The Value of Rediscovering Your Future
Meet Marquita Sidibe—a true Trailblazer, she changed careers after a decade in the service industry with help from the Salesforce Pathfinder Program.
(upbeat music)
- Welcome to Inside the Oana.
I'm Dan Darcy, Chief Customer Officer at Qualified.
And today I'm joined by Marklita Sidubay.
Marklita, how are you?
- Doing well today Dan, thanks for having me.
- Yo, thanks for coming on.
So I wanna dive right into our first segment,
Oana Origins.
How did you discover Salesforce
and start your trailblazer journey?
- You know, I initially was not familiar with Salesforce.
I had always been in the customer service industry,
serving bartending in a country club actually.
And where the most technical thing we did
was to enter orders into a point of sale system
on a touch screen.
So did not have a technical background at all.
But wanted to do something different.
And so decided to go back to school
and went for software development.
After graduating, I had this new credential
but really wasn't sure where my place was in tech.
So I knew that Salesforce was in town.
They were occupying the biggest building
we had here in downtown Indianapolis.
So I just googled how to learn Salesforce.
And from there, I found the results
of a Women in Tech community group.
And that's how I got my first start
joining this group and getting set up on Trailhead
to build my first Salesforce app.
And I was hooked.
- I mean, so tell me first about, you know,
joining that Women in Tech community group,
like how was it walking into that room
and first getting to know Salesforce?
It's awesome that you built an app
and you and I were chatting just a little bit earlier.
I built my first app too
and that's how I got to know Salesforce.
So tell me a little bit about that, you know,
that newness and that discovery
of walking into that community group.
- Well, you know, at first I was a little apprehensive
like going in, I'm like, oh gosh, I have no idea.
About any of this, but I mean, I'm here to learn.
And but that apprehensiveness and nervousness quickly
went away like as soon as I got in the room,
everybody was very welcoming.
You know, and the volunteers were super helpful.
Got all of us set up on Trailhead
with our new accounts and walked us through the steps.
And by the end of it, we had built an app
and I'm thinking to myself, wow, this is amazing.
Like all these people just rallying around
to help everybody learn this new tool, this new technology.
And, you know, it was just intriguing to me
and I said, okay, I want to be a part of this.
So I kept going back whenever they had, you know,
sessions to build a new app or some cool badge came out,
but I stayed a part of the community.
That's awesome. And how did you find a job
that came about working with Salesforce?
Ah, so it's one of those full circle moments.
I always like refer to her as my Salesforce Yoda.
Her name's Lissa Smith.
But yeah, she was a community group later at the time.
Because when I had went to that meeting that night,
I almost skipped it because I also had been looking
for a job for a while.
You know, I was in the Pathfinder program
and graduated from that and became certified.
And, you know, still hadn't found anything,
but she was a panelist in that user group meeting that night
and said that Liberty was hiring
and encouraged people to apply.
So I did.
- Incredible.
So give me the details.
What was your first job and, you know, what, you know,
what was your title and your initial impression as you,
you know, took this on?
- So after getting hired on at Liberty,
like my official title was a Salesforce business analyst.
And that position at Liberty entails like being an admin
as well as a business analyst.
So, you know, you do your requirements gathering,
but you also get to build configuratively
with clicks not code, which I love
'cause I love to have my hands in the stuff.
But yeah, it was at first kind of scary
'cause it was new and, you know,
I was brand new to the ecosystem with my first official job
outside of just building on trailheads.
So the training wheels had come off a little frightening
to be in a large organization with a real org,
real people, real data, but my team super supportive
and I've learned a lot from them along the way.
And now I'm a senior system support analyst with Liberty
and just celebrated my three year anniversary
on the fifth last week.
- I mean, well, congratulations on three years.
That's awesome. - New year.
- Well, I mean, so you've been a trailblazer now
for a little over three years.
You know, I would love for you to brag just a little bit.
I mean, what would you say as one of your biggest successes
that you've had so far, you know,
working with Salesforce or just something
you're most proud of thus far?
- I would say, I just will never, ever forget
when I first graduated from, there's a few things.
The first graduated from Pathfinder,
getting my certification and just getting that call
from Liberty with the offer
and knowing that everything I did, it's paying off.
Like, I'm actually going to have a real job
in the ecosystem and oh, definitely the Golden Hoodie moment.
When Leah gave me that Golden Hoodie,
like I just remember, you know,
streaming, watching Dreamforce from a screen
and then here I was at Dreamforce,
getting the hoodie from the lady herself, like that.
- It still blows my mind.
- I mean, that gives me chills because I was there
on Howard Street that day, you know,
when they closed off Howard Street
and it was only like, I think 500, you know,
trailblazers in the audience
and it was a very, very special moment.
