Meet Woodson Martin, EVP and GM at AppExchange, the leading enterprise cloud marketplace. In this episode, Woodson shares his Salesforce story, which taught him that why transformational leadership begins with a customer-first mindset. Tune in for great insights into relationship-building, advice for aspiring leaders, and much more.
Meet Woodson Martin, EVP and GM at AppExchange, the leading enterprise cloud marketplace. In this episode, Woodson shares his Salesforce story, which taught him that why transformational leadership begins with a customer-first mindset. Tune in for great insights into relationship-building, advice for aspiring leaders, and much more.
Quote
“What we are doing is so fundamentally transformative for our customers that we have to invest in those relationships, and get the executive suites to understand the problems that [customers] are trying to solve and the transformations they're trying to lead, and then truly partner with them to do it. That informs almost every decision that we make, including the decisions that we make about the product, what products that we build and what features to prioritize and how we need to accomplish that because it is fundamental.” - Woodson Martin, EVP and GM, AppExchange
Episode Timestamps:
*(1:48) - Ohana Origins
*(6:12) - Woodson’s biggest Salesforce wins
*(10:37) - The value of customer-centric transformative leadership
*(14:38) - What the Ohana means to Woodson
*(20:56) - What’s Cooking
*(26:19) - Future Forecast
*(28:27) - Advice aspiring leaders
*(30:02) - Lightning Round
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[00:01:30] Dan: Welcome to Inside the Ohana. I'm Dan Darcy, Chief Customer Officer at Qualified. And today, I'm joined by my friend Woodson Martin, Woodson. How are you? I'm doing great. Dan, where are you?
[00:01:41] Woodson: Where are you filming from today? Today, I'm in our San Francisco office. We call the Salesforce Tower.
[00:01:48] Dan: So I wanna dive right into our first segment, Ohana Origins.
[00:01:58] Dan: So going back to 2005, tell me how you discovered Salesforce.
[00:02:04] Woodson: Yeah, we have to go back even further.
[00:02:06] I was a customer. At a company called business objects, software company later required by SAP, but I was running worldwide field operations for business objects and brought Salesforce in as a CRM to replace what was not working. As we were trying to run an old Vantive CRM system on premise at business objects to run our Asia Pacific business.
[00:02:34] And as we're we were growing, especially in Japan, we needed very different technology. The big driver for us was like, we needed something that would actually recognize the double bite characters. To spell out the names of the customers. And so we had our old archaic bandage system would work. We had to shop for something new.
[00:02:52] That's how I found Salesforce in the first place.
[00:02:54] Dan: So in 2002, I mean, what was your experience with Salesforce at that time? I mean, just obviously it was Salesforce automation back then, you know, how, how was it as a customer?
[00:03:04] Woodson: Yeah, well, you know, it was interesting because we were running Salesforce in Asia Pacific and we were running these van.
[00:03:11] This Vantive archaic Vantive system everywhere. and, uh, we had a quarterly business review at one point. I think it was actually a Q1 review and we were looking back on the prior year. And we had our GM of the Asia Asia Pacific business stand up and he'd had a record performance and his, and at one point Bernard Le Lito, who was the CEO, turned to him and asked him and said, how'd you do it?
[00:03:40] And he is like, well, it was all because of Salesforce . And so as the guy who had put Salesforce in, right, like it was I'd signed the checks and, and brought Salesforce aboard. It was like the most validating moment, uh, of my career. And it was really, I told that story, actually, I think at the very first Dreamforce mark ha hosted the very first executive summit, which was a dinner at the top of one of the hotels in San Francisco.
[00:04:07] And I mark made me get up and tell. The story to every other customer in the room. that was my first.
[00:04:16] Dan: Of course he does. And I mean, so you were basic quintessentially one of the early trailblazers, if you will, obviously, the, the current nomenclature, but you were a customer hero back then, so that's awesome.
[00:04:28] So tell me, how then did you take that and actually come to Salesforce? You know, as an employee.
