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Launching a New Career - Why It’s Never Too Late to Start Something New! · Work It Like A Mum

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Hello, welcome to today's Facebook LinkedIn live.
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Today I am chatting with Sarah Taplin, who is a Salesforce consultant with Futureform, and we're going to be talking all about why it's never too late to launch a new career and how you can launch a career in tech.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Just going live now on Instagram.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we're live today Facebook, linkedin and Instagram chatting with Sarah Taplin, who is a Salesforce consultant who retrained.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: We're going to dive into Sarah's previous career to become a Salesforce consultant with Supermoms.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So thank you so much, sarah, for joining me today.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: It's a real, real pleasure to chat with you you're welcome.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: So rewind back, tell us because you haven't always been in sales force, have you?
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Haven't always been in tech?
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: What were you doing prior to doing this?
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: yeah, so, um, well, I actually did my um degree in midwifery, um, and I qualified as a midwife in 2009.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, so I was, yeah, fully fledged midwife working for the NHS, and then I had my first daughter whilst I was working on Delivery Suite, which was, oh my gosh, that was like yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Did it make you more frightened?
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a hundred percent, yeah, yeah, yeah, so that was quite yeah, yeah, did it make you more frightened, or?
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: A hundred percent, yeah, a hundred percent, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, so it's quite a surreal and then did you go back into the hospital where you worked to give birth no, I didn't actually.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: No, so I was, I was working in Leicester, so I did my training up in the Midlands and um, and then I had her in Derby because I was kind of living between the two.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: So, um, yeah, no, they did say to, do you want to have the baby here?
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: And I was like no, I think I'll go.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: I think I'll go somewhere else.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so I had her whilst I was a midwife and then obviously went on maternity leave and then, due to all sorts of family things going on, we moved down to Kent during that time oh OK, and that's where I'm from.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: And I didn't go back to work at that point.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: So I had my eldest daughter, daisy.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: She was almost two, and then I thought, no, I'm about ready to go back.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: So, um, I didn't go back to the hospital because that was shift work.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Um, it's difficult, it's very difficult nursing, isn't it because they're doing predominantly a female, you know, occupying a lot of more women that work in nursing?
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, and it isn't very family friendly and I've had friends, I had a lot of friends that were nurses and that I'm out of maternity leave and then they had to go back doing something slightly different yeah, yeah, well, that, and that's kind of what happened.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: So I ended up then taking a community midwife job, um, so that's um, I sort of I did a clinic, um, so that was like eight or six sort of nice hours, two days, only two days a week.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: So it was nice, yeah, um.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: But they then wanted me, understandably, to do on calls and I was like I can't, I can't do on calls, I can't be called out at four o'clock in the morning and I've got a toddler, um.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: But anyway, cut long story short, I had my second child whilst I was doing that, so I never had to do, I never had to do the end, um, and then I so I, so I left um the midwifery on maternity leave with every intention of going back in actual fact.
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: But, um, I then you know, maternity leave comes to an end, and then you think, as lots of women do, I'm sure, you suddenly do the numbers and you're like, well, actually I'm not, I'm not going to make any money by going to work.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pay to go to work.
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: In a lot of cases, and it was exactly that I was going to be paying to go to work and I was like, well, okay, that's decision made then, um.
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: So then I was a stay at home mum for um, a few years probably, no, two and a half years, something like that um, and in that time I had my um registration.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Every three years you have to renew your midwife or nursing registration and you have to say that you've done so many hours, um, and I hadn't done enough hours because I hadn't been working, so I had to let my registration lapse, unfortunately.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: So.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: So that means I'm still qualified, but I can't practice until I'm back on the register, um, so, yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: So then I was in this situation where, um, yeah, two and a half years into being a stay-at-home mum, the youngest one was going to preschool, the eldest one was at school, and and I was like, what am I gonna?
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: What am I gonna do?
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Um, what skills have I got?
