Women’s History Month Spotlight Series: Rachel Rogers

Rachel Rogers is the Managing Director, Salesforce Center of Excellence - Innovation for Anthem. Here, Rachel is focused on delivering innovation to Anthem’s Members, Anthem Associates, and Anthem Salesforce Center of Excellence. Rachel comes from a background of over 15 years in the Salesforce Community and has a passion for helping organizations leverage technology, training and compensation design to enhance their business processes. We were lucky enough to connect with Rachel briefly over her time in the Salesforce Community, and as a female leader:

Can you tell me a bit about what you do in the Salesforce Community and what your role is?

○      I started my journey with the Salesforce community over 15 years ago. Throughout that time I have led user groups, hosted community charity programs, worked on local salary studies, mentored, taught classes and led Dreamin' Events. In 2019 I had the honor of being inducted into the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. My role has shifted more into an advisor capacity by helping those who need career jump starts, product advice, or introductions to others in the local community.   

As a female leader, what has been the most significant barrier in your career?

○      In the beginning I struggled with "being heard". It was not because I didn't have anything to say or that my content wasn't valuable. My workplace was a male dominated company and they wanted to speak to the other more "experienced" males at the table. I spent a lot of time investing in myself with presentation skill classes. Learning how to speak up, how impact statements can be leveraged, and how to speak in a different tone. You will even hear my team today say that I have a "presentation voice" in certain group settings. That time and investment in myself is the biggest contributing factor to my movement upward. You have to be able to speak to people where they are, get their buy in, and then you can move forward.  

Who inspires/inspired you and why?

○      Inspiration comes in many forms and for me it comes down to my mom and my daughter. They are very much the opposites of each other. My mom is a second grade teacher who has spent her life working on elementary education and helping in those foundational years. My daughter is a driving force with her own unique style. She believes that she can take on the world at the age of 9. Like my mom, I will continue educating and lifting others, so that this Salesforce community becomes a place where with a little hard work you can truly make your passion a career. Then I want to be fearless like my 9 year old. Looking at the glass ceilings and breaking them down one by one, so that every woman has the opportunity to take her career however high she chooses.    

What are some of the characteristics of a good leader?

○      Recognizing that we are all human is where things start for me. There will always be figures, statistics and reasons why we can/can't do something, but we have to remember that everyone has a different perspective. That in order to represent everyone we service, we have to be open and compassionate. If you need help, it should be offered and you shouldn't feel guilty for asking for it. If we partner together, we can make a much larger difference than if a single person tries to drive the ship alone.  

What advice would you give to the next generation of female leaders?

○      The workplace has plenty of pressures in it, so try not to add more to yourself. There will be times when you have to prioritize yourself or your family and that is ok. I remember when I was on maternity leave with my daughter. The manager position I had been working so hard on became available and was filled before I got back from maternity leave. I wasn't even given the option to apply. I remember thinking that I was being punished and that I shouldn't have taken so much time with my newborn. I channeled that energy into finding a new job. The new job was way more than what I would have gotten with that other manager role and it set myself on a new career trajectory. I don't regret the decision to take the time with my daughter and my career path is exactly where it needs to be as a result. 

What is your proudest accomplishment?

○      Professionally being put into the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. I had spent years working on my knowledge and helping shape products. It was great to be put with so many other respective community pillars into that lifetime accomplishment. It also pushed me to think bigger. How can we make larger impacts in our respective roles in our organization and in the community at large.   

Where will we find you on a Saturday morning at 10 a.m.?

○      At home with my family. We love refinishing furniture and cooking out. My daughter gets hands on with the power tools so that she can continue in her fearless independent nature.   

Why Are Salesforce Professionals so Hard to Find?

