A Career That Sounds Too Good To Be True - Episode 61

Today, we have a super exciting chat with my buddy, Bradley Rice. We first met at CampFI, for people who love talking about money and how to make it work better for us. Bradley has done some amazing things since we met, especially with Salesforce, which is a tool that lots of companies use. He's here to share how anyone, no matter where they come from or what they know, can learn Salesforce and find a great job that lets them live the life they dream about. It's like having a magic key that opens up doors to awesome jobs that don't make you sit at a desk all day if you don't want to.

About our guest:
Bradley Rice is a seasoned Salesforce Consultant with over a decade of experience, including five years of running his own Salesforce Consulting Business. His journey into entrepreneurship began with the desire for a better work-life balance, particularly with the arrival of his child. Determined to dictate his own schedule and earnings, Bradley transitioned from a traditional 8-to-5 job to owning a successful business. Despite initial challenges, his dedication led to working an average of 15-20 hours a week while earning around $170,000 USD annually. Embracing a fully remote work lifestyle, Bradley enjoys the freedom to work from anywhere, be it the beach, mountains, or with loved ones. Through his course, Bradley aims to impart his knowledge and experience to empower individuals with the tools for autonomy, higher income, and the ability to enjoy life beyond just paying bills, emphasizing the importance of focus and dedication for success as a Salesforce Freelancer and Business Owner.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Naseema: [00:00:00] What's up, my financially intentional people? And if you can't tell by the tone of my voice, I'm hella excited because I have my homeboy Bradley here. Bradley, I met in early 2020, right after having my second baby at this crazy camp called Camp Fi. And if you don't know about Camp Fi, you better Google it because it is where All the personal finance enthusiasts, meet up, talk, share ideas.

But anyway, in 2020, I was asked to present a presentation on camp by about kind of building communities and what I've done to grow my social media platform. And Bradley was another speaker there and he talked about Salesforce and what he shared was mind blowing to me. And I wanted to bring him on the podcast because since then. Things have blown up for him in a major way. And I just am in the background cheering him on because I just see [00:01:00] all the growth and the successes that he has had. And I wanted to share him with you guys because he has so many invaluable resources and he's just a awesome person to know.

So what's up Bradley.

Bradley Rice: Hey, how's it going? I am excited to be here. Thank you for reaching out. Like you said, you have been an amazing person to have and the background and we can talk some if you want to about how this all got started, because. Anyone who asked me, there's this lady, Nesima, and she really gave me that push at this camp we went to in 2020 to make all this happen.

And it's absolutely true. So thank you for making this possible in so many ways. So yeah, it is amazing. It's like full circle being back talking to you.

Naseema: I love it. I love it. And I'm not going to take all the credit. I was just like maybe you should do this thing.

But anyway, so let's talk about your background story and just like I said, I heard about Salesforce through you. You're the first person I ever heard talk about Salesforce in a way that I could [00:02:00] understand.

So I live in a San Francisco Bay area, so I see the Salesforce building. I have plenty of people that work for Salesforce. I know plenty of people that work for Salesforce. However, I never understood what Salesforce was until I heard your presentation and you broke it down so well and made a career in Salesforce seems so attainable.

I was like, everybody needs to know this. Like you have to put this out there. And so that's when I put the bug in your ear. I think you should start a course. Like , you should create a course. Like people need to know like how you understand Salesforce, because to me, it sounds like this daunting thing.

So first of all, let's go back and let's talk about your career in Salesforce how you got started.

Bradley Rice: yeah. So I'll debrief a couple of things here. So the number one thing I'm betting listeners are thinking is like, what the heck is Salesforce and. They're already making some assumptions because we can't help it. It's what we do. So it's like Salesforce, number one, not an MLM. I hear it all the [00:03:00] time.

It's got a horrible name. It's called Salesforce. So it sounds like you're going to be selling something. So the top two things I hear from people who've just heard about it is, is it like some kind of multi level marketing where I'm selling stuff? No. And number two, am I going to be a salesperson?

And the answer is also no. We're talking about being a tech professional, like a white collar tech professional. Typically you work from home you have flexible hours, you have autonomy. It's a typical eight to five job, full benefits, all the things. So just go into this conversation, understanding.

That's what we're going to be talking about here. And don't make any assumptions about what it might be just because the name of the platform is called Salesforce. So it's used by a few like hot things to know it's used across all industries by companies and about 250, 000 companies globally. Use this tool called Salesforce.

I think it's all like Microsoft, right? We're not talking about being a professional who works at Microsoft. You're talking about all the companies in the world who might use Microsoft word [00:04:00] and Excel and Outlook and all these kinds of platforms that Microsoft offers. Salesforce is really similar.

It's a tool. That companies globally use, and just because you're a Salesforce professional does not mean you work at Salesforce. It means that you are trained on how to use Salesforce, and that's what makes it valuable to all these companies. So to finally actually answer your question I came out of college 2010.

And I wanted to be a high school economics teacher and I did not know how to make that happen. I was applying for so many jobs. I found out a few things. Number one, I don't know how to get a job. I don't know what makes a person valuable. I don't even know how to apply for jobs and get anyone's attention who's hiring.

It's crazy. So I realized that and I applied for anything and everything that I could find. And I would say within about 60 miles of my house at the time. And. The job I ended up getting, long story short, was a junior Salesforce administrator position. I literally didn't know what Salesforce [00:05:00] was. I didn't know what a junior Salesforce administrator was.

