Microsoft vs Salesforce.com: config tool shootout

April 17, 2008

Paul Greenberg who writes the PGreenblog, has put together a panel of judges to rule on a challenge he’s put forth to both Microsoft and Salesforce.com. (Yes I was a bit late in reporting this one!)

From the PRGreenblog:

“So I decided to issue a challenge to both Microsoft and salesforce.com. The idea is to for each company to take on an identical configuration task (or tasks) and then do them. A panel of independent judges would, using specific criteria and a scoring system, then judge the results and declare the winner - or a tie, which could be possible and we’d publish (to a point) the results of the contest online so that you’d have the comparison made.”

“I’m glad to say that both Microsoft and salesforce.com have accepted the challenge. The Configuration Shootout is a go (a better name would be appreciated). The judges are being recruited, the initial criteria (subject to approval by the participants) are being draw up and we should have something going pretty soon.”

Congrats to Paul for getting the two companies to go head to head. We’re looking forward to hearing about Salesforce.com’s win…er…I mean we’re looking forward to the results!

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

Salesforce.com for Google Apps Announced.

April 14, 2008

This could be the Outlook / Office killer we’ve all been waiting for.

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff announced today that Salesforce.com and Google have expanded their partnership and launched Salesforce for Google Apps, a complete integration between Salesforce.com and Google’s online office productivity apps.

See a video on YouTube here and the official Salesforce.com blog announcement here.
You can now use:

From the official announcement:

Today, along with our global strategic partner, Google, we’re opening an exciting new chapter in The End of Software: Salesforce for Google Apps @ $10/user/month.

At an event in San Francisco today, salesforce.com and Google will announce Salesforce for Google Apps. We are expanding our successful partnership by combining the power of our award-winning CRM apps with Google’s on-demand Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Docs, spreadsheet, and presentation applications. Best of all, they are all seamless integrated. The Office has a new home in the cloud, and it’s now live to our more than 41,000 customers and 1.1 million subscribers around the world. We are also entering into a major reseller agreement with Google by offering our customers the opportunity to have a single source for support and billing for the most powerful combination of the best SaaS applications in the world.

Salesforce for Google Apps is built on a combination of Force.com and Google’s open platform, together the world’s largest cloud computing platform-as-a-service. This new phase of our partnership represents great opportunities for entrepreneurs around the world as the world’s largest cloud computing platform is now available for building the SaaS killer apps of tomorrow. The Force.com and Google platforms are making cloud computing ready for the enterprise.

Are you excited? What is this going to mean for businesses? What will the impact be? Post thoughts to comments.

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

I’m back…

April 14, 2008

And will get back to updating the site shortly

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

Are You Living a Forecasting Nightmare?

April 11, 2008

Earlier in the week I posted an article by Mark Sellers, CEO and Founder of Breakthrough Sales Performance called Rethinking the Funnel. Here’s a follow up article from Mark on something that I’m sure many of you can relate to…

Are You Living a Forecasting Nightmare?

I saw a statistic recently that made me think of a comment a client of mine made about twelve years ago. First the statistic: The average tenure of a Vice President of Sales today is 19 months. I guess this is one more reason to avoid being average.

Now the comment: Given a choice between blowing out quota by a mile – but not having a clue that was going to happen – and accurately predicting sales for the period, even if they’re short of goal, most VPs of Sales would actually choose the latter. While blowing out quota seems to deserve the vote, when it’s a surprise it doesn’t reflect well on the VP of Sales. If she can’t predict a blowout this quarter or this year, how will she predict a crash next quarter or next year?

The ability to forecast accurately and consistently is still the top responsibility of the VP of Sales, just as it was last year or five years ago or ten or twenty years ago. Years ago, the well managed companies were in tune with the need to forecast well even if the price of getting it wrong was minor. Today, it’s a more unforgiving world. Despite the rising premium placed on nailing the forecast, how far have we really come as a trade in the hitting the mark?

Some expected CRM to be the answer. It was supposed to give VPs of Sales a newfound management control – an uber handle - on what was going on in the field without actually being there (when did that become possible by the way?) Why is it that when asked about the effectiveness of their CRM tools, and the satisfaction of their CRM investments, a sizeable percentage of VPs of Sales consistently report dissatisfaction? Has the promise of CRM for forecasting become like another blind date for the bridesmaid that ends in a heartbreaking disappointment?

First off, don’t blame your CRM. It likely does what it was supposed to do, that is, give you visibility of the funnel, run fancy reports, keep track of your top opportunities, and let you throw pop quizzes on certain deals every Friday morning. CRM was never supposed to do the one thing that is the key to accurate and consistent forecasting - improve the integrity of your sales funnel data. If you are expecting it to do that, then you’ve found the root cause of your problem. The good news is you’re now ready to effectively do something about it.

