The Value of Reinvention
is special episode, Dan Darcy, Chief Customer Officer at Qualified, steps away from his hosting duties to guide us through his legendary 13-year tenure with Salesforce.
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- Hi everyone, I'm Emma Calderon,
Senior Director of Content Communications at Qualified.
For our final episode of Inside the O'Hanna,
we needed to bring on the biggest hitter
in the Salesforce ecosystem.
With that, welcome Dan Darcy as our last guest
for this season of Inside the O'Hanna.
Dan, welcome to Inside the O'Hanna.
- Well, I mean, it's so great to be here
and it's great to be on the other side
of basically the mic being interviewed,
so thanks for having me.
- Of course, so after doing the show
for almost a year now, you've had incredible guests.
- Yes.
- What are some of the biggest lessons you've learned?
- I mean, many incredible lessons that I learned,
but one of the biggest things that I'm still just
truly impressed by is the amount of talent
that the people brought and passion.
I mean, everyone that I interviewed loved
what they were doing, they loved being a part of
building something greater than themselves.
And I mean, I couldn't be honored,
more honored than interviewing all of them,
and I really do thank them for their time.
But I would say the people in the passion
are some things that I'm like,
it's that's hard to even be taught.
Like that's just something that is what made Salesforce.
- As you reflect on the show,
what has surprised you the most?
- What surprised me the most is that
people had different experiences across the many events
that happened at Salesforce during that time.
So there are just so many different perspectives
and just seeing the different values
and the different learnings that came from
the different folks is what really impressed me
is that I think that was the biggest lesson is like,
everyone has a different experience
based on the same event that happened,
and everyone learned something different.
And so that's what I really liked about the most.
- Okay, I'm gonna do my best, Dan,
as we jump into our first segment, Ohana Origins.
So how did you discover Salesforce
and what was your first job there?
- My first job at Salesforce was a technical product
marketing manager, and I actually discovered Salesforce
through a great friend of mine who brought me
into Salesforce.
His name is Jagger McConnell.
He's currently the CEO of Crunchbase,
and I definitely owe everything that I have
in my Salesforce career to Jagger
because he had an opening on his team,
and he brought me in and basically stuck his neck out for me
to get the job at Salesforce.
And I would say the rest is history,
and I think what's something that he will say is that
one of his biggest claim to fame is hiring me.
So.
- Just like your biggest claim to fame is hiring me.
- Yes, exactly right, that's so true, exactly.
- All right, some people call you the goat of Salesforce.
Did you know that?
- No, I did not know that.
- Some people is me also.
What is the biggest success you've had
while working at Salesforce?
- Well, one of the biggest successes is a fun story
that I think pretty much changed the direction
of my career, and I really have Mark Benioff,
the CEO, to owe for all of that.
And it was building a customer demo for him
for the CEO of Toyota.
He was gonna have a bunch of his executives fly out
to his house because they were on a tour
of going around to learn about innovations
in Silicon Valley.
And Mark asked me to build a demo with a car chatting
on the network.
Chatter was a big product way back in the day.
Now Slack is the, obviously the product that's happening now,
but imagine if your car was chatting to you
and telling you that your tires are low
and telling you that it needs more gas
or it needs a tune up of some sort,
and the cars could chat with each other.
That was his idea, and he wanted it to come to life
in a salesforce demo.
And so I had a great team that helped build that demo.
We went out and presented it.
And at that time, it was something unheard of
where back in 2008, it was basically the Internet of Things
was one of the things that was happening at the time.
And we showed a demo to the CEO of Toyota
and their executives.
Mark said that was one of the best demos.
And it basically showed that salesforce
can punch above its weight.
And from that point on, Mark was like,
I want you to help me build these prototypes
and visions for customers and go around
and present them with him.
So that was one of my biggest successes
that I'm most proud of because it put me on a trajectory
at Salesforce and meeting so many incredible people
and being a part of so many great memories.
That's something that I will always cherish
as something that changed my life.
