Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we bring you the return of the original ButtonClick Admin, Mike Gerholdt, Senior Director of Admin Evangelism at Salesforce. Gillian has just given birth to a happy, healthy baby boy (!!!). While she’s on hiatus, she’s handing to mic to Mike.
Join us as we talk about the work Mike does with the community, trends in podcasting, and what’s coming next for his stint as host of the pod.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Mike Gerholdt.
It’s been about a year and a half since Mike handed over the reins of the podcast to Gillian, and now that he’s coming back to fill in for Gillian, we wanted to check in and see what he’s been up to. “If anybody’s attended Dreamforce, you’ve probably seen me on the keynote stage,” Mike says, “but I’ve also been improving processes that you didn’t see explicitly. How the carton of milk gets to the grocery store is probably not what keeps you up at night, but there’s someone whose job it is to make the carton of milk get to the grocery store faster and colder than it is right now.” At Salesforce, that means finding new ways to help the amazing members of the admin community find their way onto the stage and into the spotlight.
For Gillian, Mike’s work has completely transformed the content at admin events all over the world. “A lot of the events you go to bring in very polished speakers that have given keynote presentations and have really high production costs,” Mike says, “but for a lot of speakers in the admin theaters and at Dreamforce, this is their first time presenting.” It takes a lot to deliver a really polished presentation and getting first-time speakers there is a big part of Mike’s job.
The truth is that as podcasters ourselves, we’re major nerds when it comes to what we listen to. One thing that Mike has been focused on is trends in the podcasting world. Between up-to-the-minute shows like Serial and Pod Save America, and slower-burn shows with high production values like 99 Percent Invisible, Radiolab, and Reply All, there are many different models out there that are successful.
Another major change is the recent introduction of seasons to podcasting. This lets you deliver content under the same model as Netflix or Hulu, giving listeners the option to binge through a season and stay with it. There has been such an explosion in podcasting since the ButtonClick Admin podcast launched in 2013, both in Salesforce-specific shows and simply to get nerdy about any topic you can possibly imagine. For Mike, the thing that separates a one-off from something that sticks around is whether or not they make it past the tenth episode. Putting out new content week to week helps people get invested in your show, and it’s also how you get better: “If you have five hundred at-bats, you’re probably better than your first one by your five hundredth,” Mike says.
We’ll be doing a few mini-series to change up the format of the podcast. The first one will be Lightning Champions with Kelly Walker. “The amount of the things that you can just do in Lightning and put no second guess into it is amazing,” Mike says, “but you only have that perspective if you were, back in the day, trying to edit the home page and realized you couldn’t.”
We’re also doing a mini-series with Marc Baizman focused on nonprofits. “This series is going to cover a lot of different aspects of working the nonprofit Salesforce space,” Gillian says, “and especially hearing about some specific product and features that are relevant to the nonprofit space.” We’ve seen some specific questions come up about nonprofit implementation versus for-profit, so we’re looking to address those issues while hearing from new and exciting guests in that space. Stay tuned!
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Eddie Cliff, VP of Product Management at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about Salesforce Foundations and how it can give you access to even more capabilities within Sales, Service, and beyond. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from […]
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Lisa Tulchin, Senior Curriculum Developer at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about user learning styles and how to use them to create better training sessions. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Lisa Tulchin. Choose […]
Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Ella Marks, Senior Marketing Manager at Salesforce. Join us as we chat about the keys to creating an effective presentation, how to prep, and how to create a strong ending. You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation […]
