Salesforce Roundtable: Counter Offers
Lee Durrant: Hello, and welcome to another episode of RODcast with me, Lee Durrant, and my cohost, Teresa Durrant. Today we're talking to three Salesforce industry legends about the topic of counter-offers. I'm not sure if you've ever resigned from a role only to be counter-offered, or perhaps you've owned a business, and you have counter-offered someone that's looked to resign from your business. It's a hot topic. As of recording this, it's July 2021, we're coming out the back of COVID, but it certainly seems to be very rife at the moment in the Salesforce ecosystem. Counter-offers is a hot topic.
I thought it'd be great to get the opinions of Penny Townsend, Vera Loftis, and Ben McCarthy, who's also known as Salesforce Ben. They've all got some great opinions on all sides of counter-offers, whether they have previously been in a situation where they've been counter-offered themselves, or in situations where somebody's resigned from their business, and they have or have not decided to counter-offer them, and how it went. A great podcast to listen to if you're in that process yourself. Some really good views from the guys. Hope you enjoy.
Lee: Let's welcome our guests on this podcast today. We have with us, Penny Townsend. Hello, Penny.
Penny Townsend: Hi, Lee. Hi, everyone.
Teresa Durrant: Hello.
Lee: Third time you've been with us. Thank you very much. Equally, Vera, it's your third time, I think, with us on this podcast. Hello to you.
Vera Loftis: Hello. I'm hoping third time's a charm.
Lee: They've always been charming. We've got as well, first time with us, but probably his millionth podcast, we've got Ben McCarthy, also known as Salesforce Ben. Hi, Ben. How are you doing, mate?
Ben McCarthy: Hello. Yes, very well. Thanks a lot for the invite. Pleasure to be here.
Lee: Thanks for coming on. This is, as I mentioned in the introduction, a particular conversation about counter-offers. I think it's rife, possibly everywhere, but it's definitely rife at the moment in the Salesforce market.
I don't know if you guys are aware of this because I appreciate you're in the middle of it, but as recruiters, we have noticed because we're in the middle of COVID still or coming out the end of it, it's just been absolutely crazy in terms of people wanting to leave for whatever reason. We'll touch base on that and then basically being counter-offered crazy money to stay where they are. I've never known it's so bad. Maybe it's a good thing, I don't know, but that's why we're talking. Teresa, looks like you want to say something?
Teresa: No, no, no, I was just going to say, yes, absolutely. We know that there's a skill shortage at the moment, and perhaps we can touch base on some of those reasons that we think that's happening aside from, obviously, Brexit having a huge impact on that. Also, I think COVID, where perhaps some skills that were in the UK have now gone back home to various countries across Europe, we've found quite a big impact on that. Just to touch base on why we think that this might be quite a big phenomenon at the moment with the counter-offers going on. Perhaps we'll throw it over to you guys since you're probably hiring or looking to hire at the moment.
Lee: What do you think? Vera, do you want to go first?
Vera: Yes, happy to.
Lee: What's your take on possibly why it's happening?
Vera: It's one of those things. I think, coming out of lockdown, everybody's now starting to breathe again, and people are starting to look. People who were probably not super satisfied in their job, that's probably exacerbated by having to work from home and COVID. Now that it feels like the world is opening up, I think people feel secure enough to start poking their heads up and seeing what is out there.
I think that combined with the fact that, because employers are not back in the office, when you lose people, you are having to interview through virtual or digital means, and there's this anxiety about people going. You want to hold on to the people that you know until things stabilise. I feel like the insecurity with the employer is probably going to last us longer than the excitement and the will to be looking for the employee. Those timelines, I think, are not matching up anymore.
It used to be a situation where, fine, someone leaves, it's unfortunate, but I can go out and find someone else. I do think that, as the ecosystem gets more and more incestuous, it's harder and harder to replace people. I think that's probably the top of everybody's mind. I think as much as we've been trying to promote self-exploration and training and education during this working from home -- I don't want to say downtime because it's been the opposite of downtime, but periods of reflection. I still think there hasn't been a massive push in terms of upskilling the current environment. There is this skills gap that was there ages ago, and now that the market is picking up, people can't afford to be without resources. They've lost a lot of money in the last year.