I lucked out. I guess I, I spoke well in the interview. They decided I was worth taking a shot on and they hired me. And I never looked back. It's it's been about 12, 13 years now, and I've been going at it full fledged. Took advice from a lot of great mentors like yourself along the way, there were amazing people that I happened to meet up with that told me, take advantage of this career.

There's a lot more to this than just having a job. You can do a lot with this. You can travel. You can freelance, you can make side income, you can have a career day job. You can become a influencer thought leader. There's so many things you can do here. It's whatever you want it to be. So I ran with it.

And in the course of all that owned a couple of Salesforce related companies worked for big consultancies, worked for small companies. I've had a lot of fun doing it and it's added a lot of flexibility to my life. So I'm very appreciative for this journey.

Naseema: I love it. And when we met and you were doing your presentation and you were sharing that in your position at Salesforce, you were working part [00:06:00] time, but you were making multiple six figures doing that. And also that to become a Salesforce administrator

you don't need to necessarily get a degree.

Bradley Rice: Yeah, it's administrator is one of them. That's one of the mainstream early roles that people look for. Cause it's the lowest barrier to break into from a knowledge perspective. it's one of the ones where you can move into it a couple of hundred hours of training and you're ready.

And like you said, it's free and it's online. So it's a very low barrier to entry to see if it's something you might be interested in. Yeah.

Naseema: right, but there's several roles you can do with yourselves for certification. So the certification process is something that Salesforce offers for free. And I often share with people who are looking to pivot careers that maybe thinking about going back to school because they don't like what they do.

I'm like, this is an opportunity to do something for free. To get this knowledge [00:07:00] base that you could pay a degree program, like me, 200, 000 to achieve, or you just spend some time and sit down and try to get these certifications and work on these. If you're thinking about a career pivot, if you've gotten laid off, this is something I'll always offer people as a possible opportunity to take advantage of.

Bradley Rice: Yeah, I think you're pointing out something that's really important here. And it's the, it's such low risk, like financially at zero risk, just to figure out, is this something you want to do? And the biggest risk is your time and the energy that's going to go into this. But we created, if you don't mind me sharing a, what we call a five day challenge and it's literally five days.

You could do it all in a day if you want to, but we break it up into five days to make it bite sized and it's 30 minutes to an hour a day. For five days. And by the time you're done with this challenge, you should know one of two things it's either a, this was not interesting at all. In fact, like this kind of just [00:08:00] made me feel icky.

I don't want to do this. This is not a job I want to do. And so for that reason, after putting in 30 minutes to an hour a day for five days, at least, that's not a path I want to go down, but a better case scenario there is that you finish those five days and you go. Either you go, man, I'm inspired.

This is what I want to do. You go, you know what? This seems interesting. I might like this. Let me learn more about this, but in five days, two and a half hours, maybe five hours of your time, max, you can figure out if an entire industry, an entire career path, like cloud computing as a Salesforce professional might be something you want to do.

So I would check that out. You can find it at talentstacker.com/now, and that'll take you right there, get started, see if you like it. If you don't walk away, no harm done. And if you love it, then you might. Find yourself in a completely new career path. To me, to your point, it's very low risk to try this thing out, but yes, please don't go back to college.

Unless you know exactly what you want to do with your career and a college degree is [00:09:00] absolutely necessary in order to achieve that, then there are a lot of things you can look and try and test out without paying somebody thousands of dollars. and even if you have a scholarship and it's totally free.

One class is going to cost you five hours a week for an entire semester. Your time is extremely valuable to having to set aside time to study, to do homework, to actually attend classes, even if they're virtual, like those are major commitments just to take one course, much less actually get a degree in something.

Naseema: Yeah, I love that. And you have done an incredible job of documenting successes of people who have successfully completed Salesforce certification processes to landing jobs. And what stands out most to me is that these people come from every single background you can imagine. And it was attainable for them. It's totally replicable. So basically anybody who has an interest in doing it is somebody [00:10:00] who can achieve it. You don't have to have a degree. You don't have to be a certain age. There are no barriers to this. Do you have to be 18 first?

Bradley Rice: It's ideal. There's with anything. There's what we call the isms, right? And so ageism being one of those, right? There is ageism and any industry, but in Salesforce, we do see points where. The older you get when you're, 50 plus, 60 plus, there's a barrier you have to overcome the same thing happens if you're, say, younger than 25, you're going to face very similar beliefs and limiting beliefs around people thinking you can't do it because you're too young, or you can't do it because you're too old, or I can't pay you more than I get paid because.

You're only 21 years old and I'm 40. Like, how could you possibly make more than me? And, there's a lot of that stuff that goes on, but no, to answer your question, yeah, we had the youngest person I've ever worked with to land a job was 17. They were still in high school. And high school, they worked part time and when they graduated high school they landed their first [00:11:00] job making $80,000 and they were still 17 years old.

So it is absolutely wild. And the crazy thing is, we've kept in touch and now it's been two years since then and now they make about $120,000 and they're 19. So it's crazy. How that can unfold. Now, do I want a bunch of 17 year olds to think, Oh, anybody can do this? Truth is, you'll know, if you're that guy, you'll know, right?

you're driven. You're focused. You're not, you're probably not that interested in school because it's. Too easy, and it's just mundane. And how on earth could this take 35 hours a week for me to finish high school? This is too simple. And you've got probably a little bit entrepreneurial, probably looking for things to do outside of school to basically fill the gap, that void your feeling of.

