Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’ve got two members of the Salesforce team — Krithika Viswanathan, Product Marketing Manager, and Matthew Barnhart, Product Management Director — joining us to chat about their upcoming TrailheaDX session and how admins can help organizations sell more effectively with Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Activity Capture.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Krithika and Matthew.
We wanted to bring Krithika and Matthew on the pod to talk about their upcoming TrailheaDX session that covers Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Activity Capture to help you automate more and waste less time. “A lot of the data that we’ve seen has said that the sales landscape has shifted” going into 2021, Kritihika says. Virtual selling is here to stay, your sales reps need to be trusted advisors or consultants to their customers, and data is crucial to make the best decisions and drive growth.
Einstein can help your organization adjust to the changes that are happening all around us. It boosts virtual productivity, gives your reps the information they need when they need it, and helps you make the right decisions at the right time. “With Einstein Activity Capture, the stuff that would feel a bit like busywork just melts away,” Matthew says. It can log your reps’ events, emails, and any other activities so they can focus on actually making sales without worrying about data entry.
When it comes to presenting, there are a few things that are different when you’re doing a virtual event. For Krithika, it was important to remember to present standing up, even though it’s for a webcam. It makes you feel more like you’re actually on stage, helping you get more engaged and giving a little bit of energy.
For Matthew, preparation was key for pulling off a good virtual presentation. He talked through his outline with other product managers to see if it made sense, so he could own the story he was telling with authenticity and confidence.
Krithika and Matthew’s TrailheaDX session is a jam-packed 25 minutes, so there were a few things we needed to leave on the cutting room floor. Krithika points to the fact that there are even more great AI functionality and features coming to Sales Cloud for sales coaching, pipeline reviews, and more.
The best part is that Einstein will keep leveling up. For Matthew, conversation intelligence is just the start. Relationship intelligence is coming soon, and there will be even more AI-powered insights to help your reps know what the next best step is.
Mike Gerholdt: Welcome to the Salesforce Admins Podcast, where we talk about product, community, and career to help you become an awesome admin. This week, we were talking with Krithika Viswanathan, product marketing manager Sales Cloud Einstein, and Matthew Barnhart, product management director for Einstein Activity Capture, about their upcoming TrailheaDX session and how admins can help organizations sell more effectively with Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Activity Capture. Let’s get Krithika and Matthew on the podcast. Krithika and Matthew, welcome to the podcast.
Matthew Barnha…: Thank you very much.
Krithika Viswan…: Hi Mike. Thanks for having us.
Mike Gerholdt: Well, we are on the road to TrailheaDX, and your session is all about Einstein. I’m super excited because, of course, I’ve got to see it. But I wanted to get both of you on the pod so that we can talk about what you do at Salesforce and some of the things that we included or couldn’t quite fit into that episode. Krithika, I will start with you. Tell me a little bit about how you got started in Salesforce.
Krithika Viswan…: For sure. I actually used to be in consumer product goods, but I did a lot of e-commerce work, and I just saw how quick the tech space was moving. I really wanted to be at a company that was helping other companies be more productive and be more efficient because that was something that we were lacking at my consumer goods company. That’s what actually made me shift to Salesforce.
Mike Gerholdt: Wow. And Matthew, how did we get you onboard?
Matthew Barnha…: Yeah. I, too, really liked the problem space that Salesforce is working in. I really like working on tools that help businesses run their businesses better. Earlier in my career, I worked for another company that was all about making tools for running, let’s say, five to 20 person company’s run, and then spent more years of my career, I think, honing my skills until I could work at a company like this one that helps even gigantic companies run their businesses. I love being able to work at this scale and with these resources to deliver really good stuff.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. It’s super fun. Speaking of scale, I think that’s my attempt at a segue to get us to talk about Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Activity Capture, which we feature in the session. The first thing that comes to mind, for me, is how the velocity of the world feels like it’s picking up. This podcast is coming out on June 10th. TrailheaDX is June 23rd. It feels like everybody’s getting back to focusing on sales and getting some intelligence driving growth. Krithika, I’ll start with you. Tell me what was most exciting for you about getting into Sales Cloud Einstein and working on this session?
