We recently hosted a Q&A with David Nava, Lead Solution Engineer at Salesforce, Host of Military Trailblazer Office Hours, and Golden Hoodie recipient and Rosalia Urquidy, our Senior Learning Consultant in the Revol Success team. In his Q&A, David talked through his secrets to success, including his top tips for creating and growing your personal brand when you’re new to Salesforce. Here are some insights from the session.
About David Nava
David is a retired active military member with over 20 years of experience as a Naval Flight Officer and Aviation Manager in the US Navy. He began upskilling in Salesforce using Trailhead back in 2019. Twelve months later, he landed a six-figure salary with a consulting firm. Currently, he’s working as a Lead Solution Engineer at Salesforce. He’s also the host of Military Trailblazer Office Hours on YouTube, as well as a proud Golden Hoodie recipient.
What are meta-skills?
Meta-skills generally refers to skills or mindsets that help you learn other things. These could include:
- Problem-solving
- Executive thinking
- Critical thinking
- Organizational skills
- Work ethic
These are all assets you can bring into your current work environment, including Salesforce. For example, before David developed in-depth knowledge of the industry and skills such as customer discovery, building on the platform, and data management, he was able to leverage his meta-skills to get him through that process and draw interest from employers.
What is the Salesforce Golden Hoodie?
Did we mention that Salesforce was tech’s most supportive ecosystem? During their events, Salesforce awards inspiring Trailblazers who share how they’re “doing well and doing good” in their careers, companies, and communities. As thanks, they receive the Golden Hoodie, placing a spotlight on inspiring stories and individuals within the ecosystem.
“No one really sets out to earn the Golde Hoodie,” says David. “It’s a surprise you get along the way, but essentially awarded to folks that go above and beyond in their support of the professional community or Salesforce’s products and services. In my case, it was the former. When I was transitioning from the military, I was a bit lost on how to get started and I had a lot of folks reach out and help me along my path. And so early on, I decided that I was going to give back and become a mentor.”
David continued with ad-hoc mentoring over the course of about a year-and-a-half, which turned into more formal mentoring when he joined an online platform called Veterati to provide focused one-to-one sessions that were scheduled. He did that for about a year, with 65 mentees and had a lot of great conversations. However, he needed to maximize his time because he was extremely busy. So, David decided to scale his advice and reach more people but spend the same amount of time on mentoring. Drawing inspiration from Bill Keeler, Salesforce MVP, App Exchange partner, and co-founder of Resource Hero, he worked together with Bill to provide mentoring resources to those who needed them. David found that mentorship is most powerful when you have more points of view involved.
“Me mentoring one person means imparting only my experience which is great, but it’s not as powerful as having 40 people in the same room who are each imparting their own experience and playing off each other. So that’s what we have with these office hours, everyone’s invited to speak up and share their experience and their expertise. We invite a different Salesforce professional and they talk about their career path.”
5 steps to creating your personal brand when you're new to Salesforce
1. Do a deep-dive on yourself
Figure out what your values, principles, interests, passions, and goals are. This will help you uncover the meta–skills that you can use to communicate your value to employers. As an example, what are you looking for from a work culture, environment, and team dynamic perspective? When you’re researching companies you have to know that, and you can only find this out by doing a deep dive. Think of the types of activities you enjoy participating in. For example, if you don’t particularly enjoy customer discovery, maybe you don’t want to be a Business Analyst.
Looking for a useful resource for this exercise? Check out What Color Is Your Parachute? by Richard Bowles.
2. Create a branding statement
This should summarize your attributes in a way that communicates your unique value to your professional community. Think of it as your ‘North Star’, which guides your personal brand. For example, if you’re facing a decision in your career, check if your next move aligns with your branding statement before you decide to take the leap.
David’s branding statement: Salesforce professional, military veteran, and mentor, passionate about helping others unlock their professional potential and helping the Department of Defense co–create solutions that solve their most pressing business challenges.
Check out David’s YouTube channel for more videos on how to brand yourself, including how to write your branding statement.
3. Put your branding statement to use
You want to create or participate in professional activities that align with your values and help communicate your brand. So, as an example, you could start by creating and sharing content on LinkedIn or YouTube, participating in community events, volunteering for speaking engagements, or starting a blog.
David’s pro tip: “Research thought leaders in our industry and see what they’re doing. If you feel like you’re new and you have no idea what you can create, there are tons of people on LinkedIn right now that are in the Salesforce ecosystem who are brand–new, and they’re all creating content. And it’s being absorbed because there are other folks that are brand–new who want to know what that experience is like or that haven’t even started yet. So, if you have one day of experience in the ecosystem, you have 100% more experience than someone who has no experience. So, don’t let that stop you. No matter what your level of expertise is, you have something to offer, so go out there and participate in professional activities to create your brand.”
4. Share your activities with your network using social media
Start with LinkedIn. If you don’t share it or someone that was at the event or activity doesn’t share it on social media, it’s almost like it didn’t happen. No one’s going to know about it. So you have to get comfortable participating in activities and then sharing these. It’s a natural rhythm.
“Developing a professional reputation requires that your network is aware of the value that you’re adding,” says David. “And to be aware, they have to be notified. LinkedIn is the most common method for sharing your activities, but you can also post on Twitter, YouTube, YouTube, use videos, podcasts—whatever your jam is!”
Pro tip: If you’re not sure where to get started or what to share in your posts, check out our guide on how to optimize your LinkedIn profile.
5. Connect and interact with others who align with your brand
This will strengthen your network and provide additional opportunities to participate in relevant writing activities.
“For example, as a content creator, I sought out other content creators to collaborate with, which has helped reinforce and strengthen my brand,” David advises. “If you’re able to do virtual and face-to-face interaction as well, that is also awesome. Do both. That face-to-face piece makes a big difference.”
If you’re not sure what events to attend, check out our ultimate guide to cloud events and conferences.
