Today on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we talk to Joy Shutters-Helbing, Senior Manager of Salesforce Practice at Captech and Salesforce MVP Hall-of-Famer, and Mike Reynolds, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Slack. Join us as we chat about creating community content, navigating conference submissions, and their new podcast, The JAM.
You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are a few takeaways from our conversation with Joy Shutters-Helbing and Mike Reynolds.
Mike and Joy are movers and shakers in the Salesforce community. Joy’s in the Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame, hosts MVP office hours on the first and third Friday of every month, and has spoken at Dreamforce, TDX, and tons of community conferences. Mike has helped create 13 different Salesforce certifications as a Credential Ambassador, and he’s a regular speaker at conferences big and small.
Together, Joy and Mike are the dynamic duo behind The JAM, where they talk to folks in the Salesforce ecosystem about everything from hiring to technical talks to highlights from the release notes. In fact, they just had me on the pod to talk about the Salesforce community, so be sure to check that out at the link below.
As veteran speakers and content creators, Joy and Mike want to know that you have what it takes to give a Salesforce presentation. In their experience, most people fall into one of two camps:
If you’re in camp number one, it’s important to remember that you’re an expert on your own business’s problems, and how you solved them can help someone else facing a similar issue. “When you’ve toiled over a solution and, all of a sudden, it works and you stand up and do some sort of victory dance, that is the thing you should be sharing,” Joy says.
If you’re in camp number two, where you think you could share something but you don’t know how to get started, Mike recommends following Salesforce Evangelists and Advocates and event organizers on social media to hear about calls for speakers. I’ve included a few links below for Midwest and Florida Dreamin’, and Mid-Atlantic Dreamin’ is right around the corner.
Smaller events like community groups and conferences are a great place to polish your presentation and practice your public speaking skills. And while you might not feel ready for the Dreamforce stage just yet, you can submit topics you’d like to hear more about or even nominate someone to give a talk.
There’s a lot more great stuff from Mike and Joy about giving presentations and creating great Salesforce content, so be sure to listen to the full episode. And don’t forget to subscribe to the Salesforce Admins Podcast so you can catch us every Thursday.
Mike Gerholdt:
This week on the Salesforce Admins Podcast, we’re jamming, literally, with Joy Shutters-Helbing and Mike Reynolds about creating community content, navigating conference submissions, and yes, even launching a podcast of their own. It’s called The JAM Pod. I listen to it, do you? Joy is a longtime Salesforce MVP Hall of Famer, community group leader, and admin extraordinaire with over 21 years of experience. Mike is a Salesforce credential ambassador, known for his deep knowledge on permission sets, permissions, and profiles, and now, he works with Slack. Before we get into this episode, be sure to follow the Salesforce Admins Podcast wherever you listen to podcasts. That way, you get a fresh episode every Thursday, right on your phone. With that, let’s jump into the conversation with Joy and Mike. Joy and Mike, welcome to the podcast.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Hi.
Mike Reynolds:
Thank you.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Thank you.
Mike Gerholdt:
Joy, let’s start with you. You’ve been in the community, you’ve actually been on the Salesforce Admins Podcast before, but for listeners, just finding out who you are and probably missed your wonderful TDX presentation, can you tell us a little bit about what you do in the community and how long you’ve been working with Salesforce?
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
I have been working with Salesforce for 21 years, and for those of you who haven’t heard me talk about it before, it does run in parallel with the age of my son. I’ve been a Salesforce Admin for the duration. I’m a Chicago Admin Community Group leader, along with Denise and Chris. I am a Salesforce MVP Hall of Fame. I am podcast host with Mike Reynolds, and he will talk about that a little bit more in a second. I also host MVP Office Hours on the first and third Friday of every month, and I’ve spoken at Dreamforce, and TDX, and a host of other community conferences. I think that’s it.
Mike Gerholdt:
Well, if not, then we’ll definitely be able to find you online.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Yes.
Mike Gerholdt:
Mike, how about you?
Mike Reynolds:
Well, I have been Salesforcing for about 10 years, and I’ve been able to do a lot over that time. It’s been a wild ride. I’m a credential ambassador, so I’ve helped create, I want to say, 13 different certifications or updates to them, some Superbadges and Trailhead modules, stuff like that, maintenance modules. I’ve spoken at a lot of conferences, all sorts of different topics. Things that range from DevOps to, I think most people have heard me talk about permissions. It’s been a real big deal for the last couple of years. Spoken at a lot of conferences, it’s super fun. I love connecting, and getting out, and doing all that. Now, I work at Slack.
