041. Maximizing Your Career Acceleration

You want to keep that momentum, otherwise you'll just, I don't know if it's equivalent of a work couch potato. Such a couch potato employee. Hi, I'm Anita Smith. I'm Bradley Rice. And you're listening to the Salesforce for everyone podcast. In today's show I need to reconsider her new year's resolutions. One of the things was like no Salesforce stuff on the weekends. Obviously didn't stick to that. Also, we take a look at some habits that keep Salesforce pros leveling up. If we don't communicate, then you can pretty well guarantee that you're going to stagnate because no one knows that you're unhappy with where you are today. Hey everybody, welcome back to the Salesforce for everyone podcast. In today's episode, we're going to switch things up a little bit. We typically on the show talk about breaking into Salesforce careers and a lot about entry-level jobs and navigating the career transition from whatever you're doing today into your first job as a Salesforce professional. But in today's episode, we are going to be talking to the Salesforce professionals who are already out there. You've already landed the job. You might have started it last week or you might be 10 years into your career. And if you've listened to many of the episodes of the show, you'll know that we talk a lot about salaries and freedom and opportunity that this career path brings. And for many people, we know that that's not a reality in their lives. They may have been in Salesforce careers for five years and they still aren't seeing $100,000 salaries and many things like that. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about how to make the most of your Salesforce career and really level up as you go. And with me today to cover this topic, as always, Anita Smith. How's it going Anita? Hey, it's going pretty well. I'm really happy about today's topic, kind of like on par on where I'm at because I'm still fairly new, I guess. I don't know. Can I still say that? I landed my first job in January 2021. So the recording of this episode's been two years. Wow. Has it been that long already? Oh my God. You're a seasoned vet now. No, but I know what you're saying, though, you've done a really incredible job. But you've been very intentional with your Salesforce career. And I think that's what people miss out on, right? They land the job and then they forget to continue to level up or to get guidance. And I've had that issue in my career, too, where getting a mentor early in your career can be fairly easy. There are a lot of people ahead of you that are willing to help. But the further you progress, the less you find people that are ahead of you and the harder it can be to find a mentor. So you can lack guidance. And suddenly you notice your career starting to stagnate a little bit. Yeah. I think the momentum was a really important part. It's not just like, okay, you landed your job. You're done. There's still so much more to it. And you want to keep that momentum. Otherwise, you'll just, I don't know what's the equivalent of a work couch potato. Yeah, it's an interesting predicament because I think in the grand scheme of things, Salesforce professionals have a really good, right? Like we break into entry-level jobs and we're making, you know, $70, $80,000 in your case, I know quite a bit more. And it can be really easy to, I don't want to say, get complacent, but I will. I'll say, get complacent and go $100,000. I've got it good. Compared to my peer group, I'm doing exceptional. So why do I need to go out here and challenge and push myself? And I think for some of us, we sort of have the personality type where we don't want to constantly push ourselves. And we just kind of want to enjoy what we've got. And if that's you and you hear about salaries that are higher than yours, or, you know, jobs that sound a little bit cussier than yours, but you're happy where you are and you're happy with your management, then maybe you're in a good spot. And this may not be exactly what you need to hear today. But I know a lot of people out there, because I talk to them constantly, are individuals who sometimes will even say the salary numbers that we share can't be true, because it's not what they're experiencing, right? Because we'll talk about people. We had an entire episode dedicated to people who, in less than two years, had six figure salaries from entry level. And they were, I believe all of them were 18 months in, and they had six figure salaries. And, you know, I got some feedback from Salesforce veterans, they were like, really? Like they really have six figure salaries, because I'm only making like 95K, and I've been in this for five, six years. And money's not everything, but I don't think that money, typically in the Salesforce ecosystem, brings toxicity or major stress or anything like that. It's just a natural progression. But if you don't know how to get to it, then it's hard to move forward. So I guess that's what we'll talk about today, right? So maybe we could kick things off with one thing that I noticed is a major issue, and that is professional branding. So what have you seen as far as professional branding goes for experienced professionals? Like, if you noticed a difference between the people who are like Gung Ho, and they're trying to land that first job versus people who are two or three years in, and they're working their day to day. Well, I don't notice the people who are working their day to day two to three years in, because they don't show up on my LinkedIn feed. I don't know about you, but my LinkedIn feed is very busy, so I don't always see everything, but I mean, I do have a couple of people who like pop in my mind that I know are really active on LinkedIn. So yeah, they're doing an amazing job building their brand. So yes, the people who are still posting on LinkedIn frequently. I even see them speaking at different online community events or local in-person events. So those people are doing an amazing job, and I could definitely see them building up their career and even taking it to another level, not only solely