Season 2, Episode 19 with Bradley Rice is out now!
As the founder of Talent Stacker | Salesforce Career Development Program, he has changed so many lives by introducing people to the world of #Salesforce.
Full disclosure: while I had done some recordings for the TS crew when Anita Smith first asked me, I didn’t really know Bradley.
Someone told me something that was quite concerning about what he was potentially doing that could impact me, and instead of making assumptions – I talked to him about it.
We had a very candid conversation and totally cleared the air.
I had suspected him of very nefarious deeds (even called up Vanessa Grant to ask her opinion!) but came away feeling really glad that my initial impression was wrong.
He’s sincere and kind.
We talked about all sorts of things, from his values growing up, and how he came about starting his own business.
If you are keen to gain #FinancialIndependence or #FI, then I hope you will enjoy this episode.
It was certainly a really fun one to record!
Spotify link:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/6bJPWR3YbygPhFKEEZxy8y?si=IB4R_FGeTMm4BKeKwUJtUw
#OnThePeiroll
Transcript
Pei Mun Lim 00:05
Hi, you’re listening to OnThePeiroll, my podcasts about everything from Salesforce project delivery, consulting, CRM, leadership, teamwork, right, Samaritans, anything and everything in between the topics that fascinate me. And I get to talk to people who find those topics. Interesting as well. So in today’s episode, I speak to Bradley rice, he runs talent Stacker, a, an organization that helps people pivot into the Salesforce industry, by helping them with their certification with learning new knowledge about a product and a platform, creating a personal brand, and then helping them get that first job. And er has changed so many lives. And I have to say, actually, we had we met through really slightly unusual circumstance, there was some misunderstanding. And instead of reacting, I reached out to him, and we had a very candid conversation. And that cleared out the misunderstanding straight away. And I wish a lot of my conversations happen like that. But he’s a great guy. And we had a really, really good conversation about how and what motivates him. What sort of values drives him to do what he’s currently doing now, and why it’s so important for him to impact the lives in a way that he is doing at the moment. I had a really good time talking to Brad and I really hope that you’ll find it as interesting as I did. Enjoy. Hello, and welcome. Good morning Radley. Welcome to my podcast. It’s called OnThePeiroll. How are you feeling today?
Bradley Rice 02:12
I am feeling great. Yeah. So it’s, you caught me first thing in the morning 8am. So this is a perfect time to to catch me with all the energy I have for the day. So I’m excited to be here. Thank you for having me on pay.
Pei Mun Lim 02:26
Fantastic. See, I get the first steps on your energy level. And I don’t really care what happens to all your other meetings for the rest. Right? That’s right. Thank you. So I generally start podcasts by asking my guests, just tell me the story of your journey, because everyone’s journey is different. There’s always really interesting stuff, to see how they made the decisions and where they went, and so on and so forth. So I would love to hear your story.
Bradley Rice 02:58
Yeah, I’ll try to make it reasonably quick. And then I’ll let you dive in where you want to, but I, I grew up in West Georgia, on the east side of the United States, in a small town called Villa Rekha, and I grew up on a on a cattle farm. So I was not into technology. When I was younger, my parents were not into technology. We were definitely very hands on hardworking, what you would refer to as a blue collar family. When I got to college, so I finished up high school there. When I got to college, I bought my first laptop. And I still wasn’t interested in technology. I just needed it to do simple things like write essays and things like that. But really, once I finished college, I was interested in being a high school teacher. So that that was my dream. I wanted to be a high school teacher, I wanted to teach students and really future generations about money that that was my goal. I wanted to teach economics. And I could not find a job I searched within probably 60 to 80 miles of the town I was living in could not find any openings anywhere. I couldn’t even get an interview anywhere. And I’m not sure that’s because there weren’t openings. I think it’s because I didn’t know how to get in front of people who were interested in hiring me or how to tell people that I really am qualified to do this job. So that was sort of a shock. You know, I’d heard stories about people finishing college and not being able to get jobs. I definitely didn’t think that was going to happen to me. But I found myself in a place where I was just applying for any job I could get. And that took me a few different places. But where I ended up about eight months later, eight months after I graduated from college, I ended up taking a junior Salesforce Administrator role. And I had no idea what Salesforce was. I had no idea what that meant. I was going to be doing it work, but I just decided, You know what, they gave me a shot. They gave me a salary. That salary was $35,000 And I said, you know, I’m gonna do my best. And I’m gonna see where I can go with this. And that’s really how I got started. And then from there to here is quite a long journey. But it’s, you know, I, I worked for a few different consulting firms, I worked as an internal administrator at a couple of different companies. I started my own consulting firm in 2016, and worked there doing independent consulting for about five years. And most recently here in the last 18 months started a company called Talent stacker helping other individuals to basically realize their Salesforce dreams and become Salesforce professionals.
Pei Mun Lim 05:40
Wow, quite a long way from growing up in a cattle farm. And so just taking you back there, how does what you do now? You know, what would you tell your family about what you do so many standard deviations away from where life has been?
