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Welcome to the 31st episode of The Ultimate Guide to Partnering. My guest for this episode of the podcast is Casey Coleman, Senior Vice-President of Global Government Solutions at Salesforce. She is responsible for enterprise positioning and solution strategies for government customers worldwide.
Salesforce was at the forefront of business transformation as one of the first pure cloud companies back in 1999. Casey’s career has been at the intersection of both government and industry, having led GSA’s transformation as its CIO during the Obama administration. At GSA, Casey chaired the Federal CIO Council’s Cloud First committee that developed the FedRAMP standard for cloud cybersecurity.
Casey holds several honors and awards from various organizations, including the Computerworld Premier 100 Award and the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium Award for Leadership in Innovation. She is a three-time winner of the Federal Computer Week Federal 100 Award.
In this episode, we peel back on Casey’s role at Salesforce, Salesforce solutions focused in on the government sector, Salesforce as a company, and the amazing DreamForce event taking place in San Francisco in the coming week.
In this episode you’ll learn more about:
- Casey’s role leading Government Solutions for Salesforce, one of seven industry markets for the company.
- What she loves about working for Salesforce and the company’s four core values – Growth, Innovation, Quality and Trust.
- Why customers choose Salesforce as a platform and vendor.
- What makes a good partner and what challenges she experienced driving change with vendors when at GSA.
- What she thinks are the greatest opportunities for growth in government.
- How she is thinking about her first DreamForce event and keynote.
- A link to Casey’s session at the event here:
- Her career journey, advice she received getting started and mentors.
You can listen to the podcast and read the transcript of this episode below.
As with each of my interview and articles, I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on Linked In or on email at vincem@cloudwavepartners.net. You can also review this podcast by going to iTunes and searching “Ultimate Guide to Partnering” and clicking on the album art and hitting the ratings link. This helps others find the podcast.
Thank you for following and listening.
I hope you enjoy this episode!
Vince Menzione
Transcript
Vince Menzione: 00:38 Welcome to the third episode of The Ultimate Guide to partnering my guest for this episode of The podcast is K.C. Coleman senior vice president of global government solutions at sales force sales force has been a pioneer and at the forefront of business transformation and Casey has been at the intersection of both government and industry. Having served as the CIO of GSA during the federal government’s push to a cloud first strategy during the Obama administration in this episode we peel back on Casey’s role at sales force some of sales forces solutions focused in on the government sector sales force as a company and the amazing Dreamforce event taking place in San Francisco in just a few days. As with each of my episodes I appreciate your feedback. You can reach me on linked in or email at Vince m at cloud wave partners dot net. And now with the latest version of iOS it’s easier than ever to rate and review this podcast. Thank you for listening and I hope you enjoy this episode.
Vince Menzione: 01:44 KC Welcome to the podcast Sansome glad to be here. I am excited to have you today to share with our listeners your role at sales force the company’s amazing value proposition what you look for in successful partnerships your career journey and your personal story so welcome to you.
Vince Menzione: 02:02 KC I’m fascinated by how people got to this particular spot in life and you’ve been the recipient of several awards and honors top 50 women in technology. Fred scoup excellence in government federal executive of the year. Really a long list of accomplishments. I would love if you would share with our listeners how you got started how you eventually wound up in government service and now in industry. Could you take our listeners through it.
Casey Coleman: 02:27 Yeah you bet owl. I’ll give you the short version. I’ve had quite a lot of changes in my career I think the common theme at all has been. I’ve always enjoyed working at the intersection of technology and business and being on the boundary between those two worlds and trying to be effective communicator to both audiences because they don’t always speak the same language. I started off with my education in that very same vein. I got a undergraduate degree in science and an MBA in finance so I was trying. We’re very beginning to stand those two worlds. I entered government a couple of different points I served on the hill in the House of Representatives on committee staff one year as a legislative fellow through an engineering fellowship such a complete absence from where I’ve moved from Dallas to Washington and was here in D.C. for a year and then move back it was just a one year assignment. And then after 9/11 I was really motivated to return to Washington. It was you may remember the national sentiment was really one of trying to bring the country together and wanting to do something to recover and move forward and to help in a more significant way. And that really motivated me personally to reconnect with the people I’d worked with in D.C. and find a way to return. This time the executive branch at GSA I spent 12 years there the last seven years as the CIO of the agency and that’s when you and I met.