[00:04:36] Woodson: Well, that same dinner I was telling you about. I was actually sitting with mark and Ray lane was there too for the real veterans of our industry. I remember Ray is from this, his role as COO of Oracle. And we had this great conversation over dinner about the future of the software business.
[00:04:55] And, uh, after dinner that night I sent mark an E thank you email. And I said, by the way, you know, that was super motivating. I think I should probably work for Salesforce. And he replied back within like three minutes was like, can you start tomorrow?
[00:05:10] Dan: What was your initial impression overall? Internally at Salesforce?
[00:05:13] Woodson: Yeah. I, I remember a time in my career where I thought all the smart people worked at headquarters and all the people out, you know, running around in the field were just couldn't understand really what we were doing. And I got to Salesforce and everywhere I turned, the people were really smart, you know, I, and it's so motivating, you know, to work with really smart people.
[00:05:36] And of course, Salesforce had a passion then still does around customer success. And it was just the first thing I recognizedcognize is what a much more customer centric organization Salesforce was, you know, whether it. You know, you'd get in the elevator back then in the landmark building. , you know, with, at any point in time and you know, here comes mark and his dog co.
[00:06:02] And, you know, the very first question he's gonna ask you is like, what customer did you talk to today? And you know, what are, and tell me about the customers you're working with and everything was always about the customers.
[00:06:12] Dan: So what's in, I look, I know you've had a long, incredible career at Salesforce, so this may be a somewhat of a tougher question, but I want you to brag a little because of just the incredible success and the different roles you've taken on at Salesforce, what would you say is the biggest success you've had?
[00:06:31] Or one of your most proud moments thus far?
[00:06:34] Woodson: I think the most fun job I ever had before, the one I have now, which is truly awesome. Job was leading the marketing team in E E a based outta London for 2010 to 2007 to 2010. So that was a. Amazing time for Salesforce. You know, we had had an operation in Europe for many years, but we went from a couple dozen people to thousands of people in that time in Europe and from a real concentration of customers in the UK and a little bit of Ireland and just a teeny bit on the C.
[00:07:22] to really becoming a standard in the enterprise for large customers across a wide swath of Western Europe. It was. An amazing fast paced, crazy challenging time. I've never traveled so much. Of course, fortunately the flights were shorter, but it was an amazing and exciting time. And I think the team that we built, I think that the progress that we made in really penetrating that market, which was super skeptical when I got there about the cloud and SAS, and really seeing that turn.
[00:07:56] And now it's just it's so it, it fills me with enormous pride. every time now that I go to Europe or meet with European customer, I spent two hours with one of our largest customers in, in Europe this morning. And it just gives me enormous pride. How diff how much we changed, you know, things there in that time.
[00:08:20] And it was great. People Rob, ER, of course Carl Shater made reappearance in that story, but people like Lindsay Armstrong and some of these characters who really helped us pull that off just amazing people to work with and work. I'm really proud of.
[00:08:36] Dan: Yeah. I mean, I was fortunate enough to work with you when you were CMO in AMEA.
[00:08:41] And that was one of the very first times that, you know, we tested Dreamforce Europe member at the 2008 at the barbecue center in London….
[00:08:49] Woodson: 2008 at the barbecue center in London, at the
[00:08:52] Dan: …barbecue center in London. And back then, I mean, for the listeners and the viewers out there, internet was not as. Free flowing as it is today where it's pretty much ubiquitous everywhere.
[00:09:04] And I remember like we had troubles with wifi. During the event conference. And we were like, oh my gosh, what happens if the wifi goes out? That means the cloud is not going to be working, you know? But those were the stresses of way back in the day.
[00:09:20] Woodson: Oh yeah. We would have backup demos that were just entirely cashed locally so that if the internet went out, it would still work.
[00:09:29] They were live, but they were cashed live because you know, that was actually a real risk. You'd lose internet in the middle of the keynote.
[00:09:36] Dan: Yeah. And that was one of my favorite stories was, uh, we, we gave an indication to Benny off to mark about if the internet went out. At some point we would give a sign and it was Jagger McConnell who would give that sign on stage and he would just walk off the stage.
