Use the Force.com

Krista [00:00:59] Welcome to part two in the two part you use the force dot.com series in part one we went through hour by hour in a day in Ruud Erie’s life as a sales force technical architect. In this episode we’ll take you through Ruud’s career journey so you know the skills and experiences are necessary to land a job as a sales force technical architect. He didn’t study computer science in college by the way he taught himself how to code online kept at it. And here he is today. Let’s learn how he did it so you can too. 

 

Mat [00:01:31] Ruud’s interest in high school and college were in film and TV. 

 

Ruud [00:01:36] And what I did was I started passing the script around to my friends and I would write you know maybe like one section of a script and then I pass it around printed a whole bunch of copies and pass it around to my different friends and then they would read it and they’d be like Dude what’s going to happen next. This is crazy. And so I was like yes I got really excited and I was like you know what I really should pursue you know a film career and see where I could take this. So I looked up film schools in L.A. because I wanted to go out to L.A. and you know take my shot at Hollywood. 

 

Ruud [00:02:04] I find this cool called Video Symphony and they have this video editing program and the video editing program was essentially it was two years long and base and it was located right in Burbank California. And so I looked at all of the different schools. This particular one was right near the studios professional editors that work in the studios would go there to get training so I figured it would be a good networking opportunity. So I flew out there. I applied to the school got my student loans and got my apartment without even setting foot in California. So the first time. That’s a huge jump. Yeah. So it was intense and then. And like for the first two or three months I was kind of depressed because I was like oh man this is overwhelming and I didn’t know you know so I but it ended up being such an incredible experience because of the you know the opportunities that were presented to me. And after graduating. 

 

Krista [00:02:55] What if you don’t mind me asking what like kind of pushed you through after that first two to three months because of course it’s a new state it’s on the other side of the country like what did you do to like I guess get through that. 

 

Ruud [00:03:06] so I would say meditation definitely helped a lot. And then you know making friends and going out with them because everybody was a lot of the students that I was in school with were also from out of town as well. 

 

Krista [00:03:17] What made you want to go there instead of going to a film program at a four year like state school or like a regular college quote unquote. 

 

Ruud [00:03:25] So to go way back like I was born in Port au Prince Haiti so my parents immigrated to the country and you know they’ve been working you know they worked a lot in that kind of thing. So for me while education was always very important and very important to my family making money kind of superseded that. And so for me. 

 

Ruud [00:03:44] And so for me it was about going to a school where I could follow my passion but also be able to make money as soon as possible when I graduate. When I left there I ended up getting an avid certification and a final cut pro certification and avid certifications. I think there’s only 23000 people in the world that have it. So that was something that you know really appealed to me and it did open doors because the software is very specialized and so they needed people who actually knew how to use it and even video editors and film editors who already have you know 20 and 30 IDB credits and stuff they actually would go to that school to learn the software too so I kind of had an edge on them I just didn’t have the film editing experience that they had the aesthetic putting stories together and that kind of thing. 

 

Krista [00:04:29] For a year Ruud was working on video editing contract a contract with all different types of companies to beef up his portfolio and get as much experience as possible which is pretty typical in this industry. 

 

Ruud [00:04:41] So you work on a project you work on a film for six months three months or an infomercial commercial for a month or two or something like that and then afterwards you move on to the next job. And so it was always good to be able to keep that deal flow going where you’re finding new projects and that kind of thing and that I think that kind of sowed the seeds of you know kind of what I do now. 

 

Ruud [00:05:00] You know I continuously engaging with clients whether I’m on or off the market in order for me to know what’s going on in the industry and if there’s an opportunity for me to add value than I you know that I do that. 

 

Mat [00:05:11] Awesome that that actually brings us perfectly until like the next question I had from you or for you is from all this experience obviously you made a 180 in your career but what from the video editing and all of this time in Hollywood what skills did you learn that you still use today on top of what you just mentioned. 