Vince Menzione: 03:58 In fact we met at a government conference and it was a offshoot of the Computer Electronics Show. There was a government breakout session and at that time you were leading the organization through transformation and were one of the first to drive a cloud first strategy through GSA and I thought maybe you could spend a few moments there talking about that experience of change at GSA. What hurdles you had to overcome and issues that you faced.
Casey Coleman: 04:23 Yes. That project was a really interesting one because the Obama administration came into office with a really forward leaning technology agenda. And one of their policies that was that was pretty quick pretty early on in the first Obama term was the cloud first policy. And so it became clear that agencies needed to align to move to cloud solutions. And I was on the CIO Council one of the CEOs who meet regularly on these kind of policy topics and so I volunteered to lead the cloud group the cloud committee and so through that multi-agency forum we put together that cloud security policy that McCain said ran and we put together sort of how you know what the roadmap Whats the journey to move to the cloud. We had to figure out for the first time really what are the what are the security issues what are the purchasing and procurement issues and the data management mobility and legal issues are just a lot of its just a different business model that required a new approach. And if it so happened that GSA had an opportunity for us to take advantage of that all see and move from a legacy e-mail and collaboration system to a cloud based approach. In doing so we took the whole agency through that journey and learned a lot along the way. I’m fortunate to have really strong support from the top down. It is a very successful initiative.
Vince Menzione: 05:49 Can you peel back on that a little bit. What were the earnings that you found.
Casey Coleman: 05:53 Well one of them is that I think you should always look at what’s what what motivates people and give them a stake in the success of the initiative that is the natural inclination I think of a federal workers is be conservative and that comes from you know very important work that they do like in health and safety issues and really important national security issues. So there’s a natural conservatism that sort of hinders change both for good and for bad. You don’t want them to be you know veering off in directions that ultimately were fruitful. But there’s a time for change. And so at GSA one of the one of the cultural touchstones and GSA is that they are preparing an organization for the rest of the federal government. And so it falls on them to be knowledgeable about new technologies and new business approaches. And so by going through these things first they learn and understand it can offer perspective to other agencies. So we’ve really tapped into that that cultural and mission oriented theme for this change. And we we tried everything back to you. This is our drive to the cloud. We’re going to go first and by doing so we’re going to be able to help our customers in that same journey so that the change management piece of it was really founded upon giving people a stake in the success and making it part of the mission that everyone feels so strongly about.
Vince Menzione: 07:23 You know I saw a lot of organizations struggle at that point and it seems like the transformation is happening faster and faster now are you observing the same thing in government.
Casey Coleman: 07:32 Absolutely. There’s a just any. Enormous amount of change it’s not just that changes in technology it’s also technology spreading into new markets so we’re now in what some are calling the fourth industrial revolution. Think about earlier and Schiff’s industrial revolution. You know the first was maybe the introduction of steam power and then mass production and then the Internet. And you know I I.T. technologies that now we’re in a place where technology has spread into the physical world. So things like drones autonomous vehicles 3D printers international themes advanced analytics from you know networks of sensors and big data. All of this means that there there’s just so many more technologies that are having an impact on our economy and on our own the government as well. So there’s a real challenge to who can choose the right ones that makes sense for agencies to look at and implement to affect their mission. So it’s quite a challenge. Do
Vince Menzione: 08:38 you still see agencies that struggle with the transformation and in adopting these new technologies and what would you tell them now if you could.
