Making a Career Change! Am I a Sell Out?

If you’re like me, you’ve had one company that you’ve always admired, always wanted to work for. 

Growing up most little boys want to be firemen or policemen.  As teenagers we want to be professional athletes.  Finally we realize musicians get all the girls.

Since I can’t sing, I’m slow, barely 5’9”, overweight and would probably shoot myself or fall off a ladder before I could actually help anybody I chose a more traditional path as a businessman.  

Fortunately throughout my career I have been able to do what I’m passionate about every day.  For me that is customer service.  What gets me jumping out of bed in the morning is helping large companies treat their customers better. 

For customer service professionals the emergence of social media is an exciting opportunity.  It’s a new, easier way for consumers to interact with brands and consumers are much more empowered. 

I couldn’t be more excited to announce a new career change for 2013.  I’m joining the Marketing Cloud Team at Salesforce.com.  I’ll be helping the world’s largest companies become more social, connect with their customers and have more success with social media marketing and advertising activities.

If you know me well you might be thinking “Chad is going to work for a big company? Did he sell out?”

Salesforce.com has over 100,000 customers, 10,000 employees and about $3 billion in revenue so it is a big company.

It’s also #27 on Fortune’s List of Best Companies to Work For.

Forbes named Salesforce.com the most innovative company in the world ahead of firms Amazon.com, Apple and Google.

It’s average 5 year revenue growth is 40%, also ahead of Amazon.com, Apple and Google.

Barron’s named Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff the most respected CEO in the world.

They are one of the most philanthropic organizations in the Fortune 500 with the 1/1/1 model. Salesforce.com employees spend 1% of their time on community service, they give 1% of all software/services to non-profits and donate 1% of earnings to charity. Please check out the 90 second video at the bottom of my blog, its inspiring.

Personally, Salesforce.com  gives me the best opportunity to build Brand: Chad Schaeffer.  I really enjoy blogging, speaking and tweeting about helping brands become more social and Salesforce is the biggest and best platform to get my message out. 

The interview process was rigorous, I spoke with over 10 people, every one of them smarter and more successful than me so I’m going to learn a lot and build a strong network.

Finally, although I have some expertise in social customer service I don’t have much experience with social marketing and advertising and I can’t wait to learn new skills.

I’m humbled to get this opportunity but I also plan to bring a few things to the table for Salesforce.com that I’ve learned from working at small companies. 

Despite 100,000 customers, any client I work with will think they are the one and only Salesforce customer.  I don’t take any customer big or small for granted and hope this is a welcome addition to the professional services culture.

Small companies are just plain hungrier, they want it more, they go the extra mile for their clients, they surprise and delight their customers for no reason except it’s the right thing to do.  I can’t see why Salesforce couldn’t use a little fire in their belly?

Speaking of fire, I will let everyone in on a secret very few people know. 

This will actually be my second stint at Salesforce.com.  Hopefully it will last longer than a couple of hours like the first one did.  On August 13th, 2006 I accepted an offer to join the Salesforce team. 

That night we had friends over for a BBQ to celebrate my new job and we made a fire in our outdoor pit. 

The next day I was cleaning up ashes that spilled on to the patio and threw them away.  At 5am the next morning my family was woken by smoke alarms.  I grabbed my 1-year-old baby, ran out of the house and watched my home burn to the ground. 

We lost everything.

At that moment, although it was my dream job, life had a different path and I decided the timing wasn’t right to change careers. 

That path has now taken me back to Salesforce.com and I can’t wait to start making an impact.  I’m excited to meet my new teammates, work with new technology and build relationships with new clients. 

So did I sell out? After 6 and half years I think things were meant to be don’t you?

And no….no fire in the fire pit or fire-place tonight!

I hope 2013 is filled with your dreams coming true, thanks for reading my blog.

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