focusing on their main day job. Yeah, it's a good point. And I think we see that where there are ways to move forward. And for everybody, I know you've spoken at, you know, local dream events and con and guest spoken for other groups as well, community groups. And I do a lot of the same. And I think people lack that understanding of why, like, why am I doing that? I'm not trying to create my own course. I'm not trying to build my own communities. So why would I go out of my way to continue to build my brand? Doesn't my experience and my resume just speak for itself? And I'll get a few extra certifications every year, and then everything will be great. And I don't disagree with that mindset. Yeah, you're right. If you get a couple new certifications every year, then you're probably going to make a little bit more money every year. And if you're not hanging out on LinkedIn or networking and community groups, by all, you know, stretches from a third party perspective, you're going to look very successful. And that's awesome. But I would always have goals. Like, my personal goal is to always have goals. And if I'm not challenging myself to reach new goals, then I just don't feel productive. And maybe you could call that a blessing and a curse, but I'm willing to accept my curse and just continue to push forward. And I think for professionals out there, I've seen individuals like we're going to be talking to Elijah Green about freelancing here in a couple of weeks on the show. And individuals who are able to open doors that simply do not exist. If you are not networking, you can go apply and get the next job. But I think for most of the people I see in our alumni program who are spending their time making truly intentional efforts towards their professional brand, the opportunities come to them. And much more exciting opportunities than just another job and another company in the same industry and those kind of things. It's doors that open like starting companies or partnering with companies or becoming part owners and consultancies that are just getting their start or new apps on the app exchange. And these kind of things that you see it and you hear about it and you go, I wonder how that person got involved or man, it must be nice to be involved in a fun project like that. And those opportunities are all out there for everyone. It's just that if no one knows that you're excited and engaged and passionate and interested in what you're doing as a professional, then of course, they're not going to get to know you and they're not going to approach you with those opportunities. Yeah, that's a good point. Like crafting your your circle is kind of like what we have in the alumni group. It's like this nice little, I guess, I don't know, mentorship circle that we all help each other out. And I see a lot of people talk about posting jobs and some of them are, you know, jobs that aren't posted yet. They're just sharing with the other alumni. But one thing I just realized is like I tend to remember people who who post a lot in that group and also on LinkedIn. So a lot of recruiters reach out to me. So whenever they're like trying to ask me if I want to apply this job, I remember those members or those people on LinkedIn like, oh, I know they wanted to go this direction or they had talked about they wanted to go this like move up this way in their career and they specialize in this. I can just refer them. So stuff like that, getting your name out there, throwing your intentions of like your goals for your future career, it really helps. That's like the number one thing in branding. Like you want to be that go to person. Like when someone says, oh, I'm looking for someone, you know, who is an architect or who does admin developer who wants to specialize in something. And for you to be the person that pops in at everyone's head, that is golden. Yeah, spot on. I think it goes in a few different directions sort of like summarizing everything we're saying for that actionable advice for everyone. Like why build your brand as a professional? And like Anita was just saying, you're already a professional, but if you want to go from an entry level $70,000 to less than two years later making $100,000, a lot of people think that requires you to job hub, but it doesn't. And we've discussed that on the show before. Yes, you can job hub and you can start that at a new company and level up and get that big pay raise. And you can either let that come to you or you can have to put in the work to chase it. And if you just build your professional brand, it will come to you. You will have people in your community that simply see you and they hear you and they know your valuable asset and they know that you're approachable and they can communicate with you openly and they'll go to you and they'll say, Hey, my company's hiring for this. I've seen you on LinkedIn or whatever else. And I thought maybe you just might be interested in this. And suddenly you have an opportunity just knocking at your door that wouldn't have been there. On the other hand, if you want to stay with your current company, it's not uncommon for our managers and our co-workers and owners of the companies that we work for to be spending time on platforms like LinkedIn. And when they see us advocating our energy and showing how professional we are and showing how just versatile and amazing we are at our jobs, they suddenly see us the same way Anita was just talking about that. They see us as the expert. They see us as that person that is so passionate and deserves so much opportunity because they're so outspoken and they have so much energy. And when they see that, they're more open to giving you opportunities internally at the company, right? And it doesn't have to be on LinkedIn. It could be the way you communicate a network internally at your company that allows you to level up very quickly inside of your own company and get some of those promotions and raises really quickly. So I think there are so many reasons and I'll say the last thing. So this is threefold that's being able to job hop with opportunities coming to