[00:09:53] And, and it actually did happen just for the viewers out there. And Marcos now click on this, like that and change, change it back to, from Japanese to English. Right, right. Yeah. And let's go take a look. And then all of a sudden he's like Jagger, where'd you go? And everyone laughed. But thank God by the time Jagger went back on stage, the internet was back up and he clicked through and the demo worked.
[00:10:14] And so, you know, those are some of those great behind the scenes that I love sharing with that, but that's just one example of just, you know, backstage.
[00:10:22] Woodson: There's more than a little drama and backstage at the keynotes, for sure. Yeah. And you've certainly had plenty of that experience in your time.
[00:10:30] Dan: Yeah. Now, so what's it on the opposite side of the spectrum, you know, what would you say is your biggest lesson learned?
[00:10:37] Woodson: I think probably the most important lesson that I've learned at Salesforce is really about the fundamentals of the game we're playing. You know, we're basically in enterprise software, right? Yes, we're doing it very differently than previous generations and technology have done it, but we're basically enterprise software and, you know, enterprise software is.
[00:11:04] Very different from a lot of other technology categories in that what we are selling fundamentally is transformation. It's change. Uh, people don't buy Salesforce to do things the same way tomorrow that they did yesterday. Right. They are buying Salesforce and it's true of other enterprise applications.
[00:11:29] That companies invest in, they do it to affect change, to, to grow faster, to improve productivity, improve performance, improve customer experience, and change at an organizational level. Of course you have to adopt software, but the change that required to achieve the transformational benefit really takes a level of executive commitment and really.
[00:11:59] You know, obviously depends on the size of the organization and the work you're doing, but board level commitment to change. And you know, so many times in my career I've seen the, you know, excitement around the potential for transforming our industry, the, the enterprise software business into something that, you know, customers buy versus is being sold.
[00:12:27] Right. And I, I think the thing that I have really learned is that because of this element of fun of executive commitment towards transformational change, that's a part of the value proposition of what we're doing like that does not get achieved without , without a really strategic engagement in it, through a selling motion between organizations, right?
[00:12:56] Like we. What we are doing is so fundamentally transformative for our customers, that we have to invest in those kinds of relationships to develop and get to the executive suites and understand the problems that they're trying to solve and the transformations they're trying to lead, and then truly partner with them to do it.
[00:13:17] And. Informs almost every decision that we make, including the decisions that we make about the product, what products that we build and what features to prioritize and how we need to accomplish that, because it is, it's like the fundamental thing.
[00:13:35] Dan: If you could go back to your early days at Salesforce, you know, you've been there now, you know, almost close to 20 years.
[00:13:42] What advice would you give yourself?
[00:13:45] Woodson: Spend more time with customers. , it's kind of the advice I give to every new product manager who joins at Salesforce is like looking for a mentor or whatever, or anybody I hire I've I've, I I've just hired some new executives on my team. And I've said, you know, for the first 30 days, I want you to just go talk to customers and partners just like, go learn as much as you can from the coal face right.
[00:14:09] Of our business. And I think, especially as companies get bigger, It's easy to spend all your time in internal meetings and, you know, you know, preparing for them and pouring all your energy into the pixel perfect deck. , you know, you know, this story for the internal consumption. And I think some of that's really important, but like, if you're sacrificing.
[00:14:33] Connection with customers and the market to do that eventually become irrelevant.
[00:14:38] Dan: That's really Sage advice. And, and, you know, as being a customer of yours Woodson, I would say you have been completely open and have listened to all of our, you know, feedback and concerns. So. It is something that's very true that you live by.
[00:14:53] And I think that's incredibly Sage advice to everyone that's out there. So I wanna ask you about the meaning of Ohana. And I asked this of all my guests, because I, when I think about this, everyone describes it differently, but I'm curious, how would you describe the Ohana and what does it mean to you?
[00:15:10] Woodson: I mean, it's, I'm a literalist.
[00:15:12] I would basically say it's the Salesforce family, you know, to me, that family includes, of course, the people who work here. But it includes our, 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 and it is, I think of it as kind of a thing with rings, right?