I can do more. I'm ready for my future. If you're feeling that way, probably one of those kids who's getting college credits while they're in high school, like those kind of driven individuals who have typically have that support at home where they've gotten to that point where they're just hyper driven internally for some reason.

That's going [00:12:00] to be your 17 year old who can come out and do this thing. But I will say to your point what we see a lot of educators transitioning into tech healthcare workers transitioning into tech, stay at home, parents transitioning into tech, those three specifically, we see a little bit of everything, blue collar college students those kinds of things, but those three specifically stay at home, parents, healthcare workers, and educators have.

Incredible amounts of transferable skills. So you're talking about like time management skills people skills, communication being able to handle rapidly changing environments while keeping a level head and being able to adjust to those changes, all those kinds of things across all those industries.

I'll give you another link. If you want to check out, try to find yourself cause you're right. We do share a lot of stories. And the reason we did that is because I wanted people to be able to see themselves. Whoever they were, and I didn't know who they are, right? They could be anyone. So I wanted anyone to be able to find themselves in a story and go, If they did this, I can do this too.

And so we tried to create [00:13:00] everything from dishwashers, to police officers, to 911 dispatchers, to anyone, professors, doctors. We literally had doctors accept massive pay cuts. Because they wanted massive lifestyle value and that's what you can get through these transformations. So if you want to check that out talent stacker.

com forward slash community. And what you'll find there is a few different, what we call avatars. So if you come from a healthcare background, click the healthcare avatar. If you come from education background, click the education avatar. And all those are completely free resources specific to that background and what that's it'll relate more to you in that instance.

Naseema: I love that. I love that. And I love seeing the success stories of people like just coming, starting from zero, going through the program and landing jobs within a couple of months, like turning the process around, like getting certification, landing jobs. And these jobs, like initially, on average start pretty well salaries if not 6 figures, just under, [00:14:00] but then in the 1st year or so you said that going from 70, 000 to 120, 000 once you build up your skills.

And so it is amazing the turnaround time, but share with us on average what that turnaround time has been for the people that you have worked with.

Bradley Rice: Yeah, for sure. I do. I love data. So I've got a lot of these numbers stored in my head. So average entry level starting salary for roles like we talked about roles earlier, but typical roles are like Salesforce administrator, Salesforce business analyst Salesforce project manager junior consultant, associate consultant.

These are all very entry level roles and those start at about $72,000. So a lot of people say just like 60 to 80. Our precise numbers are like $72,400, something like that have been like the typical starting salaries timeframe to $100,000 is another metric I enjoy watching. Usually you can say safely that within two years you [00:15:00] will get to $100,000.

So if you put 24 months in, you'll get to a hundred thousand dollars. Some people do it. I had one lady that sent me a private message a few weeks ago and she accepted a job making $65,000. And she was like, that's a little lower than average. And it's yeah, that's okay though. Get your foot in the door.

And six months later without her having to say anything, her company came to her and they said, you're incredible. You add so much value to our company. We know you've only been here six months, but we want to offer you 95, 000 to stay with us. And because they know the market, you will get poached.

You will get picked up by another company and they probably knew they were underpaying her a little bit and they made it right and they made it right in a big way. Just getting your foot in the door is huge. I always tell people like if 72, 000 is less than you're making today, and for that reason, you're like, yeah, I don't want to transition because I already make 70, 000 or I already make 90, 000.

That's great, but you have to ask yourself, do you see a clear path to a hundred to 120 to 150? And if you don't, then you might want to take a [00:16:00] step back. We're talking like maybe take a 10, 15 percent pay cut for a year. To put yourself right back to where you were, and then two or three years from now, you'll be way beyond where you were.

So there's a lot of things to consider. You can tell I could go on all day about this stuff, but yeah, those are the typical averages. I will say in 2020, 2021 maybe 2022 also. Yeah, 2022. You could land a job much faster. So the market overall, not just tech, but overall, the market is much more in a, you got to fight for your job.

If you want to get a, especially skilled positions or high paying positions, you got to get out there and compete a little bit. Which I'm happy with some healthy competition. So it used to be like back then you could land a job on accident. Like you could get your certification, go post on LinkedIn.

I'm certified. And somebody's Hey, come interview. I want to give you a job. And you just get a job. And it's what happened? So that would be your typical, like two to three months was back then. Now things have tightened up. So to be fair, you're probably looking at somewhere between five and seven months total from.

[00:17:00] I don't know what Salesforce is, and I just heard it on this podcast. And then, so six months from now, if you put in about 10 to 15 hours a week, I would say, so you got to put in the time. So 10 to 15 hours a week and your first 200 hours are going to be getting certified and getting on LinkedIn and starting to tell people what you're up to and what you're studying.

That's going to be your first, probably 200 hours. And then the next 200 hours are probably going to be applying for jobs. Interviewing more networking, not in person, just on LinkedIn, like connecting with people. And we have a lot of free stuff for all those kinds of things too. So anything you need, we have free stuff for it.

But I would say expect I don't want to mislead anyone. So expect today in 2024 that it should take you about 400 hours to go from. Just hearing about this to landing a job. And so break that down, how you want to break it down. If you're unemployed, you have 40 hours a week. Might be able to pull it off in 10 weeks, right?

If you only have 20 hours a week, might take 20 weeks. Going to do it in 10 hours a week. It's going [00:18:00] to take 40 weeks. But for some people, 40 weeks at 10 hours a week is Hey, I don't love my job right now. I'm happy to be employed, but I'm going to start taking steps to six months from now, looking up and having options under my belt.

