Shoby Abdi is the Director of Architect Success here at Salesforce. He started his career as an intern at Lions Consulting Group. It was there that he first heard about Salesforce and got involved with it.

In this episode, Shoby and I talk all about the B2C and B2B Solution Architect program including the enablement that goes along with it. We also discuss the certifications that Shoby helped create.

Show Highlights:

  • More on Shoby’s career background.
  • How he got into architecture.
  • The difference between a solution architect and a technical architect.
  • All about Shoby’s current role.
  • What the enablement with Solution Architect looks like.
  • Challenges the multi-cloud strategy presents.
  • What it takes to build a certification.
  • The major differences between B2C and B2B.

Links:

Episode Transcript

Shoby Abdi:
A couple of months later, I was looking for my first full-time job, and I ended up working at a company that some on this podcast may be familiar with called Model Metrix.

Josh Birk:
That is Shoby Abdi, Director of Architect Success here at Salesforce. I’m Josh Birk, your host of the Salesforce Developer Podcast. Here on the podcast, you learn stories and insights from developers, for developers.
Today, we sit down and talk with Shoby about the B2B and B2C Solution Architect Program, the enablement that goes along with it, and the certifications that Shoby helped create. We will start as we often do with his early years and his first memory with a computer.

Shoby Abdi:
I think about the time when I was nine years old, my dad managed to cajole a Commodore 64 from someone.

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Shoby Abdi:
Now, what’s odd about it is that this is 1992, ’93. You would think it wouldn’t be a Commodore 64.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
When I learned how to do BASIC to change Magic Johnson’s name to Michael Jordan in Magic Johnson vs Larry Bird, I was like, “Okay.” When you kind of learn to manipulate a virtual world, you’re like, “All right, what else could I do?” And then, it pretty much drove from there. The aspirations of doing what I do.

Josh Birk:
Really?

Shoby Abdi:
Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Josh Birk:
For the unfamiliar, the Commodore 64 was this extremely popular personal computer. And it was pretty darn good at games.

Shoby Abdi:
It was awesome at games.

Josh Birk:
You hacked the basketball game?

Shoby Abdi:
It was Larry Bird versus Magic Johnson on the Commodore 64 on a floppy. Basically, I figured out how to load it onto the local machine, which was a staggering 4K in space. Managed to figure out how to get to basically the access file. The thing about BASIC is that BASIC is basic. There is not much to BASIC. Literally, it’s just you find where the name Magic Johnson was, and I changed it to Michael Jordan. And then, hit Enter.

Josh Birk:
Oh my gosh.

Shoby Abdi:
And then, literally … Because there’s no random access memory happening. It just was immediate. Bam.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
It changed. And I was like, “Whoa. Look on the screen.” I was like, “Dad, look, it’s Michael Jordan. He’s playing against Larry Bird. It’s like it was five years ago.”

Josh Birk:
Was that the one that you could break the backboard on it?

Shoby Abdi:
No. God, I wish I could break the backboard on it. I think the backboard was NBA Jam.

Josh Birk:
Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
The graphics were not advanced enough for any kind of … The backboard was basically a two-pixel by 12-pixel long XY. Basically, line.

Josh Birk:
Right. Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
It was just a series of ones going down a line. There was not much to it.

Josh Birk:
Nice. Obviously, you’ve learned a lot more since that.

Shoby Abdi:
A little bit. You know.

Josh Birk:
What was your first introduction to Salesforce itself?

Shoby Abdi:
I think my first introduction to Salesforce was, I was an intern back in 2007. I interned at a little company here out in Chicago. I’m out of the Chicago area. Their name was Lyons Consulting Group. They were eventually bought by our friends at Capgemini or Cognizant. I forgot which. God, I should know this. I’m in alliances. This is a terrible move. I’m going to get yelled at later. But all good. It was Cogs or Cap. I’m pretty sure it was Cap. But I used to intern for them.
I was basically a .NET developer. I was doing phish reports. I was doing web parts, ASP.NET, and C#. C# is still one of my favorite languages of all time. One of them told me, “Hey. Can you also build a little script to get some of this data out of these reports into our Salesforce instance?” I’m like, “Well, what’s Salesforce?” They’re like, “This is some CRM thing that one of the sales guys bought.” I’m like, “Okay.” I was like, “Whatever.” Add an API. Add a SOAP API.