[00:15:36] Like there's, there's the very inner circle, uh, of the Ohana, which is probably where we put the employees, but there are some. You know, MVPs in the Salesforce ecosystem, who I think fit right in there too. You know, one thing that to me is so powerful about what we've somehow managed to create here is the transformational impact that discovering.
[00:16:04] This ecosystem has had on so many individual lives, right? And I'm not even gonna say careers just like lives. And I've had this amazing experience lately with a friend who's a refugee from in this he's from Camero. He has been here in the us for a couple of years now. And he, after he was released from immigration detention, he.
[00:16:33] Determined to make himself successful and in the us. And he did it on Trailhead, you know, he went and he learned, and he got himself all the badges until he could get 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.
[00:16:56] Now he's a product manager and he's 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.
[00:17:30] And the power of all these people working. It's really awesome.
[00:17:34] Dan: I mean, that's incredible. And I mean, that's also a huge thanks to you too Woodson. I know you're you, you don't wanna like promote yourself here, but I'll do it on your behalf. And I know you had a, a direct hand in helping drive that as well, too, from a refugee standpoint, you know, just for the listeners out there, I, I would love for you to plug, you know, that nonprofit that you have started and created to get that out there as.
[00:17:56] Woodson: Yeah. So I'm, I can't claim to be a founder on that one that we've just described. That's mobile pathways, an amazing organization led by Jeff O'Brien and Barts cap, but they are mobile pathways, which is the platform behind the product. I just described that my friend, uh, has been working on his name is Jamal is an incredible, uh, nonprofit themselves.
[00:18:23] Leveraging technology from Salesforce, but from other technology vendors, they use tech from Twilio. They use tech from WhatsApp. They have a variety of, of tech they've stitched together to serve these immigrant communities and provide them with legal aid in assistance, in a scalable way, uh, so that they can show up in court best represent themselves in the immigration process and have a chance.
[00:18:47] A new life. It's an incredible pro example of pro bono contribution by the Ohana. You know, to an important mission like this. I think there have been more than 40 Salesforce volunteers. Who've worked on the pro bono and the tech to build this out. And it's just a super powerful example of what the Ohana can do to have an impact in the world.
[00:19:10] Dan: Yeah. I mean, that's incredible. I mean, you know, just, you know, when, every time when people wanna know the meaning of Oana, you know, you, this interview alone has already said two of the major ones. It's just. Get in front of the customer and become a, a force for good. Now, before we get into our next segment Woodson, are there any special stories or Ohana moments like you just shared that is a little behind the scenes that you would wanna share for everyone?
[00:19:35] Like what would be another good use case of an Ohana moment.
[00:19:40] Woodson: I've had been involved in, in examples of individuals who might be Salesforce, customers, or partners or employees. And I've seen this happen in all of these cases. who've been impacted in some way by tragedy and seen the community rise. to help in ways that are stunning and incredibly impactful.
[00:20:08] You know, somebody whose family was in trouble in a foreign country, in a conflict zone where the Salesforce team rallied to drive an evacuation across borders into countries where we have no footprint, no customers. Right? No. Partners, but really amazing allocation of resource to help solve individual personal, you know, challenges.
[00:20:43] And it's just amazing to see the people come together to do this. And so without, it's not my story without naming names there, I just wanna say I'm incredibly proud of that kind of thing.
[00:20:53] Dan: So let's get into our next segment. What's cooking.
[00:20:56] Woodson: Well, buddy, what's cooking. Let's both cook together. Yeah. Cooking, cooking, cooking now all.
[00:21:04] Dan: So Woodson, you are now the executive vice president and general manager of the Salesforce app exchange. I, I want you to talk a little bit about how you got to where you are now and what your journey has been like to get to that current role.
[00:21:17] Woodson: You know, the, the app exchange in the marketplace, it's a product, right?
[00:21:20] We, we build software that helps our customers discover these applications in the marketplace. And it's got all the fun stuff. It's got AI and discovery and search and recommendations and all of the cool things. And it is, and it has live engagement. Right. It has chat, uh, feature in the app exchange of course, powered by qualified so it's product.