I'm going to do this thing. Yeah.

Naseema: And it's all about the having the options. And I love the way that you broke it down. If you're working full time, it's still attainable. If you're unemployed, it's easily attainable in 10 weeks. Like I love how you break down those numbers, but you have the data behind it because you have been collecting this information for years and you've been able to serve so many people doing this. So I just again want to reframe like this is, to become a professional, it's attainable for anyone. If you're looking for a new career, if you're wanting to pivot, if you're just burned out, whatever the reason is that you feel like you could possibly transition, even if you don't want to transition, but want to see what's possible, this is something that's [00:19:00] attainable for you. So that's why I love to share this because. It's accessible for any and everybody. And people have been making really like huge successes in their career by doing this and freeing up time in their life. Like you said, you work, do you still work part time for Salesforce or

Bradley Rice: I have, yes. And in 2016, my daughter was born. And for that reason, I switched to working part time. And this is part of the freedom I talk about, like Salesforce. If you're one of these people who wants to drive more value into your life, I think there's so many people who they've got a career. And they have to design their lives around their career because if they can't pivot anymore, that career is what they have to pivot around.

And so now they've got this career that they have to work around. With Salesforce jobs, it's very different. It's pretty much you can design the career to the flavor you would like it to be to work with your life. So [00:20:00] your life becomes the pivot point and your career can pivot around that. And what I mean by that is, for example in 2016, when my daughter was born.

I decided I was at the time I was making about $120,000 working a full time job at a consultancy and I thought, I was one of those people who was just hyperdriven to spend time with my kids and not everybody's like that. But the point is you have options. And I was like, you know what? I want to spend as much time as I can with her.

If I can make about 70, 000 working part time, I'm going to do it. So I went out and hustled and I tried to find a part time job that paid at least 70, 000 and I found one. And obviously it's a much tougher story than that. There's like things that go into it, but you can do it. And I found a part time job, full benefits paying 70, 000 a year.

And I worked that job and built my consultancy. On the side. So it ended up not taking me the full 20 hours a week to work for that company once I got adjusted. And so I would do about 10 to 15 hours a week for them. And [00:21:00] then I would do about 10 hours a week for my own company. And I had clients on the side.

This is another benefit. There's not a whole lot of jobs out there where you can just pick up 10 hours a week from a client on the side. Those clients on the side paid about 120 an hour. So I started working with them 10 hours a week, make an extra 1, 200 a week just off of side clients. And anyway, long story short, within two years, I went from accepting a pay cut from 120 to 70 in order to spend time with my daughter.

And within two years, I was still working 20 hours a week, but I was making 225, 000 working those side projects and side clients. I dive in on that. I've got. YouTube videos, Tik TOK videos about the exact math and how all that works. But suffice to say over 200, 000 a year working part time. And I've seen people even that came out of the talent stacker program.

Like I don't think Mallory Donahue will mind me sharing, but it's wild. She went from totally different industry and like [00:22:00] design. To moving into a tech career and she got her job and it was sub a hundred thousand dollars and now she's, I believe two and a half, three years into her career and she's a double six figures, so you've got

really the sky, the limit on what you can do.

And the amazing thing is any person can grind and grind and grind and get to that double six figure income and work the 40 to 50 hour weeks, but at any point they can decide, I'd rather make a hundred thousand dollars a year and work 20 hours a week. Or maybe 150, 000 a year and make work 20 hours a week.

I'd rather freelance. I'd rather contract for six months out of the year and take the other six months of the year off. It's really up to you how you want to design this career around your life. And I, to me, that's the most important factor is that you can put your life values first and put your career second while still making plenty of money because you have a skillset that's in demand.

Yeah.

Naseema: And I think that's what a lot of us are chasing when we're looking for financial independence, right? We're looking for, it's not that [00:23:00] we don't want to work. It's just that

work has been so restrictive so that we can't live the lives that we want to live. Our life is not by design. It's based off of this nine to five schedule or whatever the schedule is.

It's rigorous. And so people are shaping their lives around their work. But this gives you an opportunity to reverse that and to shape your career around your life and how you want to live it. And I always say that nursing is the ultimate like FI job, right? But I think this definitely rivals that because like I said like I always say, if you're a nurse, you can.

Pretty much find a job anywhere. If you want to work part time, you can work part time. If you want to take six months off, you can take six months off and, do your little mini retirements. But this is similar. If I want to pick up a job somewhere, make a hundred and something dollars an hour just by picking up some hours.

That's something I can easily do right as a nurse. But to get a nursing degree, I still had to, at minimum, you're going to have to go to two years of college.[00:24:00]  And then. Even if you go, J. C. is still a 4 year course, right? Minimum 4 years to get a degree plus to get the skills to be able to command, 6 or 6 figure salary.

You need at least a couple of years in the workforce. That takes time. This, like you said, 400 hours on average, you've seen people achieve this go from knowing nothing from hearing it right here today to, landing a job that can ultimately make you six figures in a year or so it's amazing. it's amazing.

And I love it that it's so flexible and, you have your own consultancy. You can pick up your hours, your own clients. Just like zooming back out a little bit, Salesforce in itself is a company. And then the Salesforce professionals are like, you're using Salesforce as a tool to do your job. So you're not necessarily employed by Salesforce. So I just wanted to clear up that Salesforce in itself is [00:25:00] a company, but as a Salesforce professional, you are going to work in a multitude of industries.