Josh Birk:
Did you actually know what CRM stood for at the time?

Shoby Abdi:
No. I didn’t really care, to be honest. I was like 21. Just a coder. I’d be like, “Whatever.” As long as they didn’t take down any of the IAS servers, I really didn’t care. I didn’t even know what IAS stood for. I just didn’t want to take anything down. I was a coder. I didn’t care. That’s it. I loaded in. It was like, “All right. Cool. That worked.”
And then, I saw the UI. I’m like, “Okay.” It wasn’t love at first sight like some people describe it as. But then, a couple of months later, I was looking for my first full-time job, and I ended up working at a company that some on this podcast may be familiar with called Model Metrix. I joined late 2007 or 2008 and I’ve been doing Salesforce since, I suppose.

Josh Birk:
For the sake of full disclosure, I was also at Model Metrix during Shoby’s tenure. Model Metrix was this company that …

Shoby Abdi:
Full disclosure is required for this part. Absolutely. Get us all in trouble.

Josh Birk:
Well, I’ve got David on tape. I don’t have a lot of the Model … What I love is that we actually have our own nickname at Salesforce, the Model Mafia. Have you heard that?

Shoby Abdi:
Boy. You know what’s funny? I was at Salesforce. Obviously, I started in 2012. Then, I left and I boomeranged back. When I left … Remember, you and I left Model for Salesforce before the acquisition.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
When I came back, I didn’t go into services. It’s not like I joined that group of merry individuals. That Mafia. When I came back, I was like, “There’s people still here from that company I was at 14 years ago? Cool.”

Josh Birk:
There’s a floor in the Salesforce office that, when you go to it, it feels like you’ve gone back in time. Because it’s just like, “Hey. There’s Bill over by the coffee machine like they usually are.” I think that’s still true. It’s been a pandemic since I’ve experienced it myself.

Shoby Abdi:
Now, this is the Chicago office?

Josh Birk:
Yeah.

Shoby Abdi:
I would say no. I would venture a guess that maybe times have changed in that situation.

Josh Birk:
That’s possible. That’s possible. I kind of remember you even back at Model as more of a developer. But I think you and I were actually in the very similar role of that time in that era, which was … We were sort of developers and architects at the same time by force of nature, because the project needed the person to figure out what you were going to build before you built it. Is that the route that you went to in order to get more into pure architecture?

Shoby Abdi:
I think it happened really organically. One of the things that obviously we try to do here. One of the things I’ve been doing at the company the last two-and-a-half, three years has just been trying to really create these career paths, these enablement paths for architects. Because when I think about our path … I’ll even loop you into that. A lot of it was simply, “Hey. You need to take more of a leadership role on this specific engagement.”
Okay. Does that mean I’m coding? They’re like, “No. No. No. You’re not coding anymore. You need to build a bunch of documents and diagrams.” I would say I was maybe two, two-and-a-half years into doing time in Salesforce. All of a sudden, I was an architect on a $900,000 project that came out of nowhere.

Josh Birk:
Right. Right.

Shoby Abdi:
I think what really ended up happening is that … This was before there was a CTA program or new roles or Trailhead or any of it. What it ended up being was that it wasn’t really a mountain to climb. It was purely a, “Well, I guess I’m this thing now.” And that’s something that we kind of take for granted. That’s what reality is. It’s a lot of, “Okay. That’s what I am now.” And then, that’s it.

Josh Birk:
I think that’s good for junior developers to hear, because we’ve had other guests on the show talk about the importance of getting away from your desk and learning consulting skills and learning people skills. Learning to be able to be that trusted advisor in a room kind of thing. There’s different routes to architecture. People have had different ways of doing it. But I think it’s good for developers to realize, as you grow older, people are going to expect you to have a greater scope of what’s going on in the platform.