[00:21:42] But of course it's also the demand generation to get everybody there, right. To engage the trailblazers and bring, find them wherever they are in their journey with Salesforce and bring them into the app exchange and begin the journey of discovering the power of the ecosystem. And so there's a lot of marketing there, marketing to customers.
[00:22:01] Marketing what's in the marketplace, marketing two partners. We gotta have partners join and build and, you know, develop a business, uh, in our marketplace and then obviously to market with those partners to help them with the demand generation and to drive, uh, customer acquisition. And so it has a lot of marketing.
[00:22:20] And then, you know, there's a lot of complexity to the operations of this thing. There's a lot of transactions there, there a marketplace is full of in innovations, not all innovations work, right? Like sometimes the companies die right behind these things that has to all be managed. Right. Oh, how do, how do we de-list applications?
[00:22:41] How do we help customers? Who've used those applications and find alternatives. There's a lot of. Involved in operating a market place in an ecosystem, the scope of the app exchange. And, you know, it's pretty big, it's 7,000 listings in the app exchange today, more than 10 million installations in the history of it, it's grown a long way, you know, from the science project, it started as when we, you know, really began that work back in 2005 as a way to prove the value of the.
[00:23:13] You know, and, uh, it's had a lot of impact. Now. Every customer uses something from the app exchange, right? And many use way more, one customer. I was talking to this morning using 20 plus applications from the app exchange. So it's a big impact and it's a lot of fun.
[00:23:29] Dan: And, and that's incredible just to hear the success that the app exchange is continuing to deliver for the customers that are out.
[00:23:36] Uh, you know, you could take this from either a product or a community interpretation, but with the Salesforce app exchange, what challenges are you seeing now and how are you applying what you learned, obviously through your careers at Salesforce to these challenges? And I know you just mentioned, you know, product marketing and operations.
[00:23:53] I know you're taking a lot of that, but what, what are you seeing?
[00:23:57] Woodson: Yeah. You know, Salesforce has also diversified a lot in our product portfolio since my first days here in 2000. and, you know, the app exchange as a value proposition of the platform, the listings in the marketplace largely, uh, revolve around, you know, more the original Salesforce products than the acquired ones.
[00:24:20] And so. as we think about the potential and the future of the app exchange, a lot of it is about extending this value proposition to the rest of the customers 360, you know, to, to the marketing cloud, the commerce cloud, Milsoft, slack, Tableau, and we, and I'm doing a lot of work in my team. And with a lot of our product partners across the company, doing a lot of.
[00:24:44] To say, how do we make this all better together and bring these the same ecosystem value proposition to the rest of Salesforce. So that's probably the other biggest chunk. And then there's just, you know, there's a lot of work. It's a lot of partner relationships, a lot of customer relationships, and we have all the same, you know, anybody run running a business with lots of customers and lots of partners has a lot of work to do, but I love that.
[00:25:08] You know, I love that part of the job. I love the time I get to spend. with customers and with partners, understanding their problems, working on solving. 'em where I can sharing expertise or, you know, best practice where that's the need, you know, and finding like the breakthrough insight that you know, can take us to the next level.
[00:25:30] Dan: So what is next for the app exchange and how are you thinking about shaping the.
[00:25:34] Woodson: Well, this year is super exciting because we're basically re-releasing the app exchange. So we did the homepage of the app exchange completely revamped in March. And this year we're rolling out an entirely new experience of the app exchange, both for customers to discover and evaluate solutions, but also for partners.
[00:25:53] So the entire experience of the partner in. Joining the partner program, listing apps on app exchange, going through the security review process, et cetera, we're revamping entirely. That's just super exciting, bringing a fresh, uh, set of eyes to that and, and rethinking all of that from the user perspective and taking it to the next level.
[00:26:14] I'm very excited about that work. It's already starting to hit the street and there'll be much more coming this.
[00:26:19] Dan: Okay. So let's get into our final segment, future forecast.
[00:26:25] Woodson: So where are we headed? Where the forecast predicts the future.
[00:26:32] Dan: What do you envision as the future of the Salesforce ecosystem?