Mike Gerholdt:
Oh, yes. That’s right. Very communicative of you to work at Slack.
Mike Reynolds:
Yeah, because I like the collaboration.
Mike Gerholdt:
You almost threw me a perfect segue there, which is that you’ve been out and done a lot of presenting. One thing that I’ve seen when I was doing user groups when we were in Chicago, you guys also both host a podcast called The JAM Pod, and depending on when you choose to air my episode, I was on it.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Yay.
Mike Gerholdt:
[inaudible 00:03:52] I’ll link to that. I might have to go back and link to it depending on when it happens. But one of the things that we see ebb and flow in the community is the amount of contributions that community members, of their own free will, put out, and I know, on your podcast, we talked about speaking at user group events. Where did the idea of, “Hey, let’s sit down and create something that’s not the easiest thing in the world to create, but we want to put it out and the world,” come from?
Mike Reynolds:
I think that’s Joy’s fault.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
It’s always my fault. Everything’s always my fault. It was probably me asking a lot of questions and Mike being like, “Well, we should talk to people that have the answers to that.” I think that’s really where it started. But also, there was a challenge that happened on MVP Office Hours once upon a time from Squire. Squire, I’m sorry. Here we are, just keep talking about you. But it’s really in a good way about how he had opinions about Mike’s presentation on permissions, and I was like, “I can arrange this phone call.” There was some excitement around this throwdown-at-the-flagpole-on-the-playground situation.
Mike Gerholdt:
Oh my.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Yes. People thought that, well, I’m not going to give it away, but people were very excited to see the fisticuffs that were going to happen around permissions and profiles between Mike Reynolds and Squire Kershner. If you haven’t heard our first episode, you should go back and listen to it, and you can find out how that turns out. But since then, we have spoken with a number of different people in the Salesforce ecosystem about, wow, a host of different things. Everything from hiring, to technical talks, to… The topics are very wide-ranging, including the podcast we recorded with you. Did you have something else to add, Mike Reynolds? I have two mics on this call. This is crazy.
Mike Gerholdt:
I know. I forgot to mention that Joy’s in not a good situation where she says, “Mike,” and then there are two people go up.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Yeah. I say, “Mike,” and then I roll my eyes.
Mike Reynolds:
I can tell from the tone who you’re talking to though. We were working together at the [inaudible 00:06:16] group.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
A customer? A customer.
Mike Reynolds:
Yeah. We were at a customer, but Joy and I were working together. This idea came up and I looked into it. It didn’t cost that much to get a really basic, “Here’s what we can do to record a podcast, doesn’t take a ton.” It’s not super sophisticated or anything, but it works, and we have a developer edition of Salesforce that we built out over… Yeah, it was on a Saturday. I think four hours to put together a very basic community site that we host the episodes on, and then that was kind of it. We just didn’t give up, I guess.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
I’m still adding fields in production.
Mike Reynolds:
That’s true. That’s true.
Mike Gerholdt:
Joy following all of the best practices that we speak about.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
It’s a dev org.
Mike Reynolds:
All the work has been done in prep. I think that’s the key.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Yeah, all the work. Yeah, yeah.
Mike Reynolds:
It’s the main takeaway.
Mike Gerholdt:
Gotcha.
Mike Reynolds:
But really, it’s funny because the podcast is… It’s been a lot of fun, but when I look back at how we got here, it’s basically the exact same as how we got with all these things, the conversation about permissions. I mean, I’ve given that talk so many times, people reach out, user groups reach out, and they’re like, “Hey, we would love to have you come and get this presentation.” I’m happy to do so, but the presentation came from a work meeting where we were trying to solve the problem. Yeah. I called Joy and I called another colleague, and I was like, “Hey, this is messed up. We have to find a way around this.” We worked on it for about an hour and a half and then iterated over it for maybe a week. There’s our real life business problem and our real life solution, and then we just decided to talk about it, because it’s applicable. It happens to everybody. Everybody’s got permissions, everybody’s got the same challenges.
Mike Gerholdt:
What do you feel is the biggest barrier from people going from, not necessarily starting, let’s say, a podcast, but creating and contributing community content in the Salesforce ecosystem?