What do I mean by improving the quality of sales funnel data, and how can CRM be off the hook? Well, let’s do a quick review. A funnel is filled with sales opportunities (and lots of them, you hope). Each opportunity is defined by 1) something you’re selling, 2) a company or location or division you’re selling to, 3) a dollar value of the sale, and 4) an expected close date. Although that’s only four points of data, it’s important to be spot on with the information.

For example, if John in territory 213 says he’s working a $300,000 sale of widgets to ABC Industries, and it “looks really good” to close May 20, he’d better be right. Lots of people are looking at that sale, its size, when it’s going to close, and how likely to close. John’s sales manager, his manager’s manager (the VP Sales) and maybe even someone in finance. If it doesn’t close until September or if it’s really a $125,000 sale, those inaccuracies could be a problem.

But this is just one sale. And let’s say that if John’s off on his data, then no one else but John is affected.

However, what are the chances that John’s data for other sales opportunities is also off? And what if John’s manager has six other salespeople and they all have one or more sales that they’re all off on? Now this sales manager might have a little problem on her hands.

Let’s take it up one more level to the VP of Sales. What are the chances that his or her other sales managers have salespeople who are also off on one or more sales opportunities? Now it’s getting interesting. Let’s put some numbers to it.

One salesperson who incorrectly forecasts a $300,000 sale to close presents only a $300,000 problem. But one hundred salespeople incorrectly forecasting one hundred $300,000 sales opportunities presents a thirty million dollar problem for the VP of Sales.
Now back to CRM. The reason CRM is off the hook is because its role is to run the reports and give you visibility of the funnel. The reports you run and the visibility you have through your CRM is only as valuable as the integrity of the sales funnel data it’s using. What good is a fancy report that slices and segments and has colorful bar graphs if the data it uses is bad? If the close date changes, CRM won’t catch that – it’s up to the salesperson to make the update. Same with a sale value that changes.

So what’s the key to ensuring good funnel data with high integrity? Simply, making sure that every sales opportunity is correctly placed on the funnel where it belongs.
This is most effectively done by using a BuyCycle Funnel™ design. The BuyCycle Funnel™ defines the customer’s buying process and uses customer commitment as the best indicator of where the opportunity is. It’s the salesperson’s best guide to correctly placing the opportunities, and since it’s his or her burden to do so the BuyCycle Funnel™ becomes one of the best tools they have.   It’s up to the manager to coach, kick, cajole and otherwise motivate the salespeople to get increasingly competent with this approach.
Also, since funnels change all the time, as salespeople find new leads, advance some, lose some and win some, the opportunities move up, down, or out. To stay on top of this the sales managers have to regularly inspect the funnels and demand that they’re updated and fully stocked. Salespeople have a million reasons to not do this. I once heard a rep say that he was reluctant to enter all of his opportunities into his CRM funnel because it triggered additional work for him. Maybe true, but he just didn’t see the value of working this system. However, to make progress in forecasting, no one can opt out.

The technology of software can be impressive. We just can’t expect it to replace the fundamentals of entering accurate information about the funnel. Forecasting doesn’t have to be that complicated, though it will cost you some time and require commitment to a standard funnel process. What’s it worth to you?

Written by dcunningham · Filed Under Features

News Blast

April 11, 2008

I’m not a fan of the old link blast but I’ve been a bit swamped this week as I take care of clients and prepare for a weekender down to L.A. starting tomorrow.

Here is some recent news in case you missed it:

See you next week!

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

Google Apps and Salesforce.com integration to be announced

April 8, 2008

Techcrunch posted an article yesterday about upcoming announcements to be made by Salesforce.com, including one regarding a “deep integration” with Google Apps. Apparently, Salesforce will be reselling Google Apps, such as Google Docs and Gmail for organizations to its own customer base and will be tightly integrating these services into its own applications.

To learn more, head over to Tech Crunch.

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

Increase your Salesforce.com storage to 250 gigs!

April 7, 2008

Appirio just announced the release of their latest offering: Appirio Cloud Storage for Salesforce.com. The service uses Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) to give users the ability to attach from 5 to 250 gigs worth of files through the Salesforce interface.

According to the product page on Appirio’s website, the service enhances every aspect of managing files via Salesforce.com. For example, logging files with cases or uploading presentations to accounts. At first glance the service looks like a great extension of Salesforce.com’s native functionality. However, I did question the following line from the official release : “without dramatically increasing storage costs or adding user complexity” in reference to Cloud Storage’s pricing.

