This bonus episode delves into the meaning of “Ohana”, and how being part of it has left a lasting impact on current and former Salesforce employees. You’ll hear past guests describe their own experiences and discover why the Ohana is forever.
This bonus episode delves into the meaning of “Ohana”, and how being part of it has left a lasting impact on current and former Salesforce employees. You’ll hear past guests describe their own experiences and discover why the Ohana is forever.
Quotes
“I think of the Ohana as a tree with rings. Ohana is where we put the employees but there are some MVPs in the Salesforce ecosystem who fit right in there too.” - Woodson Martin, EVP and GM, AppExchange, Salesforce
“In the Ohana, nobody gatekeeps knowledge. When people build something cool or they learn about something cool, they cannot wait to share it. They are shouting it from the mountaintops, and I love that. - Marquita Sidibe, Sr. Systems Support Analyst at Liberty Mutual Insurance
“I've been a part of probably 5 major corporations, 4 of which were public companies and I never experienced that kind of Ohana that we have at Salesforce.” - Jim Steele, President, Global Strategic Customers, Salesforce
“The Ohana is everybody rallying around a cause that you believe in. In my case, it was software but it was always more than software. It was how Salesforce can help your business, how Salesforce could help the world, and how you could drive change and do good.” - Jamie Domenici, CMO, GoTo
“It's the employees that really give of themselves that demonstrate the Ohana.” - Suzanne DiBianca, EVP Corporate Relations and Chief Impact Officer, Salesforce
Episode Timestamps
* (1:28) - What does the Ohana mean to Dan?
*(2:19) - Woodson Martin’s meaning of Ohana
*(3:53) - Marquita Sidibe’s meaning of Ohana
*(5:02) - Jim Steele’s meaning of Ohana
*(6:37) - Jamie Domenici’s meaning of Ohana
*(7:27) - Suzanne DiBianca’s meaning of Ohana
Sponsor
Inside the Ohana is brought to you by Qualified.com, the #1 Conversational Marketing platform for companies that use Salesforce and the secret weapon for Demand Gen pros. The world's leading enterprise brands trust Qualified to instantly meet with buyers, right on their website, and maximize sales pipeline. Visit Qualified.com to learn more.
Links
[00:00:34] Introduction: Welcome to Inside the Ohana. In this special bonus episode, we're diving deep into the meaning of Ohana and how being a part of it has left the lasting impact on current and former. Salesforce employees. You'll hear past guests describe the Ohana in their own words and discover how it changes everyone for the better, differently. When it comes to company culture, there's nothing like the Ohana and no one doing it like Salesforce. But before we jump in, gere's a brief word from our sponsor. Inside the Ohana is brought to you by Qualified. Qualified is the pipeline generation platform for revenue teams that use Salesforce. Intelligently grow your pipeline by understanding signals of buying intent and having realtime conversations. Learn more over on Qualified.com. So please enjoy this special bonus episode with your host, Dan Darcy.
[00:01:28] Dan: Welcome back to Inside The Ohana. This is your host, Dan Darcy. Listeners of the show know by now, there's one question I ask of all my guests, what does the Ohana mean to you? And to me, the Ohana is of course, all the people in the Salesforce ecosystem, the customers, the employees, the partners, the shareholders. But it's also a feeling of belonging and you belong because you become part of a larger movement of people who are working hard and building a platform for. So for today's special bonus episode, you'll hear from current Salesforce employees and Ohana alumni about what the Ohana means to them and why it's so special to everyone who experiences it. In this first clip, you'll hear from Woodson Martin. He's the EVP and GM of AppExchange at Salesforce, and he explains how the Ohana includes more than just your coworker.
[00:02:19] Woodson: I would basically say it's the Salesforce family. To me, that family includes of course, the people who work here, but it includes our customers and our partners and the people who are betting their careers on this ecosystem, which is now, you know, millions and millions of people. So it's a pretty big group. I think of it as kind of at. Thing with rings, right? Like there's, there's the very inner circle of the Ohana, which is probably where we put the employees, but there are some Zs in the Salesforce ecosystem who I think fit right in there too. And I've had this amazing experience lately with a friend who's a refugee from Cameroon. He has been here in the US for a couple of years now. After he was released from immigration detention, he was determined to make himself successful and he, he did it on Trailhead, you know, he went and he learned and he got himself all the badges. Until he could scratch his way into a role working for a non-profit customer of Salesforce, doing some administrative work, got himself a gig with a consulting company. Now he's a product manager, and he is launched a brand new product, which by the way is aimed at helping other people who are refugees. Today managing all their experience, legal process and so forth on the Salesforce technology platform. And I just think about the transformational power of that kind of thing for him as an individual, but for all the people who he's now able to help by virtue of this technology, the skills he's able to grow, the network he's able to build, and the power of all these people working together, it's really awesome.
[00:03:53] Dan: As you'll hear from former bartender turned golden hoodie winner, Marquita Sidibe, helping each other out is a big part of the Trailblazer community too.
