From $54K to Six Figures — Working Part-Time & Fully Remote

What does it look like to leave a career that's draining your time and capping your income and rebuild your professional life entirely on your own terms?

Hermela is a former college advisor who pivoted into the Salesforce ecosystem and, in under a year, went from earning $54K with a 2+ hour daily commute to a six-figure job offer. She then strategically negotiated it down to work fewer hours, earn more than ever, and build the life she actually wanted. Today she's a fully independent Salesforce consultant working 15–20 hours a week, on her own schedule, from anywhere in the world.

This episode is packed with repeatable strategies: landing your first Salesforce role, leveraging LinkedIn, turning transferable skills into offers, negotiating for time freedom and building toward full financial independence.

Episode Timestamps

00:01:16 — Introduction & Guest Welcome: Bradley introduces Hermela and previews her journey from a capped career with a punishing commute to full autonomy as a Salesforce solopreneur.

00:02:54 — Life Before Salesforce: The Commute, the Cap, the Frustration: Hermela describes her previous reality — 2+ hours of daily DC traffic, a student caseload she loved, but an income ceiling that required waiting for someone else to leave just to get a raise.

00:08:01 — How She Landed Her First Salesforce Role in 3–4 Months: Trailhead, an 8-week bootcamp, internal Salesforce implementation experience, and Bradley's LinkedIn tips. Hermela breaks down her exact preparation playbook.

00:14:48 — Strategic Job Searching: LinkedIn Networking Over Blind Applications: Instead of applying to posted jobs, Hermela messaged employees; it's not about asking for jobs, it's about having genuine conversations and consistently sharing both who you are and what your goals are.

00:33:29 — The Second Jump: Networking Into a $105K Offer: Through consistent networking while employed, a recruiter reached out on behalf of a hiring manager who already knew her name. Hermela landed a $105K offer, nearly double her pre-Salesforce salary.

00:38:27 — The Bold Move: Negotiating Down to 24 Hours/Week: Rather than accept full-time six figures, Hermela negotiated to 24 hours per week at 60% salary — still earning more than her college advisor role — freeing herself up to freelance and eventually go fully independent.

00:54:29 — Hermela's Advice for Anyone Considering This Path: Master your transferable skills, build on Trailhead, use LinkedIn as a landing page, network through real conversations, and tackle goals one step at a time.

What does it really take to build a Salesforce consultancy that people actually love?

In this episode, Bradley sits down with Joshua Karrasch, founder and CEO of Dynamic Specialties Group (DSG) — a Salesforce partner consultancy that's quietly doing things differently. From going bankrupt and living in a friend's basement, to building a thriving boutique firm with a team of A-players and a growing list of loyal clients, Josh's journey is honest, hard-won, and deeply human.

Josh shares the philosophy at the heart of DSG: the win-win-win. The client has to win. The consultant has to win. And the company has to win. You'll hear how that principle shapes everything — from how DSG takes on new clients, to how they hire, to how they handle growth.

The conversation goes deep on the "accordion model" for staffing, why boutique doesn't have to mean small, the importance of leading with business process discovery before ever opening Salesforce, and why diverse, non-traditional backgrounds often make the best consultants. Josh also opens up about the mentorship relationship that changed his entrepreneurial career, and the ongoing challenge of learning to step back before burnout sets in.

If you're building a consultancy, growing a Salesforce career, or just trying to run a business with integrity — this one's for you.

Episode Timestamps

00:01:06 — Bradley Rice introduces his guest Joshua Karrasch Bradley, founder and CEO of Dynamic Specialties Group who discusses how he got started, challenges he faced along the way, to finally finding the footing to launch DSG, and his Win-Win-Win Philosophy DSG's core operating principle.

00:15:41 — The Accordion Model - How DSG found stability by moving to a 1099 contractor model that could expand and contract with the natural ebbs and flows of project-based consulting work.

00:27:44 — The single most pivotal moment in Josh's entrepreneurial career: meeting the mentor who could see what he couldn't — and how that relationship continues to shape DSG today.

00:37:51 —Why so many Salesforce implementations fail: clients know they're in pain but haven't diagnosed the root cause — and some partners are incentivized to oversell.

00:45:57 — The Hiring Challenge - Every company struggles with it. Josh explains why traditional interviews fall short — and how DSG discovered that TalentStacker graduates consistently showed up as A-players. Why diverse, non-traditional backgrounds often produce the strongest Salesforce consultants.

01:04:49 — What Makes DSG Fundamentally Different? The win-win-win, the empathy, the authenticity, the refusal to exploit anyone in the engagement.

01:07:45 — How to Reach Joshua Karrasch & DSG LinkedIn, email, advising services, fractional work, and through Bradley directly.

Links, Contact, Resources

Companies & Organizations

• Dynamic Specialties Group (DSG) — dynaspecgroup.com

• TalentStacker, run by host Bradley Rice — talentstacker.com

Contact Information

• Email: joshua@dynaspecgroup.com

Books Mentioned

• The Way and the Power — Strategy book referenced multiple times by Josh as foundational to his leadership philosophy; includes the concept of "The Watcher"

• The Art of War by Sun Tzu — Referenced by Josh as an early strategy text he studied

Many people enter tech accidentally. Few turn it into a deliberate lifestyle strategy.

In this episode, Kacie Molina shares how she went from discovering Salesforce through a friend to building a high-earning consulting career, all while aligning her work with financial independence principles.

This episode breaks down the most powerful lessons from the conversation. You will walk away with:

• The mindset shifts that accelerated her growth
• The financial strategy behind her confidence
• A practical roadmap you can follow

Listening to the episode adds depth and personality. But this guide gives you the strategy.

If you want to explore specific parts of the conversation, here are the core segments:

Discovering Salesforce and Getting Hooked
Timestamp. 1:01:25 – 1:04:37
How Trailhead made learning feel accessible and even fun.

Why Salesforce Enables Lifestyle Design
Timestamp. 1:09:33 – 1:10:44
The flexibility that allows geographic freedom and career experimentation.

The FIRE Mindset and Career Decisions
Timestamp. 1:13:42 – 1:16:10
How financial independence thinking changed her risk tolerance.

Salary Transparency and Earning Potential
Timestamp. 1:16:58 – 1:18:45
Real talk about admin salaries and why surveys can mislead.

Rapid Income Growth and Freelancing
Timestamp. 1:26:33 – 1:29:59
From early roles to consulting and contracting.