Introducing the Leading Through Change Series

Michael Rivo: From Salesforce Studios, this is Blazing Trails. Welcome back to Blazing Trails. I'm your host, Michael Rivo of Salesforce Studios.

Laura Woods: And I'm your co-host, Laura Woods, Senior Manager of the Salesforce blog.

Michael Rivo: Well, Laura, we've been at home for a while and we're trying to keep this podcast going with our home recording setups. I have a microphone, but I think you're going directly into your computer. Is that right?

Laura Woods: I'm actually recording on my iPhone from my pantry right now.

Michael Rivo: Well, if you get hungry, you'll be all set.

Laura Woods: That's right. Lots of snacks.

Michael Rivo: We are super excited to be back with Blazing Trails and a new series called Leading Through Change. This is something that we've been doing across our organization right now, and in a bunch of different ways, and this podcast is just one of them. Laura, can you tell me a little bit about the program and how it came together?

Laura Woods: Yeah, so this is a really exciting content series for us. We know that this is an unprecedented time for everyone, including all of our customers, everyone in our community, the people that use Salesforce, people that follow us. Literally everyone is trying to navigate through this crazy time, and we wanted to bring some tips and advice to our many people in our community.

Michael Rivo: Yeah, that's right, Laura. What we're trying to do is help businesses and all of us figure out how to navigate in these uncharted waters, and how we can help both from what we're doing and what our customers are doing, to share information and share inspiration, and get through these really difficult times.

Laura Woods: That's right. It is all about helping our community, and just to give you an example of what you'll learn if you engage with any of this content, we're going to be sharing tips on employee communications, which is so important right now, as many employees are wondering how to navigate a completely different workplace environment. Customer communications, as well. We're going to be talking about solving for revenue challenges that many companies are thinking about right now, especially our small businesses, and of course, maintain customer relationships in this work from home era. How do you service from home? How do you sell from home? How do you market from home? Those are big topics that we know our community is thinking about.

Michael Rivo: Yeah, it's great. We're running the series across our blog and our website, and we're also doing weekly live events with customers and Salesforce executives, and some amazing musical guests, and we'll get to share their performances in these next 10 episodes. We've got performances from Sheryl Crow, Lionel Richie, Dave Matthews. These have been such an inspiration, and it's been great to bring a little joy and happiness during this time.

Laura Woods: Absolutely. One thing we talk about a lot here at Salesforce is just having a mindset that is resilient and can help you through stress. Our mental health is so important right now, as we're thinking about taking care of our families, doing good work for our jobs, and we think music is a big part of that. So we're really excited that we were able to bring this to our community, is these really performances.

Michael Rivo: Indeed. We've got some great guests, as well. We have award- winning journalist, Soledad O'Brien, who's not only a journalist but she runs a small business, and talks about what she's doing to maintain her business and stay connected with her employees. She's got some really interesting insight about how people respond in these situations, and the opportunities for people in her company, and what she sees out there in the world.

Laura Woods: We'll also hear from Amy and Ben Wright, who are small business owners. They own a coffee shop called Bitty and Beau. They're talking about how they are navigating this new environment where people can't come into their shop for coffee, and how are they maintaining their business and serving their customers remotely.

Michael Rivo: So our guests come from all kinds of different backgrounds, but there's a common theme that exists throughout the whole program, and that's that we're facing this challenge for the first time, and we're facing it together.

Laura Woods: That's right, Michael. You can catch this content across all of Salesforce's channels, including our blog at salesforce. com/ blog. You can also tune into our weekly live episodes on Salesforce Live, those happen Tuesdays at 10: 00 AM Pacific, and now you can also catch all this great content on the Blazing Trails podcast.

Michael Rivo: Yeah, our first podcast episode of the series launches on Thursday, April 23rd, so subscribe today on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Blazing Trails is a production of Salesforce, a customer relationship management solution, committed to helping you deliver the personalized experiences customers want, so they'll keep coming back again and again. Salesforce, bringing companies and customers together. Visit salesforce. com/ learnmore.