 

Ruud [00:05:30] Sure. So I would say being able to deal with high pressure situations. 

 

Ruud [00:05:36] so one of the things that they tell you as a video editor is that you need to be able to cut faster than the producer can think. In other words when a producer says this is what I want you have to be able to cut the scene and re edit it and do things way faster than the producer is able to come up with a new idea because they move they move fast you know what I mean. And so that was one of the challenges that you get as a beginner especially on projects as like I would I’d be working on something and then I’d have a producer yelling in my face like why is this taking so long. What the f is going on and all this other stuff and it’s a very intense situation. So one. So one of the things that I learned was I’m able to keep my cool. You know I think literally you know in those situations and not lose it and that kind of stuff and then the other thing too was that being able to think and not panic in those kinds of situations when you know when the stakes are high just doing what needs to be done. So that was something that I. He picked up and then appreciation for the ability to network with people and getting to know that was something that I picked up from living in L.A. and in that kind of stuff because there wasn’t a place where I could go or someone I could go to that would say hey here’s the opportunity that you’ve been looking for. 

 

Ruud [00:06:49] It was basically me just going out and finding those opportunities or being able to know someone who had an opportunity and be able being able to add value. You know hey can I help you out with this project and that kind of thing and then that kind of opened up a lot of doors for me. I would say 95 percent of the opportunities that I’ve ever now that I’ve ever been presented to me have always been as a result of experience that I had gained. And then somehow found a way to leverage into new opportunities. 

 

Mat [00:07:16] so while Ruud was freelancing he got a job as an account executive at a firm to help grow his sales skills and pay the bills during the editing off season. 

 

Ruud [00:07:25] so one of the things you know in general when you’re freelancing you’re basically you’re it’s a sales cycle all the time. You’re not I mean you have to sell people on yourself. You have to sell people on your skills and you have to sell people on your projects so that company allowed me to be able to kind of grow my sales skills and they were mostly focused on you know retail sales and all these different all these different products but you were an independent contractor still. And so having that helped me you know generate some income and then also being able to you know still do my projects and that kind of thing as they come along. 

 

Krista [00:07:57] I kind of want to go back a little bit. You had mentioned the sales cycle and how you had to basically sell yourself sell your skill sell your product. Can you talk a little bit more on how you did that? Sure I did. Did you have a part felt like tell me that whole process I guess? 

 

Ruud [00:08:11] so your portfolio is I would say 40 to 50 percent of your sale. The other 25 percent would be you selling the person on yourself and then the other 25 percent would be you know you selling them on your skills within the project. So a lot of times when I would meet with new people I would always start off with what I’ve done. 

 

Ruud [00:08:29] I always I never tell them you know I only have this many years’ experience so I’ve only worked on this project. I just tell them what I’ve done. And then if that is enough to hook them in and ask that you know them asking me more questions and that kind of thing then I know that you know there’s probably an opportunity for me to add value. So that was basic that was there was a film produced by this director Aki Ali on his here. It was this film about the Chinese rail railroad workers in the eighteen hundreds in California. And he had I think he probably had a it was a multi-million dollar budget film and all I did I was talking to him one day and I told him about projects that I had worked on in that kind of thing and he basically offered me assistant to director position. But what I was actually doing is actually re editing the film for different film festivals and submitting it for him. And that was essentially what I did. I told him about the projects that I had worked on. Then when he it seemed like he was actually interested in possibly working with me. Then I showed him my portfolio you know. And then from there I kind of told him about the skills and what I can do in that kind of thing and that was what you know allowed me to work on that project. 

 

Ruud [00:09:38] what I always like to do is I always like to look back at you know what worked and what didn’t and then kind of optimizing from there. I realized that when I’m able to just talk about my experience and what I’ve actually done it becomes less relevant you know where I came from and what in all of these other things. 