Shoby Abdi:
Absolutely. One of the things when we look around at the Dreamforces of the world, the TDXs. We see so many people. We think, “Wow. There’s just so many people in this ecosystem. It’s hard to keep track.” I would venture anybody to compare that to any one of our peer ecosystems. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Oracle. They dwarf us. They absolutely dwarf us, but the demand for the skills on our side is so much higher.
What ends up happening is that … I remember that distinctly myself. As a developer, I was asked to produce some artifacts, some assets that were more architect-related. I said, “Well, I’m not that that person.” And then, I had really good managers who said, “Hey. It’s not a bad leap to make.”
In the Salesforce ecosystem, it’s not like you’re doing OSI-level kind of work. Or LAMP stack dev work where it’s like, “Well, if I’m not deep in the code, then I can’t be an architect ever.” Untrue. Do you have to be a coder to be an architect? No. But do you have to be an architect to be a coder? Sometimes the answer ends up being, “Yeah.”

Josh Birk:
At some level, the answer ends up … There can be a little bit of a Venn diagram. You might not be the architect, but you have to have that mindset at some point.

Shoby Abdi:
Principally. One of the things that we did in 2020 was we introduced a new concept of a role called Solution Architect. For a long time, the certified Technical Architect role, that capability, going up that pyramid to those achievements and going through that entire process … One of the things that was happening in the meantime throughout the decade is that, as you know, back in our Model Metrix days, it wasn’t a big ecosystem.
Between 2010 and 2020, the ecosystem grew exponentially. The kinds of individuals that came in were very different. And the kinds of individuals that our customers were expecting to respond to their needs ended up being different as well. One of the ones that kept coming up was Solution Architect. Solution Architect. One of the guiding principles behind that is this is an individual who can see themselves as the leader when it comes to the technical elements of it, the business elements of it, and the delivery elements of what it makes to bring a complex Salesforce solution to life.
The reason that’s important for a developer is, “All right. Well, that sounds very solution design-y. What does that have to be with me as a developer?” Remember the power of this platform is its ability to respond to the needs of the business really quickly. We’re not talking about complex investments. You’re not setting up load balancing. You’re not writing YUM scripts to auto-scale. You’re not having to decide, “What extreme latency speed do I need the database to run to, so that I can meet the scale needs without it breaking and me getting a 4:00 AM call?” It’s not that.

Josh Birk:
Right. It’s not that.

Shoby Abdi:
What that business stakeholder wants to do is, they want you as the developer and the technical person in many a sense to be the leader of it. Because if you’re going to own the code, what we’re saying in the new model level is you should also own the solution as well. It’s not just on the business person. This is where that Solution Architect role really comes in.
It allows that individual, that developer, that administrator, whatever that role is to really come in and try to understand what it is they’re building. For who, why, and where is it going? And then, present them a solution that they can work with. And then, make it real.

Josh Birk:
Got you. How would you make the distinction between that and then what we were historically calling the Technical Architect?

Shoby Abdi:
Absolutely. When we look at a Technical Architect versus a Solution Architect … One of the interesting things about the architect role and the persona is that if you’ve been in the Salesforce ecosystem the last two years, three years, many people haven’t heard of it. But one of the big things that drives how our products are built are what’s called Jobs To Be Done. What I love about Jobs To Be Done is that it stops defining people as titles and roles.
What defines them is a series of jobs they have to do throughout the day. Because if I define somebody as, “They’re the senior sales specialist.” Well, what does that mean? Let me go Google like 15 job roles. But then, when you ask them what that means, and they start defining what their jobs are throughout the day … They may be an executive administrator. They may be an operations person. They’re probably mostly an operations person. Those jobs will vary by role.
The way that we’ve defined Solution Architect versus Technical Architect is by those series of jobs where the Technical Architects focused on big scale, on, “How do you bring Salesforce to life and make it scale to the business’s needs?” Where we look at the Solution Architect as kind of that early player. Now, that early player is someone who basically takes a leadership role and defines and designs what the solution needs to look like.
How do they then articulate the complexities of that solution to their stakeholders? Their technical stakeholders, their business stakeholders, and even the delivery stakeholders, the folks building it. I’d say the distinction between the Solution Architect and Technical Architect is really only at that capacity. An individual human being can be both in the same hour, same minute, same day. What it really boils down to is, “What is that job that they’re doing at that time? At that moment?” What we’ve really done is we’ve crafted enablement, and so has the team behind the Technical Architect role, to help that individual be better at that job.

