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We recently sat down with Salesforce MVP Eric Dreshfield, a product evangelist at Mogli. Eric is a community advocate, blogger, and mentor for those new to Salesforce. He's been working in the ecosystem since 2009 and has experience across multiple industries, including transportation, retail, and life sciences.
During our discussion, Eric shared how he founded Midwest Dreamin’—the largest Salesforce community-led conference in the U.S. He also spoke about his experience as an accidental analyst, and how he’s fostered connections over the years. Here are just three of the topics we discussed.
How did Midwest Dreamin’ come to be?
Eric: My manager said, "I can't really afford to send you to Dreamforce this year." The company had a Salesforce administrator that needed to go. They had an in-house developer and members of senior management wanted to attend and learn more about Salesforce...
I watched as much as I could online, which way back in the day was the keynote and nothing more, and my mind did this silly little thing when she said, "I can't send you to Dreamforce." I thought, "Well, if I can't go, let's bring Dreamforce to me."
That was the whole thing that started Midwest Dreamin'. I thought, "I want to organize a conference that's going to be Dreamforce-like, and bring it somewhere local to my area and see how many people I can get to show up." I built a business plan and started searching the area for a place to hold this event and settled on a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky.
They were willing to work with me with no money down to pay for the event because I presented them with this plan as to how I thought I could get sponsors and how much money I thought I could bring in from the sponsors...
I managed to pull off this event with five or six sponsors and had about a hundred people show up for a full day event, all about Salesforce, at a hotel in Louisville, Kentucky. And this was May of 2011 when that took place—the very first time Midwest Dreamin' happened. More recently, it's been in Chicago for the previous six years—2014 through 2019—with anywhere up to 900 people attending every year.
How did you handle getting thrown into the deep end with Salesforce?
Eric: It was definitely a big challenge that's for sure. This was long before Trailhead existed. The resources for learning Salesforce were help and training on Salesforce, and Googling a lot.
The one thing that my manager suggested was Salesforce user groups. She said, "Find a local Salesforce user group in your area, start meeting people who are already using Salesforce and learn all you can from them."
Well, that was a challenge back in 2009 as there weren't a ton of Salesforce groups around. I started trying to find them and the closest ones were two and a half to three hours away, or even as far as Chicago, five or six hours away from me...
I drove up to Chicago the night before and spent the entire day at these two meetings, drinking from the proverbial fire hose, meeting a lot of people, and learning a ton about Salesforce.
The one thing that really stood out to me from that day forward was how open and easily accessible people were in the Salesforce ecosystem and how ready and able and willing they were to share their own stories and challenges and how they overcame the problems they had. It was exciting…
I spent the next six months or so—one or two days a month—on the road driving to other user group meetings all over the Midwest. That's kind of what started my whole Salesforce community life, and really helped push my knowledge and my career.
What advice do you have for people just getting started in the Salesforce ecosystem?
Eric: One thing I would probably give as the top piece of advice is find someone to be a mentor, get out there in social media or on the Salesforce community, and start listening to conversations and see who you can discover talking about Salesforce in a good way, sharing lots of knowledge.
Don't be scared to just simply approach them one-on-one and say, "Hey, can we have a conversation? I'd love to learn more about Salesforce. I'd love to hear your own journey and how you got to where you are today."
I do that with a lot of people all the time. I'm certainly open to those conversations. I love talking about Salesforce and what it can do for your career. It certainly has helped me and my family over the years to be able to live a good life and enjoy lots of things that we may not have been able to otherwise.
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