Salesforce is such an incredible platform that it can be vital to multiple, critical parts of a business. With an increasingly large variety of uses, varying team sizes and responsibilities, to name a few, there are many different types of experiences. It’s challenging to base a good technical fit based solely on years of experience. What do you have to lose by choosing the wrong recruiting partner? The short answer, everything. The long answer:

Both finding and getting in contact with a candidate who is a strong all-around fit for the team is challenging and time-consuming if you’re not sure how to assess their relevant skillset. With a competitive market and a high volume of applicants, too much time waiting for the right candidate can cost the business money and increase stress on the team. 

Finding a long-term fit can be equally as challenging. Delays caused by turnover and onboarding can frustrate the entire team. Even finding the wrong fit could be problematic if they aren’t using best practices and are creating bandaid solutions over the real systematic issue. 

It’s been incredible seeing the Salesforce ecosystem grow and the new ways their products inform and empower businesses to improve and scale. Specializing in Salesforce recruitment exclusively, we dig deeper into the capabilities and best practices of the different areas of the platform. We screen candidates not just on technical experience, but on overall and long term fit, focused also on the impact they’ve made on their organizations. As the ecosystem grows, we’re excited about the expanding network of strong relationships and the long term placements we’ve made.

We look forward to continuing to empower businesses by connecting them with contract and permanent Salesforce professionals.

Struggling to Stay Productive While Working from Home this Year? Here are 5 Hireforce Approved Strategies to Help Maximize your Productivity in 2021

By Keri Ferrari

As we shift deeper into 2021, we are all wondering what the rest of the year will bring and how we should prepare so we can make the most of it. Here are some tried and true daily practices and routines that members of the Hireforce team have implemented to increase productivity and positivity in our professional lives.

Get Ready for Your Work Day

The mere act of changing out of pajamas and sweatpants and into ‘real’ clothes should help signal you to wake up and get work done.

Getting dressed includes all the appearance-based tasks — taking a shower, styling your hair, and perhaps putting on some makeup. These factors will make you look presentable and help you take your day (and life!) more seriously.

Besides, you never know when you will need to hop on a video call, or have someone pop by unexpectedly, so freshen up, get dressed, and do your hair!

Make the Most of Your Home Office

What is the best thing about working from home? We think it’s the level of comfort provided. However, that comfort can come at the cost of lost productivity, focus, and achieving goals. So here are some tips for making the most of your home office:

●      Invest in a comfortable chair -- You’ll spend nearly half of your day on it, so investing in one you love should make a notable difference in your work life

●      Set up in a corner of your room with good natural light, if possible

●      A dedicated work environment, be that the kitchen table, a corner of your bedroom, whatever it may be, will enable you to keep yourself oriented to your work by providing an office-like environment.

Maintain Consistent Working Hours

How often do you lose track of time while working from home?

While working from home provides us with the freedom to start our day anytime, you’ll still want to maintain regular office hours if you want to maximize productivity.

Working for a set period of time every day helps give your day structure and routine. You automatically shift into “work mode” when you’re within your set working hours.

Besides improving productivity, it’s good for your work-life balance. Being able to “leave” after your set working hours will help you relax. This also means that you can more easily make time to spend with your friends, family, or a favorite hobby.

Create Healthy Habits: Exercise your Body and Mind Daily

●      Eat clean and energizing foods to help fuel your day and drink lots of water.

●      Break up your day with exercise – a few short walks outside should help to put you in a positive headspace. Yoga or light stretching will help with blood flow to the brain and muscle aches.

●      Try your best to maintain a proper sleep schedule.

●      Start a meditation practice. Meditation strengthens focus, improves self-awareness, and reduces stress levels. A program I have recently completed is called Ziva Meditation and has made an enormous difference in the amount of work I’m about to complete during the day.

○      To learn more, check it out here: https://zivameditation.com/

Tada! Now you can kickstart your day with a clear mind.

Prepare a To-do list/Planner In Advance of Your Day

I live by my calendar and to-do list and recommend optimizing yours to get the most out of your day, week, and year!

Creating a to-do list allows you to keep track of your progress efficiently and helps you organize your day. Bonus points if you can set up your to-do list the day before.

You can design the list as per your preference with critical tasks to be treated as the highest priority and earliest in the day.