Casey Coleman: 08:44 Yeah I do and I still think there’s actually quite a challenge if you were to look at a bell curve of adoption. I think we’re probably still in the first third of that way either for something like cloud computing which is now probably in its seventh or eighth year of maturing maybe even longer. What I what I say to our customers and to other agencies and to colleagues in this market is some of the things that were relevant to me as a CIO I think are still relevant for one that the tendency is to think out of cloud computing as this very different thing.
Casey Coleman: 09:19 It’s really just a different business model. It’s not really different technology. It’s the same technologies. You might have on premise that you’re buying it through a cloud service provider who is always keeping an updated always keeping it secure. And so you no longer have to budget for plan for those three to five year upgrades that are so stressful to the organization. So it takes complexity out of the equation and I really think complexity is an under appreciated environment in government technology world because the more complexity you have more difficulty you have securing it managing it and implementing it and delivering for your stakeholders.
Vince Menzione: 10:03 You know I agree with you and I found that on the government side they were always more laten to transform to the next revision of the technology. Right. So
Casey Coleman: 10:13 we saw that quite a bit earlier behind you know putting up technical data. And then you reach a point where it’s almost impossible to get to the new version because you’ve got two or three or more revisions to go through to get there. It becomes patented possible.
Vince Menzione: 10:29 So now you leave government solutions globally for sales force. Would you mind sharing for our listeners a little bit about your role and the mission of your organization.
Casey Coleman: 10:37 Yeah. I joined sales force earlier this year and we implemented sales force I was previously a customer when I was in the government so I was familiar with the company and with their culture of what they do. I really love sales force because not just do we have great products you have great people and a great culture it’s very it’s a very open place where you can have an impact very quickly. You don’t have to be here for a long time you worked your way up through the ranks and they really make a point of listening to and paying not just lip service but actual diligence to all the voices here. Equality is one of our core values. So ad sales force I need our global government industry team. We have organized around seven different industry verticals to really be able to better understand our customers in those markets. Government is one of them. And so my responsibility is to connect our account teams and our customers globally make sure that we really understand the government market how they buy what what solutions are relevant to them. What are the constraints in the compliance and legal frameworks that they have to operate within and making sure that we are relevant to them in their markets in missions they’re serving so are you a go between between the product group or the engineering side of the business and the sales business is that how you see your role. Yeah we really are a go. Julie That’s exactly right. But also our customers our two partners just a minute graters and independent software vendors making sure that they are part of this ecosystem and being able to operate effectively. So we really are sort of the web the fabric that connects all of the different pieces of the system in the government market.
Vince Menzione: 12:22 So you touched on this a little bit. But you know I wonder if peel back on sales force as a company because a the first major player in the SAS space right. I mean the first true cloud computing company back in 99 early 2000s. Can you share with our listeners what it’s like to work for sales force and how it is fundamentally different than other organizations you worked with or were for yeah I am.
Casey Coleman: 12:48 Evan just maybe start with the fact that sales force was founded from as you said from the very beginning in the cloud which was different from anyone else. And so we don’t have we don’t have a legacy business of on premise solutions that our customers are trying to manage as they’re moving to the cloud. So we are all in on cloud from the beginning. We’re also founded in Contini a company organized around a very explicit culture and core values and I mentioned it already we have four core values. Growth innovation equality and trust and trust is our number one value. We just make that really explicit because our customers trust us and that trust is a really important element of our support for them. So you know there’s this saying that culture trumps strategy and that you know the meaning of that is that whatever the culture be it intentional or not is going to end up having way more influence in a company than strategy because the culture is the you know the environment we all live in.
Casey Coleman: 13:53 So I really love that about sales force. They’ve been very intentional about building a culture that is the customers and the customer success at the center of all we do. We’re also a company that really is very philanthropic and really committed to giving back. We pioneered a model that we call 1 1 1. We give 1 percent of our equity 1 percent of our product in 1 percent of our employees time through paid time off to volunteer causes. And so we have a foundation that enables this 1 1 1 model and do a ton of great work in the communities that we’re part of a world that’s amazing.
