Welcome back to the blog! Today we interview Heather Black, founder of the training company Supermums. Their courses aim to help you land a very well-paid career in tech. They particularly help mums and those wishing to switch careers! Without further ado, let’s dive into the interview! I ask Heather Black:
- 1. Can you share with us the origin story of Supermums and what inspired you to focus on empowering women through Salesforce training?
- 2. What challenges do women often face when re-entering the workforce, particularly in the tech industry, and how does Supermums help overcome these barriers?
- 3. Could you walk us through the training programs offered by Supermums? How are they tailored to accommodate the unique needs of parents looking for flexible career options?
- 4. What are the key skills that you believe are essential for success in a Salesforce career, and how does your program ensure participants develop these competencies?
- 5. Supermums has an impressive track record of helping learners transition into Salesforce roles. Could you share a success story that stands out to you?
- 6. How do you see the Salesforce ecosystem evolving, and what future skills might be in demand that Supermums is preparing to teach?
- 7. What advice would you give to someone who is considering a career switch to Salesforce but might be hesitant due to a lack of tech background or a career gap?
1. Can you share with us the origin story of Supermums and what inspired you to focus on empowering women through Salesforce training?
I am Heather Black, the founder and CEO of Supermums. I started Supermums after the birth of my second daughter back in 2016, after recognising the need for mothers to change careers to something far more flexible and well-paid after having children. Having worked flexibly with Salesforce for years, and with my background in training and employability support, I developed the Supermums Salesforce programme to help train and empower women into new Salesforce careers.
I was previously running a business and career coaching company for young people, and due to political changes in the UK, we lost the majority of our funding streams. I had to pivot in my career at the same time as I wanted to start a family and move out of the city. I had to consider my options and explore what a career working with Salesforce could offer me. I had implemented Salesforce CRM for my own company and after skilling up in the product as an end user, I realised that my business coaching and management skills were very relevant and transferrable skills for helping other organisations implement a CRM system as a business analyst. I decided to pivot and become a freelance Salesforce CRM consultant for non-profits helping them to redefine and implement new management processes and systems using Salesforce. After seeing the impact this career move had on my own work/life balance, I decided to inspire other mothers to follow in my footsteps to achieve a flexible, well-paid career by starting the Supermums programme.
2. What challenges do women often face when re-entering the workforce, particularly in the tech industry, and how does Supermums help overcome these barriers?
The Supermums Business Mission is about bringing a diverse range of women into tech, especially those from underrepresented groups, whilst still supporting anyone who wants a career in Salesforce. We aim to reduce the Gender Pay Gap, support women returners, increase the diversity of women in tech, increase the financial resilience of families and address the Digital Skills Gap.
A big challenge women face when re-entering the workforce after having children is keeping up with parental commitments, especially for those who don’t work from home. Supermums offer women the chance to enter well-paid flexible careers in order to provide a good work-life balance. Being able to choose your own hours and work from home means the work-life juggle can be managed more efficiently, especially without a long commute that may eat into precious hours of the day.
3. Could you walk us through the training programs offered by Supermums? How are they tailored to accommodate the unique needs of parents looking for flexible career options?
Supermums was founded by Heather Black, a mum on a mission to raise awareness and empower other mums to learn Salesforce. She re-trained in 2012 and successfully worked 3 days a week earning £5k/$10k a month working remotely when her first daughter was born. Launched in the UK in 2016 the demand for our virtual courses took us globally and we now offer our courses across 3 regions. We have taught 1200+ mums and dads, across 9 different countries and helped over 200 companies to recruit better talent. We are an Authorised Salesforce Training Partner with Salesforce and our courses are commercially discounted from standard rate prices as we are a non-profit organisation on a mission to upskill parents to build better lives for their families. Our Admin course is the foundation course and this stands out from competitors as we provide support from A to Z to help you accelerate the launch of your new career with 9 Pillars of support including live remote training, real work experience, one-to-one mentoring, career coaching, peer group support, and recruitment advice.
4. What are the key skills that you believe are essential for success in a Salesforce career, and how does your program ensure participants develop these competencies?
All that is needed for someone to embark on one of the Supermums Training courses is a willingness to learn something new, and a willingness to put hard work in to do so. Supermums teach all the basics of Salesforce and then work on a tailored approach with candidates to ensure they are getting the most out of their courses based on each individual’s learning style. Supermums also work with candidates to identify which career course, and role with the Salesforce eco-system, is best suited to each candidate personally.
There are no prerequisites to the course, and our courses are all delivered via virtual live sessions, so learning is all home-based and can fit around the busy lifestyles of parents.
5. Supermums has an impressive track record of helping learners transition into Salesforce roles. Could you share a success story that stands out to you?
6. How do you see the Salesforce ecosystem evolving, and what future skills might be in demand that Supermums is preparing to teach?
The issues the Supermums mission is solving: The demand for digital skills is expected to rise by more than 50 per cent by 2025, meaning the future of work will require upskilling and taking on different or entirely new roles. The World Economic Forum’s latest Future of Jobs report pointed to irreversible trends impacting the skills landscape; disruption caused by automation and the pandemic is likely to displace 85 million jobs by 2025.
Preparing for the future of work is one of the defining business problems of our time. Supermums exist to solve this skills gap. With the combined forces of our high-quality online learning and remote work opportunities, we offer a future where anyone, anywhere can retrain and reskill into a job market where there is exploding growth of digital jobs that can be done remotely. As the Salesforce economy grows, the International Data Corporation (IDC) predicts more than 11.6 million new jobs by 2028. These figures show that most business growth isn’t only at Salesforce–it’s in the Salesforce ecosystem, a global network of individuals building successful careers, communities, and companies.
7. What advice would you give to someone who is considering a career switch to Salesforce but might be hesitant due to a lack of tech background or a career gap?
No technical knowledge at all is required to train with Salesforce. Salesforce is a ‘Clicks, Not Code’ system, making it an easy-to-use platform for even the most un-technologically unsavvy. The Salesforce ecosystem also offers a huge array of jobs, ranging from completely customer service and client-facing based, to Salesforce Technical Architect, and everything in between!
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