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: You know, yeah, um.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: So I got a job in a local doctor surgery, working two, two mornings a week, just to get back into the world of work.
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: What were you doing there?
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: Just like um sort of a health care assistant role, so like blood pressures and dressings and things like that, um, so not midwifery related, but but you know, health care, yeah, a bit of medical, yeah, medical, yeah, and I did enjoy that.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: But I thought to myself, you know, I need to, I need to actually think sort of more long term here.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: What am I going to do?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I did.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: I sort of went back to the sort of what I enjoyed in school.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: I went all the way back to what I actually enjoy doing and I really enjoyed maths and I enjoyed that kind of problem solving.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was quite logical sort of based mind I guess.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I found this is prior to Siva Mum.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: So I found another mum sort of driven course called Mums in Tech.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: Oh right, yeah, and that was an introduction to coding and so I didn't know if I wanted to do coding.
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: I just sort of thought, oh well, I'll give something a go.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: So I went along to that and and, yes, I came out of that thinking I don't think I want to be a coder.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: But what was good about that was that we had lots of different people come and talk to us from the industry, from the tech industry all women as well um talking about their different roles.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So you know, you didn't have to be a software developer, but you could be a product owner or a, a user experience designer or something along those lines.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: And I was like, oh, okay, so maybe I won't be a coder, but I'll be there, is there, is, you know, possibly something in the industry.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Then I went back to my doctor surgery job, still kind of thinking about what I wanted to do, um, and then I met um another mum at school, at my daughter's school, and she was working in sales force recruitment.
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, and she said, do you want to try recruiting?
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: And I was like, I don't know if they'll do school hours.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: Then, yeah, okay, so, um, so I did like 9, 30 till 2, 30, three days a week as a sales force recruiter and I suppose that's where I, sorry, discovered no, no, worries, and that's where I discovered um Salesforce.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: So we were working using Salesforce and I was actually recruiting for these, these roles and, um, it was actually when I was um, yeah, I was recruiting for a salesforce admin role, I think, talking to um a candidate who'd done um, the super mums course.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: Um, and, and whilst I was placing all of these people in these salesforce roles, I was thinking, well, why, why couldn't I could do?
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: Perhaps I could do something.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Um, and that didn't actually come to me sort away, that came to me after the fact.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: I then left the recruitment because that wasn't for me.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, I just yeah.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, then back to the drawing board.
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: What am I going to do?
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: And, um, yeah, and I just kept thinking about this, this girl that I'd spoken to, and um, have you heard of super moms?
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: at that point then, before you spoke to this lady, no, no, no, that was the first.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, okay and um.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: So I was quite interested because I'd been looking up things like but I guess, as well as a recruiter, you could see the demand for these types of roles exactly.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, um, you know, and there were so many different types of roles and also, um, there's sort of the entry level roles, and but then there seemed to be, you know, you could really build a career in the industry.
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: There was, you know, much more senior roles.
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: Could you see as a recruiter then that people had like done something before and then retrained in salesforce?
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: um, I don't know if I came across that much of that, to be honest, or maybe I wasn't looking for it specifically, but she just stuck out, I suppose because we had a.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: We had quite a good conversation, I think probably because she was a mum as well, and I don't know.
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you felt a bit of a ripple exactly yeah and um and yeah, so it's just sort of stuck with me left that job and then, um, yeah, and then I just thought I just talking to my husband and he was like, well, just give it a go, you know, if you don't like it, then doesn't matter, it's fine.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Um, so you know, I was very fortunate to be able to be in that position to to do that um, and and yeah, and I just I just started it in um, yes, that was November 2019.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Um, and it was 16 hours a week.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I was gonna say how did you find the course?
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: yeah, really good.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: So I I wasn't working, um, I didn't have another job at the time, I was just, you know, went back to sort of looking after the kids.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: But 16 hours a week felt manageable.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: You could do it in school hours.