Vince Menzione: 14:37 Yeah talk to me a little bit more about customer obsession customer opportunity. How do you and sales force think differently about the government market and the customer opportunity and partner community in government.
Casey Coleman: 14:50 Well as I said earlier we were very explicit about the fact that our customers and their success comes first and you would never find a company that disagreed with that statement but I don’t think you’d find the same level of intentional focus and really you know carrying through not just with the statement of support but organizing everything we do around that. So I felt that as a customer I really felt that sales force was a partner and not just a vendor in the sense that I felt like you know there they’re always going to have. Our best interests in the end. You see that thing with this cloud model it’s it’s no longer do you have to go through these these upgrades and you have to manage the environment yourself. Really it takes a lot of that burden off the CEOs they have sort of a future cruise solution and they can focus not on the nuts and bolts of maintaining the system that are really delivering the applications and the value and the innovation that even governments are looking for.
Casey Coleman: 15:59 You know government organizations have to move at a pace that you know has been would’ve been familiar in previous years and we helped them do that.
Vince Menzione: 16:07 So can you talk about some key customer opportunities or key customers that you have. And why did they choose sales force over other vendors. Sure
Casey Coleman: 16:16 . You know as I said earlier on my scope is international so we start with a couple of international customers in Australia the state of New South Wales which is the state for Sydney is located has standardized on sales force for all of their transportation. So there’s a lot of water around Sydney and then in the course the province there and so everyone has about a taxi a water taxi and ferries is a very common way to get around. There’s also a rail in bus and then there’s horse roads and two metres so there’s a variety of transport nodes and and New South Wales has organized all of these different modalities of transportation in sales force so that you can plan your journey. You can see where you train may be running late or Ferries has you know been interrupted by whatever else may be going on so you can you can plan you can see what’s going on in the broader environment and you can connect different modes of travel into a single journey.
Casey Coleman: 17:21 You can buy your passes online you can maintain your account you can get proactive notices and then that the State can see what’s going on in terms of transportation where they need to focus resources. So that’s been a real success story.
Vince Menzione: 17:37 You know it reminds me of some of the conversations I’ve been having with organizations around smart cities initiatives and assess an application. That’s right. And there I’ve even heard of other and maybe this is the case in New South Wales so that agencies can use or you could actually time things like an Uber driver you know connecting it at a station or when your ferry gets on the other side is that it. Is that the case here. And you know you can arrange for a pick up and this is more the case for.
Casey Coleman: 18:05 People who are mobility limited and need specific bus or you know a door side pick up you can organize that through this application uses. There’s certainly no limitation to the different channels you could incorporate So that’s all within not just the art of the possible but easily doable.
Vince Menzione: 18:25 How about in the United States government. Any examples you have there.
Casey Coleman: 18:29 Yeah. You mentioned connected cities in in smart cities. Adelbert but the city and county of Denver has standardized on sales force for 3 1 1 services and you know three one one is non-emergency services so it’s things like information like library hours. And whereas my polling place from voting it also includes things like reporting the need for city services like potholes or street lights that are out or you can you know graffiti or abandoned buildings so anything the city does you can report and track through the mobile application and social media channels that are supported by sales force and then you can the city can dispatch the services they can track where the resources are going and they start to get in front of it so they can see where you know they may be at a certain hotspot and they can drill down that find out what’s what’s happening there start to apply resources proactively a number of other cities you have that same approach.