 

Mat [00:09:56] after a year working as an account executive he moved from California back to Connecticut. There he was working as an energy broker and a poker dealer at Mohegan Sun casino. He worked at Mohegan Sun in high school as well as a server which gave him the financial security to be able to move to California at such a young age. 

 

Ruud [00:10:15] What I liked about that particular opportunity was that I was able to also you know generate sales on my own and that kind of thing and then you know networking Mohegan Sun has like ten or twelve thousand employees or something. So you know there’s a lot of people in there and that kind of thing. So having that sales opportunity you know I could sit down with someone and say hey you know how’s your light bill and that kind of thing. And being able to say well I could find out if I could get you a discount on you know on your bills and that and so that that allowed me to you know get different deals and it was nice too because my parents were pretty supportive. You know. They let me look at their light bill and I was like I think I could save you some money. So it gave me some confidence to be able to continue that for a little while more. 

 

Krista [00:10:56] what’s the training like to be a poker dealer. 

 

Ruud [00:10:58] so it’s like three. I would say three or four months long and you don’t get that. Yeah. So it’s intense but basically in the film industry you know I was talking early about the producers and that kind of thing and how intense it can get when you’re under pressure. So. In poker it’s kind of the same thing. But this time you’re directly the decisions that you make have a direct consequence on the player’s financial outcome. If you make a mistake like for example. So if you if you show a card too early or if you throw away someone’s Cards or if you do all these different things you are if take them to cards on accident right. Yeah exactly so. All of those things play into you know that that player could panic have a panic attack and lose his mind on the table and you have to keep your cool and all of these things. So they one they kind of prepare you for that. So that’s part of the training is the psychological getting you mentally prepared for what you could see on the on the actual poker table and then the other side is just knowing how to deal the right game. 

 

Krista [00:12:00] He left his energy broker job after a year and while he was working as a poker dealer Reed started getting into technology and programming. He started taking classes on his own to learn. He didn’t want to be in the casino forever. His student loans are creeping up to him and so he needed a new game plan. The motivation came from rereading a book called the sovereign individual. 

 

Ruud [00:12:20] the sub header of the book was mastering the transition to the Information Age. And it was basically about all of these different global trends and how technology is going to affect the way that the world is shaped in the way that you know. And so he kind of broke down all of these different aspects of technology and where the opportunity opened and they had actually there was a section in the book where they were talking about programming and how basically the programmers would have would be able to write their own ticket if they understood these trends and if they were able to you know find a way to create business opportunities or create opportunities and add value to different industries. And so I knew it was something that I wanted to get into. And so that was basically what kind of got me started in researching things. 

 

Ruud [00:13:01] And this is like old book is written in like 97 but they you know there were certain things in there like they had predicted. They called it cyber cash at the time but they actually predicted what Bitcoin is today. Yes. So that actually helped me. I had gotten into bitcoin in a theorem early as a result of reading that book and anticipating like this is actually going to be big. And so that you know so little things like that that I’ve gotten from you know other things that I’ve gotten from the book. And so after I think after the second or third time that I read the book when I was in Connecticut I started looking up programming classes and there was this a school it’s called Udacity. 

 

Mat [00:13:35] He signed up for computer science one on one courses online that cost him a little under three hundred dollars each. The course was divided into two projects. The first was building a search engine. The second was building the different models for the social network in the class. He learned python and this gave him the confidence to take on more classes. 

 

Ruud [00:13:54] So I continued to do courses and that was when I stumbled upon the salesforce programming course and one of the in the headliner for the course or in the description or something he said something about warning if you take this course you may end up finding a job or something like that. So I was like I’ll take you up on. Yeah. 