you, being able to level up internally. And then the third thing would be that especially this year earlier this year, you know, we experienced layoffs in the tech ecosystem, right? And I think we saw some of our friends and our colleagues and people that we care about being laid off or having the fear of being laid off. And so it doesn't make you bullet proof to have a job. And being prepared for the moment that you need a network, you don't want to network the day that you find out that your company just sent you an email. And it's not an email that you wanted to see. And you can be the best professional in the world. And that become a reality no matter what industry you're in. So the best thing you can do to protect yourself or prepare yourself is to just always have your network in place, always have your people in place, always have your relationships built. And that's going to make you effectively indispensable as a professional. Could you lose your job? Absolutely. But will you bounce back in, you know, less than two weeks? Absolutely. So there are a lot of reasons to build your brand and it's only going to make you better prepared and a better professional. Yeah, to add to that, that's a really good point. Don't just take, take, take like when you need to network. This is a constant thing you should be doing. Like you land your job. You don't like just disappear. I mean, still continue with the networking and posting or writing articles or doing things like attend community events, stuff like that. It's not just like, oh, okay, hey, I lost my job. Can you guys help me now? Always try to give more than you take. Is that? Yeah. Yeah. No, I think I think that's right. Yeah, it can get mixed up with the with the words. I do that too. But now you said it right. And yeah, if you're giving, giving, giving when you're in a position to give, when you're employed and when you're in a strength position, you're giving, giving, giving, that's what communities all about. It's about people taking when they need to take and giving when they're in a position to give. And the best communities have people, a lot of people in positions to give so that the people who need to take just have an abundance to take. So it can be a great thing. So I know we have hopefully we sort of drove that home on professional branding. And if you need ideas for how to get started on LinkedIn, we do have a free LinkedIn optimization guide at talentstacker.com. Just click the free resources tab at the top and you'll see a LinkedIn of all of our free resources. One of those is a LinkedIn guide. I mean, that can help you a lot for getting started and really refreshing and getting used to getting in that rhythm of building that professional brand again. So another thing I wanted to talk about and Anita, I know you're really well versed at this even if you are still just two years into your career, which is sort of a veteran in the Salesforce space somehow, but also I'm sure it feels relatively new. Negotiating for a raise. This is a topic that I think people struggle with. And I see a lot of people who get that standard raise from their employer and they come and they do the annual review. And they say, this is how the company's done this year. And we really appreciate you and you're amazing. And here is what we are going to give you as a raise. And people say, thank you. And they carry on for another 12 months. What advice do you have to individuals to negotiate for raises? Do we need to wait for a year? Should we? How do we talk about it? How do we prepare ourselves to not just go, give me, give me, give me money. And really communicate to our employers, the value that we bring. Yeah, good question. Because I know I tell people, you know, job hop to increase your salary by myself. Like I've never job hopped in my career. I'm still with the same consultancy I started with just because, you know, I was like, I really like working here. Maybe I can just negotiate a raise and get to where I want to be without having to job hop somewhere else. And it works. And it's so funny because both of my life, I never even thought about asking for a raise, let alone negotiating, like encountering none of that stuff came into my head ever. I remember my career right before this in hospitality, a coworker kind of walk me through and I was just like, oh, I didn't think this was an option. And now like being in the sales force ecosystem and with like the salary transparency that Townsacker has done and talking to like all the other members in Townsacker, it like really opened my eyes that this was something that you could even negotiate and like learning about the things that you could negotiate. Not only salary, I have a really good friend now who's in the program, Tanya. She negotiated a four day work week. I like that idea didn't even pop in my head and wouldn't have unless like I spoke to her about it. So anything is possible. I think what really helped me get the courage to negotiate was one Townsacker, but also I'm going to shout out Tori Dunlap. She has a really like great course and podcast episode on choose Fi on salary negotiation, which is amazing. But like I've tried her stuff and it works. And if you're in the sales force ecosystem, you don't have to deal with the 1% annual raises, you can counter that because I've tried it and the results have been incredible. Yeah, that's all spot on advice. And it's so true. And I see it is a it's just a common myth. And I think generally, but especially in tech and in the sales force ecosystem, it's that you'll see this like berated concept that you have to job hop in order to get big pay raises. And I think that comes from people who have not attempted to do anything to get big pay raises at the company they're with. And they make these assumptions. And then they go share them publicly as if they're facts. And they literally have no experience. And I think that's probably a human fault that we have where somebody can, you know, walk up to you and say they're dog sick. Do you have any advice? And you've never had a dog in your life and you'll give them