Casey Coleman: 19:28 So that’s a very you know a lot of success in that area. And then on the on the federal level the U.S. Department of Agriculture uses sales force for managing loans to farmers and ranchers. So there’s over twenty two hundred Field Service offices in the Farm Service Agency in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and they are now I will have the same information. They can communicate with producers farmers and ranchers to mobile devices so they don’t have to come into the office bring their paperwork stand in line wait their turn. They can do it you know while they’re while they’re sitting on the tractor or out in the field working as if the work doesn’t stop. Just so you can go into the office and wait for government to help you know help me help you with your situation.
Vince Menzione: 20:19 Nice. And what do you believe that these organizations chose sales force over other vendors.
Casey Coleman: 20:25 Well there’s a lot of reasons. I think that customers choose sales force or what I hear from them is that first of all it’s about sales force as a partner. So
Casey Coleman: 20:36 there’s the issue as I mentioned earlier about trust and about customers first. There’s also our platform which is the the world’s number one CRM. It is the top top player in this market. And so going with number one is always a good strategy as we’ve always been innovating we receive. The Innovator of the decade award from Forbes magazine. So we are known as the company and the partner that’s going to be out in front and to deliver new capabilities even before our customers realize they were a useful for them. They also appreciate the fact that it’s really easy to use it’s really easy to develop and it’s you add in it and it’s in the platform.
Casey Coleman: 21:20 But one of the big philosophies and priorities at sales force is to really democratize innovation. We don’t believe that it’s you know technology should be the province of just you know the few who are able to master the narrow skill sets that to really make it very easy to become a sales force administrator and developer that can put all of our training online for free at trailheads that sells for com so that people can go there and get certified and participate in this economy. True.
Vince Menzione: 21:53 Through the forms we provide and what do you believe are the greatest opportunities for continued growth in government. Where do you see the curve going.
Casey Coleman: 22:03 Well there’s still so much growth left in the CRM market it is across the board across all industries CRM is the fastest enterprise market in terms of growth. So there’s there’s still enormous uptake yet to come in. In our core market. But I would point to artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things as two exceptionally fast growing areas for us. Internet of Things is really as you know it’s really applying sensors and technology in the physical environment to manage it and our particular approach to the Internet of Things is to be the management platform for IMT that we’re not providing the sensor or the network we’re providing to manage the platform to track and make use of that data and then share that with the Internet of Things with advanced analytics capabilities. Einstein said brainy Einstein is poised to make sense of the data and bringing in other data sources both internal and external to not not only understand what’s going on that they are able to infer them to predict and be able to make decisions about you know the way that you need to manage it going forward.
Vince Menzione: 23:17 So with the Internet of Things the sensors out and the environment collecting the data maybe we’re talking about those ferries or trains that are running in Australia now and then the the collection comes in through sales force and then Einstein maybe takes a look at the ferry schedule and says maybe we need to change that accordingly to support maybe a influx of people or a capacity issue.
Casey Coleman: 23:38 Yes that’s a good example.
Vince Menzione: 23:41 So we’re recording this in the weeks leading up to the amazing Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. We already talked about the culture of sales force but I’ve heard many great things about the Dreamforce event that it’s really an amazing happening. I hear a hundred thousand people congregating in San Francisco for a week or more and this is the week of November 6 that it’s taking place. Can you tell our listeners a bit about how you’re thinking about your first Dreamforce event and your role day event.
Casey Coleman: 24:07 Yeah I am really looking forward to Dreamforce you’re right it is the world’s largest software conference. It is a hundred thousand plus AMS So it is and not just a conference but an event a happening and it’s really all about helping our customers innovate in helping them to make better use of our platform and be able to not just from a technology perspective but also a strategy perspective. So there’s a lot of very senior leaders CXO those who are gathering there a lot of very senior government officials. Well one of my one of the highlights that I’ll have an opportunity to just say in is a keynote session where I’m bringing some customers on to the stage to talk about the government market and how we really crack open the innovation capabilities and help them to create the government the future. So it’s all about the opportunity as I said a minute ago get out of line and get online and be able to serve your customers in a way that suits their needs where they are.