[00:04:02] Marquita: Ohana literally means family, but in the Trailblazer community, it just giving, coming from the service industry. It's pretty much the norm to keep knowledge a secret. Let's say if you're a bartender and you come up with this really cool drink, you're not telling a soul how you made that drink. It is not like that at all. In the Ohana, nobody gay keeps knowledge when people. Build something cool or they learn about something cool, they cannot wait to share it. They are shouting it from the mountain tops. And I love that! It's not just technical know-how, like if someone has resources or connections on. A new position and they know someone's looking for a job. They're sharing that information. It, it is a family.
[00:04:50] Dan: The Ohana is more than just having each other's back at work. It's outside of work too. Jim Steele is the president of Global Strategic Customers at Salesforce. He told me it's that kind of support that brought him back to Salesforce as a boom.
[00:05:02] Jim: There's so many situations that we all have in our personal lives that we don't always bring into business because you know, it's like business and personal lives. You don't always mix the two. I'm telling you, the thing that made the Ohana special to me was just going through like my father when he was gone through prostate cancer back in the day, Marc Benioff is like, Jim, we're gonna get your dad with the best prostate cancer doctors in the world. I'm like, mark, look. I appreciate that. But that's, you know, and, and he like insisted on it and he, and there's so many stories that Mark has done that, you know, this is not window dressing like he's taught all of us to do for our people that go way beyond the business side. Cuz we're me in our job, Salesforce, I was traveling around the world 200 days a year. I was at a hotel somewhere in those early days when Mark gave me the Twitter label. Road war 24 7 and he recognized that business and personal, you have to, at times you have to blend the two. You can't keep them separate. And just the way he did that, uh, he also officiated my wedding. We, of course, we had to go through the exercise, which is a whole different story to get to that point, but these are things that you can't replace. Like you can't just see that in any other company that I've been a part of. I've been a part of probably five major corporations, four of which were public companies, and I never, never experienced that kind of ohana that we have at Salesforce.
[00:06:27] Dan: Like Jim, Jamie Doci is another Salesforce alumni, and now the CMO at Go-To, she told me about the special appreciation she now has for the Ohana. We talk about
[00:06:37] Jamie: Ohana a lot. It meets family. It's talking about your ecosystem. But I will tell you since I have left Salesforce of the year so that I've been gone, I actually really appreciate, and I'm so grateful I was part of that Ohana because it was something really special and hard to create. So for me, Ohana, it's like about people, whether it's your employees, your customers, your partners, your family, like it is everybody kind of rallying around a cause that you believe in. And in this case it was software, but it was more than software, right? It was how Salesforce can help your business, how Salesforce could help the world, how you could drive change, do good. To have that sort of energy and belief that you were rooted in like it, it really is powerful. It is a powerful thing, and I now looking back, like I have friends for life from Salesforce. I put you in that bucket. You're welcome!
[00:07:27] Dan: In our final clip, you'll hear a story from Suzanne d Bianca, the EVP of Corporate Relations and Chief Impact Officer at Salesforce. She talks about a time she saw people go above and beyond to make the holiday special for someone.
[00:07:39] Suzanne: I think one that's just top of mind because we've worked with a group called The Arc in San Francisco, people with different abilities, and we just lost our first A and plea. He just passed away. Incredible human 20 years with the company. Did everything from cleaning the whiteboard, making coffee to walking the golden retriever to. Helping conference rooms. The ohana moment for me, there was the way that our employees looked after him, and even actually after they left the company, they would take fishing on the weekends. You know, they gave him relationship advice. They organized the whole service from just start to finish. They had his back a thousand percent as a human. And I'll just never forget a time when he was in the hospital. He actually had both of his lakes amputated during his time at Salesforce and he drove around this little cart and deliver candy to people and always with a smile. And I went to the hospital to see him and I brought my daughter and I had made some banana bread for him. It was around the holidays. First of all, there was a whole schedule that some employees had put together to like sign up to visit Michael. So he wasn't lonely. And I was like, I'm here to visit this person. Where is his room? And the nurses smiled and just looked at each other and said, just go down the hallway, make a right and you'll. So I would go down in the hospi, the very white, you know, sterile, and I make a right. And at the end of the hallway I see this like pulsating room, like these light, this flashing. I get down there and like there had been like whole group of boys that day who had decorated his room with Christmas lights at Christmas tree and all these holiday lights, flowers, and gifts. And it was like the brightest place in the hospital for sure. And so, anyway, that for me, those are, it's the employees that really give of themselves. I think that demonstrate Ohana.
[00:09:24] Dan: And that's it for this episode of Inside The Ohana. Thanks for listening and happy holidays
[00:09:30] Closing: Inside The Ohana is brought to you by our friends at Qualified.com, the conversational sales and marketing company that's on a mission to transform the way B2B companies sell. Go to qualified.com to learn more. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to rate and review it and tell a friend. Thank you for listening.