Episode 2: Amanda Beard-Neilson Salesforce Career Conversation with ROD. From accidental Salesforce Admin to CTO in ten years. Follow her journey here.
[Below is a transcript for your benefit. Please excuse any typos.]
Lee Durrant: Hello, it's Lee Durrant here. Welcome to RODcast, the podcast where we get to meet and chat with some truly fantastic people from within the Salesforce ecosystem. My goal for this podcast is to help and inform people who either already perhaps work in the Salesforce ecosystem, or maybe you're thinking of breaking into it, to understand what's good about it, what could be better, where there are opportunities, and what some of the most amazing people in this space, how they got into it, where their career took them, and what their plans are for the future. Hope you enjoy it, and please help me to reach as many people as possible within Salesforce by leaving some comments and sharing. All feedback welcome. So yeah, hope you enjoy.
Lee Durrant: Hello, and welcome to RODcast, with me Lee Durrant. In this particular episode we are talking with Amanda Beard-Neilson, who's been in the Salesforce industry for 12 years. Her journey has gone from Accidental Salesforce Admin, to CTO, which is unbelievable. Obviously I wanted to understand how she got into Salesforce, and what her journey's been like, and if there're any tips for you guys out there. So without further ado, I hope you enjoy the episode.
Lee Durrant: So hello Amanda. Welcome to our podcast, and thanks for agreeing to do this. How are you mate?
Amanda: Hello Lee, thanks very much for inviting me to do this. I'm really well actually. It's a nice summer's day, so what's not to like really?
Lee Durrant: Yes exactly. And, as I say, just been talking to you off the podcast, but just to let you know, and people listening as well, this is a bit of a podcast to find out the journey of people like you and your sort of legendary status in Salesforce, and kind of how it began, and what's happened to you over the last, I want to say 10 years, I'm not sure exactly how many years-
Amanda: It's 12 years actually I've been playing with Salesforce, so quite a long time.
Lee Durrant: Yeah. So that's what the questions are aimed at really, just so people listening can understand how you got into it, and what's happened since, and all that sort of stuff. So really I'll just get straight into asking you some nice questions, and obviously, your Salesforce journey starts at the beginning, so what were you doing in the lead-up to Salesforce? So what was your career, and what was your perception of what your career was going to be before Salesforce fell in your lap?
Amanda: Yeah, very very different actually. I had a sort of sales, marketing and PR background before Salesforce came into my life. I didn't have at all any aspirations of IT. My background from my studying was business studies. So I had a very business-orientated starting of career, and I worked in sales, I was classically trained in sales. Really understood the whole methodology of two ears and one mouth, and use it accordingly, which has really helped actually for a lot of those life skills, when it comes to talking with clients afterwards as part of this world, and really helping to understand what their pains are, what their requirements are. Listening's a massive skill for that, so even though you might come from a different direction, it doesn't mean that you can't change direction. And they also now say that, when you have a career now, you might have very different careers, maybe up to five different careers as part of your whole career journey. So even though you've started from a different background, it doesn't mean that you can't change direction. And I think it's also very healthy for a person to change direction because it can keep you sparking, and keep you interested in doing something. And keep you learning as well.
Amanda: Yeah. No, so that was my,
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