CASE STUDIES

Marcelle Porteous

Salesforce consultancy

Marcelle's Background

Marcelle has been a technology contractor for most of her adult life and has worked with numerous global market leading software platforms during her career.

Having decided to specialise in one of the most prominent CRM automation systems (Salesforce.com) and being hugely ambitious and a high achiever, the next logical step was for Marcelle to start her own Salesforce consultancy – CRMSOS.

As CRMSOS grew, Marcelle gradually recruited a team to meet the needs of a rapidly expanding market and over the course of six years built the business into a full-service specialist Salesforce Consultancy employing a team of 15. In 2014, Marcelle decided to leave the company having started a family. When thinking of the next stage of her career, contracting was an obvious choice even though the transition into it would be a challenge having built and managed her own business.

It was during the years of contracting prior to starting CRMSOS that Marcelle met Lee and Theresa Durrant of Resource on Demand.

The Challenges Of Recruiting

When the time came for Marcelle to start recruiting for her own Salesforce Consultancy she faced a challenge;

  • As a relatively new business, she wanted highly skilled and experienced Salesforce Consultants Without breaking the bank.
  • Over the years Marcelle had experienced pushy recruiters who rarely followed up, were untrustworthy and self-interested deal chasers. As a result, she had a low opinion of recruitment agencies.

It was at this time that a mutual acquaintance introduced Marcelle to Lee and Theresa. When Marcelle heard “Go and talk to Lee and Theresa, they’re recruiters, but they’re not like everybody else,” she put her reservations to one side and called them at Resource On Demand.

Hear From Marcelle...

Marcelle Porteous is a technology contractor and founder of CRMSOS, a Salesforce consultancy she built and grew to a team of 15 over six years. She has worked with Resource on Demand in two distinct ways, first as a client looking to recruit talnted Salesforce professionals for her growing business, and later as a candidate herself, when she decided to explore new opportunities after selling her shares in the company she built.

That dual perspective gives Marcelle a uniquely clear view of what ROD does differently. She has seen firsthand how Lee, Theresa and the team operate on both sides of the relationship, and what she describes is a level of genuine care, honesty and mutual trust that she has not found anywhere else in the industry.

Her first call when she was ready for her next chapter was to Lee. That says everything.

What happened next?

Marcelle quickly developed a relationship with Lee and Theresa, valuing the following qualities;

  • Lee would take the time to talk with Marcelle about different recruiting approaches that would allow her to recruit talented new Salesforce team members in an affordable way for her growing business.
  • When talking with Theresa, she is very warm and has a genuine way about her. Theresa can speak to you and make you feel like she cares about what you’re telling her.
  • That placing a candidate wasn’t about them just getting a deal over the line for their fee or about just making If they said they felt someone was a good match she believed them, and more often than not they were right.
  • When Marcelle called the ROD team, they always remembered who she was and expressed genuine interest in how she and her business was progressing.

 

As their relationship evolved, Lee and Theresa would keep in touch on a regular basis and introduced Marcelle to potential Salesforce talent in her local area who they believed would be a fit both technically and culturally for her company.

Marcelle says, “They’ve just got a good ongoing relationship management piece about them, which is something I didn’t get and still don’t anywhere else.”

Having successfully sold her shares in the busness she started, Marcelle decided to explore new Salesforce opportunities and her first phone call was to Lee, to discuss her options as either a contractor or even full time employee in a bigger company.

The key areas highlighted are as follows;

  • The team at ROD demonstrate again and again that they care about you and your future. It always feels genuine; I think they do care.
  • Lee and Theresa have been able to attract people who are similar. They’ve chosen their team quite wisely. The people who work for the organisation are all lovely people rather than the aggressive deal-chasing types you get with other Salesforce Recruiters.

 

Through their leadership, their values permeate throughout the entire organisation.

  • Sometimes even if it’s not in ROD’s interests, they give you a realistic idea of what it’s like to work for an organisation, explaining why a particular company was a good or bad fit, even if it meant they didn’t get a fee. This helps Salesforce candidates to know what they are getting themselves into, even if it means that they are not ideally suited for a particular placement.
  • Having known Theresa and Lee for many years, I know they’ve spent a lot of time working on themselves including how to run an organisation, how to counsel, how to be a good leader and I think it shows. The ROD team all seem to have a lot of time and respect for Lee and Theresa, and what they do filters through the company. They also don’t take themselves too seriously and are always willing to learn and take feedback on board.
  • There’s a mutual trust that underpins everything Lee and Theresa do.
    “As a candidate, I would always trust them with my CV, and to look for and find a Salesforce role that suited me while keeping everything confidential. The Salesforce ecosystem is still so small and tightly knit that one word out of place can ruin a reputation.”
  • The ROD team have always been utterly polite and professional toward Marcelle, and she has valued being able to use Lee as a sounding board either for her career or when she needed a rant about the growing pains of her business – as Lee aand Theresa can relate to that. This allowed Marcelle to make better decisions about the direction of her Salesforce career.

 

“Yes I always recommend ROD, I don’t think that I’d be where I am today if I hadn’t known Theresa and Lee”.

“I’ve always been quite ambitious, but I don’t think that I’d have had as many opportunities forwarded to me if I hadn’t been around them. They know quite a lot of people within the Salesforce industry, and they know quite a lot of organisations in this ecosystem, which is growing but ultimately still quite small.

“Being able to have that level of openness and honesty and candid level of conversation with those two has allowed me to explore opportunities with organisations without actually having to commit. It’s given me much more of an insight and a good basis for a decision-making process, that I think I wouldn’t have had otherwise.”

“Lee has put me forward for things that I perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily have gone for, but it helped me to define what it is that I’m looking for in a job. It’s difficult when you have run your own organisation to then come out of that and work with somebody again. It’s a hard transition to make. Resource On Demand knew that and were keen for me to succeed. They have been thoroughly forthcoming with opportunities even when I wasn’t looking for it.”

“They take the time to get to know you as an individual and to try and find somewhere that suits you, somewhere that is right for you, and your needs as an individual. That’s certainly the experience that I have had, anyway.”

“About a week ago, a colleague of mine from my old organisation was looking for a new job, and I said to him, “Go and speak to Lee at Resource On Demand, because Lee’s actually a really nice guy, I trust him, and he will find you something that is right for you.”

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