 

Ruud [00:14:13] So I decided I was like Alright I’ll take them up on that challenge. So I went through the course and started building different applications within Salesforce for the course. And then I started you know just for the fun of it building apps outside of the course. So working in the casino I was working as a poker dealer and I was looking at the different ways that the room operated. And one of the things that I noticed was that the poker managers whenever the room got busy they would just get on the phone and start calling different poker dealers to see if anyone wanted to come in for overtime. And I actually wanted to come in for overtime so I could make more money. So I built this application and showed it to the managers and executives and essentially what the application did was it would notify all of the poker dealers on a shift send him a text message and then they’d be able to respond if they wanted to pick up that shift and do overtime. And then from there it would the manager once the manager approves it he would send it to payroll and then you know payroll would have that extra information that this person is signed up to work extra hours so that they that way they could keep track of it. When I built that and I showed it to them I wasn’t expecting this but they actually tried to buy the application from me. And so that kind of started my career in sales force while I didn’t actually sell the application to them. What that led to was them giving me a stack of papers about all the different enterprise requirements and all of the different things that it would take in order to sell a piece of software to a large business. 

 

Mat [00:15:43] Ruud’s applying the skills he’s learned from the classes he’s created his own company oply International. He’s got his poker dealer management app and he’s also got Mohegan Sun’s interest in buying it from him. There’s a lot going on for him at this point. 

 

Ruud [00:15:58] I started off oply international and what that was is just a consulting business for me to be able to handle my freelance contracts in that kind of thing. And so I always I always wanted to even though I’ve you know I’ve always been working within the sales force space I’ve always and I continue to have you know clients that I you know that I manage and I handle things for. And so where you know when I initially when I started I didn’t really know you know what I was doing or that kind of thing. I just knew that I needed to be able to you know if I get a contract and that kind of thing I should probably have an entity to manage that. Process. 

 

Ruud [00:16:30] and so it started off. It started off there and then it’s kind of evolved into you know now I have a team of maybe seven seven to ten offshore developers that I can you know that I can use as resources for projects that come in. So I still provide the architecture sometimes some programming but I work with my customers to be able to make sure that you know whatever requirements whatever new features they need that they’re able to get that done you know at a at a good rate. Everything that I learn you know within my own freelance projects and that kind of thing comes back as more value added to my customer because I have all these different all these other different businesses all these other different situations that I’ve seen that then you know allow me to say you know what this approach is probably better because this is what I’ve run into in the field and you know these are the issues that I’ve seen my other clients you know run into so it’s still it’s I always treat I always treat my jobs as if it was a business and you know the my employers my client I always I always approach it from that way because at the end of the day the most important thing for them is to get a return on investment from me. 

 

Ruud [00:17:37] So how do I maximize that I maximize that from having as much experience as I possibly can and making sure that they’re getting the best advice from things that I’ve seen in the field you know. So that comes from you know researching that comes from talking to other you know talking to other customers in other industries from looking at how different customers have approached different things how you know how different situations were addressed and anticipating problems before they occur. 

 

Mat [00:18:04] Back on track with kind of your career journey the first kind of jump into tack for like a professional sense was you were a web applications developer at Case partners. Yes. Was that a sales force or you know. OK. So you were going in there. Can you tell us about how you got the job? Without having any prior professional experience in that world. 

 

Ruud [00:18:25] so I had been I had been freelancing you know working on different Web development projects not necessarily Salesforce focused. And so when I had built the poker management application at Mohegan Sun I actually gone to a networking event or like a developer meetup in Hartford Connecticut where the CTO of case partners happened to be there. And so I you know we got into a conversation. I told him about the different applications that I was building and you know the issues that I had with this particular poker management app because I didn’t know how to sell this application to a large company like Mohegan Sun. And so that’s when he asked. He offered me a job. And you know I initially I turned him down because I already had like maybe two or three other web projects that I was working on. But then after you know three months later he reached out again and offered me a job. And so I started to work for case partners really cool company because they actually do not only Salesforce but they also were a Microsoft shop and so they had they had a lot of different people with different experiences and stuff and so let’s say a lot of different companies they might have they might be using Microsoft servers. 