Vince Menzione: 25:12 And so for our listeners who are coming to it that I’ll be asking you for a link to the schedule for the event if that’s OK with you so we can make sure that our government listeners and government partners that are attending will attend that session. So I’m going to shift gears a little bit and talk about partners since this is the ultimate guide to partnering and we focus on that specific area of technology.
Vince Menzione: 25:34 You have quite a bit of experience working with vendors and in your most recent role with partners as well what do you believe makes or what characteristics you believe makes a great partner.
Casey Coleman: 25:45 Well they’re a great partner is from a you know just a general point of view is and I think there’s got to be an empathy involved in the ability to understand holistically that interest in the needs of all the different participants because there is a relationship between sales force and the vendors between sales force and the customers that government users and the partners you know.
Casey Coleman: 26:12 And then there’s the ultimate customer or citizen or a member of the public who’s benefiting from government services or using government services. So being able to understand the second and third order or degree of impact and being able to plan and move quickly and do so in a way that’s very thoughtful about the ultimate mission that we’re trying to fulfill. I think that’s an important first characteristic.
Vince Menzione: 26:42 Have you seen situations where partners have failed working with your organization and this isn’t just with sales force but just in general and your years of experience and technology in the industry.
Casey Coleman: 26:53 Yeah I was I haven’t you haven’t seen it ad sales force have certainly observed and we’ve all read about situations where in the community and government I.T. community they’ve been challenges and I think if you look at the root cause for those kinds of situations it often goes to a divergence of interests where you know government had a mission and the supporting partner had a different perspective and they weren’t aligned.
Casey Coleman: 27:21 You can go back and look at it more root cause I think there’s ever one party to blame. Certainly it’s same situation when I was in the government where I felt like we could have done a better job communicating what we needed not because we didn’t communicate that we were learning as we were going. And I think that points to the challenges of where technology has been and a reason for optimism about where we’re going. Because if you think about I’ll call them the bad old days it used to take years and millions of dollars to deploy a new initiative. And so it’s no wonder we didn’t get it right all the time because things change at that time and you can’t have perfect knowledge about what’s needed. But now with modern technologies including cloud mobile and agile and scaled agile type of development approaches and dev ops you can move very quickly.
Casey Coleman: 28:14 You can iterate fast you can change things that can be you know be quickly fielded. And so you don’t have to wait years and put in tens of millions of dollars before we see a change. We also have the ability now to separate out back office systems and front office or front and front facing systems of engagement so that we can rapidly change the user interface and the customer experience and we can be a lot more cheerful and thoughtful deliberate about changes to things like master data records and business processes.
Casey Coleman: 28:47 So you know I’ve kind of wandered away from the original question but I think I think farmers generally always try to do the right thing by their customers always and I mean that’s saying that fundamentals that intense in every case that you need patience and the ability of technology move quickly and then to jointly make the right decisions for the outcomes is something I think is a far better state today.
Vince Menzione: 29:12 You know you raise some really good points and it really points to the transformation how the cloud has enabled that point really the rapid development the agile I.T. and how it’s a much different environment than years ago when it took five years and$100 million. So when you got it completed it didn’t meet the requirements any longer. Right.
Casey Coleman: 29:29 We really don’t hear about situations like that very often anymore.
Vince Menzione: 29:32 No we we heard about it many times in the past though.
Vince Menzione: 29:36 So talk to me about partners wishing to work with you and your organization is there any advice you have are ways that they should reach out to you and the team.
Casey Coleman: 29:45 Yeah there’s that we love our partners and are always interested to talk to partners and and prospective partners about working together.
Casey Coleman: 29:55 I think it’s always helpful to bring something to that conversation so that it’s not just about how we want to work with you but we have relationships here are we have a particular point of view that we think compliments what sales force is doing so that there is you know sort of a marriage of equals in terms of the contributions and the point of view and the thought leadership of all just that sense.
