Salesforce Trailblazers We Love: David Mitchell
The Salesforce Ohana is truly something special, isn’t it? Join us as we introduce you to some of our favorite trailblazers. Today we introduce intensely intelligent, well-rounded, and friendly fellow David Mitchell, who shares how he got his start in the Salesforce ecosystem, his favorite Salesforce resources, the best-kept Salesforce secret, his Salesforce prediction, and more! He recommends you visit Apex Hours: https://www.apexhours.com/
Visit David here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-mit…
…and while you’re here: if you’re having Salesforce user adoption challenges, we have a brand new guide that takes you step by step through the principles of teaching adults technology, and drives you to develop a plan for implementation. It’s got room for you to make your own plan – check it out: https://cloudadoption.solutions/teach…
Contact us with your Salesforce challenges at info@cloudadoption.solutions – we love to help!
Cloud Adoption Solutions is a 100% woman-owned registered Salesforce partner, specializing in implementation, integration, and optimization for Technology, Healthcare/ Life Sciences, and Financial Services/ Professional Services organizations in the small and mid-commercial sectors.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
SPEAKERS
David Mitchell, Andrew Duncan
Andrew: Hello, everybody, thank you so much for being here we have another incredible installment of Trailblazers we love. My name is Andrew Duncan with cloud adoption solutions. And today we have David Mitchell with us, David, thank you so much for being here.
David: I’m glad to be here. Thanks for I’m glad I was able to come on this show today. This is great. Yeah,
Andrew: thank you so much. And we’re so excited. I know, you’ve already met with Shannon, the owner of cloud adoption solutions, and we just were so excited by your story, and who you are and the work that you’re doing. So we just knew we had to talk to you. So tell us really quickly, just to start things off how you got started in Salesforce ecosystem? What was your beginning of your journey?
David” Absolutely. So about five plus years ago, I joined a nonprofit organization called Computer Reach. So that’s they do digital equity work through, you know, refurbished devices from corporations and organizations and whatnot, along with digital literacy, as well as internet access. So what I do, what I did was, I realized that we didn’t really have an adenoma team for our MPSP platform. And that really, that really made it made it difficult, right? Yeah, we had to be a power user and me just kind of being the type of person who likes to deep dive into things. You know, I went from, you know, user and a power user to, you know, accidental admin. Yeah, that’s kind of where I ended up. Now, having done a few projects, whatnot, to increase user adoption, and just make and use the declarative tools that Salesforce has to make things more efficient. But yeah, that’s kind of how I got into it. So short, long story, short, accidental admin, just like a bunch of people. Yeah,
Andrew: that’s, that’s our favorite story to hear. And we love people who just raise their hand and say, like, yeah, like, let me take it on. It’s so much initiative, and it shows so much heart. So it’s one of our favorite types of stories. As someone who like journeyed into Salesforce as an accidental admin, what’s been a favorite resource of you like, is there somewhere that you went, when you were like learning and starting out, they were like, this is a really good place to be?
David: Yeah, so obviously, there’s trailhead, but a YouTube channel that I don’t hear talked about a lot is this YouTube channel called Apex hours, I’m not sure if you’re familiar. But basically, they host seminars and go over important Salesforce topics. So you know, when I was studying for my admin certification, they had a whole course load about the specific admin test and all the things you need to know for it, and a little bit of information about it. And it’s, you know, in a really nice environment where they have q&a. And you know, the facilitators are really awesome. And yeah, I love Apex hours, I usually, the way I study is I take information in different forms. So first of all, you know, listen to a video, and then I’ll do trailhead, and then I’ll do focus on forest or something like that. And just kind of keep it until I solidify the information.
Andrew: Yeah, that sounds great. And we’ll add a link to that channel, in the space below to make sure that people have access to it. But we have not heard that yet. So that’s really exciting. Hopefully, that’s a great resource for people. So as someone who is like, in charge of, you know, your nonprofit, Salesforce, and you know, you’re trying to increase adoption, you’re trying to make your org better. What is a Salesforce secret that like you think like, hey, like people should be like, using this product more, or should be like really deep diving into this part of Salesforce?