Josh Birk:
Interesting. I especially like the last part. Because I’m trying to imagine scale and scope and who’s on the teams. And so, that persona might be one person for a while. And then, it might be two distinct people once you’re actually manipulating four solutions across the single algorithm. Something like that.

Shoby Abdi:
Some of our largest implementations, it could be like five Solution Architects, six Technical Architects.

Josh Birk:
Wow.

Shoby Abdi:
You think about some of the biggest ones that we have out there. Because one of the other things that we talked about, when we talk about the Solution Architects, is we talk about them in the scope of multi-cloud. The reason we talk about it in that scope is that’s how our customers build. Basically, 90%, 95% of our customers have more than one cloud. When you buy Salesforce, when you buy more than one capability on Customer 360, you kind of hope it works together.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
It’s sort of like if I buy a house. It’s like, “All right. I’m hoping that the deck is at least somewhat connected to the home, so that if I walk out of my home, I can walk onto the deck.” I’m not on the home, and then I’m walking five miles to my deck.

Josh Birk:
I have the best analogy, because we actually just had this experience when we were looking at houses. The lot was so weirdly designed that there’s a room, and in every window in that room, it’s not your backyard.

Shoby Abdi:
What? That’s awesome.

Josh Birk:
If you ever look to move to Glenview, make sure you check the map.

Shoby Abdi:
Good old Glenview. I’ve lived near Glenview, so I can understand that is not a typical of Glenview. But Glenview is what I would call a poor solution.

Josh Birk:
Exactly.

Shoby Abdi:
If you’re living there …

Josh Birk:
No offense.

Shoby Abdi:
No offense. Glenview folks.

Josh Birk:
You’re just making a good analogy. I don’t know what to tell you.

Shoby Abdi:
I lived in Skokie forever. I’m allowed. I’m allowed. I’ve got that suburban area. Glenview. Evanston. It’s all good. You guys are all cool.

Josh Birk:
Thanks.

Shoby Abdi:
But basically, the whole scope behind, “Why buy into Salesforce?” Even when we talk about CRM, we say, “CRM. CRM.” CRM is customer relationship management. When we talk about the scope of managing a customer relationship … One of my first DBA gigs, it was just taking the first name, last name, phone and email, and putting in an access database.
Now, it’s obviously changed significantly. I would say that’s why we talk about it in the scope of multiple clouds. That’s where the complexity starts for the complex customer. And then, how do you as an architect make it simpler for them? A simpler, connected, seamless vision that provides value? That’s what we’re saying the Solution Architect role does in those respects.

Josh Birk:
I’ve got to say. I learned so much about business just by having to work with sales and service cloud. I was a total neophyte on this stuff. And I’m like, “Oh. That’s how opportunities work. That’s what a funnel looks like.” Da, da, da, da, da.

Shoby Abdi:
Or even when I was implementing a very large call center for a large pharmaceutical. I would go do ride-alongs, and I would basically sit in and hear how people are getting their prescriptions done. Or how people need to get something repaired. Or even on sales process. Driving along with sales people, you learn a little bit of what does it take.
Because one of the key characteristics that we changed with the Solution Architect enablement on the certs and everything is that we don’t really talk about just the customer who’s bought the Salesforce. But it’s about the customer’s customer.

Josh Birk:
Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
That’s what it’s about. And that makes a big difference.

Josh Birk:
Let’s dig into the enablement. But I want to actually go back to a question I skipped over, because I think it will help frame this a little bit. Describe your current job right now.