So like I was discussing with you offline, like I heard this big thing, like Salesforce did a big old layoff in 2022. So we were like, Ooh, I don't necessarily want to work for Salesforce, but you don't.

Bradley Rice: That's right. And I will say, I, if you work for Salesforce, cover your ears. I. I don't necessarily advocate to go work for Salesforce. And in fact, I don't necessarily even advocate to use Salesforce as a platform. And the reason for that is because since, you heard my story, I shared it here since I finished college.

I've only worked in Salesforce as an industry. So Salesforce is called a CRM tool, a customer relationship management platform. the fact is there are other customer relationship management platforms. Now, Salesforce has the market share by far, but there are companies like HubSpot or Microsoft [00:26:00] Dynamics that other companies use for their CRM platform.

I've never used those. I don't know how good they are, how bad they are, what the pros and cons are. They might be better than Salesforce. I would have no clue. It's just if I drive a Honda, I don't know if a Toyota or a Ford or a Ferrari are any better, any worse, because I don't have experience with those cars.

So I don't know if those other platforms might even be better than Salesforce, but I wouldn't know. But I do know I can go look at Salesforce, the stock prices, I can go look at their performance, their public company. They have to publish their numbers. And I can see that even through. The pandemic, even through a global market downturn that they have been highly profitable.

Now, if you follow the mainstream, like why would Salesforce say that they laid people off? They would call it a restructuring, which is like the political. Term for not saying you laid a bunch of people off because your company sucks. And so I think there's some truth to that. And the, if you go look back, because I did, because I have a vested [00:27:00] interest, Salesforce hired tens of thousands of people in the last five years.

And then they laid off 10, 000 of them. In 2022, because they had overhired, right when the market was going nuts after the pandemic period and all this money was flowing around they hired like crazy and then they realized, okay, we overhired and the market's pulling back and we're gonna have to let some of these people go.

But to your point, the good news is I think out of, we've helped about. I don't know the exact number. it's over 1200 people land Salesforce jobs. Like legitimately, they said, we want your help talent stacker 1200 people landed jobs, right? I think 3 of those went to work at Salesforce and none of them got laid off during the layoff.

Because you also have to remember. The people who work at Salesforce are not necessarily Salesforce professionals. Weird, right? Like

they could be a salesperson or they could work in finance or they could be a janitor or they could be in [00:28:00] anything, right? That they could be anything at Salesforce. So being a Salesforce employee does not make you a Salesforce professional.

In fact, the majority of people who work at Salesforce are not Salesforce professionals. The type of people we train up are not necessarily impacted even through that. And the reality is this is absolutely cross industry. We always say Jodi Herbeck, I'll give her credit for this, is that our Salesforce careers recession proof.

And what we respond to that with is I can't guarantee that you'll never be unemployed. But I can guarantee that you'll never be unemployed for long. And that's because, even if you were working in tech as a Salesforce professional, and just like we saw in 2023, tech companies are taking hits, right?

But you could go be a Salesforce professional in healthcare, or you could be a Salesforce professional and education industries or in manufacturing or an automotive or anything. And so when you can pivot across industries. Without changing your [00:29:00] skill set that makes you effectively indispensable. So you could be again, a Salesforce professional working in healthcare and say, healthcare takes a hit, but education doesn't, or blue collar doesn't, or, some other space doesn't take a hit, you can pivot.

Because companies in all industries are using Salesforce. And as those companies are expanding in a different industry, they're going to need more Salesforce professionals. And you're going to be able to get a job over there. So even if you get laid off, and we've seen this, a lot of people have been laid off in the world, not just tech people, but in the world, a lot of people have suffered layoffs in the last 12 months.

And what we see with Salesforce professionals is they have to. Get that LinkedIn updated, get their resume updated, start applying for jobs and figure out which industry is hiring. And they all shift over there. So it's a very, very versatile, very dynamic skill set to have that you can take across multiple industries.

And that makes it relatively recession proof compared to pretty much any other job.[00:30:00]

Naseema: Yes. I love that. I love that. Like we need a recession proof job. And I think What we need to just understand as a whole is that this is a very interesting time for everybody across industry. So we're seeing layoffs across the board. I think what you're speaking to is like, the skill sets that you don't lose that again, it's so hard to find a job that you can transition from industry to industry.

For me as a nurse, right? I'm a nurse, but that doesn't mean I can do everything. I'm a labor and delivery nurse. So if you want me to go work in MedSerg, I can't do it. I don't I've never, worked with a male patient over three days old, so I don't know what to do with a man's body.

But I can deliver the heck out of a baby. But to be able to pivot from industry to industry and Still use your skillset is invaluable. And so I love that. This is something like [00:31:00] you build this foundation of knowledge that's super transferable. So it is, is amazing what you can do with this. And that's why I was like, I love Salesforce.

If I didn't have three kids and all these kind of things, I wasn't very happy in my career. It is what I would do. I even think about it sometimes. Like I always talk about Salesforce. Like I just need to go in and just do it just because,

because I can't. But. You're right, but I want to talk about some common objections that you hear from people.

Like I know, like I said, when I share the program, a lot of times is a free, is the platform is free through salesforce to sign up. And so I give people this link in there and then they get stuck, right? Because it's like a step in there where it says, are you like looking to be a developer?

Are you looking to be something? And then they just stop, right?

And they're just like, Oh my God, this is confusing, right? Can you walk us through some

of the [00:32:00] injections you've heard or what some challenges you've seen people come across that are trying to pursue Salesforce?