So that's awesome.
So on the opposite side of the spectrum though,
what would you say as your biggest lesson learned?
- Oh, that's a good one.
You know, when we've been in this space for a while,
it's sometimes easy to forget
that not everyone knows Salesforce.
I remember being at Dreamforce last year
and my husband and I were on the elevator at the hotel
and someone that actually lived there worked at the hotel.
So lived in San Francisco, you know,
ground zero Salesforce headquarters.
But she says to us, I see that Salesforce logo all the time.
What is it?
And it just like kind of set me back to where,
oh, this tool that we are just so invested in
and we eat, sleep and breathe,
there's people out there that don't know about that.
And so I would say one of my biggest challenges would be
when I'm trying to help users in our organization,
just trying to remember not everyone knows Salesforce,
not everyone knows what it is.
Once they do, they'll realize how great it is.
But I just have to keep my,
like that beginner's mindset.
Think back to how it was when I was first introduced
to the tool instead of just jumping right in to say,
oh, you can do this and this and this and click here.
Like I have to dial it back a notch
and kind of give them, you know,
info, micro-dose then with info.
Baby steps, because it can be overwhelming
when you're brand new.
But yeah, once I have that beginner's mindset,
it helps me help them.
- If you could go back to Mark Lita just starting out,
what advice would you give yourself?
- Ah, I would tell myself that you do not
have to know how to code to have a job in technology.
I think one of the biggest misconceptions
about working in the tech space is that you have to know
how to code, you have to sit down and write code.
And that's not true.
Yeah, so that's what I would tell myself.
And I think that believing that sometimes keeps people away.
I know when I've tried to tell close friends and family
that aren't in our space, hey, Salesforce, they're like,
oh, I'm not technical, I don't know how to code.
And then I'm like, hard stop, neither do I.
So yeah, that's what I would tell myself
that you don't have to code to be in tech.
- Awesome.
So I wanna ask you about the meaning of Ohana.
And I asked this of all of my guests because really people
describe it a little bit differently based on where
they're coming from.
But how would you describe the Ohana and what does it mean
to you?
- So Ohana and the Trailblazer community,
well, Ohana literally means family,
but in the Trailblazer community, it's like just giving.
Coming from the service industry,
it's pretty much the norm to keep knowledge a secret.
Let's say if you're a bartender and you come up
with this really cool drink, you're not telling a soul
how you made that drink.
It is not like that at all in the Ohana.
Nobody gate keeps knowledge.
When people build something cool or they learn about
something cool, they cannot wait to share it.
They are shouting it from the mountaintops.
And I love that.
And also it's not just technical know-how.
Like if someone has resources or connections
on a new position and they know someone's looking for a job,
they're sharing that information.
It is a family.
- Yeah, and before we get into our next segment,
are there any special stories or Ohana moments
that are a little behind the scenes
that you would wanna share?
Obviously, I know you talked a little bit just about
the Dreamforce Golden Hoody moment,
but any other specific or special Ohana moments
that you would wanna share?
- There's one.
There's actually one that comes to mind.
There's so many.
But during Pathfinder, we have this week long technical
training to get us ready to get certified.
So that room where we had our week of technical training
with the Salesforce instructor was the very same room
where I went to the community user group
and heard about my now job.
So it's like, maybe that room's magical.
I don't know.
- And you've mentioned Salesforce Pathfinder
a couple times.
I mean, I know what the program is,
but would you explain what the Salesforce Pathfinder program
is for our listeners?
- Absolutely.
The Salesforce Pathfinder program started off
as a workforce initiative program to scale up.
The goal was to scale up 500 Hoosiers.
And it started out as a pilot program with 50 people.
And I was in that initial pilot program,
but it's since expanded and is now in the UK
as well as nationwide, but it is to scale you up,
get you set up with Salesforce skills
that you need to learn in order to find employment
in this ever growing ecosystem.
There's an admin track, a developer track,
a tableau track, a business analyst track.
And it's pretty much changed my life.
- Okay, so I wanna,
let's get into our next segment, What's Cooking.
So, Mark Guida, you are now the senior systems support analyst
of Salesforce Solutions at Liberty Mutual Insurance.
You know, talk about how you got to where you are now.
Obviously, when you first started
to where you are now in your current role,
like what did it take?
- Oh, wow.
I definitely had a lot of help along the way
from just deciding to make that career change
and leaving the service industry.
A lot of support from my family
and the Trailblazer community
and Liberty taking a chance on this Pathfinder,
newly graduated, newly certified
with not any real world, real org experience.
And yeah, it's taken a lot.
And the continued support of my family
and friends in the Trailblazer community
and our close knit Trailblazer community within Liberty,
that's what it's taken.