Shoby Abdi:
God. Let’s see. Fascinating. I am a part of our Alliances and Channels group. Alliances and Channels, we’re responsible for all performance of the enablement for the partner ecosystem. But one of the things that we made the choice to invest in with our friendly relationship in Trailhead, Trailhead Academy, our service division, and of course our partner enablement is the last two-and-a half, three years … Obviously, we built the Solution Architect role. I say, “Obviously,” but basically, we built this Solution Architect role.
This was built in December of 2020. It came out at the DreamTX event. One thing to know is that everything that we created from an enablement perspective happened right during COVID. If anybody’s got any questions on how to create certs or roles or create a dramatically large amount of enablement while being completely disconnected from all of humanity, give me a call. I’ve got some stories for you. But in December 2020, we released not just a role, but we released a certification.
We released the B2C Solution Architect Certification. And then, the following TDX, I think it was either May or June in 2021, we released a B2B Solution Architect Certification. I’d say for the last little bit, our program creates not just those certifications and maintains those certifications, but we also create enablement for the Solution Architect role.
We create enablement for multi-cloud enablement, because more and more we were getting asks around the role that was interested in the role. But the role in and of itself is you build up tools, you build up skills. We’ve got great partners in Trailhead Academy, and also Architect relations run by Ziggy Turner. Now, there’s a series of kinds of tools that exist out there. I’ll even shout out our friends in the Salesforce design team with the relationship design toolkit that Adam Doti and Denise Burchell and team just came out with.

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Shoby Abdi:
All of these tools really come together. What I’m really proud of what we’ve done as a program in the last three years is that everything that we’ve built is a great combination of everything that we do enablement-wide. Utilizing the well-architected framework from the architect relation team. Utilizing the relationship design toolkit from the Salesforce design enablement team. Even the admin toolkit from the admin team.
Really, our job the last three years has been maintaining the role, maintaining the certs, and also building our own enablement and building on top of and supporting the enablement that’s coming out of other groups as well.

Josh Birk:
As I suspected, you sort of answered the original question that I had in my mind.

Shoby Abdi:
Ha-ha.

Josh Birk:
Ha-ha. Now, I’m a little worried that it’s too broad of a question. But what does that enablement look like? What form does it take?

Shoby Abdi:
Absolutely. The enablement is in a couple of places. One of the things I’m proud of personally, it’s a personal thing … If you go onto Trailhead and just search my name.

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Shoby Abdi:
“Shoby Abdi.” Then, you’ll find some great enablement, great videos that we created.

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Shoby Abdi:
The purpose of those videos is it’s kind of hard to really talk about multi-cloud in a very simple fashion using Salesforce. But I’m proud that our relationship with Trailhead, with Trailhead Academy, we were able to come up with some fantastic content on there, where I really can really talk about B2B solutions and B2C solutions and how to craft them in a multi-cloud way. You can find us on Trailhead. Obviously, you can find the certifications on Trailhead.
If you’re a partner, you’ll have access to a learning enablement tool called Partner Learning Camp. Partner Learning Camp also has a very large treasure trove of content. You can find us on Vidyard and a GitHub as well for some hands-on enablement too. We produce a lot of videos. Our content is a little bit of everywhere. Really, the key driver behind that is to be just in time. The reality of our solutions, our capabilities across the Customer 360 is that it’s a lot. And it’s pretty fast.
Even this morning alone, I was getting pings of, “Hi. We’re thinking about this customer getting Genie. What do you think? Should we talk to them about Genie? How much more about Genie?” We’re updating one of the certifications, and I got a message from one of our SMEs of, “I just heard that we’re renaming all of CDP to Genie. Genie is a big thing.” I’m, “Look, folks. I love the drive. I love the passion. I love the rigor.”

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
I said, “I love the drive. I love the passion. I’m going to bring a little rigor into this and say let’s wait a little bit.”

Josh Birk:
Let’s not jump at every single marketing change that happens at Salesforce, because I’m betting one has happened in the span that we’ve had this conversation.

