Dreamforce 2019 - Salesforce Announces Customer 360 Truth, Amplifying Customer's Data

Dreamforce 2019 Key Takeaways

Just before the Holiday season kicked off, Salesforce held its annual conference, Dreamforce. Dreamforce, held in San Francisco, CA, is the world's largest software conference with more than 171,000 registered attendees and 13 million online viewers. With Salesforce’s statement at the end of October of a projected 4.2 million new jobs and $1.2 trillion in new business revenues worldwide between 2019 and 2024, there was much anticipation at this year’s Dreamforce.

With our team on the ground attending sessions, meeting with candidates and connecting with clients, a few common themes continued to come up in conversation: 

●      Customer 360 Truth - the major product announcement at Dreamforce, which connects data across sales, service, marketing, commerce and more to create a single, universal Salesforce ID for each customer. Customer 360 Truth is a new set of capabilities that allow companies to connect, authenticate, and govern customer data and identity across Salesforce Now, with a complete view and deeper understanding of every customer, companies can deliver more personalized customer experiences. 

●      Education - with the introduction of Trailhead GO, the Mobile App for Trailhead, just before Dreamforce, the topic of education was a major theme. By 2022, more than 120 million workers worldwide need to reskill just to keep pace with automation and AI, and Trailhead’s mission is to democratize education and make learning accessible to all is at the forefront of the push for further education. While Trailhead is nothing new to the Salesforce Ecosystem, the introduction of Trailhead Go allows Trailblazers to skill up on the go with over 700 modules covering business, technical and soft skills that unlock a world of career opportunities both within the Salesforce ecosystem and beyond.

●      Einstein and AI - with nearly half of U.S. households are already using a voice-activated device for everyday activities, Salesforce decided to throw their hat in the ring with Einstein Voice.

○      Einstein Voice Skills will empower administrators and developers to build custom, voice-powered Salesforce apps tailored to any role or industry, giving every employee a personalized CRM guide.

○      Service Cloud Voice integrates telephony into a unified agent console, enabling Einstein to offer recommendations and the next best actions in real-time to improve service experiences.

○      Einstein Call Coaching helps managers spot trends within conversational data and provide sales reps with the best practices and insights needed to optimize every customer call.

Of all the buzzing topics and recurring themes popping up throughout Dreamforce 2019, one final comment seemed to stick with the entire team at Hireforce, as well as across the Salesforce ecosystem; the words of President Barack Obama in the fireside chat with Salesforce CEO, Marc Benioff.

“be kind, be useful.”

As we kick off the holiday season and wrap up 2019, keep this sentiment in mind. We can’t wait for Dreamforce 2020 and are looking forward to the continued growth in the ecosystem in the coming years!

The Most Overlooked Salesforce Skills - Take Your Career to the Next Level

There's no denying hard skills are important on the technical side of Salesforce; whether you're a Developer, Technical Architect, in a hybrid role, or aspiring to become one of the aforementioned. What is often overlooked, and arguably one of the most important skills to have, is soft skills.

In a recent Developers Group Meet Up we attended, James Hou spoke on the importance of soft skills, how to develop them, and how to put them into action. The key takeaways from James' presentation are the following:

• Active Translation: Being able to turn techno-babble into layman's terms while still making your point or collecting information. Business stakeholders will like working with you, which is pretty important.

• Listen: Listen, acknowledge, and even if you disagree, you’re looking for what they need (even if they don’t know yet).

• Document: Visual representation (spreadsheets, sticky notes, JIRA etc.) of your workload helps stakeholders understand bandwidth, and thus priority. If you don’t have a backlog, start it now.

• Keep Conversations Focused: When topics begin to go off topic, gentle reminders about what the current goal / action item at hand goes a long way to help sync everyone partaking

• See the XY Problem: We all get caught up in solutioning. Sometimes we have to ask ourselves: “What is the original problem we’re trying to solve”?

Soft skills are not something you develop overnight; it's something you have to practice and continuously work on to be comfortable with and be successful at. Soft skills aren't "soft" - work at it and start now!

Above all, remember that it's okay to fail. Keep moving forward. Own your mistakes and you will earn trust and transparency from stakeholders.

Want to see some of James' most recent developments? Check them out here: https://github.com/tsalb

For more User Group Events like this, check out your local meetings here: https://trailblazercommunitygroups.com/

Remember to follow us on Twitter @HireforceTeam to see what events we're sponsoring, additional content and the occasional pup-date!

Boost Your Salesforce Adoption with Spekit

Looking for a better approach to tracking changes and creating trainings across your organization’s many applications? Check out Spekit, the digital adoption platform geared toward allowing teams to automatically track key processes, maintain up-to-date training and establish a consistent learning experience across all applications.

The Hireforce team met Spekit co-founders, Melanie and Zari, at Dreamforce ‘18 and were blown away by their energy and drive to create an optimal experience for Salesforce users. A big congrats from the Hireforce team to Spekit on their recent seed round funding and WIT Diversity Scholarship! We’re looking forward to the positive impacts Spekit will bring to the Salesforce ecosystem. 

Follow @spekitapp and @hireforceteam on Twitter to find out about upcoming events and Dreamforce ‘19 sessions!

WITness Success 2019

Hireforce recently sponsored WITness Success for the 2nd year in a row. WITness provides the Salesforce Ohana with a place to network, learn, and make long term connections in the Salesforce ecosystem.

Sheridan Ex, Salesforce Recruiter @ Hireforce

Here’s what Sheridan had to say about the amazing weekend:

“The conference provides an environment that fosters intimate conversation, giving Ohana members of all backgrounds the opportunity to benefit and grow. Hireforce values the opportunity to be involved in promoting Women in Tech and providing resources to continuously support women. Being in this environment was inspiring and empowering.”

We appreciate the opportunity to discuss the demand for Salesforce talent amongst hiring managers and Salesforce professionals. Find us this year at Dreamforce and next year at WITness in Minneapolis!

TrailheadDX 2019 Global Gathering & Career Panel - Oakland

Oakland, CA Administrators Group >>> June 18, 2019, 5:30pm

Register here!

We love giving back to the Salesforce community, providing insight on the talent market, and helping individuals navigate their respective career changes. Hireforce’s CEO, Rachel Saks, and Principal Consultant, Tom Howe, will be sharing tips and tricks specific to the recruiting process in the Salesforce ecosystem. Join us to hear about how Salesforce experts in our network are securing positions that fit their professional and personal goals.