We’re wrapping up our top moments from Down Under Dreaming Sydney – including a panel of Golden Hoodies, CTA 101, a masterclass in marketing to users, and more.
1. If you love your product, you’re a marketer!
Sydney welcomed Kris Lande, VP Trailhead Marketing to her first Down Under Dreaming as the keynote speaker.
Candidly opening with “Spoiler alert! I never wanted to be a marketer!”, Kris revealed it wasn’t until she was promoted from Office Manager to Marketing Manager while working at a start-up that she realised all the work she was doing was, in fact, marketing.
Spoiler alert – it’s the same for nearly everyone in the room. Building an app for your sales team? You’ll have to market it if you want them to use it! Doing anything that requires bringing people on board for change? Same goes.
“We all want to have an impact,” Kris said.
“It’s a simple equation. Great product times user adoption equals impact. And for user adoption, you need marketing.”
The good news: “No matter your role, if you love the product, if you love what you do, then marketing comes naturally and easy.”
Defining her session as marketing for non-marketers, Kris talked us through her steps to market with heart, authenticity and fun. And this includes making your top adopters your heroes.
“We love to share real stories about our customers at Trailhead. Turn the spotlight on them and let them share their story.”
Kris also recommends using metaphors as a great way to help people understand the value and benefit of your product. For Kris, it’s just as important have a story people can connect with as to find and market a differentiating feature.
The big takeaway: “You can’t have an impact if no-one knows about your product,” said Kris. “And it can take up to seven times for people to hear your message!”
2. Trailblazers are seriously awesome
Three of our homegrown Golden Hoodie recipients – Bec Aichholzer, Heidi Prowse and expat Zarina Varley Scott, who grew up in Sydney and now rocks #LifeWithGoldie in Canada – danced their way into the SCG Members Stand bar to the theme song from The Golden Girls.
No kidding. And you know, it worked. Thank You for Being a Friend was so appropriate to open a session about how each started out pretty alone on their Salesforce journey and wound up with loads of friends to collaborate, celebrate and learn with.
“For a year, I didn’t even know that the community existed. That was probably the hardest year because I knew that I wanted to do this, but I didn’t know how to do everything,” said Bec.
After that first year, Bec went to a Women in Tech group in Brisbane.
“I started asking questions and I was like, “There’s other women here who don’t think I’m an idiot for asking these questions. They just understand’!” she said.
“Then I got my Goldie in March last year and Zaz” – that’s Zarina to those who aren’t her BFFs – “reached out to me on LinkedIn to say, ‘Hey, I heard an Australian voice on the admin podcast’. I was just like, ‘Oh my god, I’m talking to someone in Canada who heard my voice on a podcast’.”
If anyone in the room didn’t want to be part of the Golden Girl crew after that session, we’d be shocked.
3. There’s always time to learn
On that same panel, Heidi Prowse shared one of the secrets to her awesomeness.
“It’s a really common thing to hear, and I hear it in my team a lot as well: ‘I just don’t have time to sit down and do some learning’,” Heidi said.
It was only when Megan Petersen threw down a challenge for Heidi – 100 Trailhead badges in 100 days – that Heidi found the time.
“Even on my phone when I was waiting to go see Harry Potter! There’s always time to learn and I love that that’s a lesson I’ve actually learned. I think when you get so busy and you think, ‘I don’t have time for this’, you actually do and you can find it if you’re willing to give yourself the chance to do it.”
And really, if Heidi, CEO, carer, all-round legend, has time, anyone does.
“I think the majority of my badges that I’ve collected have been in a hospital waiting room. Even the very first time I logged in was on the patient wifi,” she said. “There’s always time.”
4. How to think like an architect
“Architects build the future of business,” said Zayne Turner, Principal Architect Evangelist at Salesforce.
Zayne introduced us to the triangle of an ideal architect:
- Technology: “They know the technology, but that’s just the foundation – they don’t need a specific tech background.”
- People: “The most powerful architects are really good at listening to, connecting with and speaking with people.”
- Experience: “Their whole experience as a person, not just 10 years’ coding experience.” The best architects, Zayne explained, have worked across functions and levels, and know how decisions affect every part of a business.
And honestly, listening to Zayne tell it, architects are superheroes.
“They think about risk as a constant force, not a design flaw,” Zayne explained, showing a video of a seemingly chaotic object, spiralling out of control – the double-arm pendulum.
“They know there are things you can control, and then there’s the wider business, the market, everything else.”
The video changed – tracking a slightly different pattern through the path of the same object. “When an architect looks at the double-arm pendulum, they see that first circle, the one you can control and predict.”
Architects also see innovation and pragmatism as a dynamic duo – they’re just better together.
With these lenses, architects act in the best interests of people to minimise harm or ease into change, act to minimise technical churn and act to minimise brittle business assumptions.
5. Einstein Discovery will make improvements for you
Drawing a crowd that required extra seating, John Cosgrove, Partner – Salesforce Einstein Analytics at GrowthOps, passionately ran us through Einstein Discovery – “the business intelligence success story that you never heard of”.
Obviously we think Einstein Discovery is all that and then some, but even we were inspired watching John show us how he uses Discovery to go beyond visualisation to gather recommend improvements based on data patterns.
6. The formula to supercharge customer acquisition
We identified the magic point for customer acquisition when Olympia Newman, Salesforce Manager, Technology Consulting at PwC Australia took to the stage.
“It’s all about the cost per acquisition (CPA). If your CPA is lower than your cost per impression (CPM), this is the magic point.”
Running through the customer acquisition process, Olympia explained businesses need to get three elements right in order to fill and grow their sales pipeline:
- Align acquisition to business goals: Ask and understand why you want to grow your numbers by consulting your business strategy.
- Fundamentals: Get the foundations right and be comfortable with the metrics you set. This is where the magic ‘CPA < value’ formula comes in to play.
- Bring in growth: Drive acquisition by selecting channels that best align with business objectives and reach your desired customer.
7. The Trailblazer community is fabulous
The biggest lesson of the day wasn’t in a session or delivered by a rockstar speaker. It came from looking around the SCG at the sea of more than 500 people, dotted with the blue t-shirts of Down Under Dreaming’s organisers. They don’t work for Salesforce, and Salesforce didn’t run the event – it was organised entirely by the Sydney Trailblazer Community.
So if you haven’t yet, get along to a Salesforce Admin Trailblazer Community Group meeting and connect with these superstars!
And it’s not just community events that we see Awesome Admins contributing to. In the very first session, Derek Laney and Simon Gascoigne asked us to have a chat with a person nearby and – despite the usual ‘eek, talking to a stranger!’ moment – after about a minute we could’ve done that all day.
We caught up with Scott Luikart, who’d travelled to Sydney all the way from Austin, Texas, about how he lends his time and expertise to help LGBTIQ+ and homeless youth build Salesforce skills and career paths. His passion was pretty clear, and he has grand plans to help others do even more. What a legend!
Down Under Dreaming was absolutely about learning new skills, seeing new products from Salesforce and partners, and hearing how Trailblazers are using technology to overcome challenges, create efficiency and improve the experiences of their own users and customers.
But it was also an opportunity to connect with the community and see how Trailblazers are not only transforming their own workplaces but, in the case of Scott, the group leaders and of the many Trailblazers in attendance, changing people’s lives.
Down Under Dreaming was so packed with generous, passionate speakers sharing their expertise. There’s far too much to cover, so if you missed out, sign up for Down Under Dreaming in your capital city.
Registration is open for Down Under Dreaming Brisbane on 24 October.
Watch this space to register for Down Under Dreaming in Melbourne on 29 October.