Shoby Abdi:
Of course. We probably changed the whole name of the company at this stage. The reason behind it is, it’s just in time from an enablement perspective. Not from a sales or an implementation perspective. The reason behind that is we want the content to be relatively … Trust is our first value as a company.
It’s not just trust that our systems don’t go down. It’s also trust that if we tell you something’s going to work, that it works. If we write down, “Hey. If you bring these clouds and these things together, it will work really well.” There’s some things we can ensure. Once we’re sure it can work and there’s customers who vouch for it and implementers who’ve said, “This is awesome.” Then, okay. It can go into a line of enablement. But until then, it can wait a little bit.

Josh Birk:
Because you’re not training people for where the company is going. You’re training them for the reality that’s on the ground right now.

Shoby Abdi:
Yeah. In many respects … I’ll change one thing. One of the things you said. We’re not training for where the company is going. What I’m really proud of is that the nature of our enablements changed where we’re not purely focused on platform alone. The reality of it is, I think about how crazy it’s gotten since I was building Flex apps in. And that’s control on an opportunity page.
Now, I look at our Customer 360 wheel and it’s just so large. The way that I always look at this new decade is our enablement and the reason that we’re looking at Solution Architects. One of the keywords … There’s two keywords that we prescribe to when we think about Solution Architects. It’s the word, “Leadership,” and it’s the word, “Confidence.”

Josh Birk:
Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
We need people out there. If you’re listening to this, we need you to be leaders. If you’re listening to the Salesforce Developer Podcast, you need to be a leader. And in order to be a leader, we need to help you instill some confidence in yourself and in who you are working with. The best way that we can do that is to enable you. That’s really it.

Josh Birk:
How much of a challenge does the multi-cloud strategy bring to the table? Do you feel like that can be a blocker for people who are moving into the architectural role?

Shoby Abdi:
Well, I’ve got a job. Right? Obviously, it’s got to be hard. If it were easy, it would be like, “That’s nothing.”

Josh Birk:
If it was easy, you wouldn’t need 15 Trailhead watchers.

Shoby Abdi:
Exactly. One of the first things. When other people say, “Well, when I think multi-cloud, I think Google connecting with Amazon and Amazon connecting with Redshift.” Or whatever. What they call multi-cloud, we call multi-platform. The reason that we call it multi-cloud is that … I think we just passed SAP as the number one apps company. People can’t forget. We build apps. Our apps are very horizontal. They could also be very vertical industry, but they’re really siloed. They are amazing at what they do, and they do not do a good job of other things.

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
But that’s purposeful. That’s why we have 100 of them. Obviously, not 100. I’ll also get in trouble about that one at some point soon. But really, what ends up happening is it’s easy for me to say, “Okay. I want you to take a case-related list and slap it on an opportunity.” I remember someone asked me in a manner of, “Well, is that multi-cloud?”
I said, “If you just do that? No.” But then, if you’re ready to train the 30,000 call center people on how to upsell, and then maybe the 80,000 field sales people on how to ensure that’s being used … Then, you’re starting to understand what the real problem is.

Josh Birk:
Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
And then, kind of quiet it down and set it down. Because the reality of it is that when you talk purely in the scope of technology … That’s one of the things about our enablement that’s changed greatly. When you talk about purely in the scope of technology, we’re trying to ensure that you’re not technology-ing the customer. We’re trying to ensure that you’re providing them at least a reasonable map of realization of what their investment looks like.

Josh Birk:
Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
Because that’s the powerful thing about multi-cloud is that when they buy a sales cloud, it’s like, “Okay. They bought an opportunity management capability.” Blah, blah, blah. But when they buy then a service cloud, then a marketing cloud, then an account engagement. Then, they bought B2B commerce. Then, they bought blah, blah, blah. Field service.
Now, all of a sudden, they’re investing. Then, it goes from, “I’m buying something,” to, “I’m investing.” That change is so apparent to us that even our CFO, Amy Weaver … The reason I help our multi-cloud and the value of it is that she spent a great deal of the Investor Day at Dreamforce just talking about multi-cloud. Because that’s how our customers buy. The challenge is absolutely there. 100%. Totally agree.
This is why we’ve been building enablement for the last few years. This is why we have a role to support it. This is why we have certifications around it. I would say to anybody, “It’s a challenge. I can’t get into it.” Hey. Understood. It was a challenge three years ago. But in the meantime, we’ve come a long way to help you out and make it real.