Vince Menzione: 30:20 So I’d like to come back to your personal and professional story for a little bit here and spend a little time here because there’s a great opportunity I believe with this podcast to share for early career professionals. And so I’d like to ask you a couple of questions there.
Casey Coleman: 30:34 The first of which is was there any great advice you got when you first got started that you keep with you and kind of continue with absolutely that the one thing that has really stuck with me from the very earliest days of my professional career is take a chance and I heard this from my dad. I also heard this from my first manager who encouraged me to take that engineering fellowship with Washington for that opportunity on Capitol Hill. And the nugget there is that you you won’t know what could happen unless you try. And so you shouldn’t be I mean you should make smart choices that we can’t make perfect choices so if you if you take a chance if you try something new if you make a move and it doesn’t work out you’ll at least learn something and you will meet new people and you’ll position yourself in a way that will be helpful going forward. So I think there’s not much downside in a lot of potential upside to just taking a chance and trying something a little outside your comfort zone.
Vince Menzione: 31:37 Did you take a chance at any point and have a hurdle that was difficult to overcome.
Casey Coleman: 31:42 Yes many times. What for example just that that moved to D.C. I didn’t know anyone I remember as you know head to a new city that had to make connections and figure out how to you know function here in even more recently leaving the government and moving back into industry was was a challenge it was again a little outside my comfort zone because I reached a place where I felt like I sort of understood what was expected of me and how to deliver effectively in the previous role and so I wanted to continue challenging myself continued learning so I’d took a new role that was with you know in industry. So I’ve done it many times and I always feel like if I’m if I’m well within my comfort zone then it’s time to do something different. Shake
Vince Menzione: 32:28 that up you’ve been a role model to others and women in technology and just across government and industry. But was there any one role model that you had either directly or indirectly that you look to. And what advice or what attributes did you learn from them.
Casey Coleman: 32:43 You’ve had a lot of mentors and probably not necessarily famous people but people who took an interest in me and gave me candid and helpful feedback. I mention my dad image and my first manager a lot of people when I was at GSA gave me a lot of wisdom. I remember hearing from one that you should always be careful of everything you say because someone is going to take it out of context and put it in print and then you will not be able to correct yourself. So that caused me to be very thoughtful and careful about what I said. You know in a way that you know when I wasn’t on a similar kind of stage I might not have been quite so so careful. So a lot of mentors and I always say when when people ask me about mentor you know no one is ever insulted to be asked to be a mentor.
Casey Coleman: 33:39 People are always happy to see developing employees and more junior professionals take an interest in it. You know doing better and being more effective and learning from those around so I don’t think you should ever hesitate to ask for perspectives or or even mentoring advice from others. But she should also be the kind of person who is known for their reputation for doing good work so that people are happy to be associated with and help you in that journey.
Vince Menzione: 34:09 So what advice would you give to your 25 year old self.
Casey Coleman: 34:14 I think I would say don’t be self-critical to myself. Probably like a lot of people is always you know re-examining an self criticizing trying to figure out what I could do better. And you know these things have worked out as they have been and it’s all been fine. So well we could’ve chilled a little bit.
Vince Menzione: 34:37 What was that at a time after you got your Master’s Degree or while you were in the process and probably threw out.
Casey Coleman: 34:45 I was working when I was going to grad school and so I was staying up late doing class work and trying to get it all in. So that was kind of a stressful period but ultimately it was well worth it.
Vince Menzione: 34:58 So what pursuits or obsession is this Casey enjoy when she’s not working or explore when you’re not working.
Casey Coleman: 35:05 Well I love anything outdoors. I love biking. I love running.
Casey Coleman: 35:12 I’ve recently gotten into doing crossfit which I think is really fun because there’s sort of a really enthusiastic Shinichi that just takes in CrossFit classes and so you feel like you’re you’re part of the a little crowd of people who share your interest in being healthy and trying to get stronger and in being able to take you know take that energy that it gives you for working out and do the job.