David: Sure. So this is a, you know, integration AppExchange thing. And I don’t know, I don’t know whether or not this is kind of a secret or anything like that. But DL DL RS declarative lookup roll up summary, I’m a big fan of that allows you to bypass the restriction on doing roll ups on master detail records. So you can do roll ups between any, you know, opportunities, and is amazing. It is awesome. Made reporting so much easier for you know, C suite and whatnot, when they want to see, you know, just the top down numbers, it just makes it amazing.
Andrew: Yeah. And so far with all the people that we’ve interviewed, that’s the first time that someone has mentioned that. So that is I feel like maybe a Salesforce secret. So hopefully, we’ll add another link in the bio so people can see that. And hopefully, people can go and check that out. And like maybe it’s useful for them as well. It’d be great. And then for for someone who’s like plugged in, I know, you go to like the user group meetings, and you’re very active on trailhead, and you know, you’re plugged into the Salesforce ecosystem. Do you have a Salesforce prediction? Like do you have anything that you’re just like, I really feel like Salesforce is headed in this direction.
David: Yeah. So one of the things I read on LinkedIn was just how there’s been a bit of an inflation on, you know, sort of certificates. And so I’m kind of wondering what I think is going to be a prediction is on wondering what other tactics employers are going to start using to vet potential candidates. Yeah. And I personally think that that betting is all going to be done network base, just because it has so many tools with which to engage in the community, basically, is going to be a type of deal. If you don’t, if you haven’t shown your face in the sales community, you’re probably not going to get hired anywhere. You know, that’s kind of my prediction. And I, I think that’s awesome. I think it’s good that for candidates and people who are interested in Salesforce, to be showing their face in the community and show that they’re dedicated to learning.
Andrew: Yeah, that’s actually a really interesting, really interesting insight and would be, yeah, really interesting to see in the future, if that becomes true, and like people really do have to start, like showing up you know, more and engaging more in the community to put themselves ahead of everybody who seems to have the certification. Let’s that’s definitely interesting. Um, so like, away from Salesforce. Now, I’m sure you have hobbies outside of Salesforce. You know, give us a recommendation, like what are you into lately? Is there like a book you’re reading? Like, you know, what, what are you like, into right now?
David: Sure. So, you know, those kind of, you know, called movies on kind of military. So, not that but there’s specifically a podcast called Sounds Like a Cult, ran by a woman named Amanda Montel, she basically goes into deep dives into social phenomenon that resemble cults, you know, so and she kind of makes comparisons between the social phenomenon, the social groups, and you know, call tech typical cult tactics. Sure. You know, I don’t know if that’s a weird thing or not to like, but no, no, it’s very interesting. Yeah. I love it’s kind of like a so from a sociology, sociology perspective, looking at how the social phenomenon are similar to cults in some ways, you know that? Yeah. Like Apple, Disney, you know, things like, yeah, that. No, I mean, Apple was literally marketed themselves as kind of a cult in the first place. Right? Yeah. So I think I think that’s really interesting.
Andrew: Yeah, especially like being in the tech sector. I think we know, we can see like, the way that leaders, especially CEOs, not to name any names out there, but they definitely seem to get these like portfolios, they really do. So that’s a really, really interesting thing. I’ll have to check that out. It sounds really interesting. Because yeah, the world is very interesting around us. And definitely there is some cultish behavior, outside of cults in America, definitely. And around the world, probably. So check that out. We’ll put a link to that as well. So people can check it out. Give it a listen to maybe learn something super crazy. That’s new to them. Well, David, thank you so much for being here. I really, really appreciate it. It’s been really nice talking to you. And I’m excited to hopefully see you again very soon. But you have a wonderful day to our viewers. Thank you so much for watching. Once again, my name is Eric Duncan. I’m with cloud adoption solutions and 100% women owned Salesforce partner. So if you want to reach out to us with Salesforce questions, we’re super happy to meet with you. But thank you once again, David and everybody catch you on the next one.
David: Yeah, it was awesome to be here and thanks for taking the time to interview me today.
Andrew: Yeah, absolutely. No problem and everybody see you later.
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