Josh Birk:
Talk to me … First, you kind of hinted before that we might not have time in a single podcast episode to go through this question. But what is it like to try to bring a cert to life at Salesforce?

Shoby Abdi:
I feel happy and very privileged that I’ve done that over my career a bunch of times. Even before now. I would say what it takes to build a certification or a couple of certifications … Number one, obviously, you just need to understand, “Who is it for?” Is this a real human being out there in the ecosystem that we need to be able to vet? Because one of the things about a certification that you can never forget is that a lot of people think it’s about the individual getting the certification.
Well, not really. What it is it’s a handshake agreement between our customer and your employer. That we as the owners of the products and the capabilities are saying that you, certified individual, are smart enough to take our product into your organization and to make it work. When you look at it in those terms, the certification process is very complex. And that is why. There needs to be an element of … It’s not just about security. People think about what it does, but it’s the trustworthiness. It’s the trustworthiness. Because like I said, trust is across everything and it’s complex.
It takes a lot of great subject matter experts. It requires building out what’s called an MQC. Basically, a plan. An MQC is what’s called a minimally-qualified candidate. This is an individual who with at least some preparation, some experience, can they take this exam and pass it. The reason behind that minimally-qualified candidate, once again, it’s the words, “Minimally-qualified.” Do they have just enough to make it real? Because even on our B2B cert, I’ve met individuals who said, “I didn’t study at all, and I passed like that.”
Well, how many years of experience you have? Like a decade on all those technologies. I’m like, “Cool. That’s great. That’s who it’s for.” What’s interesting is when the exams are built, they’re not necessarily built with, “Here’s the material we have. Now, let’s build an exam around it.” It’s really, “Here’s the kind of human being that we need to basically say we need in the ecosystem.” How do we then build the exam around that? And then, what is the supporting content to justify all that?
Building certifications can take time. But some great folks in Trailhead and Trailhead Academy who are masters of it at this point. We’re seeing it across the board. It’s not just our architect certs. It’s new cloud certs. We’re defining business analysts and strategy designer and all these other capabilities. You see different kinds of certs propping up as well, because there’s a different kind of need. That’s what is great about these certs as well, is that they’re really evolving and adapting to what the needs are. We’re not always running off the old playbook.

Josh Birk:
Having already confessed my business naivete. Between the B2B and the B2C certs, how much overlap is there?

Shoby Abdi:
I would say there’s a little bit of overlap when it comes to the sort of skills that are required to be able to really convey the value of what a complex solution is. To be able to design, diagram, and all that. Where the distinction lies is on, “What is the difference between a B2B and B2C?”
B2B is business to business, and B2C is business to consumer. Now, the easiest example that we give at Salesforce is B2C is, “I sell a hundred thousand pairs of shoes to a hundred thousand people.” The B2B business, “I sell a hundred thousand shoes to one company.”

Josh Birk:
One company. Got you.

Shoby Abdi:
It’s more of a matter of the complexities involved. When we think about B2C, we think about it in terms of scale. How do we accommodate what’s called B2C scale and the nature and the interactions in a B2C solution? I’m buying something. I’m looking at something on my … Well, who knows about Twitter anymore. But I’m looking on my generic social feed. I’ll leave it at that. And then, I see an ad for something and I’m like, “I would like to purchase that pair of shoes.” I have clicked on that ad.
Now, with that ad, I have gone to a website with reviews. I’m like, “I’d like to acquire this particular product.” And then, I click on Add to Cart. And then, that’s an entire process. And then, I receive the shoes. I’m like, “Well, these shoes are okay, but I think I’ve got a problem with how it fits. I’d like to speak to somebody about the issues with these particular footwear.”
What ends up happening is that B2C Solution Architect ends up defining all the complexity and points of interaction between that human being, that individual, and the organization selling them the shoes. When you look at it in that scope, there’s a lot in there. There’s commerce. There’s marketing. There’s loyalty. There’s service. We talk about CDP and Genie. That’s all it. Everything you describe of, “I clicked on a thing.” That’s what CDP helps out in.
That’s what B2C really helps. With B2B, Salesforce has been a B2B business since 1999. Sales Cloud is firmly B2B. We really didn’t enter B2C CRM until the acquisition of ExactTarget, but we were really firmly B2B CRM. What that is, “How do we deal with the complex nature of organizations and the kinds of individuals that we’re dealing with?” In a B2C, I buy one pair of shoes. I’m using a credit card. B2B, I’m buying a hundred thousand pairs of shoes. Who knows how many different payment sources are being used?