advice on how to take care of their dog. And it's like you literally have no experience with this topic. It's okay to tell people you don't know or that you have an experience that or your experience with that has not been really successful. So you clearly aren't the person to ask. And I think we just sort of suck at doing that. We suck at just saying I don't know. And I don't have experience with that. And those kind of things. So for people out there, I mean, to a neatest point, we have seen tremendous success with people looking to earn more income and speaking with their employers, their current employers about making more money. And I think the big issue here is that we simply don't do it. I see a lot of people who see applying for another job as the easy way to getting more money. And I believe that could be true because it allows you to avoid awkward conversations, right? It feels a little uncomfortable to go to your current employer and ask for a 20% raise, right? But it feels very comfortable to talk to a recruiter about how much you want to be paid or talk to a new employer about how much you're looking to be paid. And we just fail to go to our current employers. And it's really a disservice to our employer because a lot of times when a very skilled resource quits, like when you're Salesforce analyst or admins or architects or developers, when they quit, that puts the employer in a really bad spot. And I think a lot of times we forget that our employers are people, especially in small to midsize businesses. These are people who are personally impacted by our decisions not to communicate with them. And by going to those employers and speaking with them, I think a lot of times you'll find they want to give you more money. And they know you want to get a raise, but they're busy, right? And unless you initiate some of those conversations and let them know that this is something that means a lot to you and that you would like to see a change in, then they're simply not going to know. And chances are they'll get busy in their day to day and they'll forget to give it the attention that it deserves. You could blame that on them if you want to, but I think we have to take some of that blame ourselves for not having those internal conversations. Yeah, so at one of the recent town's second meet-ups, I was talking to a member and he is also a business owner and he made a really good point that kind of like lit up the light bulb for me. He said it is a pain to hire good people. So yeah, so your boss will like negotiate and have a conversation and work with you to keep you if you're a good employee, which if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are continuing learning. But to answer your question before, which I totally skipped over on when to ask for a raise. So I personally do it once a year, but that's because my initial starting salary was very generous. So I didn't feel comfortable asking after six months, but I know some people and I would give this advice if you're unhappy with your starting salary and it's a bit lower, talk to your manager like, "Hey, can we maybe set up a plan and set a date six months from now to re-evaluate my salary and it possible get an increase?" And then maybe set some goals. Or what I like to do is always keep the original job description of what your tasks and responsibilities are supposed to be. And then you know, start tracking that you're doing those tasks how often like quantify it, just so you have some data improve to like hand over to your boss. Because likely your boss will have to ask someone above him or HR, but when you like do all the work for them, like package it up and like, "Here, this is why I should get a raise." They're like, "Oh, it's already done. I don't need to procrastinate. I can just wrap this up and get it approved." Yeah, I agree. I mean, literally list out the major impacts that you've had over the last whatever the period of time is. Whether it's three months or three years, it doesn't really matter. Just list out the impacts that you've had. I'll say, "I'm guilty of this." Sometimes I don't realize how much the people who work for me do, right? Because I'm so busy in the day to day and the tasks that we have to do this week and this month that sometimes I forget about the last 11 months and the huge hurdles and obstacles that we overcame and the huge additions and improvements that were made to the company in those last 11 months. And when an employee comes to you and they serve you like Anita was saying on a silver platter and they say, "This is what I've done and it's not in a arrogant way. It's not in a euomy kind of way." It's in a reminder sort of way, like, "Hey, remember these amazing initiatives that we worked on?" And the amazing success that we've had. And when you give your employer that ability or your manager that ability to walk down the list and go like, "Wow, that's who this person is. They're the person who does not the three things on the job description, but they do the 20 things that we so desperately need at this company." And a lot of times that just reminds them how appreciative they should be of you. And I think we expect them to be appreciative a lot of times because we know what we're doing. And we forget that they have there 40-hour work week or more and they're very busy and it's not an excuse for them, but the fact is sometimes they forget just how appreciative they should be of you and giving them a gentle reminder of how much you do is a really positive way of showing them your impact and making them want to make sure to pay you the right amount to get that job done. So I think it can be a really positive conversation and a lot of times we look at it as a very daunting anxiety-inducing conversation, but it doesn't have to be. Yeah, 100% agree. I was always nervous before I have that conversation with my boss and then when I go to it, it's just a casual conversation and it's been pleasant all the times I've asked for a raise. And now I know going to it's not like a straight-up no. Like he's going to work with me, which is a great thing. I just