Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve brought Marciana Davis back to the podcast. One thing that’s happened since the last time we spoke is that she’s started working at a new position, as Salesforce Administrator at Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. For the next 3 weeks, we have episodes recorded live from the Salesforce Worldtour in New York City. Marciana was last on the show about a year ago, so it’s fun to hear how 2019 went for her and what she’s looking forward to in 2020.
Join us as we talk about how volunteering can help you stay current, why the new year is a great opportunity to set some goals, and what her resolution is for Salesforce admins.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Marciana Davis.
The last time we had Marciana on the show, the episode was titled, “I Do QA (I Break Things).” So what’s changed since last we spoke? “I fix things now,” she says, “being the Salesforce awesome admin I’ve always dreamed of.” She works to resolve all manner of issues that may come up in her org, and she’s been loving every minute of it. She’s gotten her seventh Superbadge this year, as well as a certification as a Marketing Cloud Email Specialist.
Marciana is, as one friend puts it, “the Evangelist of Newcomers” at PepUp Tech. “I help students with badges, Superbadges, and it keeps my awesome admin skills sharp,” she says. You always have to learn more when you’re a teacher, so she gets back just as much as she gives in the process.
Looking back on 2019, Marciana’s advice for her past self would come down to three words: trust the process. “You’re not going to know everything, and that’s OK,” she says, “it’s a learning process, you’re going to bump your head a little bit.” The key is stick through it and trust that you’ll learn and grow and, eventually, be in the right place at the right time. The best thing to do is to keep learning, so that way when you get an opportunity you’ll be able to step up.
To look ahead to 2020, Marciana is planning to do a lot more speaking events. She’s set her sights on South Florida Dreaming, so hopefully, you catch her there where she’ll share her approach to getting the most out of the learning resources available to admins. She also has a 2020 resolution to travel more, so you’ll be able to find her at Midwest Dreamin’, WITness Success, TrailheaDX, DC Worldtour, and Dreamforce. So, basically everything. “I love Salesforce so much that I can’t help it, Marciana says.
If you’re having trouble thinking of your own New Year’s resolution, Marciana can help you out. “Find a senior admin and have them mentor you,” she says, “with more experience, you’ll learn a heck of a lot more than just getting certified.” Training is one thing, but getting more acquainted with the business processes she’s responsible for has been so valuable in learning how to apply her knowledge.
Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast where we talk about product, community, and career to help you become a more awesome Salesforce Admin. I’m Mike Gerholdt and for the next few weeks we are going to be recording live at the Salesforce World Tour here in New York city. So outside of our normal comfort zone and catching up in some instances like today with Marciana Davis who used to be at another company in the beginning of this year, not to give you a spoiler, but has moved onto a new professional career and so it’s a fun time. We’re doing a followup with her on this episode, but there are more episodes coming up from amazing Salesforce Admins, that we are recording here in the New York city. So without further ado, please welcome Marciana Davis back to the podcast.
Marciana Davis: Thank you for having me. This is so much fun.
Mike Gerholdt: So Marciana in full disclosure was on the podcast in January of last year, which was recorded the same time this year. So I think it’s fun. You’re probably one of our first follow up guests from a year ago and we were chatting before. The title of your episode is I Do QA-I Break Things, Marciana or what do you do now?
Marciana Davis: I fix things now.
Mike Gerholdt: I love it. A year later we’re gone from breaking to fixing things. So what do you, what do you do to fix things?
Marciana Davis: I try to trouble shoot errors and I’m working with my supervisor at my new company and just being a Salesforce awesome admin like I’ve always wanted and dreamed of.
Mike Gerholdt: Yes, marciana has the title of Salesforce Administrator, which I’m a huge fan of, because it’s right in the title, the things I do. So Marciana, last we talked to you, your job was to Q and A and break things. Now you fix things. Let’s talk about something you fixed in this last year and really catch us up. So we heard you in January. It’s been a year, which in the Salesforce ecosystem is like five years.
Marciana Davis: An amazing life changing year.
Mike Gerholdt: Okay. Tell me what’s changed in your life in that year.
Marciana Davis: So I’ve still volunteered with PepUp Tech. I’m helping students as a good friend of mine put it. I am the evangelist of newcomers, apparently.
Mike Gerholdt: Nice.
Marciana Davis: I help students with badges, super badges and it’s been so incredible just to work with them and it keeps my awesome admin skills sharp. So I’m very excited about that.
Mike Gerholdt: And as a teacher you always have to learn more. I know for me it’s a real gut check.
Marciana Davis: You have to stay current.
Mike Gerholdt: if you have to keep something. Yeah, absolutely. Cause the questions are hard, kids ask hard questions now.
Marciana Davis: Yes. Especially with the good old data importing. I know, I get so excited to see a spreadsheet now. Like it’s a spreadsheet.
Mike Gerholdt: And turn that into an app.
Marciana Davis: Exactly.
Mike Gerholdt: Yes. Salesforce object creator. Somebody might’ve demo that at the admin keynote at dream force this year. I don’t know who.