Bradley Rice 06:03
Well, I think it’s impacted me quite a bit. You know, the, the older I get, the more I look back on my upbringing. And I think at the time, I thought, this is a lot of work, like, why why do we have to go through this, you know, I’ve, I’ve got school at, say, eight o’clock, I’ve got to get up at 530 and go feed the cows and go make sure the animals are tended to, and then come back home, get a shower and get ready for school. And I felt like a lot compared to my friend groups. Because they were, you know, hopping up at seven o’clock and making it to school by eight and I was exhausted by the time I got to school, and they were, you know, still asleep, from from barely having woken up. But looking back now, I think it instilled a lot. In me. I think the first thing is that I don’t really mind when things get tough, it doesn’t bother me much when there’s a challenge. I like to just sit down and get it done. And my my grandparents would always say, Make hay while the sun shining. And it’s so true. And the way I feel about my life right now is that I’ve got my health, my family has their health. For young, we have energy, we have that passion to move forward. And to me that that means the sun shining, and I may as well give my career and give this community what I have, while I’ve got it because my health may not be with me a year from now. And so I need to go ahead and give them what I have while I’m here. And a lot of that goes back to the way I was brought up. And then there are other things to where we were taught to be pretty humble. And we another thing my dad would say was that you’re not better than anyone, and no one’s better than you. And it just instilled this idea that we can be as great or as seemingly not great as we need to be. And that’s not important to how we’re valued, and how we stack up against other people. And it’s still hard to really realize that and to do that every day, I think or to feel that way every day. But at the same time, I know that’s what’s right. And no matter how much money I make, or how much money someone else makes, or what they succeed and what I don’t succeed at, it’s not important to the fact that we’re all people and we should treat each other with respect. So I think a lot of that is carried with me into my career. And I think it’s given me you know, a benefit, even though they weren’t talking about tech jobs or anything else, I do feel that it’s given me a benefit. Just having some of those ethics and morals and, and some of those, I think I just to live by
Pei Mun Lim 08:43
sounds like your upbringing gave you quite solid grounding in terms of how you’ve, you know, how you journey into where you are so, and just think they’re a little bit longer apart from, you know, just hard working values, as well as you know, understanding who you are aware of what what else do you think? Set your compass, you know, not just the moral side, but helped you as you you know, as you made your journey through life. What else do you think you could credit your family with your upbringing with?
Bradley Rice 09:24
Yeah, I think a few things. Will quite a few I could go on for a while. But one thing I was actually talking to my mom last week. And it seems so so my family grew up in East my my entire family is in East Alabama, which is extremely rural, low income area. My family made a huge move. It was a big disrupter to the family too. They moved to West Georgia an hour away. Everyone expected that everyone would live within 10 or 15 minutes of each other because that’s what everyone had done. And so my family you know, I think I fell felt, even though in the grand scheme of things, that was such a small thing, I still felt that ability to go against the grain to try things on my own. And that’s something that I think they put into me that they also went to college, which was unusual for my family. And so that was another thing where they were constantly talking to me about, you know, whether or not you want to go to college is up to you, but you still need to do your best and you need to make your grades. And if you’re gonna go to school, you may as well make straight A’s if you can. I did not make straight A’s, but I certainly tried. I think other things is an entrepreneurial spirit. I think my parents kind of wonder now is, you know, talking to my mom, and she’s like, how did you end up going off and, you know, we don’t come from a family that starts their own companies and do these kinds of things. And, and I said, you know, I’ve been thinking about that. And, you know, when we were kids from the day I was born, until I left the house, we were, we’d have extra vegetables from the vegetable garden, and we’d sell them in a fruit stand out by the road, we would host we were always on baseball teams, and we would host baseball camps for all the kids and they’d come to our house. And we’d have you know, we lived on a big farms, we had, you know, big lakes where we do paddle boat races and different things just to keep the kids busy. During the summer, we had our own grass cutting business that my parents kind of started for us to get the kids out there. But we had a truck and a trailer and the same same stuff, we cut the grass with the house, we just go cut grass down the road, we had tractors, we would go to the neighbor’s fields and you know, plow their fields, or cut their fields or whatever they needed done. And there was always so much work to be done out there. And we knew how to do it. And we already had all of the equipment. So we spent a lot of time with these little, you know, quirky ways to make money, and most of them didn’t make a lot of money. It’s not like, we were like, wow, now we’re gonna have a family business doing these things. But it was more so I think ingraining in me that there are skills that we have. And it might be growing vegetables, it might be driving tractors, it might be cutting grass, it could be a variety of things, but we have skills, and those are marketable skills. And once we attain those skills, if we are better at those things than than other people, then we have a real opportunity to make money doing those things. So they definitely got me into a business mindset, again, you know, not applying to technology, but in life, they definitely put me in that mindset of like, money has value, it’s not all you should care about in life, but it is a tool to be used, that can have a lot of impact on your life. And, and they were teaching us little ways to make money and it didn’t have to be go to school, do this, do that go to the office to 40 hours a week. And so I think coming into my career, I was challenging a lot of the norms of Do I really have to work 40 hours a week? Or could I work part time? Do I really have to go into the office? Or could I find a remote job? Do I really have to do business the way other businesses do it? Or can I carve my own path and have success and I’ve been taught that you can do whatever it is you want to do and you can be successful, as long as you put work into it.
Pei Mun Lim 13:14
Oh, amazing. Thank you for telling all that. Because that just paints a fantastic picture about how your family as you know distill the entrepreneurship spirit in you kind of like internally who we are today. We, in our previous conversation, we talked about how you felt financial independence was something that you pursued a lot. Can you just talk to me a little bit about that? Was it what made you decide to do an economics degree for example, tell me how that particular obsession, maybe or focus, you know, kind of shaped who you are.