Krithika Viswan…: Yeah. It’s super fun. Speaking of scale, I think that’s my attempt at a segue to get us to talk about Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Activity Capture, which we feature in the session. The first thing that comes to mind, for me, is how the velocity of the world feels like it’s picking up. This podcast is coming out on June 10th. TrailheaDX is June 23rd. It feels like everybody’s getting back to focusing on sales and getting some intelligence driving growth. Krithika, I’ll start with you. Tell me what was most exciting for you about getting into Sales Cloud Einstein and working on this session?
What was really exciting to me is I feel like Einstein or AI really helps companies be productive virtually and be efficient virtually. It also enables their reps to be trusted advisors because it’s improving their time. It’s giving them the information they need at their fingertips. Then, back to this point of data, it’s helping them make the right decisions at the right time, so they’re not wasting their time doing other tasks. I think what I really love about this session is exactly what you said, it’s coming at the right time, and it’s going to help companies address how the world is shifting and what they can do to keep up with sales.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Matthew, I know my team has been to so many user groups. It’s been wonderful that these groups in the admin community have continued. We’re virtual, so we were able to join a bunch. I tell you, on everybody’s lips was Einstein Activity Capture. I think that was one of the biggest driving factors for me to seek you out in the organization. But tell me why you love Einstein Activity Capture.
Matthew Barnha…: Sure. I really do because what it focuses on is… It levels everything up is the way I think about it. When I started at Salesforce seven years ago, it seems like we were still focused on, “All right, let’s do some functionality to make the events object better, or the opportunities object, or tasks.” Now, it’s gone up a level where Einstein and AI works at a higher level to actually seek out interesting interactions and relationships among all those pieces of data. It’s all about having large volumes of data, really. That’s where Einstein Activity Capture comes in because, at this point, to work really well, what you need is tons of data, more than a sales rep could spend all day entering into Salesforce.
With Einstein Activity Capture, the stuff that would feel a bit like busywork just melts away. Why should anyone have to worry about logging their events, logging their emails, and so forth? Einstein Activity Capture does that for you so that you can work better and have more time for actual selling. At the same time, Einstein is doing the automated thinking for you. Doesn’t really do your thinking for you, but it finds smart tips and interactions and suggestions to make to you. I just like the users can spend more time selling now.
Mike Gerholdt: Now. Yeah. I know when I was an admin, it seemed every sales manager wanted all of their sales reps to just basically put their whole inbox in Salesforce. Then, magically, like X-Men Cerebro, it would spit out some sort of, “Here’s what you should be doing next,” and, “Read between the lines.” I always laugh.
Matthew Barnha…: That is an amazing thing. In the session that you referred to earlier, that we worked on together, I just really liked demoing the email insights feature. That’s amazing to me. We’ve got this whole activity timeline. You’re looking at particular contact. There’s a whole activity timeline. It’s been automatically populated with all the stuff that you need to see. What are the emails and the calls and the tasks and everything else that relates to this contact? That’s great to have in chronological order, but it still takes time to go back and read through it all again.
Well, isn’t it great if Einstein can basically figure out the gist of the stuff that’s in that timeline for you? It’s already figured out the gist of the emails. It points out here’s the one where pricing got discussed. Now, you open that one, and you read that one. You don’t have to read all the 10 emails to remember what’s really going on with this particular contact or lead you’re interacting with. That’s amazing to me. It doesn’t think for you, but it points things out. It helps you locate some of those needles in the haystack so that you can really use your time effectively.
Mike Gerholdt: That’s a good term. Should use that in the recording needles in the haystack.
Matthew Barnha…: Or separate the wheat from the chaff, one of those.
