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From Pandemic Layoff to $100k+ | A Salesforce Success Story | EP 297

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By listening to the podcast, Anita heard about Jonathan starting up the Talent Stacker podcast and the program he put together with Bradley Rice on Salesforce career development. Anita gave the free Talent Stacker Salesforce 5-Day Challenge a shot, signed up for a follow-up job placement program, and her results blew Jonathan and Bradley’s minds.

Access the same free course that Anita did to get started on her path to success, take the Talent Stacker Salesforce 5-Day Challenge.

Get Started on Your Path to a High Paying Salesforce Career with the FREE 5 Day Challenge

Take the Salesforce 5-Day Challenge for FREE and jumpstart your Salesforce career. No technical or CRM background needed to get started. This free primer was designed for the motivated person exploring high-paying job prospects with no risk.

Key Takeaways

  • If you are willing to look outside your comfort zone, grab good information, and take action on it, you can change your life in a matter of weeks or months.
  • One of the hardest-hit industries during the pandemic has been hospitality. Working in that industry, Anita looked down a long dark tunnel before stumbling upon the FI community.
  • When Anita found ChooseFI in August, she jumped right in, taking action and interacting with Brad through the FI Weekly and submitting her frugal wins of the week.
  • The results Anita has had are not an outlier. It’s what others are also seeing every single week.
  • Back in the spring of 2019, Bradley was on the show to talk about Salesforce and living a life by design. After Bradley discussed earning $200K a year working 15-20 hours a week, the listening audience really responded.
  • Based on that interest, a Salesforce group was started for the community and people began landing Salesforce jobs. In just two years, the group grew to 5,000 members learning from each other.
  • A year ago, Anita worked as a revenue manager for a hotel connected to a convention center. At that time, the pandemic was accelerating, and group after group began canceling their events. As a result, she was furloughed in March.
  • Understanding that hospitality wasn’t going to recover anytime soon, Anita decided to be proactive, began learning, and figured out her next move.
  • In addition to taking classes online, Anita researched Fortune’s top places to work. The first time she heard of Salesforce was from that list but was turned off at the thought of sales. After a bit of research, she discovered sales isn’t what they do.
  • She signed up for Trailhead, Salesforces’s online learning account, and did it for one day before concluding it was awesome. But she wondered it was real and if it was as easy as it seemed.
  • After receiving more bad news from her employer, Anita was motivated to learn more. She found ChooseFI and binge listened to over a hundred episodes when she heard about Talent Stacker, Salesforce (again), and the Free 5-day Challenge.
  • She ended up in the paid program, and because she had been laid off, she used her time to learn everything she could like it was her full-time job.
  • One month after starting the program, she took the first admin certification program and passed. After that, she used all of the tips from the program and landed a good-paying job in January.
  • Before the pandemic, Anita was in a financially stable place. She had no debt other than a car payment, although she was forced to move in with her boyfriend after being laid off.
  • She says in her previous hospitality job, she was on a path to get to the kind of pay she is earning now; it just would have taken a lot longer.
  • Bradley says what Anita has done is possible because cloud-based technology is less-impacted by things like the pandemic because they are skilled positions, can be done remotely, and without a lot of change management.
  • There aren’t enough skilled Salesforce professionals to fill all the available positions. To help fill the gaps, Salesforce developed Trailhead, a free online training app, which removed some of the barriers to entry.
  • Studying online for a few months and then landing a $60-80K per year job sounded too good to be true. But this is one of those rare occasions when something that sounds too good to be true – really is true.
  • If you don’t have basic computer skills, a Salesforce career may not be for you. However, if you like the thought of helping companies generate new leads and support new customers, it might be a good fit.
  • There’s so much information on Salesforce that it can seem overwhelming. Anita explains that she is reorganizing the business to help companies become more efficient.
  • A Salesforce professional helps a company use the software to find more customers, sell to those customers, retain the customers, and secure the customer’s data.
  • The majority of individuals can come away from training earning $60-80K a year. Anita surpassed that when her first offer was six figures, and she doubled her previous salary.
  • Bradley says the career trajectory quickly increases from there. Even someone who isn’t leaning in will likely reach six figures after three years and top out around $130K with $20-30K bonuses.
  • The more entrepreneurial-minded can strike out and become independent consultants and earn even more. Bradley makes $200K a year working just 20 hours a week.
  • Based on his return on investment, Jonathan wouldn’t go to college if this program was available to him. He spent eight years in school and came away with $168K in debt, rather than six months of training for a couple of thousand dollars. His net worth would be two to three times higher if he had.
  • That doesn’t imply ChooseFI is anti-college. Rather, the takeaway is to think differently, look at the world for how it is, and see opportunities. The traditional path may not be for you.
  • Taking a hybrid approach can be a benefit. Go ahead and go to college, but spend a summer in a Salesforce career development program. It helps you understand what Salesforce is, gets you halfway through a program, and helps you to decide if it’s right for you.
  • You can do this for free. Training is available on Trailhead. What the free 5 Day Challenge does is show you how to get started in Trailhead and show you a clear path, and help you decide if Salesforce is for you in just 30 minutes a day.
  • Anita chose to go through the paid portion of the course because of the clear path it offered.

Resources Mentioned In Today’s Conversation

Choose FI has partnered with CardRatings for our coverage of credit card products. Choose FI and CardRatings may receive a commission from card issuers. Opinions, reviews, analyses & recommendations are the author’s alone, and have not been reviewed, endorsed or approved by any of these entities. American Express is a ChooseFI advertiser. Disclosures.
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