While you construct your list, think about long-term goals and projects, as well as short-term goals which are the tasks adding up to achieving your ultimate ‘big’ goal. As you are completing one goal after another, check them off the list highlighting the progress you’ve made against those actions and celebrating your wins, big and little.

A planner or a calendar is a great accountability tool to keep track of meetings, deadlines, and appointments. This way, you do not have to devote headspace to constantly remembering all the tiny details that go on in your daily life, inside and outside of work.

Whether they’re professional or personal tasks, a to-do list and a planner are essential for positive reinforcement.

Remote work demands you to hold yourself accountable for every task on your plate, and prioritizing and scheduling your work can give you the best results and peace of mind.

Celebrating Black History Month

According to Google Trends data, there has been a greater increase in U.S. searches for Black-owned businesses, artists, and leaders than ever before. Historically, Black Americans have inspired change and pushed society forward. The racial disparity in tech is staggering -- a reported 67% of tech companies are made up of less than 5% of Black employees and Black women make up less than 0.5% of leadership roles in tech. Trailblazers in the industry have founded organizations that are working to increase representation in the Black community. Their visions and missions highlighted below:

Coding Programs

○      Black Girls Code

• Our Vision: To increase the number of women of color in the digital space by empowering girls of color ages 7 to 17 to become innovators in STEM fields, leaders in their communities, and builders of their own futures through exposure to computer science and technology. To provide African-American youth with the skills to occupy some of the 1.4 million computing job openings expected to be available in the U.S. by 2020, and to train 1 million girls by 2040.

○      Code 2040

• Our vision is the equitable distribution of power in an economy shaped by the digital revolution.

○      Ada Developer Academy

• Ada Developers Academy is a non-profit, tuition-free coding school for women and gender diverse adults. We focus on serving low income people, underrepresented minorities, and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

○      Opportunity Hub

• The Federal Reserve Bank, OHUB delivers early exposure, skills development, job placement, entrepreneurship support programming, net new job creation and alternative capital formation via geographically placed technology hubs, citywide communities, campus chapters, managed programs and live experiences and technology that include thousands of college students, young professionals, founders, investors and ecosystem builders throughout America and beyond.

Education/Career Advancement

○      National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering

• NACME partners with like-minded entities to provide scholarships, resources, and opportunities for high-achieving, underrepresented minority college students pursuing careers in engineering and computer science. By supporting their academic endeavors and professional development, NACME produces well-qualified candidates that meet today's urgent hiring demands for more diverse STEM talent.

○      Blacks in Technology

• Blacks In Technology is a tech focused community and media organization that is dedicated to increasing the representation and participation of Black people in the technology industry.

○      National Society of Black Engineers

• The mission of the National Society of Black Engineers is "to increase the number of culturally responsible Black Engineers who excel academically, succeed professionally and positively impact the community."

○      BDPA

• BPDA has enabled the upward mobility of African Americans and other minorities in the Information Technology (IT) and STEM fields

○      Information Technology Senior Management Forum

• By 2020, ITSMF will graduate 500 professionals through a series of rich, developmental, and career-advancing programs, and do so by being a second family to its members and partners.

Entrepreneurship

○      Digital Undivided

• To use innovation to create system change by catalyzing economic growth for Black and Latinx communities through women entrepreneurs.

○      Black and Brown Founders

• Black & Brown Founders gives entrepreneurs knowledge, tools and cutting-edge tactics to launch startups without relying on venture capital.

While the diversity gap is no doubt a major concern in tech, the positive is that people are more aware than ever before that this diversity gap in tech is a real problem. Ultimately, the US education system and businesses will transform, nonprofits will expand, and more Black employees will find, and stay in, careers in computing-related tasks.

Diverse teams are, and always will be, the only way companies will keep up with the changing demands of a world.