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
What’s the biggest hurdle, the biggest obstacle of folks creating and sharing their content with the rest of us? I think there’s a lot of things. There’s, where to start? You have two different people. You’ve got people that have stuff and they’re ready to share, they just don’t know where to start, and then there’s the folks that are like, “I don’t know if what I have is important enough to share with anyone.” I think the first hurdle is getting folks to a place where they understand that they are experts in the business problem that they have, that they can share with the community, and they are the experts on how they’ve applied a solution to this problem. Giving these folks the confidence to say, “There is someone out here who is dealing with this similar problem, who will learn, and engage, and benefit from what you’re sharing.” Once we get folks to build that confidence and that what their experience is worth sharing, I think then we can start getting more content from them.
Mike Gerholdt:
Mike, how about you?
Mike Reynolds:
I think one of the challenges that a lot of people have is knowing that they can and then knowing when. Maybe you’ve been to a community conference. Do you think, “Oh, I could contribute to this,” but you didn’t think of that three months ago when the call for speakers was open, and so right now is a brilliant time. I mean, I know Midwest Dreamin’s call for speakers is open.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Through the 31st, I think.
Mike Reynolds:
Yeah. Right after that, Florida Dreamin, their call for speakers will be open. Mid-Atlantic has got to be soon.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Dreamforce is coming up.
Mike Reynolds:
Yeah, it will. Here before you know it, which is crazy to think about that it sets in, but it will.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Community groups and conferences are the best place to run those through for the big ones.
Mike Reynolds:
Because I think most people have something that would benefit from someone else. Most of us have done something. If you’re sitting at home going, “Oh, well, I haven’t done anything that’s that cool,” you have. You have, because there’s somebody else who wasn’t able to do it that tried. Anytime you make a flow, somebody else tried that and didn’t get it right. We’ve all got things, and I think it’s that realization that you actually do have something of value to share, because you do.
Mike Gerholdt:
I think we talk a lot like, “Oh, you got to participate, got to do this.” Whenever I’ve done end user training or just technology training, you always got to think about the what’s-in-it-for-me perspective when you are talking with an end user, because you’re generally going from one system to another when you’re switching to Salesforce. I’m going to ask you the same question. For your podcast, The JAM Pod, what’s in it for you? What do you get out of it?
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Nothing.
Mike Gerholdt:
I disagree. I disagree. I think you get something out of it, because there’s a reason people create that content in the community.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
What does Joy get out of The JAM Pod podcast? I get to create a connection with folks that I might not have been able to unless I had done this. Being a community group leader, I don’t necessarily get a lot of time to speak with the group of people about content, or I go to a conference and I only get to speak about the content and there’s less time engaging with folks on a different level. One of our listeners said to me recently, they’re like, “Joy, when I listen to The JAM Pod, I just feel like I’m in a room having a conversation with you and Mike.” That was actually the best compliment we could have gotten, I think. You learned a lot, you just felt comfortable with us. What I forget though is that there’s a lot of people that are at these conferences that introduce themselves to me, and they know me better than I know them. It’s interesting for my brain to be like, “Oh, they have been listening to you and they’re watching what’s happening, but Joy, you don’t know these folks yet, so it’s okay.”
Mike Gerholdt:
Mike, how about you?
Mike Reynolds:
I mean, I know what I get out of it. I mean, I get to meet with people, and talk about them, and learn about them, and learn how they’ve contributed. For me, very selfishly, The JAM is an excellent way to just get to know some people a little bit better than I already do. I have to suffer through time with Joy, which I actually do like, and I enjoy spending time with Joy. But I think just broadly speaking, this idea of, “Well, why would I want to go stand up on stage and contribute? Why do I want to do anything?” There have been a handful of moments where somebody comes up to you and says, “Hey, you talked about this, and I was able to do it.” Those moments, that feeling is so damn good, to know that you have been able to make somebody a little bit more successful or speed somebody’s path to success, anything, you just helped. Being helpful is such a good feeling. I mean, for me, that’s my why.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah. No, I don’t think you can undersell that enough, because you forget how often in life and in your career being helpful feels good, and it can almost get a little bit addictive in terms of wanting to put content out there and getting any kind of that feedback of, “Wow, that was so helpful. I’m so appreciative of your content.”
