Collaboration, Not Competition: How Diverse-Owned Business Owners are Coming Together in the Ecosystem
I’m still riding the high of our Partnerforce FY22 Kickoff! We shared, collaborated, and learned so much, and now we’re already taking action on our goals for this year.
During the two day virtual event, I had the honor of hosting the “Lead Together: Community Diversity & Collective Impact” session, accompanied by four tremendous leaders of diverse-owned businesses in the ecosystem:
In case you missed the session (or just want to revisit these powerful insights once more), here’s a recap of the stories our panelists told and some of the ideas and advice they shared with attendees.
Ashley Allen
Ashley Allen is the CEO & Founder of ITequality, a Salesforce consulting partner specializing in Revenue Cloud, Sales Cloud, CPQ, and Communities. When Ashley first started their business, friends and colleagues warned them about coming out as lesbian while starting a business, but other members of the Salesforce community inspired them to live an authentic life. Yet, despite eight certifications and being in the ecosystem for a decade, Ashley’s company wasn’t getting hired.
“I thought that we all faced the same challenges,” they said. “But I realized as a diverse supplier there are additional struggles, and I started to see this isn’t just my struggle. I decided to go to the ideas exchange and post an idea about how we could have the ability to search for diverse-owned businesses.”
In the future, Ashley hopes to see less divisiveness in business.
“It shouldn’t be ‘I’m a diverse supplier and you’re not,’” said Ashley. “Instead, we can bridge the gap so everyone can have a seat at the table.
Joshua Hoskins
Joshua Hoskins is the Founder and Chief Architect at CRMified, which focuses on delivering excellence among customers and ISVs. Passionate about problem-solving and creating a global community, Joshua helped bring Dreamforce to Florida for some Trailblazers who couldn’t travel due to budget cuts. The idea spread, allowing teams around the world to set up satellite Dreamforce events others could travel to and experience the culture of the area, and connect with an extended family of Salesforce users.
“That one small audacious idea I had years ago has changed me and the way I look at the world,” said Joshua.
Joshua is also one of the co-founders of the Black-Owned Salesforce Entrepreneurs (BOSE) collective. After the murder of George Floyd and the events of last summer, Joshua and several other Black business owners came together to respond to a Salesforce blog and express their need to be a part of the conversation. From there, the collective began to meet virtually, eventually teaming up with Salesforce to co-host a town hall in October. Today, the group continues to meet to discuss Salesforce, current events, ways to manage their businesses, and advocate for D&I initiatives that are close to them.
Alex Garcia
Alex Garcia is the CEO and Co-Founder of Ennube Solutions along with his wife and co-founder Jenny Ortiz. Ennube Solutions is a minority and woman-owned enterprise in the US and Ecuador specializing in implementations, development, integrations, and DevOps for organizations in tech, health and life sciences, and construction and manufacturing. Alex believes the Latinx community is a true reflection of the world as a mix of all people whose identity is molded around people, culture, and language. But there’s still a problem with lack of diversity in business leadership.
“Diverse executive and board member representation is almost non-existent at most tech companies,” he said. “The main problem is inclusion. Many aren’t given the opportunity to be present at the table where decisions are being made.”
But Alex also acknowledges it’s a problem of skill sets. “More than just opening the doors, we must provide the skills for underrepresented professionals to navigate a complex and sometimes frustrating corporate world,” he said.
Gemma Blezard
Gemma Blezard is the CEO and Founder of UK-based company The Architech Club, a Salesforce consulting partner focusing on sustainable implementations that prioritize people, not just tech. Gemma is also the founder of Ladies Be Architects, an online community which helps women in technical Salesforce roles find the support, training, mentors, and community they need to become technical Salesforce project leaders.
Despite her leadership, Gemma also sees challenges of owning a business from every angle — meeting other people’s standards, as well as those that are self-imposed. But with a close-knit team of diverse leaders, she believes we can experience shared success for everyone.
“I don’t see the ecosystem as competition, but collaboration,” she said. “There’s temptation to not create space for other women at the table. But unless we change our mindsets around supplier and partner diversity in the Salesforce ecosystem, the eventual result is that it will be tough for everybody.”
Creating a Diverse & Inclusive Ecosystem for the Next Generation
Our panelists also shared wisdom by addressing audience members’ questions, you can read the highlights and watch the full session below.
How can you diversify the recruiting pipeline?
Ashley: There are programs like PepUp Tech, Supermums, TransTech Social Enterprise, and many more. There are so many places you can go to specifically get that diverse talent. In addition to that, there are some really important things you can consider when interviewing talent. As an at-risk youth, I grew up in difficult situations and so have a lot of my employees. You don’t learn the same skills that your more privileged counterparts do, like interviewing skills. You might have challenges looking someone in the eye. Sometimes people struggle deeply with anxiety. It doesn’t mean that they’re less intelligent — it means they have less privilege. As you are interviewing these candidates, keep in mind little things to not hold against them.
What are some of the obstacles non-US businesses face?
Joshua: The one thing I would underscore is cultural differences. The most common thing is communication, understanding how different teams can connect and understanding what success looks like. I encourage anyone who’s having challenges making their business more diverse to go to the partner community and ask for help inside the collaborations we have. There’s a whole village out there that’s ready to help.
Alex: International businesses want to provide services in the US. But a lot of companies don’t feel comfortable about sending a check or getting an invoice from a foreign country due to complexities. If you want to offer services in the US, figure out how to establish an org here that can handle that for you. It’s really about getting that foot in door, getting some success stories, and building trust in the market.
How do we harness our desire to want to work together after today?
Gemma: For me, it’s been as simple as being open and willing to read that one LinkedIn message you might usually ignore. Create a space where you can talk as equals, where you’re not trying to sell or partner together. It can be as simple as jumping on the phone or creating a WhatsApp group with other like minded individuals where you can just share your challenges and be open and giving about some of the ugly stuff about starting your own business. Treat every conversation as valuable. You never know when you might learn something from them or they might learn something from you.
Watch the panel discussion in full or join the Partner Diversity & Inclusion group in the Partner Community (log-in required) to learn more and get involved.