want to add on, you want to be extra or add another level to salary negotiation. You can always, in addition to your tasks and what be done, you always can create a goals list for like personal for work going forward in the next six months, what you plan on doing extra. And then what I've started doing recently, I have been keeping track of any wins and compliments. So I'll screenshot like any emails or messages that I've received, thanking me, stuff like that. And you can always add those in too, but it's also nice to look at if you're having a bad day. Yeah, it's almost like a little testimonials about your work that you've gotten over time. I like that. So let's move into the next one. And this one reminds me of professional branding to an extent. And it's interview preparedness. And I think this is probably the worst one of all when it comes to being a Salesforce professional. If there is one thing that we do not do, it is continue to craft our interview readiness. And that's the things we already know and love. It's our interview stories. It's sharing, you know, those situations where there was a major struggle that we had to overcome. And the funny thing is when we work our jobs for a year, two years, three years, sometimes we forget about the biggest impacts, the biggest hurdles, the biggest wins that we've had. And those fall by the wayside and we forget to talk about them in interviews. So what advice would you have for individuals who don't really know how to keep their interview skills on point as they progress through their careers? There was first to ask for this because I have not been keeping up with it. I think part of the reason I stay and negotiate for a raise because I'm terrified of applying to other jobs and having to interview again. But one thing I do know that helped when I first started out and I should keep doing it is keep on tending different community events and networking because when you're introducing yourself to a new person or, you know, you set up these like 15-minute coffee chats with someone you're practicing, you're telling me about your speech. So that's like the main part. It's like a guaranteed question. You'll get every single time in every interview. So you get to practice that and keep that fresh and expand your network and other items. Yeah, I'll run with that and I think this is something that you and I have discussed before but it's effectively finding a way to journal your experience as you go. And it's an easy way to sort of keep up with your win so that you don't forget them and you can look back over your journal and sort of see how your experience is growing. But I would say even a monthly rewind, think about the last four weeks, what you've been up to, any certifications that you're working on, any major projects that you're working on, honestly experiences that you really didn't enjoy. Things that really brought you down and you never want to do that again and sort of understanding why projects that really brought you a lot of joy and you thought they were amazing successes and why were they amazing successes and how can you repeat those? And I think really just quantifying some of that, right? Like we saw a 20% increase in our ability to make cells or our ability to support our support team and make sure that they could close deals or close cases 30% faster. Like when you keep up with those quantifiable metrics, it makes it so easy to do something like update a resume, update your LinkedIn profile, prepare for an interview and be ready to talk about your strengths and what they really are. So I think journaling would be one, but I wanted to touch on what you said and that's just generally communication. And I had people this used to happen more. So maybe my communication skills are getting worse. But I used to have people say, "How do you just manage a talk track where you just flow over a concept?" Like someone could ask you about something on the spot and you can just flow over that talk track and you know exactly what you're going to say and it's almost like you have it prepared and you just already know. And the reason for that is because like I never shut up. So I'm constantly in social community, Salesforce community groups, sending messages. I'm constantly DMing people. I'm constantly guest speaking, doing things like going to dream events and you know, manning a booth and having to you know, stand there and talk to people endlessly at Texas Dream and doing a Q&A panel. A live Q&A, it's not a prepared presentation. It's literally people from the audience ask questions and you have to be prepared to answer. And so when you put yourself in positions to communicate a lot, that really pays off in interviews because when people ask you questions, you're well versed. You know how to say something concisely, hopefully. You know, what your opinions are on different topics. So you don't have to think about it too much. You already have your top two or three reasons why you're excited about a new pathway or a new role, why you're working on the certification, why you feel that you don't want to work and say marketing anymore and you want to focus your efforts on on sales or something like that. When you practice that communication weekend and week out and I'll say that's what you need to be doing, you become really, really well versed at having communication with other professionals. And that's really what an interview is. Yeah, 100% agree. I mean, like 10 years ago, I would never imagine myself doing a podcast like because of all the networking I've done, I've really developed my communication skills and still so much more to learn. But I mean, I was so uncomfortable. I mean, for me, when I prepped for interviews, I have like multiple page lists of common interview questions and I go in and I type out my answers in preparation because I have the memory of a goldfish. So I'm not going to remember on this spot, if they ask me, like, tell me about a time when blah, blah. So I need to like do a lot of prep work. It doesn't always come easily to me. So that's something I do. But along with the networking, it