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
I was going to say, one of the catalysts for sharing content, to be helpful so that you can get this experience that we’re talking about that can be addictive, when you have toiled over a formula, or you have toiled over the flow, or you have toiled over a solution, and, all of a sudden, it works, and you stand up and you do some sort of victory dance, that is the thing that you should be sharing, the thing that you toiled over, because we know that you did the Google search, we know that you did… You reached out for help and you cobbled together all of these things that helped you with the solution. That victory dance is why you should share your experience so that you can help folks not have to toil over the hours of cobbling together the thing.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, I usually run around the neighborhood with an air horn.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
That is a different victory dance than mine, but I like it. I like it.
Mike Gerholdt:
Letting people know what I’ve accomplished feels good, keeps the neighbors awake, keeps them on their toes. All right. Last question for both of you, and you weren’t expecting any of this, but if you were on… Mike, this is kind of interesting for you because you’re on the Salesforce side, but if you were on the Salesforce side of things, how could Salesforce enable more community content creation?
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Go ahead, Mike.
Mike Reynolds:
Wow, okay. Yeah, sure.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
I’ll jump in later.
Mike Reynolds:
I think that the first thing is just awareness. We shout, and we really do. If you are following the evangelists and the people that are the mouthpieces for Salesforce, if you’re following those people on the socials, you will see that they start posting things like, “Hey, it’s time to submit your ideas.” That is, I think, we can do more of that. I feel like we do a lot, but we could do more. I think the other thing is to encourage people to just submit ideas. I think what a lot of people don’t realize is… Let’s take Dreamforce, that’s the next mega event that we have. When you submit to Dreamforce, you don’t have to submit the idea for yourself. You can submit an idea and say, “I really want to hear about this, but I’m not going to be the speaker for it.”
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
You can nominate other people.
Mike Reynolds:
Yeah. You could say, “I think this person should talk about it.” I want to hear Mike Gerholdt talk about community. I can submit that as an idea.” That doesn’t mean that you’re going to have to go do it, but it gets the idea in front of the people. I think we could do a better job of making sure that we have the megaphone at the right moments and that we are helping and getting the word out right.
Mike Gerholdt:
Joy, how about you?
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
I think that is a solid way to encourage more folks to submit to these sorts of things, whether it’s a community conference, a community group, or our Salesforce conferences. I think something that Salesforce can do, it would be maybe to, wow, this is really off the cuff here, I’m sorry, but encourage the brainstorming sessions, encourage the speaking mentorship situation. I know that there is some very soft and lighthearted speaking mentorship happening. I forget where I saw it and I’m sorry if folks are recognizing themselves. I’m not putting names, and faces, and topic together, but if folks could brainstorm, and feel like they’re being heard, and have these ideas bounced around in a way that they can validate their ideas, I think that would help with more of this content creation that is not seemingly all the same, because I think that what happens is folks see this piece of content somewhere, and then they put their own twist on it or their own flavor to it, and then they try to run with it that way.
It’s a formula and it works. If you’ve seen it in a small space and you can make it better, that’s great. But I think that if you want to really build some incredibly interesting content, having a safe space to brainstorm, like a writer’s workshop perhaps, would really help that.
Mike Gerholdt:
Those are good suggestions.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
That just came to me.
Mike Gerholdt:
Some of the best content happens on the fly. Let me tell you. Joy, Mike, I want to thank you for taking time out and being on my little podcast with all of our five listeners that we have. Hopefully, somebody from your podcast will come over and I’ll have 15 or 20 maybe.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
I think there’s going to be some crossover on this.
Mike Gerholdt:
I think it’s good.
Mike Reynolds:
I only hope so.
Mike Gerholdt:
I’m glad you guys are out there creating content in the world. Also, just as a side note, not that you asked for it, I’m glad it’s called The JAM Pod and not The Jelly Pod, because jam is better than jelly, and I, 100%, think you should have a jam chosen for every single podcast.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Like a pairing?
Mike Gerholdt:
I’m telling you, there is a shop-
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
A jam pairing?
Mike Gerholdt:
There is like two or three… Now, it’s spring, so this’ll come out in April, March something. It’s farmers’ market season.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Oh, it is.
Mike Gerholdt:
I spend an absorbent amount of money on farmers’ market jams, like blueberry jams, apple. In my house, jam does not last that long and there’s a couple shops that we definitely frequent, so I was thinking of… It’d also be a good excuse just to buy jam.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
It is, it is.
Mike Reynolds:
I’m going to admit this to you because I have no shame, I, one time, made a bracket for the best jam for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Mike Gerholdt:
I like where this is going.