Mike Gerholdt: Oh, my. Now, it’s rolling with the analogies. Krithika, presenting on its own, I feel, is a skill that a lot of us have learned throughout the time that we’ve been working from home. What is one thing that you use as maybe a best practice or a tip that you learned while creating this TrailheaDX session that you feel could be beneficial for other admins as they work from home and do virtual presentations?
Krithika Viswan…: That is a great question. Mine is going to be super simple, and it’s standing up while you present. I do feel like, especially in the virtual world, we’ve all gotten used to sitting down at our computers, and that’s become the norm, but for the TrailheaDX session, you’ll see that I stood up as I presented, so did Matthew. I feel like that really changes the game a bit and makes it feel like it’s an actual presentation that we would have been delivering live at TrailheaDX had the world been a little different. That’s something that I’ve started doing more and more at anything that I’m presenting at even internally. I think it just elevates my energy, and it just makes me look a little more professional and engaged as I’m presenting content virtually.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. I will say both of you did an excellent job of staging your backgrounds. In fact, I used a screenshot of it when I had to create a promo video to try and recreate some of it. I thought it was really good. Matthew, same question. You did a really great job in front of the camera. Any tips or anything that you’ve learned from creating the session?
Matthew Barnha…: First of all, I agree with Kristina. That was good for my posture. I’m actually thinking how I’m slouching right now. It’s right. It’s right. For me, just the preparation was what was really, really fun. For me to feel comfortable when presenting, I have to feel really comfortable with the material. I could never present material that someone just said, “Present this. Learn these words and say them,” because I would know I didn’t believe it or didn’t understand it. I feel like that would show. For me, it was all about the preparation. I talked to my fellow product managers and bounced some of my ideas off of them. “Here’s how I think I’d like to express it. This is my feeling about the story of how Sales Cloud Einstein dovetails into EAC.” That preparation made me feel good about what I was going to say. I think that’s my secret to presentation success.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. I would agree. The standing’s very important. I actually had to do that on a call a couple of weeks ago. It felt very different having to stand and deliver versus sit. Krithika, I know if the session was 45 minutes, everybody would ask for two more hours. Unfortunately, the session’s only 25 minutes.
Krithika Viswan…: Sorry.
Mike Gerholdt: Yeah. Right. Is there anything that we just couldn’t fit in that you feel admins could follow up on or one really exciting thing that they could pay attention to that we perhaps skipped over in the session?
Krithika Viswan…: The only thing I would say is I do think the session is very comprehensive in terms of Sales Cloud Einstein and Einstein Activity Capture. The one thing to keep a lookout for is that Sales Cloud is coming out with a lot more AI functionality and features related to Einstein, whether that’s for sales coaching, whether that’s for pipeline reviews, and such. There’s just many more awesome things that Salesforce is producing related to AI to help your sales reps, to help your sales teams. So just keep a lookout for all of that.
Mike Gerholdt: Imagine that more new stuff.
Krithika Viswan…: We love our new staff.
Mike Gerholdt: Matthew, same question. Do we have anything new coming for Einstein Activity Capture?
Matthew Barnha…: We have lots of good things on the roadmap. I’m really excited about how we continue to up-level it like I was mentioning before about starting with just the basic objects and trying to perfect them. Then, you go a level up and figure out how do you extract a couple of insights from the way these two sets of data interact. We just keep leveling it up. We’ve got conversation intelligence. But now, we’re going to be moving into things like relationship intelligence. You will see soon. Keep your eyes open for what that’s going to mean. But it’s really exciting: the insights and the suggestions that artificial intelligence are going to be able to make that will really clue sales reps into the best way to spend their time and the next best thing they could be doing for any particular deal they’re trying to close.
Mike Gerholdt: Oh, well. Hashtag forward-looking statement.
Matthew Barnha…: Yes.
