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

Table of Contents

Foreword (Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell).

Introduction.

Part 1 The Start-Up Playbook: How to Turn a Simple Idea into a High Growth Company.

Play #1: Allow Yourself Time to Recharge.

Play #2: Have a Big Dream.

Play #3: Believe in Yourself.

Play #4: Trust a Select Few with Your Idea and Listen to Their Advice.

Play #5: Pursue Top Talent as If Your Success Depended on It.

Play #6: Sell Your Idea to Skeptics and Respond Calmly to Critics.

Play #7: Define Your Values and Culture Up Front.

Play #8: Work Only on What Is Important.

Play #9: Listen to Your Prospective Customers.

Play #10: Defy Convention.

Play #11: Have—and Listen to—a Trusted Mentor.

Play #12: Hire the Best Players You Know.

Play #13: Be Willing to Take a Risk—No Hedging.

Play #14: Think Bigger.

Part 2 The Marketing Playbook: How to Cut Through the Noise and Pitch the Bigger Picture.

Play #15: Position Yourself.

Play #16: Party with a Purpose.

Play #17: Create a Persona.

Play #18: Differentiate, Differentiate, Differentiate.

Play #19: Make Every Employee a Key Player on the Marketing Team, and Ensure Everyone Is On-Message.

Play #20: Always, Always Go After Goliath.

Play #21: Tactics Dictate Strategy.

Play #22: Engage the Market Leader.

Play #23: Reporters Are Writers; Tell Them a Story.

Play #24: Cultivate Relationships with Select Journalists.

Play #25 Make Your Own Metaphors.

Play #26: No Sacred Cows.

Part 3 The Events Playbook: How to Use Events to Build Buzz and Drive Business.

Play #27: Feed the Word-of-Mouth Phenomenon.

Play #28: Build Street Teams and Leverage Testimony.

Play #29: Sell to the End User.

Play #30: The Event Is the Message.

Play #31: Reduce Costs and Increase Impact.

Play #32: Always Stay in the Forefront.

Play #33: The Truth About Competition (It Is Good for Everyone).

Play #34: Be Prepared for Every Scenario . . . and Have Fun.

Play #35: Seize Unlikely Opportunities to Stay Relevant.

Play #36: Stay Scrappy . . . but Not Too Scrappy.

Part 4 The Sales Playbook: How to Energize Your Customers into a Million-Member Sales Team.

Play #37: Give It Away.

Play #38: Win First Customers by Treating Them Like Partners.

Play #39: Let Your Web Site Be a Sales Rep.

Play #40: Make Every Customer a Member of Your Sales Team.

Play #41: Telesales Works (Even Though Everyone Thinks It Doesn't).

Play #42: Don't Dis Your First Product with a Discount.

Play #43: Sales Is a Numbers Game.

Play #44: Segment the Markets.

Play #45: Leverage Times of Change.

Play #46: Your Seeds Are Sown, so Grow, Grow, Grow.

Play #47: Land and Expand.

Play #48: Abandon Strategies That No Longer Serve You.

Play #49: Old Customers Need Love.

Play #50: Add It On and Add It Up.

Play #51: Success Is the Number-One Selling Feature.

Part 5 The Technology Playbook: How to Develop Products Users Love.

Play #52: Have the Courage to Pursue Your Innovation—Before It Is Obvious to the Market.

Play #53: Invest in the Long Term with a Prototype That Sets a Strong Foundation.

Play #54: Follow the Lead of Companies That Are Loved by Their Customers.

Play #55: Don't Do It All Yourself; Reuse, Don't Rebuild.

Play #56: Embrace Transparency in Everything You Do or Be Transparent and Build Trust.

Play #57: Let Your Customers Drive Innovation.

Play #58: Make It Easy for Customers to Adopt.

Play #59: Transcend Technical Paradigms.

Play #60: Provide a Marketplace for Solutions.

Play #61: Harness Customers' Ideas.

Play #62: Develop Communities of Collaboration (aka Love Everybody).

Play #63: Evolve by Intelligent Reaction

Part 6 The Corporate Philanthropy Playbook: How to Make Your Company About More Than Just the Bottom Line.

Play #64: The Business of Business Is More Than Business.

Play #65: Integrate Philanthropy from the Beginning.

Play #66: Make a Foundation Part of Your Business Model

Play #67: Choose a Cause That Makes Sense and Get Experts on Board.

Play #68: Share the Model.

Play #69: Build a Great Program by Listening to the Constituents.

Play #70: Create a Self-Sustaining Model.

Play #71: Share Your Most Valuable Resources—Your Product and Your People.

Play #72: Involve Your Partners, Your Vendors, Your Network.

Play #73: Let Employees Inspire the Foundation.

Play #74: Have Your Foundation Mimic Your Business.

Part 7 The Global Playbook: How to Launch Your Product and Introduce Your Model to New Markets.

Play #75: Build Global Capabilities into Your Product.

Play #76: Inject Local Leaders with Your Corporate DNA.

Play #77: Choose Your Headquarters and Territories Wisely.

Play #78: Box Above Your Weight.

Play #79: Scale Without Overspending.

Play #80: Understand Sequential Growth.

Play #81: Uphold a One-Company Attitude Across Borders.

Play #82: Follow Strategy, Not Opportunity.

Play #83: Going Far? Take a Partner. Going Fast? Go Alone.

Play #84: Fine-Tune Your International Strategy.

Play #85: Send Missionaries to Build New Markets

Play #86: Handle Global Disputes with Diplomacy (aka Light and Love).

Play #87: Edit an Overarching Outlook.

Play #88: Bring Old Tricks to New Regions.

Play #89: Don’t Use a “Seagull Approach”; the Secret to Global Success Is Commitment.

Part 8 The Finance Playbook: How to Raise Capital, Create a Return, and Never Sell Your Soul.

Play #90: Don't Underestimate Your Financial Needs.

Play #91: Consider Fundraising Strategies Other Than Venture Capital.

Play #92: Use Internet Models to Reduce Start-Up Costs.

Play #93: Set Yourself Up Properly from the Beginning, Then Allow Your Financial Model to Evolve.

Play #94: Measure a Fast-Growing Company on Revenue, Not Profitability.

Play #95: Build a First-Class Financial Team.

Play #96: Be Innovative and Edgy in Everything You Do—Except When It Comes to Your Finances.

Play #97: When It Comes to Compliance, Always Play by the Rules.

Play #98: Focus on the Future.

Play #99: Allow for Change as Your Company Grows.

Part 9 The Leadership Playbook: How to Create Alignment—the Key to Organizational Success.

Play #100: Use V2MOM to Focus Your Goals and Align Your Organization.

Play #101: Use a Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach.

Play #102: Build a Recruiting Culture.

Play #103: Recruiting Is Sales.

Play #104: Keep Your Standards High as You Grow.

Play #105: How to Retain Top Talent.

Play #106: The Importance of Mahalo.

Play #107: Build Loyalty by Doing the Right Thing.

Play #108: Challenge Your Best People with New Opportunities.

Play #109: Solicit Employee Feedback—and Act on It.

Play #110: Leverage Everything

The Final Play.

Play #111: Make Everyone Successful.

Notes.

About the Author.

Index.