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: You could do it in the school hours.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, there was like a three hour.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: I don't know if it's still the same, but there was a three hour webinar once a week.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: But there was a three-hour webinar once a week and that was really good.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: That was a live webinar but it was also recorded because some, some people was were working and had to log on in the evening and things, um, so you could watch it back if you wanted to, um, but, yeah, so three hours, and then you had sort of the rest of it was made up of um, homework and self-study.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: So salesforce is um, actually that would be quite a good thing actually, because people will be watching this and might not know what salesforce is.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: So what is salesforce?
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: So?
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: salesforce is a crm um, which is a customer relationship management um platform.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: I guess it's in the cloud, so it's not like something you plug in and install on your computer.
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: It's you can access it from anywhere um online, basically um, but it's it's essentially it's a lot more than a crm.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: These days.
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: It does all sorts of fancy things, but it's ways for business.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: It's ways for businesses to kind of bring all their data onto one platform, automate things.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: There's a marketing side of it.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: You can sort of do marketing.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: You know email, you know mass emailing.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: You could do um integrate into other platforms.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: There's all sorts of things you can do with it, but um at its core it's a.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: It's a crm um.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so you do sort of the three-hour webinar and then you do um.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: The self-study um of which salesforce is great and actually anybody who wants to have a go can.
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: You can just go to their trailhead.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: It's trailheadcom.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Sorry if that's wrong, but it's um.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: It's a free.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: They have a free learning um.
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, you can just have a place.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: You can.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: You can um set up a trailhead playground, which is essentially a salesforce instance, and just have a poke around it's a bit like a sandpit.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: They call it a sandpit or something like that yeah, sandbox yeah yeah, yeah, and and the beauty of it really is that, um, and as salesforce generally, is that it it's um, a lot of the configuration and the customization can be done by clicking and not coding.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: You can code and do sort of much more custom things, but generally speaking, it's click not code.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: So that was really appealing because I'd done the coding course and I wasn't sure if I wanted to do that.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so there was self-study.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: But then also one of the really cool things about the supermums um course is that you get a mentor um, so you get a mentor who's working in the industry um, so I had a mentor who's working at, at salesforce actually, um, and he was invaluable, you know, for your sort of questions.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: Every week.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: We'd have an hour call every week and I'd sort of say you know how on earth do I do this or what does this mean?
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: Um, and, and that was invaluable support, because I think, you know, if it was all self-study, um, that might have been quite a bit more challenging.
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, to have somebody to kind of call up and ask questions and email and so on, yeah, so that was great.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: And then, yeah, so that was November 19, obviously.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: Then we had lockdown 2020 and that was just as I'd started um, the kind of project part of it.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: So you do, I can't.
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: You know, it's such a long time ago now, I think it's something like nine weeks or 12 weeks of sort of that webinar self-learning pattern and then at the end of that um, you do um again.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: It's brilliant and, unlike you know, any other course I've seen out there where they actually give you a live, put you on a live project, um.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: So I was with a charity in Ireland, um, yeah, and you just sort of, but it's supported, you're supported, you're not on your own um, and you actually get to experience it in the real world um, which is amazing.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: Um, and it was during that time that we went into lockdown um, so, yeah.
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: So then I finished the, finished the course in that in that time and then got my salesforce admin exam, um, in the summer of 2020, um, which was great.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: And then I was still homeschooling my kids.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, it wasn't, it would have been hard, yeah yeah, and then I think it was when they went back.
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: They must have gone back to school at the end of September 2020.
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: I think I'm trying to think back now, but I remember they went back to school and I thought, right, I'm gonna start looking for a job now.
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: And, um, yeah, and then that wasn't easy, I have to say um well, it was a funny time.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: 2020 yeah, yeah, it was, I think it was.