Bradley Rice 14:00
Yeah, so this idea of financial independence, for those of you who don’t know, it’s this, it’s this idea that you want to make as much money or really save as much money when you’re young, or when you start so you could be 40 or you could be 15. And the when you start is not all that important. What’s important is basically that there’s this idea that you want to save as much money as you can in order to never need money again. So that would be the idea of financial independence or financial freedom is to have so much money, that you never need to earn money again. And that puts you in this place where you effectively can exit the system as we all operate by which I know might sound a little conspiratorial or you know, something along those lines, but it’s this idea that you don’t have to work for an employer that you’re not happy working for. You don’t have to work for an employer that you don’t really support what they do. What service they provide or what product they sell, if you want to take a year off, and whether that be traveling or spending time with your family, or just binge watching, you know, a Netflix series, you can do that. And I think for me it was, you can leave a really great job that pays well has amazing benefits anyone would love to have, and you can start your own company. And the more beautiful part of that is that company doesn’t even have to make money in order to survive. And so that’s what financial independence did. For me. Now, I would say it was, it was, if it wasn’t an obsession, it was extremely close to an obsession. Because it became a lifestyle, it was this idea that I don’t need a lot of things to be happy, of course, I have to balance that with my wife and my daughter and their needs. But I don’t need vacation homes, I don’t need, you know, lavish meals, or, you know, these incredible supercars or anything like that, I can get by with less. And if I can get by with less, that means I need less money. And therefore I don’t have to do all those things we just talked about work, a job that I don’t feel happy with, and, and all those different aspects of life. But really, it’s just this, this idea that if you can get a better relationship with money, if you can understand that it is a tool that pretty much everyone in the world uses in order to try to get through life with a little less pain than the next person, if that makes any sense. It’s just trying to ease the burden of moving through society and moving through life. And having more of it doesn’t necessarily do that. It’s having a stronger relationship with money and a better understanding of money that allows you to do that. So whether you make a million dollars, or $50,000, that person making $50,000, if they have the right relationship could be having a much easier, much smoother life than the person making a million dollars. And it’s because of their relationship and understanding of how to use money to really drive the value that they want to see in their life. So that might be a little high level, but I’m happy to dive in on anything.
Pei Mun Lim 17:18
No, that’s that’s, that’s perfect, because that’s kind of what you’re doing with talents, hacker is given people the opportunity to get to where they can be financially independent, because there’s nowhere else I think, that leverages the knowledge economy, with a product as amazing as Salesforce, and an ecosystem that supports it in so many ways, not just in terms of the systems and structure and the partnership, ecosystem and ISVs around it, but also the culture that Marc Benioff has instilled with the Ohana and the just just that helping each other elevate each other. So all the pieces are in place for you to do what you do. And therefore, you know, it is just a nice segue into how you kind of got started and why. Why you decided to pick this particular niche to get in.
Bradley Rice 18:23
Yeah, so I think you can call it whatever you want to call it. I call it blessed. You might call it lucky or fortunate or anything in between. But you know, going back to the beginning of this conversation, it was I was applying for anything and everything and happen to fall into a junior Salesforce Administrator role. I don’t know if that was meant to happen, but it happened. And it definitely set the framework for what my career was going to look like. That was in 2010 when I landed that job. So when you look back at that, it’s we I’ve now been in that career path for, you know, 11 or 12 years. And I had all before starting talent Stacker, which is, you know, what I would say I’m currently doing right now is focused 100% on talent stacker and helping other people start Salesforce careers. But I’d gone from starting a Salesforce career in 2010. Within four years, I was gone from that $35,000 entry level income to making about $120,000 working full time at a consulting firm five years later. And then after starting my independent consulting business, within three years of doing that, so eight years into my career, three years into independent consulting. I was making over $200,000 Working 20 hours a week. None of that was necessarily the plan but I was constantly just trying to get better and innovate the way I was working and innovate the way I was doing business in order to create a is basically a higher return on my time because you have to keep in mind through all of this, I’m also layering in financial independence concepts which are, understand what you value in life, use money as a tool to spend more time doing what you value. If you look back, you’ll notice that when I started part time work, independent consulting is the same year my daughter was born. So I had a new value, I had a new thing that was, to me more important than anything else in life. So it meant that even if I had to take a pay cut at work, I was going to work less, I was not going to work 40 hours a week, because I wanted to spend more time with her. Now, once again, through thinking critically about the way I do business and trying to do a little bit better, really, each day, I eventually got to a point where I was working, you know, 20 hours a week making more money than I’d ever made full time consulting. So that was something that I never expected. So once you see that unfold, once you see tripping and falling into an Salesforce role, trying to move through the ranks and sort of climbing that Salesforce ladder, realizing I don’t necessarily want to be on the ladder, I want to be, you know, carving my own path, starting independent consulting. So then at that point, I was financially independent. So at 31 years old, excuse me, I was financially independent, I no longer needed to earn income, in order to provide for my family and to have the lifestyle that that I was comfortable with. So I started talent stalker, because I was not done working. I knew that I could be productive, I knew that I could be effective. So I took that history of going through internal roles and consulting roles and starting my own company and freelancing and independent contracting. And I thought, I think I’m really well equipped to teach other people how to repeat these steps, because I saw people getting, you know, number one, just in general people in the public, not in the Salesforce ecosystem, but just generally people struggling with earning enough money to have a lifestyle that they felt comfortable with. So I sort of felt like that was unfair that I had that. But they didn’t. And these are good people. I’m not talking about lazy people who just want everything for free. I’m talking about hardworking people who want to succeed, and they don’t see a clear path forward. And I just thought, I’ve seen a clear path forward, and it’s still here. And then I’m looking at the other end the Salesforce side. And we’re constantly seeing metrics of millions of jobs entering the ecosystem, every year. And if not, at least within the next five years, we’re gonna see millions of jobs enter the ecosystem. And now let’s assume those are all fluffed numbers. And there’s not nearly that many. So let’s assume there’s only 100,000 jobs a year going to enter the ecosystem. That’s still a lot of jobs. And when I look at what talents Docker is doing, you know, it was very clear to me it was like, this is the avenue I know, I’m not going to teach people about something I don’t understand. So I think talent soccer to me is it’s becoming a lifestyle company, where yes, we help people land Salesforce jobs. And that’s our goal on the front end. But on the back end, I would say our goal is to help people find a life they enjoy and that they’re very comfortable with.