Bradley Rice: For sure. Yeah, it's the, I think having done this for a while now this being helping people who are not tech professionals. Transition into a tech job. There's a lot that goes into this. And I'll say primarily it's psychological. It's beliefs about yourself, beliefs about what you can do tomorrow based on what you do today and what you did yesterday.

Beliefs about tech being only for like geniuses wearing thick glasses and, six monitors on their desk at home and like all these kinds of things, like there's all these things we believe about things that we don't know, and it's like trying to look at something in the dark. And you just assume what it is.

You have to make assumptions about what it is. And I think what we've tried to do is provide free resources to the point of it being like turning the lights on for Salesforce and just like you can see it and you can figure out, is this something I like? Or is it something I want to walk away from?

So what are some of the common [00:33:00] areas where people get caught up? Number one sounds too good to be true. It is too good to be true. So many people say that if it sounds too good to be true, it is too good to be

Naseema: Why isn't everybody doing it then? If it's this easy, Why isn't everybody doing

Bradley Rice: Well, what I'll say is that I hear that one a lot.

If it sounds too good, it is too good. And I think too good. what I would respond to that is that too good is in the eye of the beholder. If you talk to somebody who got into very specific tech, that's making $300,000, $400,000 a year, they would tell you the idea of starting in tech, making $70,000 a year and only moving up to $150k, $200k.

Is garbage. So it's all about your perception and your perspective on what they would say. That's awful. Too good to be true. That's too horrible to even look at. So it's all about perspective. And so too good to be true for one person is likely not worth someone else's time. Think of it from that perspective, I would say the other thing I would say [00:34:00] is that you can work this out on your own go Google, go use chat GPT, go ask your friends, go figure out, go find the data from multiple sources, look at average Salesforce.

Salaries, go look at, do Salesforce professionals work from home? Do they get full benefits? All these things go look it up, go look up Salesforce on the stock exchange and see how the company has performed over the last, decade. See how you feel about it for yourself. Don't make assumptions and then go with them and don't listen to me either.

Like go, go do your own homework. And take, and take my. Position as one perspective. And of course being biased because I sell a product that helps people become professionals. So knowing that I'm biased, go do your own research and come to your own conclusions. And the other beautiful thing about Salesforce is that there are lots of community groups, also free.

Where you can go like Salesforce for everyone on Facebook. If you go on LinkedIn and just search hashtag Salesforce, you're going to find a huge community discords, Slack channels any [00:35:00] platform you can think of Reddit, there's Salesforce everywhere, right? So go check. All those platforms, figure out what you think, figure out what you feel and make your own decisions.

Other big things, I can't do this because stay at home parents all the time. I can't do this because I have a five year gap or I have a 10 year gap in my career. We've already overcome all that, right? talentstalker. com forward slash community. Like we said before, find yourself in those stories and.

You will find that not only do people overcome this people overcome whatever obstacles you're facing normally. Are you too old? Are you too young? Do you live in the wrong country? Do you live in the wrong city? All these kind of things that there's gonna, you're gonna have a million excuses. Why you can't possibly do this.

But I promise you that someone like you has already overcome the obstacles. You're not the first ones to stop thinking like you're the first one. And if you really want to do this, you can. So go get support from the people who have already done it. Go find those people who have already done it.

I think [00:36:00] probably the biggest piece of advice that I wish I could go back in time and give to people over the last five years would be, listen to people, take advice from people who have accomplished the goals that you're looking to accomplish. Don't take advice from people who have failed to do what you want to do.

I see so many people, they'll get on a forum and they'll be like, I'm looking to become a Salesforce. And they'll listen to the advice from the person in the forum who says, I tried to become a Salesforce administrator last year and I couldn't find a job anywhere and it's the worst. And why would you take advice from someone who failed to do what you're trying to do?

Go listen to the person who landed. The job who got the job, talk to them, take their advice because that's where you want to be. You want to be surrounded by, you can create your own echo chamber and you can create an echo chamber of people who suck and they can't accomplish their goals and they look for excuses instead of solutions.

Or you can create an echo chamber of people who are high performers [00:37:00] and they're successful and they've accomplished the goals you're looking to accomplish. And they don't look for reasons why you can't do something or tell you you can't do something. They look for reasons. and solutions to help you out of whatever situation you're in so that you can accomplish your goals.

Surround yourself with those people and you're going to find yourself in a much better place versus searching for the next excuse why you must not be able to do whatever the thing is. And that goes for everything in life, but career transition, it absolutely goes for this too.

Naseema: That's what I say, change your circle of influence. Just strive to be the dumbest person in the room, right?

That's, that's, that's my motto. Stop listening to people that aren't where you want to be. Like, they do not matter. Listen to people you aspire to that have accomplished those things. And nine times out of 10, you'll also accomplish those things

because it's possible, right? You there's always going to be naysayers. There's always going to be haters. There's always going to be those people stop. [00:38:00] You have done an amazing job of building an incredible community. And I love to hear those numbers.

Like you have successfully helped over 1200 people land sales force positions become Salesforce professionals, I should say. And I want to talk more about like the community you built, the resources you have and how people can get started on their path to becoming a Salesforce professional.

Bradley Rice: yeah, for sure. So thank you for that. I do want to say thank you for that moment at Camp FI in 2020 because you seriously put this into motion. I know you don't necessarily want to take credit for that, but you literally said you should package that into a course. And I said, how do you do that?