- Conversely, what is a project or program
that didn't go so well and that you learned the most from?
- Yeah, I mean, there's been many failures
and projects out there, but I think the biggest lesson
I learned was not to get too complacent in your role.
You have to always continually disrupt your own self.
Even though a process may have worked one year,
you gotta look at it again, blow it up,
break it down into little parts,
and then try to put it back together in a new way.
Because technology, people and process that all happens,
they all change so fast.
And I think sometimes where I learned a lesson
was I was complacent and I just let that thing continue
running in the way it was.
And I should have really kept going back to it
and really checked on certain things and blown it up
and challenged myself to create something new and better.
So I would say that's the biggest lesson I learned
with the projects that I have failed at at Salesforce
is that I just got too complacent
and that's something that I think is a good lesson
for everyone else to learn too.
- So it's kind of the opposite of if it's not broken,
don't fix it.
- Yeah, exactly.
- You don't ascribe to that.
- You should definitely blow it up
and fix it again.
- Yeah.
- What does Ohana mean to you?
- I mean, I've asked this question a million times
to everyone and I loved everyone's answers from it.
I mean, it's about the people, it's about the community.
And I will continue to echo that same thing.
I mean, Salesforce is made up of incredible people.
There's an incredible alumni,
there's an incredible ecosystem.
You know, out there when former alumni
haven't spoken to in 10 plus years,
whenever they reach out to me on LinkedIn,
you know, and this has been paid forward for me too,
is because I'll reach out to other alumni.
Everyone always answers the call.
And everyone hops on the call,
how can I help you?
You know, how can we connect you with someone?
What can that be?
And that's what I love most about The Ohana
is just the constant support
and of each other and helping each other.
And so that's something that I,
that's what Ohana means to me
is really the community that Mark and Parker
and the entire Salesforce executive team
and the ecosystem everyone built together.
- Is there a specific Ohana memory or moment
that sticks out that's a little more behind the scenes
that as you look back at your time at Salesforce,
you're like, wow, that was special.
- Yeah, I mean, there's so many, but there are so many.
The one, I will pull on the thread of the Toyota meeting, okay?
'Cause this was definitely a very, very unique story
because we were, you know, Salesforce
is definitely a customer company and pride ourselves on
really knowing our customer and really helping
our customers understand their customers.
And so when we had the Toyota executives
over to Mark's house, Mark's house was in Hawaii.
Okay, so we presented this big demo to Mark's,
to the Toyota executives at Mark's house in Hawaii.
And the night before, you know,
what's customary for Japanese executives
is we present them with a gift before, you know,
they come onto the island and they were staying
at their own house that they had,
but we presented them with a gift from the local hotel
where it was a swim trunks and a T-shirt and flip flops.
And it was just like, hey, enjoy your time here
while you can on the beach and whatever.
Well, the morning of the meeting
and for folks that are out there that don't know
when you meet with Japanese executives,
it's very buttoned up.
We're in a very suit and tie, like tied up, everyone,
and I'm in a suit and tie in Hawaii.
We're over at Mark's house.
But then all of a sudden, we heard from our sales team
that was picking up the Toyota executives
that the executives all dressed in the gifts that we gave them.
So they were all in swim trunks, a T-shirt and flip flops.
And that is not customary for them
'cause that's definitely way out of their comfort zone,
but they were like, we're in Mark's, you know, home.
Let's honor him by dressing in the gifts that he gave us.
And so we're all dressed up.
And then all of a sudden, all we know is that Mark goes,
okay, everyone needs to dress down.
And we're like, how do we do that?
Because I'm like, I can't run back to the hotel
and get my swim trunks.
And that was kind of an interesting thing.
So everyone had to like take their jackets off,
unbutton their shirts, take their ties off,
roll up their sleeves, just try to look as casual
as casual as can be.
Mark had the luxury of also, you know,
Mark was very casual.
He was had his Hawaiian shirt and he was dressed to the nines.
