and a half years since all that crap went down right, and we're still feeling the effects, we're still feeling the reverberations. I think I learned this because Shannon had put out a recent news like a newsletter Shannon, who facilitates and launched the HLS stream, and he's a wonderful person, so I saw this in her newsletter today. By the way, if you want to sign up with my newsletter, go ahead and let me know. We'll get you added. We've got like over 4,000 or 5,000 people that subscribe to that. It's only been out for a couple of months.
Josh Matthews:The other thing if you would like a copy of this document, the Insider's Practical Guide to Dreamforce Success, you can email me at josh at thesalesforcerecruitercom, or you can dm me on twitter or x at the josh force. Okay, and I'll get it to you within, you know, whatever within an hour or two, whatever it is okay. So if you'd like this, you got to let me know. It's not something that we're just putting out there. I'll get it to you and I hope everybody has an awesome, awesome week. Are we when? When do we meet again? The week before dreamforce? Okay, so that is the 11th, okay, awesome. Well, I can't wait for that show. This has been a fun one. Vanessa, thanks for being so awesome, and Stephen, great to see you on here. All of our listeners, you guys, have been fantastic.
Vanessa Grant:Catch y'all later. Bye.