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: It was a funny time and it was also trying to get a job in an industry that you don't have any experience in.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: So I just, I mean, I and Supermum's team were really helpful.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: I spoke to their recruiters and they helped me with my CV, helped me with a LinkedIn profile, things like that but essentially I just applied, applied, applied all day long, but essentially I just applied, applied, applied all day long and yeah, and eventually that paid off and I got my first role in January of 2021.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: And yeah, as a Salesforce configurator, which is.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: So what do they do?
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because sometimes I've spoken to people and they I know we've sort of established what Salesforce is, but they go I don't want a sales role, it's not a sales role.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: So what does a Salesforce configurator or consultant do?
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: yeah, so the salesforce configurator role, um, is very much that sort of um clicking behind the scenes, customizing things.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: So you might have, um, I don't know, a specific kind of business process where you need to build out.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: So you're building out page layouts, fields and potentially, you know, if we click this button, then it sends an email off here, that kind of thing, and you can do all that in the back end of salesforce and build it all out to the client's sort of needs.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Basically, um, but I, I was working at an end user, um, so I was working for the, the client, as in the Salesforce customer.
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: I was the Salesforce customer essentially, but now I'm working for a consultancy.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: So that's slightly different in that we implement Salesforce for lots of customers, lots of customers.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: So, and consulting is slightly different, um, in that you do do all of that stuff in the back end, customizing the platform, but you also do the sort of building relationships with the clients.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: You also, um, we do like discovery sessions find out what it is that they actually want, what the challenges are, what you know what they actually want, what the challenges are, what you know what they actually want to get out of the platform.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: Um, you might run training sessions as well.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, it's very varied.
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, so it's.
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I really enjoy it.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Um, I did a year, as I say, as a salesforce configurator your stakeholders, now the configurators that are working with your clients well.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't say that again, so your stakeholders now the um, like the salesforce configurators, some of your clients.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Is that who you?
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: um, when this?
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: Yes, so, yes.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: So the stakeholder would probably be I don't know whoever's kind of driving driving the change, but they may have internal Salesforce people there as well, and that could be somebody like me, like I was, in 2021.
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: So, yes, you could be working with the end user sort of Salesforce configurator, be working with the yeah, the end user sort of salesforce um configurator.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: For sure, yeah, a lot of the time they don't have they might not have any internal salesforce people, um, but but you know, sometimes, sometimes they do so, um, so, yeah, but when I was, I think what what made me want to do the consulting was when I was at the end user, that first role, I worked with a um, a big consulting firm, and whilst I was there, so we had a consultancy come in and I was that salesforce configurator at the end user and um and I worked really closely with a consultant there who we were sort of building out together which was which was, which was really nice, um, and I just thought actually, I think, I think I'd quite like to do what you do and um, using the contacts.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: So I'd worked at the recruitment agency before, so I spoke to them.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: Um said I actually quite like to go into consulting, and then, yeah, they'd sort of lined up interviews for me and and yeah, and then that's where I met Futureform and uh, yeah, and that's where I've been ever since, since January 22.
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: So you've been there a while.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: So when you got that initial role in sales force, you found it quite easy then to get the second role.
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think once you've got, once you've got just some experience under your belt, um, then it's, it's much, much easier.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, definitely.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And and I think that is what the supermums program helps massively, because you can say I've got some experience because I've I've worked on this project, I've worked.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: You know, of course you get put on a live project, um, but you to have that sort of real, yeah, that first role, get that and then and then the rest, hopefully should be straightforward.
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: I don't know if that's my experience.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Is that, um, it was much easier to get the next role than than the first one yeah, gary said he's excited to have a career change and a new journey.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Um, how did you find it, I guess, that career change?
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: Did it take a little while to get your head around doing something on medical?
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: oh, yeah, 100%.
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: Um, I think, and I actually think to a point.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: You know, up until relatively recently, um and I think a lot of people do I had total imposter syndrome.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, um, you know I, I hadn't come from a tech background.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I didn't have, you know, I did, I did.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I didn't have that sort of experience, um, and so that took me a little while to get get past, um, but then actually I realized, you know that's okay and and also, especially if you're changing careers, you know there's a huge amount that you can bring.