So we wanted to make the Toyota executives
really like feel at home.
So we tried to dress down.
Anyway, the meeting went well,
but that's one of those funny Ohana moments where
like you got to do whatever it takes
to make the customer happy and feel comfortable
and at home.
- That's hysterical. - Yeah.
- Specifically thinking about how hot
you probably were in a suit in Hawaii.
- Yes, yes.
It was great to just definitely like relax a little bit more.
So.
- Okay, let's get into our next segment.
What's cooking?
- So obviously it sounds like Salesforce
was the ultimate foundation in your transition
to chief customer officer at Qualified here.
What do you need to talk about?
How did you get here?
What has your journey been like?
- How did I get to be the chief customer officer qualified?
So look, again, was that Salesforce for 13 years?
Loved every moment of it.
I worked in a variety of roles,
but I'm a marketer at heart.
I was born in marketing, born in product marketing.
And I took my product marketing skill set
to the other roles that I had at Salesforce.
I mean, I obviously led enablement
for a few years there as well.
But I was missing creating and building
with where Salesforce was way back in the day.
And I missed working with marketers.
And so I was definitely talking to some folks.
Obviously Craig Swenstra, the CEO of Qualified,
which is obviously where we work now,
was the former chief marketing officer at Salesforce
for a few years.
And he was starting this company called Qualified,
which is really about driving demand
on the website for marketers.
And he goes, I have an opening where I need someone
to really work with marketers, strategize with them
and use this tool in a way that's going
to help drive more pipeline and demand.
Obviously that sounds like a commercial,
but that is really how it was pitched to me.
And we have this big vision of the future
and how are we going to do that?
And so I was just really excited to join something
from the ground up and really help build it
into something different and kind of give it
another big run.
I mean, Salesforce, obviously for over 13 years,
change and evolved into an incredible company.
That's a big machine that obviously,
there's still a lot of incredible talent there,
but I was looking to kind of like,
let's just see how again, I can disrupt myself
and not get complacent, right?
Which is one of the big lessons that I learned.
How do I not be complacent, disrupt myself and start new?
Right, and so coming here to Qualified
as the Chief Customer Officer,
we had to start all new processes, all new everything.
And that was where I really rolled up my sleeves.
And I mean, we're still doing it to this day,
obviously we grew.
When I first joined Qualified, it was 30 people,
now we're at 150 people.
I'm incredibly proud of what we've been doing
and what we're still going to do.
And that's basically how I got to where I am now today.
Love it.
So what are some of the challenges in your current role
and how have those kind of transformed
since you've started to now?
I mean, look, there's obviously scale
is obviously a challenge.
We always talk about that.
I mean, scale's a challenge,
showcasing value to our customers.
I think there's a lot of great things
that I learned from Salesforce,
which is really around surrounding the customer
and making the customer the center of our world.
And so what I'm incredibly honored by
is that Qualified does take the customer
and put them at the center of our world.
And that's why I love doing what I do
because customer success at this company
is really trying to help change in industry.
And what I'm proud of the team is,
is like, you see it in the proof with our G2 reviews
and we have like over a thousand five, five star reviews.
And it's a thank you to all of our customers
that are out there.
But the lessons that I learned from Salesforce
around really keeping the customer
at the center of everything we do,
really helped drive kind of the success
we're seeing here at Qualified.
Love it.
All right, time for our final segment, Future Forecast.
All right.
You ready?
Yes.
What do you envision as the future
of the Salesforce ecosystem?
I mean, like the Salesforce ecosystem,
we're obviously part of it is gonna continue to grow.
I think, you know,
I was trying to get through this interview
without saying AI,
but I have to, with the fourth,
pretty much big shift in technology,
you know, if you have social mobile,
I mean, I mean, internet, social mobile.
Now we have AI really coming.
I feel like there's a lot more opportunity
that's gonna be out there.
And Salesforce really continues to lead the way,
not only for their customers
by bringing them into the future,
but to their, the partners in the ecosystem.