And you gave me a list of this is what people do. This is some of the platforms they use. And I went home that weekend and I hired an intern and I said, I don't know how to do this, but this lady told me about it and it seems legit. [00:39:00] And we got started and it wasn't six months later that we launched talent stacker and I would not, I would not have started doing this if it was not for you.

Basically giving me that talk and saying, this is something you can do. This is something that people do, you may not be aware of it, but people do this thing and it's legitimate and very similar to what I'm trying to tell your listeners today. You may not know about this, but it's legitimate and people do it.

That's what you told me. And it just gave me just enough energy and like excitement to go. I'm going to at least try. I got to try to figure this thing out and it took a while to figure out exactly what to do, but man, once we got to go and it was amazing and I will always give you. Credit for that.

So thank you always. So as far as the communities go. Yes, we did. We created a Facebook group called Salesforce for everyone. If you search Salesforce for everyone, pretty much on any platform you will find some remnants of us. So like on Tik TOK we've got a great, it's got a huge 60, some thousand followers on [00:40:00] Tik TOK Salesforce for everyone you'll find us there.

LinkedIn. YouTube Facebook, pretty much everywhere. Just search Salesforce for everyone. I don't ever recommend somebody downloading a new platform to learn about this stuff. I say whatever platform you're already using, just use that and we'll try to find you there. So Salesforce for everyone on whichever platform you're on.

I will recommend. Most of you, I'm betting most of everyone hearing this as a podcast listener. So once again, we have a Salesforce for everyone podcast and episodes one through eight are specifically designed so that you can listen to those and land a job. There are a lot of other episodes, but we designed it in a way where episode one through eight are specifically.

I just found out about Salesforce. How do I land a job? It'll take you through LinkedIn, networking, resumes, interview tips, how to search for jobs and find jobs, which platforms to use all that stuff. So if you prefer to listen on a podcast, you want to keep your email address to yourself, Salesforce for everyone [00:41:00] podcast, episode one through eight.

One thing that came to mind during this episode was Alex Warnecke. Did an interview. She did an interview on the side hustle nation podcast. I would highly recommend she talked to Nick Loper. She's a great example of what you can do with these careers. She's a rock climbing enthusiast and she's a Salesforce professional, and she.

Was able to rock climb the United States. In 2022 and rock climb Western Europe in 2023, all while maintaining her job as a Salesforce professional and living her life. I would highly recommend checking out that interview as well. But that's where I would go. If you're

Naseema: It is a bomb interview. I listened to

Bradley Rice: Oh, you did.

That's awesome.

Naseema: was like, Bradley!

Oh, yeah, I did. I was like, oh my god, look at it That's a reason why I reached out to you when I did because I was like, let me talk to bradley Okay, that's my homie Like how she

out here promoting him and i'm not out here Just pumping him up like this like I need to give him his flowers because he is out here doing his [00:42:00] thing, but yeah, that was an incredible episode and it was a perfect example of someone who used her transferable skills from her previous job and was able to shape a career around what she wanted to do.

I think it's her and her boyfriend or her husband. They both did it and it was just amazing. It is an amazing story. I'll link it in the podcast,

Bradley Rice: endless free resources. I cannot list them out. Like we've spent the last three years just like constantly trying to create a free resource for everyone. So like we'll get emails. And as soon as we get five emails about something, we're just like, okay, we need to create a free resource for that.

If you just go, my recommendation would be. If you only do two things, I would say Salesforce for everyone podcast episodes, one through eight, go to talentstacker. com forward slash now and start the free five day challenge. You've heard a bunch of stuff today. It's probably overwhelming. It sounds exciting.

But you're not really sure where to go from here. That's it. Just do those two things and ignore everything else. And you'll slowly open yourself up to the [00:43:00] bigger picture and everything you need to do. And anytime you can DM me on LinkedIn, Bradley rice, linkedin. com forward slash N forward slash Brad force.

You can find me on LinkedIn or you can email us at ask at talent stacker. com. And I promise we're not going to pressure you into buying anything. We're legitimately just here to help people.

Naseema: Yeah, I love it. And I, I selfishly wanted to bring you on the podcast because I, first of all, I haven't talked to you in forever and. I wanted to personally just congratulate you because I see what you're doing. And I know how much work it takes to get there. And I just want to let you know that if nobody else sees you, Bradley, I see you boo, like you are doing your thing and you have. So many good resources, and I just see the people that you're helping and how you have been able to change people's life just by sharing the information and sharing the passion that you have for this career, that again, you can [00:44:00] adapt around your life. And this episode is, sounds like me just bragging on Bradley.

That's what it is because I'm so proud of him, but also I wanted to share this information with you because I feel like this is a tool that you should keep in your back pocket if you're not going to act on it today, which I recommend you do by listening to those podcasts episodes by taking the five day challenge, but if you don't.

Act on it today, always keep this in the back of your mind for something that you can pursue or something that you can recommend your friends pursue people who are coming out of school. They don't know what to do something that they can look into is just like I said, it's attainable for everyone. And so I just love that.

There's a resource like this because there aren't. A lot of industries that you can just go into without any skills for free and be able to make a good living from. And so Bradley, I just want to thank you [00:45:00] so much again for grace me with your presence and coming on the podcast, but also for sharing the gems that you share for giving people. All walks of life access to be able to generate income and create the life that they desire create life by design. But like I said, you have so many resources, so people can get things for free, but I also, you do also have a paid program that. Is gonna exponentially

speed this process up for people.

