Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking to Rebe de la Paz about her incredible journey to Salesforce and the amazing stories she has inspired since getting involved in the Salesforce community.

Join us as Rebe shares her journey from wanting to be a doctor to Salesforce Admin and User Group leader. You’ll hear how she taught herself Salesforce, the challenges she has faced in and outside of Salesforce, and how she’s using her experience to make a positive impact on others.

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Rebe de la Paz.

From pre-med to Salesforce.

As Rebe explains, her journey to Salesforce has been anything but a straight line. “I’m the lady with a million jobs. It’s been a long path to Salesforce for me,” she says.

After a variety of career and educational experiences, she graduated from the University of Massachusetts and landed a position as a Marketing Coordinator with a non-profit in the Chicago area that had just purchased Salesforce.  However, the transition to Salesforce was rocky at best. “What better way to learn Salesforce than by learning data architecture and hierarchy?” Rebe says.

However, as Rebe shares, “I taught myself Demand Tools while I was there. I knew nothing about ETL but I figured it out, and I got the system clean within a year.”

Learning Salesforce.

When she experienced a setback at that position, Rebe says, “I spent the time bettering myself, my brain and learning more Salesforce. This is pre-Trailhead. I came across a site called ButtonClick Admin and another site by a gentleman, David Liu, who chased down his dream to work at Google. I thought, if this man can do this in two years, I can too.”

So, how did Rebe begin this process? She says, “I just started to dig deep, canvas the blogs, read, and listen to podcasts. I started playing around with my own dev org and figuring things out.”

Going all in. 

When Rebe made a choice to expand her horizons, “within two weeks I found another job,” she says. “I still hadn’t participated in the Success Community yet. But once I took that new role, I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to let myself feel that way — like I was threatened or like my job would be taken from me — in a role again,” says Rebe.

“I made a decision, I’m going to say yes to every opportunity that comes my way, and I’m going to put myself headfirst into a Salesforce career. When I went to my new role, I joined the Salesforce Community,” explains Rebe.

Her first in-person Salesforce experience was a developer meeting during Lightning week, which she says was initially intimidating. “If you’re a woman in the tech world, there’s always going to be a lot of guys, especially at the developer meetings. I knew no one, but the thing that really got me was that everyone there was in amazement at what we saw on the screen,” says Rebe.

Getting involved in the community.

Since that moment, the Salesforce Community has continued to have a huge impact on Rebe’s career and life. “Every week, every day, I can’t believe I’m a part of this. I meet so many people. I get to participate in so many things. I’ve done so much since I’ve joined the community,” says Rebe.

One of her career milestones has been teaching Girl Develop It courses, which have allowed her to give back to the community. As she explains, “At the end of the day, I want to be able to look back and say, ‘what did I accomplish with the breath I was given?’”

Giving back with Girl Develop It.

Rebe has loved being involved with Girl Develop It. “There was a camaraderie amongst women who are passionate about Salesforce. For me, it was amazing because I gave up one Saturday. That’s all it took. Imagine if everyone gave up one day to do something for someone else?” she says.

As she points out, it all comes down to how you manage and view your time. “I have more than one day on my calendar to help others. That made me want to further my partnership and work with Girl Develop it,” says Rebe.

When she recalls one of her favorite student success stories, she says, “that little bit of time out of my year just made a major impact on another person, and that person is going to make major impacts on others.”

For more insights, make sure to follow Rebe de la Paz on Twitter (@Rabedela). 

Links:

• Girl Develop It
• Dev Bootcamp
• rebedelapaz.com

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.

Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast we’re speaking to a couple of original members of Team Trailhead: Lauren Grau and Dana Hall. Lauren does all of the fantastic marketing for bigger campaigns on Team Trailhead, and Dana is (as many of you know) the Twitter voice of Team Trailhead.

Join us as they give us an inside look into Team Trailhead: how they got to Salesforce, the things they work on and how the Trailhead community has changed their lives. We’ll also hear about “Trailheart” and what admins can do to “keep Trailhead weird.” 

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lauren Grau and Dana Hall.

The journey to Salesforce.

Both Dana and Lauren came from non-profit backgrounds before landing at Salesforce.

As Lauren explains, “a friend who worked at Salesforce told me about a job opportunity on the developer marketing team. A week later, I had a job at Salesforce. I ended up being part of the team that founded Trailhead in 2014.”

When asked to describe Trailhead to someone who’s never heard of it, Lauren says, 

“Trailhead is the fun way to learn Salesforce. But first, you’d have to know a bit about what Salesforce is. Luckily we have a trail for that. Navigate the Salesforce Advantage is a great trail to teach people what Salesforce is. Basically, Trailhead is our e-learning platform that’s designed to teach everyone — whether you’re a developer, admin or end user — about the Salesforce culture, product, and company.”

Witnessing the love fest that is the Trailblazer community.  

“The community helped get Trailhead to where it is today, with their energy and enthusiasm. We’re really proud of our Trailhead community. We call them Trailblazers because these are people who are carving out a path for themselves and reaching a hand back to help others,” says Lauren.

Dana agrees, adding that she sees “an amazing organic community that I’ve come into and that I’m happy to help foster online, especially on Twitter. It’s amazing to see people who have never met answer questions and supporting each other.”

The community aspect has had an enormous impact on Lauren. She shares, “I didn’t always feel that one-on-one connection with my work, but with Trailhead, every day we’re hearing stories from Trailblazers about how having access to education and tech skills has changed their lives.”

Keep Trailhead weird.

Trailhead is anything but a boring corporate training program, hence, the slogan, “keep Trailhead weird.” Dana says, “it’s the idea of keeping what makes Trailhead special, especially as you become more popular, you can lose what made you popular in the first place. Trailhead is so successful because it’s valuable content that is well written with hands-on elements that are fun and that people find addictive in the most positive way. As the team grew, we wanted to make sure we didn’t lose our special sauce.”

“It’s all about keeping that offbeat nature and the willingness to try something new, different and not settle for the status quo. Also, keeping it real. We have a saying: Trailheart,” says Lauren.

Tapping into Trailheart.

“Trailhead has really helped me learn the history and culture of Salesforce. It’s also really helped me feel like a better employee,” says Dana.

As Dana points out, “it’s not hard to get people to understand the value of Trailhead. The real kicker is figuring out how to help people find the time and motivation. This is something we really want to figure out.”

Changing the way people learn.

We asked Dana and Lauren: if they had a time machine and could go forward 20 years, what would they like to have accomplished? They hope to change the way people learn and access education. As Dana shares, “having Salesforce skills and literacy for the Salesforce platform is a necessary business skill, like knowing how to type or use email. In 20 years, I hope it will be taken for granted as something we had to endeavor to teach.”

For more insights, make sure to follow Lauren Grau (@laurengrau) and Dana Hall (@THEDanaHall) on Twitter.

We want to get your suggestions for guests on the podcast, and we need your help! So tweet your guest suggestions and support to @SalesforceAdmns to help us get more Awesome Admins on the podcast.

We want to remind you that if you love what you hear, or even if you don’t head on over to iTunes and give us a review. It’s super easy to do, and it really helps more Admins find the podcast. Plus, we would really appreciate it.