Bradley Rice 23:22
using Salesforce jobs, to basically check the career box, like we need a way to make money, if we’re going to operate in the society, and Salesforce careers are a very incredible way to basically check that box in that lifestyle goal. So you get to work from home, you tend to get a lot of respect from your peers at work, because you’re in a skilled position. You don’t have to go back to college and get in, you know, 10s or hundreds of 1000s of dollars in debt. You can transition relatively quickly, even if you’re a mid career transition or so you could be anywhere from college to I have five years left on my career, and I’m getting ready to retire. You could be anywhere in between. And this is still a viable option for you. So I just love Salesforce as an ecosystem, but also as a play in order to generate a life that you actually enjoy.
Pei Mun Lim 24:18
Amazing. Thank you for sharing that bit. What’s been the most What have you learned about yourself throughout the journey, just starting this business and helping people get the lifetime?
Bradley Rice 24:32
I’ve learned a lot a lot a lot. I think I’m I feel like I’m still drinking from the water hose. Every single It’s not every day, but I would say every week every month. There are it seems like there’s something major coming up where I’m having to re understand the way I think and the way I look at things. One thing I’ll say I struggled with a lot in the last six months. Is people judging you When they don’t know who you are, and they’re willing to talk about you in groups, even though they’ve never spoken to you, personally, they don’t even they don’t even know you. I never dealt with that. I was either I was unaware of the drama and like high school and college, or it just wasn’t happening. So it’s not something I was I was comfortable with, I was I was always much more comfortable with. If you question what someone is doing, then you want to try to talk to them first. And so I realized, like, wow, I’m in the real world now, like, that’s not the way life is going to work. And there’s not always going to be a problem. But there are going to be things that come up and you being me, I need to learn to handle those things, within myself, if I’m going to be able to really find a solution for this problem. So first, I needed to solve my emotional feelings. And what I realized was that it was coming from a place of fear for me, I was scared that like, maybe I really don’t know what I’m talking about. And I was starting to feel like an imposter, right? Like, maybe I don’t know what I’m talking about. Maybe I’m I am, you know, some somehow a bad person for for doing what I’m doing. And then of course, realizing, after, you know, talking with my wife and other people that I’m, you know, very confident speaking with, like, Brad, that’s so far fetched, like, that’s not even close to reality. There are people out there who just want attention, and they just feed on negativity. And you’ve got to let those people do their thing, don’t give them you know, don’t give them the attention they’re seeking, stay focused on what’s real to you. And I ended up boiling that down, all of that came down to I thought I was trying to do good. And I thought, if I can do good, then everything would just go the way it’s supposed to go. But what I really ended up understanding was that good is not fair, all the time. Good is not just all of the time. But none of that is important, I just have to keep doing good. So I got it down to that point of like, if I’m going to be doing good constantly, sometimes I’m not necessarily going to get the credit that I think I should have, sometimes people are gonna say negative things, even in spite of you doing good. And sometimes it’s not going to be just that they’re not always going to get called out or proven wrong, or anything in between. And all of that’s okay, as long as you just keep doing what you know, is right, and what you know, is good. So that was one of the big things I learned here in the last six months is that a lot of people just say, Let It Go ignore the haters, you know, all that kind of stuff. To me, I wanted to understand it, and why it had an impact on me, so that I could handle those situations for the rest of my life, not just for a single situation. Yeah.
Pei Mun Lim 28:04
So if you will allow me to just pull the layout on that for a bit. So from from what I see, so I gained to know about you last middle of last year, I think some reason when I was running my maths class, a big bunch of the talent stack has decided to take me up on my offer. There was a first time I got to know you. And I got to know about what transacted and I thought, Wow, that’s amazing what you’re doing. So right now hearing what you’re saying, for the life of me, I cannot even begin to imagine what it is that people have against what you’re doing. So, you know, just for, you know, just for some of the audience who are like me and wondering, what is it? What is it that people have been saying? So, do you know, I think this is showing America were one of your comedians who do the late night shows, and you get celebrities on and it gets them to read the mean tweets about them. Right to give it? And,
Bradley Rice 29:06
yeah, yeah. Jimmy Kimmel, I think that is yeah, yes.