also helps when you're giving back to the community and you help others. I get a lot of people that DM me and LinkedIn, they ask for a lot of career advice and stuff like that. And I can't help myself. I got to answer every message or I don't know, it can't sleep. So I will, you know, jump on a call or just message back. But all that advice I give, it's just more practice, like talking to different people, working with different people. So again, leaning on your network and expanding your network, like that's probably the key with interviewing because you just get out of practice. It's basically practice and you get to give back. Yeah, definitely true. So let's talk a little bit about, I think sort of switching gears a little bit. You talked about giving back and I think that is a big part of how we can become better mentors and better communicators and be challenged a little bit. I think it's good to put yourself in positions where people challenge you because it can help you hone your opinions and a lot of times being open-minded to change your opinions on things. So I think those are all great things that we can do. Now one thing I notice is that professionals, especially in consulting, I've seen this or maybe I just hear about it more, work life balance, people getting into positions where when they're asked that question, how many hours a week does a Salesforce professional work, right? And they're like, well, probably a little more than 40, you know, and it's like the reality of it is is that in most positions, that's up to you. And I think a lot of times we want to blame our employers and say, I don't have a strong work life balance. I work more than 40 hours a week because my employer is so demanding or because my clients are so demanding, my job is so demanding. And I think a lot of times we can work ourselves into positions where our work life balance gets out of control. And another big influence of this is that most of these jobs, I mean, the vast majority of these jobs are work from home. And once again, we don't have those clear physical boundaries between our work and our personal. And I have this issue. I mean, I think it's funny because I have a lot of autonomy and freedom. But I'm definitely doing something that I think most people would consider work related a lot during the day. Yeah, I'm saying both like, when you ask that question, how many hours do you work a week? In my head, I'm like, wait, on work stuff or like personal development, Salesforce stuff, too, because then I'm like, Oh, wait, I might actually work more than 40 hours because I do a lot of community stuff outside. It's hard work from home. You can't like turn it off literally. I have an alarm on my phone for five o'clock every day, one to stop working, but two to set my alarms for my meetings tomorrow. But if I don't have that alarm and I don't have like my fiance, I was like, Why are you working on a Saturday? I was like, Oh, I just, I can't help it. I didn't even realize I was working it because to me, a lot of the a lot of networking stuff isn't work, but I guess it does take away from you know, home stuff. There's definitely, I think what we're talking about and what is going to be a major theme of this topic is going to be boundaries number one. And I think defining for yourself, and this takes effort, defining for yourself how you want Salesforce and your career to fit into your overall life, right? And I say that because we can talk about boundaries in a second. So I want to touch on how to define a place for your career and your life and what you're comfortable with because some people are going to be comfortable spending a hundred hours a week inside of I'll say the greater Salesforce ecosystem, whether that be events or community or artwork or working on the next certification or whatever else. And some people are going to say no way, like 40 hours a week and the rest is reserved for things that are not career oriented. And this can be a really tough line to draw especially in a community as communal as the Salesforce ecosystem. Because for me, going to a dream and event, I mean technically, I guess you could call that, you know, most of these events are two day. And that's more or less 48 hours on the clock, right? Like you are there. You are with the Salesforce community. You are being a Salesforce professional and wearing sort of your Salesforce professional hat a lot of the time. And it's hard to divide that between work and play. And I think what we see a lot especially in my life is that a lot of my relationships and my community and the people that I spend time with are Salesforce professionals. And I end up having major overlap between meetings with clients, actual work efforts to do things that are clearly work. And then things like being in a trailblazer community group and hanging out with other people and talking about, oh, you had a hard time at work today and you had this issue. Let me see if I can help you out with that. And it's really, really, really hard to draw those boundaries. But I find a lot of joy and value in my life and sort of that feeling productive in my life, spending a Saturday talking to someone and DMs about their career and how to move forward. And I think that's definitely categorized as work. But it's something I'm really comfortable with. So I think you have to define it for yourself. So I mean, I guess what's your opinion like how do you or have you to find a role for your career in your life? I think it was last year I was really aggressive with my New Year's resolution. And one of the things was like no Salesforce stuff on the weekends. But I've been getting better. Yeah, it's just it's so hard for me to separate it because a lot of my friends are in the ecosystem. And that just because like we have so much in common and just it's easy to relate to each other. And like I came up during all the lockdown years. So I only talked to people virtually. So those became like my closer friends. It's hard. You just got to like make a decision and stick with it. But I myself struggle separating it. Thank goodness. My