Mike Gerholdt: We’ll wrap up with just a fun question. I’ll start with myself. I’ll be honest, if you’ve listened to podcasts, you know, during quarantine and the last 400 and some days, I really got into lawn care. I really didn’t think I would ever get into lawn care. I’ve probably watched more lawn care videos on YouTube than I care to admit. I used to make fun of my old neighbor for being so specific with his lawn. Now, I’m that guy. But I’d love to know if there’s any hobbies or fun things that you chose to focus on when you’re not building amazing Einstein stuff in this last year, year and a half. Krithika, I’ll start with you.
Krithika Viswan…: I would say that I started baking a lot more. I’m not the best cook. I will be honest. That is something that I started. The only caveat is that I started out the pandemic wanting to be super healthy, and a lot of the stuff I was baking was gluten-free and sugar-free. Then, as the pandemic went on, my baking also changed. Now, I’m baking things with a lot of sugar, a lot of butter, and a lot of cream cheese, or what have you because that’s just what’s good and life is short, so I’m going to bake to the fullest.
Mike Gerholdt: Yes. I had a family member break out a 1920s apple crisp recipe. Oh, boy! Let me tell you. They knew how to bake back then.
Krithika Viswan…: Oh, they did.
Mike Gerholdt: I’m pro that. Way to go. Matthew, did you pick up anything fun?
Matthew Barnha…: Yeah. Yeah. My activity, especially this last pandemic year, when we were home a lot, was also backyard-related like yours. I do like to build things. I built a big pergola in my backyard, and this built-in-
Mike Gerholdt: Oh, wow!
Matthew Barnha…: …and this built-in bench seating and some stairs-
Krithika Viswan…: Wow. I’m coming to both of your backyards.
Matthew Barnha…: Yeah.
Mike Gerholdt: Seriously. With baked goods.
Matthew Barnha…: Yeah.
Krithika Viswan…: Yeah.
Matthew Barnha…: I love making stuff and being creative. I get to do that in this job, but I don’t create physical stuff in the jobs, so I create physical things in my free time. I’m actually an engineer by training, electrical. That doesn’t have much to do with carpentry. If I’m going to attack a project like that, I’m not going to just start hammering things together. I’m actually going to spend time learning how to read span tables and understand how far a two by eight can go versus a two by 10 and just engineer the thing and build it. I guess that I need that to pretend that I’m an engineer. It makes me feel good.
Mike Gerholdt: That’s awesome. I do find that a lot of Salesforce employees have very, I’ll call it, tactical hobbies, from baking to carpentry, things that you can see the change in. I forget I interviewed a product major that was into smelting of metals.
Matthew Barnha…: Nice.
Mike Gerholdt: There you go, a very tactile thing. But I would agree. You make a lot of stuff, and then you turn the monitor off, and the stuff goes away, so very cool. Well, yes, we should have a backyard cook-off in your pergola. I’d be a fan of that.
Matthew Barnha…: That would be perfect. No, I would like you, maybe you could help mow my lawn. We’ll have Krithika’s pies under the pergola. I think it would be perfect.
Mike Gerholdt: I like how you put us to work. Good job. [crosstalk].
Matthew Barnha…: That took me months, so I already did the work.
Mike Gerholdt: Well, Krithika and Matthew, thank you for spending time on the podcast. TrailheaDX is June 23rd. Your session rounds out the admin channel. It’s going to be super cool. I hope everybody registers and tunes in. We will see you all on the social chat. Thanks for joining.
Krithika Viswan…: Awesome. Thanks for having us.
Matthew Barnha…: Yes, thanks, Mike.
Mike Gerholdt: 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. We are @SalesforceAdmns, no I, on Twitter. My cohost Gillian is on Twitter. You can follow her @GillianKBruce. Of course, I’m on Twitter as well @MikeGerholdt. With that, stay safe, stay awesome, and stay tuned for the next episode. We’ll see you at TrailheaDX.
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