So do talk about that. Please just just talk about a little bit.

Bradley Rice: All right. I will. I don't talk about it much because I know I know it's a lot. Just hearing about a new career path. So here's the quick pitch. Why would you be interested? And talent stacker after hearing about free resource after free resource, community groups, everything you need for the D.

I. Y. approaches at your fingertips. You're absolutely right. D. I. Y. approach, however, comes with a number of [00:46:00] potential roadblocks, right? Like a lot of people prefer live instructor led training. A lot of people prefer accountability. A lot of people want to be. Surrounded by other really highly motivated individuals.

And when you join a program, like we have talent stackers, Salesforce career development program. And when you join a program like this, what we do is we bring you in and we hold your hand and we walk you step by step through this thing. I'll be transparent. The cost of the program is anywhere from 2, 200 to 2, 500.

You can pay over a six month period. There are payment plans available if you can't pay upfront and also I'll get beat up by our support team, but we're super kind. Like we are real people. So if you're on a payment plan and you're three months into a payment plan. And you lose your job or something happens in your life and you're like, Hey, can I skip a payment?

Can I skip a couple of payments? We are always amicable to people like, look, life happens, but we're not trying to like, take your money and run. Like we want you to [00:47:00] be successful. And if you have something going on in life and we can help with that, even just 2%, then we will help 2%. So we do our best to be real people while also facilitating a company.

But what we actually do. Is you'll get live instructor led training that takes you through getting your salesforce administrator certification, which is really the benchmark certification for entry level jobs. We're also going to take you through getting guaranteed hands on experience through our real world simulation projects within the talent stacker program.

We're also going to get you interview prep. We're going to get you linked in networking. We have options to review your resumes, review your linkedin profiles. Actually invite you to interview one on one for a mock interview spend some time with us and getting one on one coaching for your interview prep.

We call it tripping at the finish line. If you do all the work, you go to interviews and then you can't get the job because you don't interview well. So we don't want you to trip at the finish line. So we'll work on you. I'll work on that with you. The funny thing is even after you land a job, we'll help you negotiate figuring [00:48:00] out how to get that first.

Job offer will also help you negotiate for your next job. It's a lifetime access platform. So you come in, you're always going to have our support for a lifetime. We've helped individuals who got laid off last year find another job. We've networked them into other positions through other connections that we have.

And if you're in the Salesforce ecosystem. And you get to put member of talent stacker program on your resume or portfolio or linkedin. It is an extremely recognized. We are the number one career development program in the world and companies. Throughout the ecosystem, understand that if you were trained by talent stacker and you finish their program, then you are actually a quality entry level talent to come into the ecosystem.

So it's a badge of approval for all the employers and recruiters out there. They know, okay, you're an alumni. Then you deserve my respect. Let me get you in here for an interview. So that is what we continue to uphold. And we will. And again, it's the only lifetime membership program offered, and it is the most [00:49:00] successful program offered.

So if you are interested in a paid path, obviously I'm biased, but I would recommend this as your paid path.

Naseema: I the thing that I have heard is that when people do start looking at Looking like at Salesforce stuff, they do get poached by other programs to be like, oh we can help you do this. We can help you do that. And so just know that that happens in this space, but know that nobody is comparing to talent stackers.

Bradley Rice: Yeah, I would just say with anything, even if you're looking into a different tech like cyber security or whatever else, like anytime you're evaluating a program I would look for. Testimonials stories, and I would make sure that those stories allow you to identify exactly who that person is so that you can look that part.

If it just has their first name and a little blurb, that's not enough like they need to link you out to their LinkedIn profile. So you can verify this is a real person that was really in your program [00:50:00] that really is. Has a job at this point doing what it is that they said they were going to do.

And even to the point where you could send that person a DM and say, Hey, I just wanted to verify that this, this program is legit, right? Do that. Because if you're not doing your due diligence and you're handing people thousands of dollars to join their programs, there are a lot, I'm not going to mention any names cause I'll get burned alive, but there are a lot of programs, even in the Salesforce ecosystem that are absolute.

They're just, I don't know if they're scams. I don't want to call it a scam. I think the leadership of the companies. I just think that they're doing the right thing, but they don't know what they're doing. So they can't get results because they don't actually know how to do the thing. And I think they mean but they're just not good at what they do.

So just be, be cognizant, reach out. You need to find people who. Graduated from that program and got the job and verify with them that they really did use it and it really is worth their time and they're not giving you a referral link so that they get a kickback for you signing up. [00:51:00] Like just do your due diligence.

It's, it's pretty straightforward.

Naseema: Yes bradley is a real deal and I will bet him But yeah, I like that you have receipts upon receipts upon

receipts.

So if

Bradley Rice: we're waiting on a tax

Naseema: again, Oh my God, but check him out, go through his free resources. Like he is vetted across the board. If he ain't vetted by anybody else, he's vetted by me.

And that's all that matters at the day, but anyway, Bradley, you're the real deal. I love you. Thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for sharing all your invaluable advice, resources, like everything that you have to offer. And still with all these things that amazing things that you're doing, you're still an amazing dad. So I'm just proud of you.

And I just wanted to let you know, again, I see you and you are incredibly inspiring to me.

Bradley Rice: Thank you. You're too kind. I appreciate you having me on and giving me an opportunity [00:52:00] to sing your praises because you do deserve it. And it's all reciprocated. So thank you so much.

Naseema: oh, thanks Bradley.

Hey there I’m Naseema

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