fiancee reminds me like have you been outside today? Maybe you should go for a walk. Yeah. So it's a really good point. It's a major I don't want to say it's an issue, but it's a major topic. And I think people don't talk about it as much as they should probably talk about it. One thing I'll say is that we've been talking a lot about sort of the break point between that 40 hour a week paid W2 or you know to 99 whatever you are job. And the work we do for that. I think we can be pretty good at defining that right. We can say that stops at five o'clock. But then it's all the other things that's our next certification and everything else. So I think my advice is just do what you're comfortable with, but actually think about what you're comfortable with. What do they say? Like don't let the tail wag the dog like don't just let your day go by and just do and fall into your habits and just decide if you're burnt out when you're burnt out and let it overwhelm you to find a role for what you want your life to look like as far as your your career goes. Now boundaries with your job can be still challenging, but a little bit easier because you can teach people how to communicate with you and what your boundaries are. And that's much easier in the in the social world and the community world of Salesforce. These people aren't paying you. So you can take two days to respond or a week to respond. And that's okay because it's all just communal and a little more carefree. But when we're talking about your job and the people who are putting a paycheck into your bank account, that's a little bit different. So for you Anita, how do you define boundaries? Are you one of those people who you know takes meetings and calls at 8 p.m. and on weekends or do you have a pretty clear boundary around your paid income career? Yeah, I have a pretty clear boundary. Although recently I did take a call after work hours just because the person never called me in like two years of working with them. I'm just like oh my god, it must be a real emergency. But yeah, so when you're first starting your job or if you're starting a new company like it is a clean slate. This is the time to set boundaries. Don't answer emails or be on the work messaging app, you know, outside of business hours because then people are going to expect that if you are answering emails at like six, seven, eight o'clock at night. But from the very beginning, if you like don't answer past that time, you're training them to not expect an answer at night. If you just got a whole strong stick with it, you know, log out of your work computer at like five and then don't look at it. Just don't fall in that trap of looking at your work email late at night or even early in the morning. I know like, I don't know about you, but I wake up and I'm scrolling. I'm on LinkedIn or Instagram or whatnot. Don't look at your work emails. There's no reason to. Your work day doesn't start to like eight. So just be very mindful that you are only working certain hours. Now it depends the company you're with. Some companies, you know, and some people like to work on hours. That's totally fine. But just from my experience, I stick to business hours. So people only expect me to respond between those hours. Yeah, I think that's really fair. And I think people want to typically they think they'll get in trouble or something if they don't respond. But it's just not true. And I think those are sort of thoughts that we put into our own heads a lot of times. And if you work for an employer where you're literally going to get a slap on the wrist for not responding to something at eight o'clock, eight p.m. I should say that I would strongly advise taking us up on some of those job search strategies and negotiation skills to look for a new employer because that's not, you don't have to put up with that. On the other hand, though, you you should get your work done, right, during the work hours. And you should find it, even if you have flexibility in autonomy, like put in the time they are giving you a paycheck for an agreed upon price. But there are ways to draw those boundaries into any just point. I've seen people like joke around about how they schedule an email to go out at like seven p.m. to show that they're working all the time kind of thing. And it's like, you don't want your employer to get the perspective that you're working all the time. That's the last thing you want them to think that you're doing. You want to show them that you have boundaries. Now, I will advocate for if you happen to be on your phone and you check an email at eight p.m. And you're like, Oh, I know what to do here. I know how to fix this or whatever it is. And you want to reply to that email. Go ahead and set that to go out tomorrow at eight a.m. or eight thirty a.m. or whatever else so that you don't reply at eight p.m. tonight, even though you looked at it, make it look like you have boundaries and that you respond to it tomorrow so that they get that feel that, okay, I sent this last night and they didn't respond less night, but you know what? They got to be first thing in the morning and that's what I can expect from this person. That's going to allow you to feel more comfortable with your boundaries. And when people schedule meetings, say, Hey, that's after my work hours. That's when I'm spending time with my family. And if that causes a culture clash between you and your coworkers, then once again, I think it's time for you to start looking for a different employer where the culture is not. We work all the time. Now, again, if you're comfortable working all the time, then that's the culture for you and it's perfect. But if you're not and that makes you uncomfortable, you need to find a company that has a better culture fit for you. I also want to add one more thing. So from the employee's mind, it's like, Oh, if I answer this email after hours, it shows I'm really dedicated to the company and maybe I'll get a promotion. Maybe on your manager's mind is like, Why is this person answering these emails so late or why are they on vacation? Do they not have their stuff together? Are