So, you know, we're definitely gonna continue to grow.
The ecosystem's gonna continue to grow
and it's only gonna get stronger with,
with, you know, the advancement technology
and kind of where that's going.
Any advice for aspiring marketing leaders?
Yeah, I mean, look,
I think the biggest lesson I learned
was don't be complacent.
And I think it's one of those things.
It's, you hear me say this all the time,
don't be boring, you know,
and in my mind, it's the same thing.
It's like, how do you continue to,
to be relevant and drive,
drive yourself forward?
So I would say constantly be learning
and constantly disrupting yourself.
And I mean, look, I'm no AI expert by any means,
but it's just something fun to learn
and understand how, you know,
technology is gonna change the world.
So for marketing leaders out there,
my biggest piece of advice is get close to your product.
If you are marketing a product,
you have to live that product,
you have to breathe that product,
you have to experience that product,
and then you have to understand
how it impacts your customers in a different way
and basically then translate that
into how we get other people out there
to understand what that technology does.
So that's my biggest piece of advice for marketers.
So go use chat, GPT.
Yeah, I mean, that is actually super fun too,
but I mean, look, you know,
I think it's just what are the different prompts you can do.
I think that's one of the fun ways of just learning, you know?
Couldn't agree more.
All right, before letting you go,
it's time for the lightning round.
What is a secret skill not listed on your resume?
Secret skill not on my resume.
Well, I play a mascot part-time.
I did it at Salesforce and I also am doing a hero qualified,
plus I'm also a part-time actor here.
You're also really good at karaoke.
Yes, that is, that's definitely my secret skill.
I'm not on the resume.
Taylor Swift songs.
Exactly.
Especially.
What is your favorite way to spend an evening after work?
I mean, right now, obviously I'm loving,
my son is a year and a half.
I'm loving, you know, picking him up
and having fun with him before he has to go to bed.
So that's my, and then after that,
my wife and I cooked dinner
and we watch Bravo.
There you go.
What is your favorite brand?
And this can be of anything.
So obviously qualified is one of my favorite brands,
but Yeti is also another thing.
And the reason why I love Yetis is because it took a,
speaking about being disruptive,
it took a very simple industry of coolers and things
and made them more durable and indestructible.
And there's a community around it
'cause they really expanded,
like even there's Yeti dog bowls,
which I thought is like awesome.
Not that I really need an indestructible dog bowl,
but like why not, you know?
So.
All right, last or two more questions.
You just won front row seat tickets to your dream event.
What is it?
It would be the Aeristor somewhere in,
Taylor Swift or somewhere in Europe.
Like that would be, next year would be awesome to go to.
What are you looking most forward to about Dreamforce this year?
Oh, Dreamforce.
Yes, I'm looking forward to, of course,
the concert and seeing who the big band is,
but I'm looking forward to just connecting
with all the great alumni and ecosystem
and other members out there.
'Cause it really is a big family reunion
and I get really excited about it.
And even though I'm not at Salesforce anymore,
it's like we're obviously part of Salesforce
and part of that community.
And so I just, I'm looking forward to seeing the people.
Is anything cool happening at the SF MoMA on September 13th?
Yes, great plug actually.
So we at Qualified are having an event called Pipeline Summit
live at the San Francisco MoMA on the rooftop.
Wednesday, September 13th from 4 to 7.30 PM.
I hope you are all there.
It's right before the big concert.
So think of it as a pregame.
I would love to see all my friends and family there.
Love it.
All right, Dan, thank you so much.
Before you go, any last thing to plug,
I know you just said Pipeline Summit.
So thank you.
Anything else on behalf of customer success?
No, no, just, I mean, thank you to everyone
who has listened to Inside the Ojana.
Thank you to all of the people who have participated
and been interviewed on Inside the Ojana.
And I couldn't be more proud to represent Salesforce
and the podcast Inside the Ojana.
So thank you very much.
See you guys all at Dreamforce.
Whoa, see you then.
Thank you.
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