Consultancies are just now starting to get back into the world of projects kicking off. Now's when you need people, there's anxiety that when the money is now coming in, I won't have the people to actually fulfil it, so I'm going to try my hardest to keep hold of them.
Teresa: Yes. Okay. What about your opinion, Penny and Ben? Do you agree with that, or do you have some different takes on it?
Penny: Yes, I do. I agree very much with what Vera is saying. I think that this is a challenge that's been on its way for several years, actually. That probably Brexit and COVID have just exacerbated a problem that was already there. When I think back to when I was working in Conga, I felt that there was a big difference between the Salesforce SI space in Paris compared to London.
In Paris, there were a lot more evenly sized boutique firms, where junior people could learn their skills and grow through their careers. If we look at the UK, especially over the last 18 months, there's been so much consolidation of firms that there aren't enough places for people to learn skills and grow.
I really appreciate Ben's take on this, but I think a lot of the most experienced people then end up going out either contracting on their own or starting up maybe their own company, either as an SI or as an app partner. That effectively takes them out of the game as mentors and teachers for younger people in the industry. That just exacerbates the skills gap that was already present, I think.
Lee: Yes, Ben, do you have a take on it?
Ben: Yes, I completely agree with Vera and Penny. Obviously, I used to run Empower, so I've got knowledge of the SI world from then, but I do speak to quite a lot of SI's, mostly in the small and medium-sized area. I think a lot of people struggled a lot throughout the past 12 months during COVID, but it has picked up so much.
I know quite a lot of consultancies have got some really big deals now. Then these smaller consultancies, you've got a few individuals, which are really key. If these individuals want to go, then it can really cripple the consultancy and cripple some of the deals they've been working on. I think that's one of the reasons that it's probably counter-offers, I suppose, are rife, but I also think there are so many good opportunities in the ecosystem at the moment.
Some of the ISVs that are floating around, the amount of investment going to these ISVs is crazy at the moment. I know a lot of people that are moving to these ISVs are also moving to end-users like unicorns that are using Salesforce now. It's a very different world working for an end-user, maybe possibly lower stress, but still working on quite a lot of Salesforce products and learning quite a lot. I think there's probably a few reasons, but that's my take on it.
Teresa: Okay.
Lee: Yes. Sounds about right. I think it would be interesting to now talk about whether you guys have ever been involved, and I'm sure you have. You've all been an employee, but also as someone who has hired people. Do any of you have a particular scenario when you've either been counter-offered as a person looking to leave or, on the flip side, the person that has decided, I don't want to lose this person, I'm going to obviously counter-offer them and how that went? Vera, are you ready to say something?
Vera: Yes. I always love a good story. I'll go with a personal experience first. Just to put it out there, I'm against counter-offers, but you're not going to hear that in any of my stories, so just to be clear. I was at a stage in my career where I was looking for a pretty dramatic change. As you do, you start looking around, and then you think, "Oh, something quite interesting has come up". I wasn't in a place where I hated my job. I loved the organisation. I just needed a change. Part of that actually was… This was back in my early consulting days while I was on the road constantly. I was travelling 48 weeks a year. It was both a lifestyle thing and just a career progression component. I got an offer, went to my boss at the time and said, "I'm leaving". It was one of those situations. I think that as people start to evaluate leaving an organisation, you have to mentally make some hard decisions there. You shouldn't be playing with fire in terms of negotiating, like, "I'm going to go out and get more money so that I can get a counter-offer." That's when this all gets very dangerous.
I had the true intent of going to this other organisation, and it was that time actually that Bluewolf came back and said, "We've got this amazing job". It's what moved me to London, but they're like, "We've got this amazing role, we were going to put you up for it anyway, but we weren't sure with what was happening when the timing was".
It was one of those opportunities that was net new.