Casey Coleman: 35:35 So I really love that my husband and I both love dogs. And so what we have we have four dogs which is a little crazy and we do a lot of dog rescue and dog training especially German Shepherds. So we we spend a lot of time in doing dog things.
Vince Menzione: 35:54 Nice. I was going to ask you big dogs are small dogs but you answer that for me.
Casey Coleman: 35:58 Well since we have four we have two of each. That is every one of the other dogs that do that the two German shepherds and then we have two. They’re rescues and they’re both terrier mixes.
Vince Menzione: 36:09 And believe me the littles are a lot more high maintenance than the big I have a little dog I can and I could agree with that one. So was there a quote you live your life by or you think of often yeah.
Casey Coleman: 36:22 It’s funny I was just thinking about this today I was talking with some members of my team. One of my favorite quotes is from Teddy Roosevelt. And there’s a couple of different variations of it but it’s that the gist of it is it’s the man in the rain. It’s the fire in the rain. Who’s making the difference. It’s not that people standing around on the outside cheering or or doing you know that’s always going to be second guessers you are standing on the sidelines that it’s the person who rolls up their sleeves and gets in the ring and takes on the challenges to do really is to be admired in so others will you know wish that they had committed themselves to something like that when they see the effort and the success that comes from that kind of commitment.
Vince Menzione: 37:09 That’s a favorite quote of mine as well and he was talking to the critics of that. I believe at the time the people that were criticizing his work and in government there’s a lot of that. So if you had a personal billboard and this is a metaphor for a message you’d like to send out to the world what would you share on it.
Casey Coleman: 37:30 What certainly go back to that statement take a chance. And then the other thing that I am always reminding myself of is assume good intent. You know it’s so easy especially in the world we live in today where things move so quickly. Social media makes it possible to communicate instantly to a lot of people we don’t know. Easy to assume that you know the people we disagree with have some ill intent but I’ve always found when I’ve sat down and talked with people and disagreed with that we all know why and comment a lot more in common than things we disagreed about. And you know people are coming to their point of view from some reasons First perspective. So you might not ultimately agree but if you assume good intent then you can start off a conversation with a lot more possibility of finding a way forward together than if you start off assuming that there is ill intent. I
Vince Menzione: 38:31 agree. Assume good intent. I like that quite a bit early. You know that’s that’s a great one and it’s timely for this time and our our in our world. Is there one. Is there one book that you have read or bestowed often that you would recommend to our listeners.
Casey Coleman: 38:48 You know there’s a bunch of good ones. I like Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean in I think it’s not just for women but it’s about you know really professionals and people who are trying to make a difference in their career and stepping up and being heard and not waiting for someone to point you out and in in call on you. But being proactive and you know managing your own career and trying to be part of the solution and be part of the the good that’s happening. So that’s that’s one I like a lot.
Vince Menzione: 39:21 And where do you want to be in three to five years or where do you see yourself being in three to five years. Casey
Casey Coleman: 39:29 Well I haven’t been good at predicting that so far so that’s the a low probability I’ll be able to predict that accurately today but I was you know early in my journey here as sales force I hope that I continue to contribute make a difference here. Be able to expand my capabilities with the customers and the partners and all the folks I’m working with here. I just think there’s so much good happening here I’m enjoying it professionally
Vince Menzione: 39:57 and for our listeners who’d like to reach out to you. What’s the best way for them to do so.
Casey Coleman: 40:02 Well you can find me on LinkedIn. You can find me on Twitter. It’s at. Casey Coleman was lucky enough to get that from my Twitter handle. So I’m pretty easy to reach and check but was pretty regularly great.
Vince Menzione: 40:14 And Casey I want to thank you so much for joining the ultimate guide to partnering today. It’s been a great honor to have you and I appreciate your time given your compressed schedule. So thank you so much.
Casey Coleman: 40:24 My pleasure.