Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

Marc Benioff, Carlye Adler

John Wiley & Sons, Oct 29, 2009 - Business & Economics - 304 pages

How did salesforce.com grow from a start up in a rented apartment into the world's fastest growing software company in less than a decade? For the first time, Marc Benioff, the visionary founder, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, tells how he and his team created and used new business, technology, and philanthropic models tailored to this time of extraordinary change. Showing how salesforce.com not only survived the dotcom implosion of 2001, but went on to define itself as the leader of the cloud computing revolution and spark a $46-billion dollar industry, Benioff's story will help business leaders and entrepreneurs stand out, innovate better, and grow faster in any economic climate.

In Behind the Cloud, Benioff shares the strategies that have inspired employees, turned customers into evangelists, leveraged an ecosystem of partners, and allowed innovation to flourish.

Contents

• The StartUp Playbook: 1
• Pursue Top Talent as IfYour Success: 8
• Defy Convention: 14
• Think Bigger: 20
• The Marketing Playbook How to Cut Through the Noise and Pitch the Bigger Picture: 23
• Party with a Purpose: 25
• Create a Persona: 27
• Differentiate Differentiate Differentiate: 28
• Make Every Employee a Key Player on the Marketing Team and Ensure Everyone Is On Message: 33
• Always Always Go After Goliath: 34
• Tactics Dictate Strategy: 37
• Engage the Market Leader: 39
• Reporters Are Writers Tell Them a Story: 40
• Cultivate Relationships with Select Journalists: 41
• Make Your Own Metaphors: 44
• The Events Playbook How to Use Events to Build Buzz and Drive Business: 47
• Build Street Teams and Leverage Testimony: 49
• Sell to the End User: 52
• The Event Is the Message: 54
• Reduce Costs and Increase Impact: 57
• Always Stay in the Forefront: 60
• Be Prepared for Every Scenario: 61
• The Sales Playbook: 67
• Make Every Customer a Member ofYour: 73
• Sales Is a Numbers Game: 79
• Your Seeds Are Sown so Grow Grow Grow: 86
• Land and Expand: 95
• The Technology Playbook: 103
• Dont Do It All Yourself Reuse Dont: 109
• Let Your Customers Drive Innovation: 115
• Provide a Marketplace for Solutions: 125
• Develop Communities of Collaboration: 131
• Integrate Philanthropy from the Beginning: 139
• Make Your Foundation Part ofYour: 140
• Share the Model: 146
• Create a SelfSustaining Model: 153
• Involve Your Partners Your Vendors Your: 159
• Have Your Foundation Mimic Your Business: 166
• Choose Your Headquarters and Territories: 172
• Uphold a OneCompany Attitude: 178
• Going Far? Take a Partner Going Fast?: 180
• Send Missionaries to Build New Markets: 186
• Edit an Overarching Outlook: 192
• Dont Use a Seagull Approach the Secret: 198
• Use Internet Models to Reduce: 206
• When It Comes to Compliance Always Play by the Rules: 215
• Focus on the Future: 218
• Allow for Change as Your Company Grows: 220
• The Leadership Playbook How to Create Alignmentthe Key to Organizational Success: 225
• Use a TopDown and BottomUp Approach: 230
• Build a Recruiting Culture: 233
• Recruiting Is Sales: 236
• Keep Your Standards High as You Grow: 239
• How to Retain Top Talent: 242
• The Importance ofMahalo: 244
• Foster Loyalty by Doing the Right Thing: 246
• Challenge Your Best People with New Opportunities: 247
• Solicit Employee Feedbackand Act On It: 249
• Leverage Everything: 252
• The Final Play: 255
• Notes: 261
• Acknowledgments: 265
• About the Authors: 269
• Index: 271

About the author

Marc R. Benioff is the chairman and CEO of salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), which he cofounded in 1999. Under Benioff's direction, salesforce.com has grown from a groundbreaking idea into a publicly traded company that is the market and technology leader in enterprise cloud computing. Salesforce.com has received a Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award, been lauded as one of BusinessWeek's Top 100 Most Innovative Companies, been named No. 7 on the Wired 40, was selected for the past two years as a Top Ten Disrupter by Forbes, and been voted one of the world's most ethical companies by Business Ethics Magazine. Benioff is the recipient of many awards for pioneering innovation, including the 2007 Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2000, Benioff launched the Salesforce.com Foundation now a multimillion-dollar global organization. He lives in San Francisco.

Carlye Adler is an award-winning journalist whose articles have appeared in BusinessWeek, Departures, Fast Company, Fortune, Forbes, Portfolio, Wired, and Time. She cowrote, with Marc Benioff, The Business of Changing the World. She lives in New York City.

Bibliographic information

• Title: Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry
• Authors: Marc Benioff, Carlye Adler
• Publisher: John Wiley & Sons, 2009
• ISBN: 047053592X, 9780470535929
• Length: 304 pages
• Subjects: Business & Economics / General; Business & Economics / Management; Business & Economics / Organizational Development; Business & Economics / Sales & Selling / General; Business & Economics / Sales & Selling / Management