Mike Gerholdt: Okay. So you’ve gone on from fixing for from breaking things to fixing things, helping with PepUp Tech, which is awesome. New super badges, I’m guessing or any new certifications for you this year?
Marciana Davis: I’ve gotten my seventh super badge.
Mike Gerholdt: Wow, Seventh holy cow. Is that like all of them?
Marciana Davis: No, not yet.
Mike Gerholdt: No. Okay. All right.
Marciana Davis: Half way through.
Mike Gerholdt: maybe this time next year.
Marciana Davis: And I also got certified in marketing cloud email specialists, during Thanksgiving weekend. So I was very thankful for that one.
Mike Gerholdt: That’s cool. Very cool. Okay. And then we talked about, so one of the neat things that you’ve done at the company you’re at with now, which you know in a year in the ecosystem is, it’s as a rising star, people are going to scoop you up. You, it sounds like you helped corral leads from going to never, never land into Salesforce. Right?
Marciana Davis: I like that. Never, neverland. Yeah. I came in with the Peter pan effect ,integrated WordPress within Salesforce. I successfully connected the two and now leads are in Salesforce being our single source of truth.
Mike Gerholdt: Nice, that’s always fun. I like deploying a good, thing that saves people. It’s like, where do you go? You go to the website and fill out the thing, boom. It’s in Salesforce, especially the first time you’d demo that, and it works.
Marciana Davis: Yes. It’s for a new product that my company just launched last week.
Mike Gerholdt: Great, great, great. Okay, so a year ago, let’s rewind the tape. You were sitting here and I’m thinking of admins that are listening to this or maybe admins that are out right now at breakout sessions. We have a packed admin theater sitting here. What is something you wish you would’ve known past Marciana to tell future Marciana or vice versa? I think I switched that. So you talking to your past self from a year ago, what advice would you give yourself?
Marciana Davis: I would tell myself to trust the process.
Mike Gerholdt: Trust the process.
Marciana Davis: You’re not going to know everything and that’s okay.
Mike Gerholdt: Yep.
Marciana Davis: It’s a learning process. You’re gonna bump your head a little bit, it’s gonna be tough and there’s gonna be days where you just don’t want to do it. You’re just like, you just want to push it away and hopefully it goes away. But you know you have a responsibility and a duty as an awesome admin to fulfill your role. So I tell myself every day that it’s going to get better. And I tell my friends all the time, trust the process. Things happen for a reason. And you know when it’s your time, it’s your time.
Mike Gerholdt: Right.
Marciana Davis: And I’m here with you. So it’s my time to be on the track.
Mike Gerholdt: There you go, and inspire others.
Marciana Davis: Yes, and I love talking to people and telling them my story and just telling them, listen, I literally came from absolutely nothing into something and I’m now making an impact, not only in my company, but also in the community. Like when I came to my company, no one knew anything about a user group meetings or certifications. Now they’re so excited, they wanted to go to a user group meeting and they wanna go to all these events with Salesforce like, TD yaks and Dreamforce and Midwest dreaming. And just to see that impact has been so heartfelt for me and I appreciate everyone that’s been a part of this journey for the last year.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. I couldn’t agree more. And also tinkering. It’s something that my team talks about a lot too is sometimes if you’re not feeling like learning, just tinker with something, right? Cause it can be very rewarding just to see how something works in a completely safe developer environment where you’re not eating, you don’t tinker in production, but just try something out to learn something. You’ve got a marketing cloud specialist, you don’t get that without tinkering, so that’s great. I think that’s great advice. Trust the process. So yes, future Marciano would have told past Marciana trust the process. Now let’s look ahead. What is, what is a new year’s resolution that you have for yourself? Because we’re airing this in 2020 so we’ve made it all the way to a year that repeats itself hasn’t, happened since 1919.
Marciana Davis: No, I am super excited for 2020 because I am planning on doing a lot more to us speaking events. I put a proposal for South Florida Dreaming, so I’m hoping to speak there about the admin resources that I’ve used and how I use them. It’s gonna be a little bit different from what people have heard, so I’m not going to spoil anything, but it seems like it’s going to be really great. And I’m also going to talk about my proposal to get marketing cloud for executives. I tried to do that at my current company, so hopefully that works out for others as well. I’m definitely going to take 2020 I’m going to not get as many certs as I did in 20 in 2019 and I’m definitely going to travel more. So just go into different sales force events. Hopefully I’ll be at Midwest dreaming. Witness success. Tell her the XN dream force again.
Mike Gerholdt: Just a few.
Marciana Davis: Yeah, just a few. Just kind of the summertime. Get out there and travel. Definitely want to check out. World tour NBC. I love DC. It’s so nice.
Mike Gerholdt: Usually it’s right around when the cherry blossoms are out, so you get to see all of that.
Marciana Davis: I definitely want to try and go there.