 

Ruud [00:19:33] they may have their Web built in in the Microsoft stack and that kind of thing. And then Salesforce is just used to kind of manage their customer data. So a lot of the things that they would do is you know help customers bridge that gap where you know how do I get my Salesforce instance communicating with you know my Microsoft data and vice versa and that kind of thing and so it opened up you know a world of opportunity for me one because they were you know they were already an established company and they were working with all different types of customers and all in all kinds of different industries. And then so anytime you know anytime they had a different project that was Salesforce related they would throw me on and then I would you know do as much as I can to be able to you know to be able to learn from the people that I was working with. And then it just so happened that Salesforce MVP her name is Maria belly she happened to be working at Case partners with me and so she kind of took me under her wing and mentored me along the way. So between the CTO Howard and Maria of a you know really helped build me up and you know taught me so much about the salesforce ecosystem and so much more. 

 

Mat [00:20:38] so you took you took that that experience for about a year right and then you moved over to be a strict Salesforce developer at CRM science. Yes. For another year after that. What made you do that? And then how did you get that opportunity. 

 

Ruud [00:20:53] I was introduced to the architect over at CRM science one of the architects of CRM science Alex and he was he’s also a Salesforce MVP so I was introduced to him through Maria. 

 

Ruud [00:21:04] initially I was just talking to Alex about the different projects that I had going on other applications that I was building on the side and that kind of thing. And so he told me a little bit about CRM science and what they do. So what’s when I was working at Case partners I would say 40 percent of the work would have been you know admin focused so very you know point and click running reports and that kind of thing which is another important aspect of Salesforce. And then the rest would be you know development focused. So what Alex talked to me about was how CRM science literally everything they do is just Apex focused its programming its product development and that’s what their niche was. And so that was really interesting to me because I wanted to really focus my career on the programmatic side of Salesforce because to me that was the more powerful aspects. I mean you can do a lot as an admin you can do a lot as you know with the point and click tools but the programming to me is where the opportunities really become limitless because there isn’t anything that you can’t do at that point. And so that was what you know. So he had offered me well I met the CEO over at CRM science and then they made me an offer and you know I felt it was the right move to make and you know everyone a case partners they were sad to see me go but they were also really supportive. 

 

Ruud [00:22:20] and so you know I appreciate you know Howard and Maria. You know having the opportunity to be a part of a community where people are encouraged to continue learning people and are encouraged to advance their skills and you know and keep pushing their career forward. It was just something that you know I felt it felt really at home and. 

 

Krista [00:22:38] After that Salesforce developer opportunity with CRM science came to an amicable and rude worked for a variant a healthcare tech company as a Salesforce development engineer all while fielding projects and contracts with his own clients through his company Oply. 

 

Ruud [00:22:52] Full disclosure. So within the Salesforce space once they once recruiters find out that you have skills in Salesforce and that kind of thing you get endless calls from recruiter’s non-stop. Oh absolutely insane. I get at least 30 calls a week. About different opportunities and that kind of thing gets to the point where I literally leave my phones on silent because I don’t you know most of the time its calls regarding different opportunities and stuff. And then I actually so I have you know my own Salesforce instance so a lot of times when people call me the phone number that they call it actually sends them a text message and says hey add your information to my CRM so that way I can keep track of you know who they are so then they can actually the recruiter if they’re serious they can actually add their information and then that gets added to my CRM so that way I’m able to have a database of all these different recruiters and that kind of thing. So if I am I am looking for a contract or something like that I know who to reach out to. 

 

Ruud [00:23:51] But yeah it was essentially just kind of keeping track of those relationships you know letting people know keeping people up to date with what I’m working on what you know what my experiences and that kind of thing and kind of understanding where the market is you know and recruiters are really good for that because they’ll tell you know what’s out there in the marketplace what people are looking for what skills are hot and that kind of thing and that kind of helps guide where I decide to you know focus my attention and what new skills that I want to learn can be one step ahead. 

 

Mat [00:24:15] Yeah the interview process, very good advice. All right. 