[00:26:36] Woodson: I mean, There's so many ways to answer that question. I think Salesforce, as a cultural force, as an influence on the world is one of the places where I'm most excited. You know, mark talks a lot about business as the greatest platform for change.
[00:26:54] And I think Salesforce has been a tremendously influential force for good in the world. The philanthropy, philanthropic mission, for sure. But our engagement in cultural issues, our impact in terms of driving successful customer, uh, or customer success, economic growth, I think there are so many great influences Salesforce having in the world.
[00:27:20] And I, I see that only accelerating and as you know, while there are certainly. Places where tech as an industry is challenged, right. In terms of, is it good or is it not good? You know, for the world and the society and everything else? I think Salesforce is in a very. Good place in that way. I think we are broadly perceived as a very positive influence in the universe.
[00:27:47] And I that's the one thing I'm super proud of. I mean, I think sales are gonna continue to grow. I think Salesforce is continue to become, to offer more. Specific capabilities in more specific ways. So industries is an obvious example of a place where we've started to do that a lot that will continue more and more industries where we'll be able to, with our scale, provide more effective, you know, specialization in domains like industries, but also in, for geographic markets and cultural market, you know, markets that are different cultural.
[00:28:22] and I think this is one of the great benefits that comes with scale. So I think all of that's part of the future.
[00:28:27] Dan: So speaking of that for all the listeners and the, and you know, the viewers out there, what advice would you have for an aspiring leader?
[00:28:34] Woodson: I think as a leader, we need to always be asking ourselves, what do I want to learn frame our futures?
[00:28:46] and our thinking about our futures and our asks about our futures in the context of learning, what do I want to learn next? Who can help me achieve that? What experiences could help me achieve that all become part of your next steps, but the discipline around really translating your ambitions for status into really into ambitions for learning.
[00:29:13] and so yes, you wanna be a VP or a senior vice president or whatever. Well, like what do you think it is? You need to learn to do that job effectively. Right? How do you think you can learn that? Right? Who do you think you can learn that from those become the important questions that give you tangible, uh, work to do to drive your own career, to drive your own impact in the.
[00:29:38] Dan: Yeah, that's awesome advice, Wilson. Thank you. Now, before letting you go, I want to have a little fun with a quick lightning round. You lightning,
[00:29:51] you mean lightning, ightning, light. Best. Are you ready for this?
[00:29:52] Woodson: Yep. Okay. Let's do it.
[00:29:55] Dan: What's your favorite Salesforce product?
[00:29:56] Woodson: Slack. And it wasn't two years ago. Okay.
[00:30:02] Dan: Classic or lightning?
Woodson: Lightning.
Dan: Favorite Salesforce character
Woodson: App, of course. Right? Of course.
Dan: Favorite brand of anything besides Salesforce or the app exchange?
[00:30:14] Woodson: This was hard for me. The answer is Tesla. And I feel conflicted about the answer, but that's the answer?
[00:30:20] Dan: What secret skill that is not on the resume.
[00:30:24] Woodson: I'm a builder like carpentry, hammers and nails. That's awesome.
[00:30:28] Dan: So you just won front row seats. Front row seat tickets to your dream event. What is it? And it can't be Dreamforce.
[00:30:37] Woodson: So, it's the warriors taking the national championship.
[00:30:40] Dan: Yes. Go dubs, go dubs. All right, woods. Well, this has been so much fun, but before I let you go, let the listeners know where they can find you. And, and is there anything else you'd like to share or anything to plug?
[00:30:50] Woodson: Uh, I'm at Woodson underscore Martin on Twitter.
[00:30:53] Uh, my email address is w Martin salesforce.com. Spend some time on the app exchange. Uh, if you go to app exchange.com/new. There's an amazing page that shows you all the latest innovation from our ecosystem every day of the week. It's amazing. I'm always surprised by what I find. It's cool. Check it out.
[00:31:13] Thanks Dan Darcy. Yeah, by the way, for this opportunity to talk to. This crowd I'm excited.
[00:31:20] Dan: Well, thank you. It's in, it's been incredible and good catching up. Awesome. Thank you so much.