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: A Deeper Dive with Corrina Cohen

Salesforce Marketing Cloud: A Deeper Dive

As we entered the New Year, there were a few trends we saw a rise in demand for skilled contract and full time resources in. One of the biggest areas of demand was functional and technical Marketing Cloud resources. We connected with Corrina Cohen, an award-winning, conference presenting, 2020 Marketing Champion, 2x Salesforce Certified Marketing Cloud Developer, to dive deeper into what Marketing Cloud is and why it’s picking up speed.

Q: What is Marketing Cloud?

A: A digital communications automation tool empowering marketing to create unique customer experiences via email, SMS, social, and more. Marketing Cloud helps you contact the right person, at the right time, with the right message to increase sales and improve the customer experience.

Q: Who uses Marketing Cloud?

A: Developers - integrations and automations

     Data Scientists, Analysts – tracking, reporting, and forecasting

     Marketing Consultants – anything from strategy to customer development

     Email Specialists, Marketing Managers – marketing communications

Q: Who does Marketing Cloud benefit in the company?

A: Marketing Cloud benefits the entire company. The CRM team’s work shines when great data can be fed into SFMC for hyper personalized experiences, the web team benefits when the customer gets excited about a product in an email and converts to a buyer (even more so when they become a repeat purchaser. When sales grow from great customer experiences; the company leadership takes notice and invests more into future innovations.

Q: What channels can be used to reach customers with Marketing Cloud?

A: Email, social, SMS, Push via app

Q: What trends are you seeing specifically in Marketing Cloud?

A: Predictive intelligence in the form of product recommendations, content recommendations, send time recommendations, and engagement predictions.

Q: What 3rd party applications and integrations are you regularly utilizing?

A: Adobe/Omniture Analytics, Qualtrics Surveys, BazaarVoice reviews

Q: What is your favorite feature in Marketing Cloud to help users?

A: My favorite feature is the Einstein suite. With these products you can use customer engagement for recommendations on content, send times, products, and more. With the new metrics available you can quickly see how your messages are performing against each other for a true view of what is resonating with your customers.

Q: What makes Marketing Cloud different from other clouds?

A: The platform is highly adaptable. An entry level email specialist can be trained in a few hours to build and send a simple email for a company while more experienced developers can create entire multichannel customer experiences on the same platform.

Q: When screening for a strong Marketing Cloud candidate, what are some of the “must knows” for someone who claims to be an expert in their respective cloud?

A:

●      SOQL queries for data retrieval and testing

●      Knowledge of SOAP and REST data transmission protocols, not write but understand the concepts

●      Common AMPscript solutions and examples where used

●      Journey Builder and Automation Studio use cases

●      Know the SFMC studios and what each one is used for

●      Know what it takes to develop engaging templates including animations, media queries for responsiveness, and complex dynamic content that meet Pixel Perfect rendering standards

●      Understand HTML, CSS, JavaScript at a minimum

●      Understand deliverability best practices and steps you can take to troubleshoot

●      Should be able to explain data security, management, hygiene, and transmission of personally identifiable information relating to subscribers

A massive thank you for Corrina for the time and sharing your insight into Marketing Cloud! Want to hear more from Corrina? Check out her feature on The Marketing Cloudcast here!

All in all, Salesforce has been busy rolling out new features to allow customers to gain a larger audience in this online world such as:

●      Personalizing the Journey: Leveraging both your data and artificial intelligence to create highly personalized integrations, as well as respond to demand with unique marketing experiences.

●      Cross-Channel Data: Allows you to get to know your customers by collecting insights from multiple sources throughout the buyer journey by capturing first, second, and third-party insights for better growth.

●      Analytics: The ability to measure how effective your marketing campaigns are with in-depth analytics designed to help you understand the ROI of your channels.

○      We’ll dive deeper into Analytics in an upcoming post.

For those looking to get more experience with Marketing Cloud, try out this introductory Trailhead: https://trailhead.salesforce.com/en/content/learn/trails/personalize_customer_journeys_marketing_cloud.

For those with Marketing Cloud projects in your pipeline, how can Hireforce help?