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: You know that's not, it's not.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I know there's transferable skills.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: You know you hear that kind of a lot but it's actually true.
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: You know, and actually when you start a career later on in life, you've got that sort of life experience you can bring.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: You know you look at care and you look at tech and you think what are the similarities?
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: But, and actually, at the end of the day, health care is was providing a service, um, and essentially what I do now is providing a service and and I also get to speak to people all day long and I love speaking to people, and I love to speak to people in healthcare.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Um, you get to be creative.
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: So the actual tech part is actually a much smaller part than I thought it would be.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Um, when I um set out on this journey, I thought then I might be sat behind a computer.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, I am sat behind a computer but, um, you know, yeah, building stuff being quiet, yeah, yeah, when, actually, um, you know it's, it draws on all of those skills that you, you know, that you've already developed from your, from your previous career.
• 22:15
  Speaker 2: So so, yeah, that's exciting.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So tell me about your role now then what's sort of the working pattern you do and where do you work?
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so one of the key things, or one of the things that I really wanted when I set out to change careers was I didn't want to work shifts, no, I didn't want to work weekends, I wanted to work nine to five, and I wanted to work flexibly, um, so ideally from home, um, and I wanted to be paid well and I wanted to be mentally sort of challenged and fulfilled, um, and I think I've managed to get all of those things, which is, which is just amazing.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: So I work well nine to five thereabouts.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: I don't work weekends, I work well, nine to five thereabouts.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: I don't work weekends, I work from home.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: We're 100% remote, first company.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: Even when, what about with your clients then?
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: Do you go to visit your clients or do you do all that online?
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so most of the time, again, it's all remote.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: A lot of the clients are mostly sort of working a hybrid sort of model these days anyway, so mostly remote.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: However, however, for things like training sessions or maybe a discovery workshop or something like that, we might go to the client site and and do that um, which again adds a bit of variety because, um, you know, working from home all of the time can be a bit lonely and a bit, you know, um, yeah, you can just, yeah, just get a bit boring, but, um, but when you, yeah, so we go to client sites, we do.
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: We also do a monthly in real life day, which is really nice.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: We've actually got one tomorrow.
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: Um, so we all meet up um once a month.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: Um, as a company, yeah, we'll get together, so that that sort of mixes things up as well.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: Um, but, yeah, so it's, it's sort of um it, yeah, it's.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: It's where I wanted to be like five, no more than that five to ten years ago, where I saw other people having roles like this and I thought how do I, how do I get one?
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: yeah, oh, that's so nice.
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you must feel really proud of yourself yeah, I suppose I, I mean yes and no, I mean you don't really look at yourself in that way, do you?
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: But um, but then actually, when I think about the journey that I've been on, I suppose, yeah, it's quite, it's quite unique, I suppose yeah, so what skills do you think someone needs to become a salesforce consultant or configurator?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: um, I think, um, you well, you need to be, you need to like problem solving, um, it's like learning, because there's a huge amount to learn.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm still learning.
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: I mean there's, there's, you'll never you know, you never know everything.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: It just no, no, no, yeah, it's just constantly learning.
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, problem solving, um, learning, um, salesforce are constantly releasing new updates, so you've got to kind of keep on top of that.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: Um, but depends what, what you want to go into, and you can be a salesforce administrator, you can.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: You can be a Salesforce consultant, which is what I do, in which case, you know, as I say, the tech side is one bit of it, but you've got, you know, this sort of communication, the organisation that you know.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: You could be a Salesforce project manager, for example, and you can be an architect.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: You can really take the Salesforce kind of that sort of tech side further.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: So there's lots of different avenues, but I think, to get started, you can just go to Trailhead and just get a Trailhead playground, have a play around and just see what you think, see what you like, you know, see if you like it.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly, um, and then, yeah, I'm in the supermums course.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Without the supermums course, I don't think I'd have, I don't, I don't think I'd have done it what's good about the supermums course?