Josh Birk:
Right.

Shoby Abdi:
Is it a PO? Am I sending my trucks? Or are you bringing your trucks? And that involves a lot of different kinds of cloud. It’s commerce through B2B. Sales service. You could use our field service capabilities. It could be marketing cloud accounting management. Formally, known as Pardot. You end up adding a lot of clouds to it. That doesn’t even include all of our industry’s capabilities as well.
The distinction between those certifications are that B2C will more focus on all of our B2C capabilities, B2C CRM capabilities across our Customer 360 and what it takes to make it real. Whereas, the B2B one will look at all of our B2B CRM capabilities across our Customer 360 and what it takes to make that real.

Josh Birk:
And that’s our show. Now, if you are interested in the things that Shoby and I have been talking about, please head over to the show notes. At the time of this taping, there are going to be some upcoming workshops done by Shoby’s team.
There is a sign up registration form linked to the show notes themselves. Please go take a look at that and sign up for those workshops if you’re interested. Now, before we go, I did ask after Shoby’s favorite non-technical hobby. Like a lot of people on the show, the pandemic kind of crafted him one.

Shoby Abdi:
My favorite non-technical hobby. I’m trying to think. I’m literally looking around my office right now. Just to remember. I feel like COVID killed so many hobbies. So many hobbies. At this stage, I would say it’s more than likely just discovering random new restaurants in our neighborhood with my wife.

Josh Birk:
Nice.

Shoby Abdi:
One of the things that we did as a great mental health check, and I urge everybody to do this as well, is during COVID, Fridays were always a little fun. What my wife and I would do is we would sometimes find … I live in the Chicago area and everybody thinks, “The best restaurants for everything are going to be in Chicago.” Untrue.
When you live in an area that is non-homogenous. It is very heterogeneous with many kinds of ethnicities living throughout it. You tend to say, “If I go to this specific neighborhood that’s really known for this specific thing and eat the food there …” There’s a reason why the best Chinese food you’ll probably find is probably in Chinatown. It’s simply because that knows it well.
There was a long hobby where my wife and I … We still do it, honestly. We try to do every Friday, where we’ll find some of the best places around to eat. I’ll be honest. It’s not what I would call the most crazy hobby, but what it did was it got us out of the house enough. Forcing you to look at new things that weren’t, “We’re going to wait six months, and then go off on a two-week vacation to Venice.” It’s like, “You know what? Let’s take advantage of the humanity that’s here as well.”

Josh Birk:
We started shopping for houses during the pandemic just to get out of the house and go see something new.

Shoby Abdi:
Nice. You didn’t tell them that was what you were doing. Right? You weren’t actually going to buy. You were like, “We’re just going to shop around.”

Josh Birk:
We have the most patient realtor on the planet who we have a very trusting and honest relationship with.

Shoby Abdi:
Sucker. Total sucker. I hope they hear this right now.

Josh Birk:
I’m like, “Deb, I’m just letting you know, we’re probably really casual about this.” She’s like, “That’s fine.”

Shoby Abdi:
They’re stringing you along, Deb. Run away. There’s more money to be made elsewhere, Deb. Leave them behind.

Josh Birk:
Don’t worry everybody. Deb is a great and patient realtor, and we are still her clients. Now, I want to thank Shoby for the great conversation and information. As always, I want to thank you for listening. Now, if you want to learn more about this show, head on over to developer.salesforce.com/podcast where you can hear old episodes, see the show notes, and have links to your favorite podcast service. Thanks again, everybody. I’ll talk to you next week.

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