And I'm still learning, growing, thriving.
Yeah.
- That's incredible.
So at Liberty Mutual, from a Salesforce admin perspective,
what challenges are you seeing now?
And how are you applying what you've learned
from Salesforce to these challenges?
- I think the challenges I mainly see go back to
when I was saying earlier, just remembering
that some of our users don't really know Salesforce.
So challenges, I would say like adoption.
And I'm sure you've heard this plenty of times,
adoption, adoption, adoption.
Getting people off of their Excel spreadsheets
and into Salesforce.
And I get it, like new is scary at first.
But in my role as a, the business analyst,
part of my role is teaching, hosting training sessions
and sending users links to Trailheads.
- Oh, yeah, that's really how I bring that Salesforce
gamified learning piece into getting them scaled up.
- So what's next for you and how are you shaping the future?
- To definitely keep excelling in my career
and my company, we have a partnership
with the Pathfinder program where we hire interns
for six months paid in turnship.
And also just to keep advocating for people like me
that aren't necessarily from like a traditional tech background
to try it out.
- And how are, I mean, anything else you want to expand on that?
Like how are you joining in a user groups?
I'm curious, is are you, you know, picking up any mentees?
- We do mentee pathfinders within Liberty
and ones that are in the program now.
And still a member of the OG Salesforce Women
and Tech Indie User Group, that's my favorite.
- So let's get into our final segment now,
the future forecast.
So what do you envision as the future
of the Salesforce ecosystem?
- The last time I saw on Pathfinder's website,
there were some numbers saying that
the Salesforce ecosystem will grow by the year 2026
and create 9.3 million jobs.
So I see the need for the people to feel those jobs growing
exponentially and yeah, just more jobs, more people.
- And we'll give us a little bit of a prediction then
on the Trailblazer community.
What do you think that looks like in the future?
- It's already so inclusive.
I was joking with my husband the other night.
I said, you know what?
What if there was a Trailblazer community group
for Salesforce kids?
Like kids, they wanted to learn the platform, you know,
it's game fun.
- I love that idea.
There's stuffed animals like, you know, my kids like it.
- Yeah.
- Who knows?
- That's, I love that idea, it's an incredible idea.
And so what, like following on that future predictability,
what do you think the future of actually Salesforce looks like?
- Oh, just, you know, in looking at their acquisitions,
you know, like with Tableau and Slack,
I think they're just going to continue providing
that customer 360 view, setting themselves to be like
a business's one stop shop to provide everything
that their customer needs.
And, you know, here lately even business related content,
you know, with the launch of Salesforce Plus.
So it's, you know, continuously growing.
- So Mark Quita, do you have any advice
for any aspiring Trailblazers out there?
- I do, especially the new ones.
Like, I think there's a big, you know, myth
that when you're applying for a new job,
you have to check off all the boxes
and meet all the requirements.
But if you meet eight out of the 10 requirements
and think you shouldn't apply, don't do that, still apply.
Because chances are you do have like transferable skills
that you could use in that position.
I've said this before, but think about applying to jobs
like a Salesforce record.
Sometimes you don't always need to check every box
in order to save the record and move on
and get your confetti.
So yeah, that'd be my advice.
- I love that piece of advice.
So before letting you go, let's have fun
with a quick light and run.
You ready for this?
- Sure.
- Okay, what's your favorite Salesforce product?
- Right now, Experience Cloud.
- What's your favorite Salesforce character?
- Oh, Blaze, hands down.
- Well, let me put it on top of that.
What's your favorite Marvel character?
- Oh, oh gosh.
Captain America is one of my favs right now.
- Favorite brand of anything besides Salesforce?
- Love me some Star Wars.
- Love it.
I mean, who doesn't?
Who doesn't, right?
Secret skill that is not on the resume.
- Huh, theatrical makeup and cosplay.
- Whoa, interesting.
That's all.
You just won front row seat tickets to your dream event.
What is it?
- San Diego Comic Con.
- Awesome, I love it.
So, Marc Guida, this has been so much fun.
But before I let you go,
I'll let the listeners know where they can find you.
And is there anything else you'd like to share
or plug today?
- Yes, actually, I am on Twitter.
It's Marc Guida, CD-Bay at Twitter.
And also, I'd like to direct the users
to the Salesforce plus series, the Trailblazer series,
where you can go and see some amazing stories
of Trailblazers for some inspiration.
My episode is episode four.
And also, the Salesforce Pathfinder program.
That's how I got my start.
And it's at salesforce.pathfinder.com.
- Awesome, well everyone, check out Marc Guida
on Salesforce Plus.
Thank you so much, Marc Guida.
Great to see you.
- Thanks.
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)
(upbeat music)