Pei Mun Lim 29:10
And I saw a bit of it. And I thought, What a great way to just shine the light on, you know, something that in the grand scheme of things doesn’t doesn’t mean very much. So if you can just indulge me a bit, just share some of the things that you’ve been hearing that you that made you go, you know, that’s not mean what why are people talking about what, so that when others who are going on a similar journey who may hit the same roadblock as you do? I’m thinking about myself for one. So I’m very early in my entrepreneurship journey. I also believe very deeply in what I do and value that I bring up to now. I feel that the people that I’ve interacted with have you know, when they know me, they you know, they’ve got positive things to say about me, but at some point, I will get to where you are Now in terms of the volume and the scale of people that I’m reaching south, I’m curious to just get the more detail what, you know, what are people saying? And how have you approached them? Apart from saying to yourself, This is an emotional thing. But did you investigate what they said, You know that, you know?
Bradley Rice 30:19
Oh, yeah, I think that’s a really fair question. And yeah, and anytime someone critiques something, I’ll put it that way. And, to me, there’s a right way to criticize something. And there’s not necessarily a wrong way, but not the way I would criticize something. And, you know, someone comes to me, and they’re like, Hey, Brad, I don’t really think this is how, you know, that should be handled, I’ve got some better ideas. I’m always open to hearing those critiques, and looking at what we’re doing and saying, Is there a better way have we thought this through? And can we apply some of these changes to improve it, because we always want to improve no matter how good things are today. And to your point, I feel like once people have an opportunity to talk with me, and just reach out and say, Hey, Brad, can I get some some of your time and I’d like to better understand what you’re doing. That’s, that’s what I enjoy. And that’s when I feel like we actually build a relationship. And people realize, like, wow, of course, Brad’s not trying to do you know, anything negative. Might I do something negative, unintentionally, absolutely, it’s, it’s bound to happen. And I would love to hear those things. But I would say, of course, I’m not gonna I’m not gonna name any names. Because it doesn’t I don’t think it solves anything or serves any purpose. But basically, I think what happened was talents Docker came in, and to the Salesforce ecosystem, is a community. And for those reasons, a lot of people are very generous with their time, and they’re generous with what they put in. But a lot of people didn’t know is that I’ve been a part of that community for a long time, I’ve just never gone down the path of trying to become what Salesforce calls an MVP. And trying to, you know, get credit for any of the work that I’m putting in, I’ve never gone down that path. On the other side, we had created our own community group Salesforce for everyone being one of them. You know, I’ve been going on podcasts since back in 2018. Talking about Salesforce careers, and the opportunity there far before talent stacker was ever in existence. So far before having a product or anything at all to market. We were doing those things, but a lot of people didn’t notice us then because it was quiet. And you know, we weren’t getting a lot of reach. And that was okay, because it was all just out of generosity. So then, when we started talent, soccer, we were more focused on being heard, it was I’m going to go on LinkedIn, and I’m going to say something, we have a company, I’m going to go on a podcast, I want to say something about our company. So then all of a sudden, we were being heard, and we were getting traction, because we were having unbelievable success, I still can’t believe the level of success that our members are having that our community is having. It’s unbelievable in the best ways possible. But what you have to understand is that anytime you do something well, and then you continue to do it well, and it scales upward. You’re disrupting other people who were already there, if that makes sense. So if you’re, you know, if even if you’re some type of athlete, and say you’re a quarterback for a football team, and all of a sudden you come out of college, and you’re an amazing quarterback, and you take the field, and now all of a sudden, the starting quarterback is losing his job. And now he’s being put on, you know, on the reserve. You have other quarterbacks who are getting all of the attention in the league, and now all of a sudden, everybody’s paying attention to you. And they’re interested in what you’re doing and what’s going to happen with you. And it disrupts what was already happening there. So when talent stalker came in, it felt like we came out of nowhere because people don’t really understand where we came from. So it felt like we came from nowhere. And they also don’t understand. I had really strong relationships with the financial independence community. So Salesforce was not my only community. And it still is not my only community. My goal is not to just serve the Salesforce community. My goal is to serve people, which means I end up getting involved in a lot of different communities and trying to help people in a variety of ways. So when we came in, we had not just the backing of the Salesforce ecosystem, but we had the backing of the financial independence community, because they already trusted us and knew that we were good people. And so going forward, I think the Salesforce community thought some some players in the Salesforce community those people who are being missed erupted,
Bradley Rice 35:01
felt that we were just coming into this, we were never part of the community before. Now you’re just creating a product and trying to make money. And then on top of it all, we were having really incredible results, which led to, you know, and this is the part I don’t enjoy about business, but it’s the reality of it, I think it led to their finances being impacted, right, because they had less students coming their way. And then I think it led to their, you know, them being impacted personally, because there was a new person or a new company that was being relied on for Salesforce career advice. And I was taking attention from them giving their career advice. And there was just a lot of that, that came into it. And all of those are perfectly normal feelings, and perfectly normal emotions, and frustrations and everything in between. But I think in some cases, not many, but in some cases, it led to people having never talking to me, because I had already, you know, hurt their feelings or whatever it was. And instead spending that energy talking to other people in the Salesforce ecosystem or starting to build, trying to build a reputation that, you know, Bradley’s in this to make money, he was never part of the ecosystem before. He just came out of nowhere. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Why would you listen to him? And so we’ve had to battle back against some of that narrative, I think. But it’s really not much. But again, it was something that I was uncomfortable with, because I didn’t have much experience with that. So even just a little bit of that narrative, again, gave me that imposter syndrome of like, Wait, am I doing something wrong? Like Did Did I come into this, and that was a part of the community did I do what I was supposed to be doing to earn my spot here, and having to figure out all those small things to really just to get to a point where I felt comfortable. When this comes up a year from now. And inevitably a will, as we grow and scale, these will become bigger and bigger, and people will actually, you know, use whatever influence they have to try to create a bad name for us because some companies unfortunately, operate in a way that instead of trying to innovate and build up their own value, they just try to destroy the value of other people.