they struggling with the amount of work? I can't promote this person because they're taking longer than the eight-hour day to do their work. So I mean, probably not true for every manager, but at least when I was in the hospitality world, I learned that from one of the speakers that came in. It's like the people who have a lot of extra time tend to get promoted because it means that they're doing their job so well, so efficient that they need to go to the next level. Yes, spot on. And you brought up a really good point about people getting promoted and how they get those promotions. And I know you were mentioning, you know, specifically about people with more bandwidth and more freedom and more sort of opportunity to lean into those opportunities tend to get those promotions not the people who are already overwhelmed with the work that they're doing. And I'll say to like one last point on this, a lot of times your employers don't know that you're looking for more opportunity or more responsibility or advancement in your career. And I know that can sound silly, but when you're a manager and you have a staff of 10 people and a promotion opportunity opens up, the people who are going to get those promotions are the people who have communicated that they're interested in leveling up and getting those promotions. They're not typically going to go look at all 10 people and go, who deserves this? They want to see that person who has shown that they haven't interest in this because it makes it an easy choice when you have somebody sort of in your ear going, hey, if we have any opportunities to move into a role like this or like this, I'm really interested in taking on more responsibility and taking my career to the next level and serving this employer to the next level. And if you don't communicate that desire, you were going to see yourself passed up on and you're viewing it as being passed up on, but your employer is viewing it as selecting the people who are truly interested in advancing. And they think you're happy where you are. And so again, it's one of these themes that I've seen in society. We blame our employers a lot for why we end up where we are. And I'm not saying that you can always control the situation, but you can certainly influence the situation. And we just really don't do a lot. And we've talked about that. I think that became a theme of this episode of we don't tell our employers when we think we need to raise. We don't tell our employers what our boundaries are. We don't tell our employers how much we've accomplished over the last year and why we feel that that should impact our flexibility, our pay or something in between. And we don't tell them when we're interested in being promoted and advancing our careers. And if we don't communicate effectively with our employers, then you can pretty well guarantee that you're going to stagnate in your career because no one knows that you're unhappy with where you are today. You know, it is 100 percent your responsibility. You're the best advocate for yourself. So take the time and invest in yourself and focus and really try to set goals to make these things happen. And if you're listening, I just want to point out the Cat Program Career Advancement Program is only for talent-secker members. It's for anyone. So all those, any Salesforce professionals who've been working five, six years as Bradley mentioned and not making six figures, this program is for you. Like we go into what we talked about today and cover so much more in there to help you with your career. I love this topic because I'm in it and I'm always trying to figure out, okay, what's my next move? Like how do I get to the next level? This guide has everything you need templates. Like it makes it so easy to be able to drive your career. Yeah, obviously I'm biased and I would completely agree. If you're looking around and you're seeing post from talent-secker alumni about how amazing their careers are and how they're leveling up and how they're moving into promotions. And I mean, we have talent-seckers who are in their jobs for less than a year and they're already promoted into senior level positions. We have people less than two years into their careers moving into director and senior level roles constantly and making well over $100,000 and alumni moving into independent consulting positions and starting their own consultancies and things of this nature. And if you're looking around and you're going, ah, that all sounds like, how is that real? Like how is that possible? And the possibility is because there's guidance and there's nurturing and there is an ability to get direction on how to level up your career. And there is a clear path. It's not rocket science. It's time consistency and putting energy and effort into the right things. And if you're listening to the show and you're getting value and you enjoy what you're hearing, please share it with your friends and your colleagues and other people in the Salesforce ecosystem. And whatever platform you're listening on, if you don't mind, just go ahead and click subscribe and leave us a review. We do prefer five star reviews. If you have any of those available, we would really appreciate it. And until next week's episode, where we will be talking about breaking into Salesforce and insider's guide for non-profit professionals. And you don't want to miss it. It's going to be a really good episode. We have some guests coming on and oh, it cannot wait for you guys to hear it. So until next week. Bye. Thank you for joining us today. To get started for free on your own Salesforce career, go to talentsbacker.com/start or check the show notes. There you'll find all the resources you need to start earning 60 to 80,000 in as little as eight months, no matter your education or career background. The Salesforce for everyone podcast was produced by Ed Minti and engineered by Andrew Midanza. If you like what we do at this scrappy candy podcast, please help others find us by leaving a five star rating and a great review on whichever platform you're listening to us right now. See you next time.