 

Ruud [00:24:18] So in so when I was making the transition from CRM science to variant when I was working CRM science was a fully remote you know role and that kind of thing. So while I was looking for my next contract I had decided to move to Columbia, Meddelin Columbia and I was living out there for like three or four months. And so while I was out there you know I was talking to different recruiters and stuff. And so I had spoken to a recruiter their representative variant and they you know you variant had just announced that they had closed around the funding with Goldman Sachs and that kind of thing and so they were looking to bring on more experienced developers to help them build you know these new products that they had coming in. So I you know so seemed like a great opportunity for me because you know on the consulting side you’re you know you’re a partner with the company but you know after once the contract is over you know you kind of you’re you know unless they need you again you know you kind of just thrown on the whistle. Yeah. Yeah. Cut loose so that from there I figured you know if working at an actual and you know I talked to Alex about this he had suggested you know if I worked at an actual if I worked at a product company like a Salesforce product company that kind of experience that I would gain if I’m able to help that company grow from what it wherever point it’s at to you know to a greater point it would be you know a great mark on you know I went on your resume very impressive. Yeah. Yeah it’s a great track record they have so he doesn’t work. Yeah exactly. Exactly. And so that for me what I saw it variant was that you know I could add immediate value as soon as I started. 

 

Ruud [00:25:48] And that being able to you know be a part of a new product that was coming into you know coming into the market was just something that you know I couldn’t say no to and so I transitioned from CRM science to EVarian and started working there. 

 

Krista [00:26:01] So Ruud was working on a variant as a sales force development engineer and after a year got promoted to senior Salesforce developer slash architect. 

 

Ruud [00:26:10] My responsibilities shifted in the sense that I was given a lot more to do. There was a lot more processes and things that I was you know being held accountable for in terms of deliverables and making sure that our customers were happy. The thing was when I was working as a just a Salesforce development engineer there they I pretty much took on whatever responsibility was thrown at me. I always think of different departments and different you know players within the company as my customers. And so my primary customers there was you know my direct boss Dave. I also had you know the campaigns department which was another you know which was another quote unquote customer that I had the data department which was another customer. 

 

Ruud [00:26:52] And then I had the product team which was another customer as well so things could be coming in from different directions and stuff. And so we had processes in place to be able to handle you know requests as they were coming in basically would be would essentially just be working with these different customers to figure out what was going on what the different solutions are and then which ones made the most sense depending on the urgency. 

 

Mat [00:27:12] Ruud turned the page and his career working full time with Salesforce product companies And oply as the salesforce technical architect. If you want to learn more about what he does day to day be sure to listen to part 1 which is out now what would you tell yourself your 18 year old self today. 

 

Ruud [00:27:30] I would. Well I would say for sure. Focus on experience because doing things will get you a lot farther more quickly and then the other thing too is that doing things helps build your confidence and it allows you to it actually helps your learning as well. Again just doing just enough isn’t good enough and you know yeah you have to you have to go above and beyond to really be able to you have to go above and beyond to live above and beyond. I love. It. I love it. 

 

Krista [00:28:01] That wraps up part two and they use the force dot.com series Huge thanks to route Arie for sharing his wisdom throughout this experience. A Day in the Life series if you haven’t already. Be sure to listen to part 1 in this series to experience a day in the life of a Salesforce technical architect. So they say you can’t get a job without experience but need experience to get the job. But luckily we have quite the experience. You can join our team and experience a day in the life of the jobs you want by applying to be a student editor regardless of your major. Or amount of experience. This is the perfect stepping stone into any internship or career. Find more info and sign up at XADITL.com/students. 

 

[00:28:38] Thanks for listening. Head over to accidental dot com that’s XADITL.com. There you can find the show notes for this series and more A Day in the Life articles and you can get to know us and our guests more by joining our communities on social media follow at XADITL on Instagram and on LinkedIn by searching for Krista Bo and Mat Bo. 

 

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