Pei Mun Lim 37:25
Thank you for sharing that sounds like the last six months has been in just one of those challenges of scaling that you’re talking about. Apart from that, during the journey, has there been any thing any where I want to get to is, you know, sometimes people hold a Point better word right now, but a belief that something’s right. But then generally what happens is, you you learn about what’s happening, you learned about yourself. And sorry, let me just shrink it down to is there anything that’s happened that made you change your opinion? 180 degrees?
Bradley Rice 38:19
Oh, that’s, that’s a really good question. Change my change my opinion? Um, yes. I mean, we I’ve definitely changed my opinion on a lot of things. There’s some things that I had an opinion on, and now I have an even stronger opinion on those, like, yes, not only was it right, but it was beyond right up. There are other things where it’s like, oh, man, I really thought that was right. But, you know, it was well intentioned, but it was headed in the wrong direction. And I think one of those things, what that stands out to me, and when you mentioned that, is volunteering. So for the audience here, what one of the best ways to get your foot in the door of really any career path is to volunteer your time to internships or what have you, in order to get experience in those areas, because it obviously makes you more marketable. It’s that that double edged sword, or catch 22, I should say, of, we won’t hire you unless you have experience. But now you can’t get experience because no one will hire you to give it to you. So Volunteering is a way around that, right? So you’re not going to hire me, but I’ll do the work. And now I have the experience. And now you can hire me because I do have the experience. And I thought you know, people should get a certification, and that proves a baseline understanding of Salesforce, and then they should go out and volunteer their time at companies. But what I wasn’t fully aware of I knew that things happened in these volunteer opportunities that weren’t great, like somebody would go into the company. You know, Phil, I think a little bit more prepared than they really were. And then they would go in, and they would make changes that they really shouldn’t make, or they would give advice that they really aren’t in a position to give. And they would put these companies in a worse position than when they started. And yes, it was free work. But free work isn’t always what you need. I mean, it’s like going back to, you know, anything else. It’s like, if you have a grass cutting business, and you want to volunteer to do it, because you want to get, you know, a little experience under your belt, and then you go out there and, you know, shave somebody’s grass into the dirt, and they won’t even grow back, you put them in a worse position than where they were when they started, even though the labor was free. And that’s what happens in the Salesforce world. Sometimes, too, when people are too new, and they’re too novice, and they volunteer their time. And that company that’s asking them to volunteer is unsuspecting, they don’t know much about the technology. They just say come in and do these things. And then the volunteer does. But they do it horribly wrong to the point where now that nonprofit, is in a worse off position than they were before. I knew those things happened. But it didn’t initially change my perspective on Well, yeah, those things happen. But what’s the alternative? And how are these people going to get experience? If they don’t volunteer their time? How are these people going to get help with their Salesforce orgs? And if they don’t allow volunteers to come help, where’s the solution in between? And while I still don’t think I have a great answer to that, I did completely change my opinion on whether or not complete Salesforce beginners should be out there helping companies voluntarily. And if you’re working on a team, and you have a leader, and you know, some of those things in place, now, it can be beneficial. But if you’re working by yourself, and you don’t have anyone to bounce ideas off of or tell you, I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. The now all of a sudden, it’s the Wild West, and you really can create problems. So I think that’s one of the things that you turned for me. And again, that came from getting feedback from the community, and people reaching out and saying, Brad, I see you telling a lot of people to go out there and volunteer and use these sites to find help. And I’m like, Yeah, I shouldn’t be doing that. And then letting that digest for, you know, probably took a couple of months, and then realizing, you know what, they’re onto something, I don’t have a solution. But the right thing to do is not go out and tell people to go volunteer their time, you know, at these companies, and potentially create a bigger problem. So inside the talent stocker program, we solve that by assigning senior Salesforce consultants to all of our volunteer projects, and they manage the clients and they manage the projects, and they make sure that the work is done properly by the volunteers, so that we don’t end up putting companies in a worse off position than where they started.
Pei Mun Lim 42:49
So when you say volunteer positions, those are with NFPs, not for profits, actual companies, requiring user stories of features built on on their real life. org. We so
Bradley Rice 43:03
yes, exactly. So when you talk about, you know, doing volunteer projects, typically, that’s with a nonprofit, I would say it should be 100% of the time, they’re using NPSP, the nonprofit offering from Salesforce, and you’re in there. Again, typically you’re implementing because it’s not, if they’re looking for volunteers, the chances are, they haven’t done anything major already, that you would be adding enhancements to. So typically, they might have built a few custom things that they probably really shouldn’t have. And you’re going in there, and you’re just sort of re implementing Salesforce to get them off the ground. And if you’re doing well, you’re making small changes, you’re using that crawl, walk run approach, and you’re staying in the crawl phase. And of course, it’s not using Salesforce to the full benefit that it could be used, but you’re helping them slowly learn to use Salesforce and learning about some maybe reports and dashboards and basic automations things they can manage on their own. In case they don’t have another volunteer, you know, next quarter or next year, you want them to be in a position to be able to handle what they already have. So yeah, that’s my volunteering is, uh, it’s definitely touchy, even though you’re doing the work for free. The company that needs your help, probably doesn’t have a big budget, they probably don’t understand technology that well if they’re asking for volunteers to do something for them. So you just have to be I would say move slowly and be patient. Instead of trying to get something done quickly, even if they’re putting pressure on you just make sure you’re doing the right things and building solutions that they can manage themselves and not have to be reliant on on Salesforce professionals. Yeah.