Mike Reynolds:
I’m just going to tell you, it took determination, it took grit and staying power, but I have some pretty strong opinions on strawberry, strawberry jam, as being the definitive leader of the field. A lot of honorable mentions available, but a good strawberry jam, so hard to do better.
Mike Gerholdt:
With peanut butter.
Mike Reynolds:
With peanut butter for peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
Mike Gerholdt:
100%. I can go with that. I can go with blueberry too. I’m indiscriminate. Let me tell you what I prefer with bacon on toast, blueberry, blueberry jam with black pepper bacon. Let me tell you, life changing.
Mike Reynolds:
This is what I’m doing tomorrow morning. All right.
Mike Gerholdt:
It’s life… You could put-
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Are you telling me I’m making blueberry jam tonight? [inaudible 00:22:34].
Mike Gerholdt:
I’m saying, you could put… Now, here’s the thing. I will also eat it with strawberry jam, but there is something about the sweetness of the blueberry and the savoriness of the bacon.
Mike Reynolds:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. With a little bit of smokiness in there.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah. I mean, in America, we smoke our bacon.
Mike Reynolds:
Do you go on with a sourdough here?
Mike Gerholdt:
No, just regular old bread, whatever’s at the store.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
This was the question, Mike, Mike and Mike. I needed to know the vehicle for the jam, because sourdough is good.
Mike Reynolds:
Is magical.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah.
Mike Reynolds:
Fresh bacon [inaudible 00:23:10].
Mike Gerholdt:
No, I enjoy… Here’s the crazy thing, because it’s been a while since I’ve worked food into the podcast, but that’s always in our feedback of, “He works food into the podcast since [inaudible 00:23:20].” Yeah, whatever.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
We talked about hamburgers last time.
Mike Gerholdt:
I saw that.
Mike Reynolds:
Look, I’m not saying we have to do this, but we can have… Here’s what we’ll do. If you create a podcast, a Salesforce podcast by Dreamforce, I will arrange… I’m saying you, anybody in the ecosystem, you go to Dreamforce, you create a podcast, I will arrange for a… We have a podcast-
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Breakfast?
Mike Reynolds:
We’re going to do… No, not a breakfast. A bracket of jams and jellies under various circumstances, and then we can just create this.
Mike Gerholdt:
I’m a part of this. [inaudible 00:24:01].
Mike Reynolds:
We will make this happen. You only get an invite if you create a podcast, but I will make it happen. [inaudible 00:24:08].
Mike Gerholdt:
I feel like we’re going to be a-
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
You just created a session, Mike. He just created a session.
Mike Gerholdt:
I feel like we’re going to be in the mezzanine of the Marriott Marquis. It’s like me and you in 30 jars of jam.
Mike Reynolds:
This sounds ideal.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
[inaudible 00:24:22].
Mike Gerholdt:
We’re just like, people are walking by, “What are those guys doing? I don’t know, they must be really into jam.” Yes, we are. Just jam all over our face. We’re just jam drunk.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Oh my god, [inaudible 00:24:35].
Mike Gerholdt:
What’s going on?
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Oh my gosh.
Mike Reynolds:
So many jars.
Mike Gerholdt:
Well, that sounds like an emergency room appointment for diabetes so-
Mike Reynolds:
Appreciate that.
Mike Gerholdt:
… ought to be awesome.
Joy Shutters-Helbing:
Thanks, Mike.
Mike Gerholdt:
Yeah, thank you both for coming on the podcast. I do like your idea, and now I’m going to go have some toasted jam for lunch.
Mike Reynolds:
It’s perfect.
Mike Gerholdt:
That’s a wrap on our jam-packed episode with Joy and Mike. Whether you’re team strawberry or blueberry, no judgment. We hope you’re walking away inspired to share your own admin wins and fumbles, flow fixes, and really all of your stories. If you like this episode, hey, spread the jam. I mean, the love. Thinking of jam. Tap those three dots, share it with a fellow admin, or shout it from the rooftops, or hey, ooh, I know, a Slack channel. If you’re hungry for more, head over to admin.salesforce.com for everything admin, including a transcript of the show. Oh, don’t forget, you can also join us in the Admin Trailblazers group, the conversation, and I bet the jam bracket planning continues there. Until next time, keep those flows flowing and those toast slices jammed. We’ll see you in the cloud.
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