Mike Gerholdt: Do the Monuments tour. Go around and see all. Lots of things to see in DC, fantastic. Well I’m excited for Midwest dreaming as well. It’s going to be in Minneapolis I saw. So I guess I got no more deep dish pizza. Get a Juicy Lucy. You don’t know what that is. Google it carefully Juicy Lucy hamburger. I’ll spoil that, but it’s amazing. I’ve had one, it’s always good to come back. Okay. So I would say also, so you’re going to travel more. Is there any, anywhere that it’s not hold as hosting a Salesforce event that you want to travel to?
Mike Gerholdt: I guess you mentioned everywhere that’s hosting the Salesforce event. Is there somebody you’d like,
Marciana Davis: I mean cause I love Salesforce so much I can’t help it.
Mike Gerholdt: are you planning to travel and you might be going to Southeast Florida too, right?
Marciana Davis: Fort Lauderdale.
Mike Gerholdt: I’ve been down to Fort Lauderdale to, yeah, it’s nice that side of the, it’s warmer than it is here in New York. Just be careful that it’s going to be great. Is there a new year’s resolution that you would set forward for other admins?
Marciana Davis: I would tell other admins to find someone that is, you know, find a senior admin and have them mentor you. It’s all about the experience and I feel with more experience you’ll learn a lot, a heck of a lot more than just getting certified.
Mike Gerholdt: Right.
Marciana Davis: And I realized that once I joined my current company that I’m with now, you know I have the basics down, but I just need to think along the way of business process, like getting used to how a business runs.
Mike Gerholdt: Sure.
Marciana Davis: In modern time.
Mike Gerholdt: Yes.
Marciana Davis: So that’s one thing I would tell. Awesome admins out there.
Mike Gerholdt: Process is a big part of your life. Trust the process, learn the process, submit for speaking two different processes. I like it. It’s good. Marciana, thank you for taking time out of your day. I wanna make sure that you can enjoy everything. Lovely at World tour. I’m glad we had a chance to catch up a year later.
Marciana Davis: Yes thank you for having me.
Mike Gerholdt: I think this is actually the first time we’ve done that on the podcast,
Marciana Davis: I’m making history already.
Mike Gerholdt: It could be we should do this again next year.
Marciana Davis: Oh yes definitely, I’m for it.
Mike Gerholdt: See where things are. We will pull up the resolution, see if you’ve met all the resolutions. Careful it’s on tape now and then it’ll be on the internet, which means it lasts forever.
Marciana Davis: And then people will hold me accountable.
Mike Gerholdt: and they’ll hold you accountable to it. Marciana if they wanted to follow you on Twitter, your Twitter handle is-
Marciana Davis: At traveling underscore dev.
Mike Gerholdt: I saw that yes.
Marciana Davis: Instagram is just traveling dev.
Mike Gerholdt: Is there a reason to follow you on Instagram? Is it fun?
Marciana Davis: I post a lot of pictures of Salesforce events. I recently went to these Salesforce holiday party.
Mike Gerholdt: Ooh, In New York here?
Marciana Davis: Salesforce tower, yes. It was so much fun.
Mike Gerholdt: Oh, and if we follow you on Instagram, we’ll get to see all the places you’re going to travel.
Marciana Davis: Exactly, exactly. Because Twitter has a four picture limit and I’m a photographer, I’m a mini photographer so I need at least 20 pictures of each place.
Mike Gerholdt: Right, right. I Love it. Perfect. Well thanks so much for g on the podcast.
Marciana Davis: Thank you so much for having me.
Mike Gerholdt: and we’ll catch up with you next year. Absolutely.
Marciana Davis: I cannot wait for next year.
Mike Gerholdt: It’s going to be great.
Marciana Davis: It is.
Mike Gerholdt: See you then. Bye.
Mike Gerholdt: It was great catching up with Marciana one year later after she was on the podcast. Here are three things I learned from our discussion with Marciana. One, she stays current by volunteering and teaching with PepUp Tech. I think that’s really a great way as a forcing function for you to stay current and learn more while helping others. She challenges herself by learning and she earned seven super badges along with a marketing email specialist. I think that’s a great thing to head into the new year. Think about what you’re going to earn for super badges and what certifications you’re going to get. And then the third thing I learned from Marciana is to trust the process. Hey, some days it will be difficult, but things happen for a reason and her new year’s resolution for herself is to do more speaking events. I like that. And for Salesforce admins, her resolution is to find someone to mentor you because as Marciana says, it’s all about the experience.
Mike Gerholdt: Now I’d like to know what your new year’s resolution is, so tweet it out and use the hashtag awesome admin. Now process was a big part of our discussion today, so be sure to join us next week when I chat with Janae fuller about Salesforce admins and business process. If you want to learn more about all things Salesforce admin, go to admin.salesforce.com to find more resources. You can stay up to date with us on social for all things admins. We are @Salesforce admins. No, I on Twitter. And of course you can find me on Twitter as well. I am at Mike Gerholdt. Be sure to stay tuned for the next episode and we’ll see you in the cloud.
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