Pei Mun Lim 44:46
So do you have a book of all this? Not for profit charities who could use your time stalker, you know, graduates
Bradley Rice 44:58
so the route talent stalker, specifically, all of the, the majority of projects we do are not had an actual nonprofit. And the reason for that is they were when we started the company. And again, we want to innovate and get better. And so what we found was that when you volunteer at an actual nonprofit, you end up being in a position where those projects can go for three, four or five months, because the companies don’t actually know what they need. And then once they figured out what they need, by consulting with you, they want it implemented, then you implement it. And that’s all great, but then they want the next thing and they have other ideas, and they, just like any company does, and then all of a sudden, you’re on a project that never stops. So things can get really chaotic. We noticed in nonprofits that a lot of times the person who was the point of contact for Salesforce would leave because they found a higher paying job somewhere else. And they would leave or they’d go to another nonprofit that they were more aligned with. And so you end up in this position where you’re volunteering your time, and you were going to do two months, but then six weeks end, somebody left, and then you have to retrain someone else and not only retrain them and teach them that Salesforce is valuable, something they should spend their time on. And you end up on in these really chaotic situations that aren’t beneficial to the volunteer, honestly. And they’re, they are beneficial to the company. But it takes so much time and finesse that there’s no efficiency behind the process. And for us, you have to keep in mind that could be beneficial to the nonprofit. The talent stacker is a company helping members land Salesforce jobs, we are not a company helping nonprofits get started. So while those two ideas might align, sometimes, it’s not typical. So what we started doing is we started taking the successful volunteer projects we were working on, and bringing those into projects that we self managed. So we were implementing these projects, but not for the nonprofit itself. And what this allowed us to do was control the environment while still using the needs, the pains, the requirements, and the solutions of real life projects and real life nonprofits, while having the control of a consultant in charge of three to four certified volunteers, leading them through the project, guiding them in certain aspects, but also allowing them to become the Salesforce professional, and actually spread their wings and be that person without feeling necessarily the pressure of I’m about to screw this up for a real company. And I’m going to be here fixing this forever. So there’s a lot of those pieces that came together and allowed us to be more effective as a really a talent growth company. And helping people get past that impostor syndrome, polish their skills, build the resumes, build teamwork and relationships with other people on their projects. And get those letters of recommendation that they need to land this first job. So there’s so many elements that go into volunteering, it’s what you talk about during your interviews, it gives you real experience to talk about versus answering the top 10 Questions about Salesforce jobs or whatever else. So there’s a lot of aspects that if you do your volunteer projects, well, it has a massive multiplier effect on your ability to land a job.
Pei Mun Lim 48:26
So just interestingly, this is related to a conversation I had actually with two ex con slacker. And they’re both very new to the industry. And also we were having conversation because they went from records or we’re talking about, you know, the job interviews and things like that I like to Can I touch base and make sure that, you know, if there’s anything I can do to help? So, observation, I think this is no big secret is yes, there’s all these millions of jobs coming in. But they feel like it’s a reserve of those who’ve got at least two years under their belt. All these people that you’re helping, may have that struggle. So that’s why your you know, your your roadmap and your curriculum is so crucial in helping them actually just get get get to the front of group of people entering the ecosystem. So just wanted to share. So my point of view, as you know, it’s all from consulting, delivering projects with a consulting partner. And I also do a lot of interviews that I shared with the person I was speaking to and so some of the ideas that we you know, that we discussed was maybe you know, like, there’s a scout or an organization nearby who may not have anything to go up to them and say, hey, look, would you like me to have a go at building human org that will manage your members And this is what I could do. So that, you know, we took some ideas around in, that sparked a one of memories that I had where I was interviewing me and a technical architect was interviewing, we went through a few people, and he was doing technical interviews, and I was doing the culture team work, best fit kind of thing. And this guy really impressed this. And what he showed us was, look, you know, I have zero corporate experience with Salesforce. But I learned about force.com, I learned about Heroku. And my mom, you know, kind of like rents out this little, all her apartments and things like that, and I built an app that did that. Let me show it to you. These other features, and, you know, walk us through everything. And then someone else did the same thing, because he, you know, he was into fashion and fashion in the UK was horrible. And so he decided to build an app that showcases still friending all these things and where he would upload stuff. So I thought that that was really compelling. And very impressive, and both got the jump in. So just to add on, because we are talking about this. One of the things that I, you know, hear that, okay, so if you can’t do nonprofits, you can build your own app that tracks your job application that manages your wedding preparation, whatever, but in a way that shows that you know, what you do. So if I can just add something else there. So if you’re looking for a consulting job, will be really useful is on top of that, you also document the user stories that you are building off, plus the process maps, and to also create a little show and tell around all that, in a while, you know, just working on nonprofit may not be that useful. So many people, everyone can do this job tracking app, for example, the one that comes to mind, so yeah, I just want to share that conversation, I have to email.