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: I know you've sort of mentioned that you've got the support, you've got a mentor and the work experience yeah, I think it's.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: I think it's just that having that support, I think wearing off and doing it on your own is what is very, is very different.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: Um, and also, it was aimed.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: It was aimed at, um, well, not just mums, it's aimed at dads as well, but it's it's aimed at people who are changing careers.
• 26:35
  Speaker 2: So it's it's aimed at people who are not um, you know, we had on my course, for example, I think we had a lawyer.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: We had on my course, for example, I think we had a lawyer, we had a teacher.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: You know natural techie people.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: No, exactly, and that I think that's what's nice about Salesforce is that you don't have to be, you don't have to have a tech background.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: You know you can come from anywhere and and pick it up.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: So so yeah, it's.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: I think it was the support, the mentor, definitely the webinar.
• 27:07
  Speaker 2: And the webinar isn't just a sit there and nobody says anything, it's a it's.
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: I think there's about, I think there might have been about 30 in my group, I think, um, some of which couldn't make it because they were working, so there might have only been, say, 20 on the call.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: Um, so lots of people pitching and asking questions, there's discussions it's not just a sit there and, you know, take it all in sort of thing.
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: It's an interactive session, um, and we'd have speakers come and speak to us, um, yeah, as I say, having a mentor as well, that you can just ask those questions that feel like stupid questions, not stupid questions, but you know yeah, and then the support of super mums at the end as well and continued support as well.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: They're quite proud of their alumni exactly you're on here.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: They've suggested that you come um.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: So what's next for you, then, with your career?
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: Where can, where can you see your salesforce career taking you?
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: oh, that's good.
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: That's a really good question.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: Um, I don't actually know at the moment I'm, I'm enjoying, um, I'm enjoying what I'm doing.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Um, I'm, yeah, I suppose I could go into that down that architecture route and sort of go more technical and and sort of go down there, or I can sort of, you know, I can go in all sorts of different ways and I think that's what's um great about salesforce and that's what kind of um.
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it made me sort of interested in the first place was that it wasn't a linear sort of path.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Um, yeah, you could, yeah, you can do all sorts of different things.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: You could be a trainer, you know, you could be, um, you could, you could do all all manner of things.
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: And at the moment I'm not, I'm not 100% sure where what the future looks like.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: Um, but I do, I enjoy what I'm doing at the moment Salesforce is such a big system, it's like a lot of massive organizations rely on Salesforce.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: So you you know the opportunities are endless and you can work, obviously, in different size organizations really big for c100s or smaller charities yeah, exactly, exactly it is.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It is huge.
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: It's the biggest crm in the world, I think yeah.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: So yeah, louise louisa said such a great journey.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: You've asked, louise, if super mom course is still running.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, it is um.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: If you type super moms into google, I can't remember if it's dot, super momsorg or super moms yeah, yeah, yeah I mean, uh, super, super moms, m-u-m, that mom, british mom, isn't it because not m-o-n but they offer a training worldwide yes, they do.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, um, I think, I think, um when I joined.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's actually grown quite a lot since.
• 29:51
  Speaker 2: Since I joined, they do a us based and they do other sort of european ones as well, I think.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: But don't quote me, but google it, you'll find it you'll find it all there.
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, um, and if someone wants to connect with you and learn more, are they all right to do that through linkedin?
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely yeah.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Sarah taplin on linkedin yeah, it's just sarah taplin.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll find me brilliant.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much, sarah, for joining us today.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much to everyone that has watched um.
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: Please do visit the supermoms website.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Um, I've got a feeling might be supermomsorg, but have a check and and you'll be able to have a look at all the courses that they offer as well.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Cool thanks, Elizabeth.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you.