Bradley Rice 52:08
Those are, those are, you know, wonderful ideas. And yeah, I call those personal projects. And, and I do recommend that people, you know, get on teams to do those personal projects to like, find a couple of other certified people that maybe you have a relationship with, and you could work with, because then you all get the benefit. And you learn to work together and like schedule the Zoom meetings, and you’re in different time zones. And it adds another layer of complexity that’s going to be part of the real world. So yeah, I love personal projects. And to your point, it gives you something you can showcase during an interview, you can put it on your portfolio, you can make a, you know, a three minute demo and put that on your LinkedIn featured content, there’s so many ways to share. And in the modern job market, you cannot rely on the resume, you have to have your LinkedIn profile, showcasing all of that value for you. So that people can actually find it and see that you might be a really great fit for their company. And you’re giving them a lot of reasons why that can be true. So maybe they’re looking for somebody with two years experience, that when they see everything that you’ve accomplished and what you’re capable of. They’re, they’re likely willing to overlook that. Yes, they get to save some money, but they also get to grab top talent that is newer to the ecosystem. So it’s a win for everyone really
Pei Mun Lim 53:27
100% To your point, sorry, I was just recalling, in my previous life in the Microsoft world, somebody who did interview and who did do a demo, what he also did was he installed a lot of partner products from the App Exchange in Microsoft well, and he demoed their product along with the app that he built and told a very compelling story about, you know, what was so your idea about working with other people in a team that I think adds so much more to the experience. So, appreciate that. Thank you for that. So I realized we’re just approaching the time, but what I’d like to ask you is, you know, having built in I think you’ve impact a lot of people, a lot of people that I meet on LinkedIn, within the community. There’s just so much positive vibe around what you’ve done, what you’ve done, what you’ve done for people. What’s next for you, you’ve already achieved your financial independence. You’ve built this quite amazing entity and community. What’s the next thing for you?
Bradley Rice 54:38
Yeah, I think I think that’s a good question. And I do appreciate it. So for now, I’m not done with talent stackers. So I think there’s so much more we can do to the point of, you know, getting the right people in place. So we have some incredible people behind the scenes. I think a lot of people look at it as like, it’s the Bradley show, and it’s like talent stackers. Just me. And I think that’s because it was me for a while. But now that we’ve grown and scaled, there are some incredible people like Anita Smith and Alex wernicki. Justin ducks, Anthony scrim, I mean, Stephanie nadir. They’re just incredible people behind the scenes that are making all of this happen. And they’re way smarter than I am, I would say I’m a good facilitator, but they are incredibly talented, intelligent people. And it is just beautiful to see that unfold. But all that to say, I think we’ve helped here in the last 18 months, maybe about 15 1600 people start Salesforce jobs. And that is an incredible accomplishment. I’m very proud of that. But when we look at the numbers, again, you know, 100 100,000 new jobs a year, and the estimates are far higher than that. But even just being conservative and saying there’s 100,000 new jobs a year, we’re still only impacting about 1% of that. And so I know that there’s a much larger impact we can have. And I’m not necessarily concerned about people just getting paychecks going back to Everything we’ve talked about. It’s about, you know, school teachers who don’t want to be school teachers anymore, nurses who don’t want to do nursing anymore. Veterans who don’t know what they want to do with their careers outside of the military. It’s everything. In between, it’s anyone who doesn’t know about Salesforce today. And it could be a career path that would cause their life to be more valuable or more aligned with their values. That’s what we still have to go out there and do there’s so many people we can change lives for. And so I’m still adamant about getting out there and doing that. So for us, Salesforce for everyone podcast was a big push to do that. I know people enjoy podcasts. So episode, I believe four, just released this week. And we’ll keep releasing episodes, we plan on doing those weekly. For as long as it’s valuable. We’re not just gonna keep spitting out episodes if it’s not valuable. But as long as it’s valuable, and we feel like we have something new and actionable to talk about, then we’re gonna keep pushing those episodes out. So that’s me and Anita Smith, doing doing those. And I think that’s been the new big project for us. And we’ve had a lot of fun with that. We’re working on, you know, another free resource for people to come learn about Salesforce, which is obviously something we’re really passionate about. So no big plans outside of talent stacker right now we’re still focused on innovating, scaling, and helping more and more people land Salesforce jobs.
Pei Mun Lim 57:39
Perfect. I think that’s absolutely what the ecosystem needs right now. Because you know, left, right and center, you see this recruiters going like new job, any new people. So thank you very much, Bradley for spending some time with me and talking about your journey. It’s been fascinating for me to hear, and also for me to say, oh, that’s, that’s where I could be at some point. So thank you so much, buddy. I really appreciate that.
Bradley Rice 58:07
Of course, it has been an absolute pleasure talking to you. I appreciate these questions that are not your run of the mill. You know, we’re getting into the philosophy behind a lot of these things. And I absolutely enjoy all these different aspects of it. So thank you for having me on pay. I’m happy to join you for a conversation anytime.
Pei Mun Lim 58:26
I’m sure there’ll be a part two at some point. So thank you