At $200 a month for 5 gigs of space the pricing seems pretty hefty ($30,000 annually for 250 gigs). I met Narinder Singh, Founder of Appirio at Dreamforce 2007 and my impression was that he was an extremely smart individual so I’m sure there is some reasoning behind the pricing that’s not apparent at first glance. I’d be interested in any feedback from readers on whether you think the costs of the Cloud Storage service sound reasonable. Post your thoughts to comments.

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

Rethinking the Funnel

April 7, 2008

Last week I had a great conversation with Mark Sellers, CEO and Founder of Breakthrough Sales Performance. Mark is also the author of The Funnel Principle, and therefore keenly aware of the importance of the right metrics and analytics to sales success. Following our discussion, Mark sent me a fantastic article about rethinking the sales funnel.

With his permission, I’ve reproduced it here:

Why Should You Rethink the Funnel

In the recently released book, The Funnel Principle, I make a case for putting a new focus and attention on the sales funnel. What’s the rationale behind this?

Let’s start with the most important reason: achieving quota.

More than anything else, achieving quota is what will define your success this year. Your performance evaluation might include ‘soft’ measures, but the one that matters most is achieving quota. Your commission depends on it. Your bonus depends on it. Your income depends on it. Your boss or your people depend on it. Your credibility depends on it.
Quota is all about net new sales opportunities, right? And guess what else is all about net new sales opportunities? The funnel. Let’s look at quota first.

You’re going to have to win new business to hit quota. Because your quota likely includes business that recurs from last year, business you don’t really have to win again, let’s focus on new sales you’ll have to produce to hit that quota. For example, if your territory did $1M last year and this year your quota is $1.1M, then you’ve got to find another $100,000 in net new sales.

But wait – you’ll likely have to find more. What’s the chance that all of the $1M you sold last year will also be sales this year?

Let’s say 25% of last year’s business turns over this year. There’s another $250,000 of net new sales opportunities you’ve got to find and close. Now we’re up to $350,000 of new business to hit this year’s $1.1M quota. If your sales turnover is more than 25%, then the delta is even bigger and you’ve got some serious funnel work to do.

How’s the funnel all about quota? It’s a funnel of net new sales opportunities and therefore it’s tied to achieving quota in the strongest way. If you’ve got to find and close another $350,000 to achieve quota then the first place you should look for your ability and the plan to achieve that is your funnel.

Which leads me to the second reason you should Rethink the Funnel. Your funnel provides leading indicator information that helps you answer the funnel’s ability question. Unlike sales, a lagging indicator, funnel data is information you can still do something about - as long as you’re not too far into the year.

Let’s say your funnel’s ability to close enough business to achieve your quota is weak. What do you do? You find more sales opportunities to chase. If your funnel has a 1:1 ratio of sales opportunities to GAP (GAP is what you have left to close to achieve quota), then you’d better have a 100% hit rate. If that makes you nervous (it shows you have a pulse) then you should immediately plan to increase your funnel value to something more than a one to one ratio to your GAP. Otherwise, it could be a long off season.

And here’s reason number three: the funnel is a behavioral tool. Meaning, it tells you what you should do next when you’re working an opportunity. How? The funnel’s stages tell you where the opportunity is in the process, which then suggests what you should do next.

Now, here’s the catch. To be most effective as a behavioral tool, your funnel has to be designed the right way – the BuyCycle Funnel™ way. This funnel design is based on the customer’s buying process, not on selling activities (like a traditional funnel). The BuyCycle Funnel makes you think of what the customer’s commitment should be before you decide what you’re going to commit to. For example, for some given opportunity should you prepare the proposal next? Or should you have the customer give you more information first? For another opportunity should you give some person a sample to use? Or should you first get a commitment for when and how that sample’s going to be used? For some other opportunity should you buy the plane ticket and make the sales call? Or should you first make sure that the right people are going to be there and know why you’re there?

If you’re a sales manager and you want to develop and help your salespeople succeed, think of how effective your coaching could be using a tool that gets your salespeople to focus on the customer’s buying process. You’re using the funnel to facilitate a conversation with them, a richer, more meaningful conversation, says John Hoskins, co-founder of Advantage Performance Group (APG). This funnel dialogue helps you challenge assumptions that your salespeople are making. It helps them be much more productive and improves the quality of the funnel data you’re looking at.

While the funnel has value as a quantitative measure, we can’t let the funnel be misperceived as just a source for quantitative information. Metrics and probabilities can be important, but the real leverage points are in improving the integrity of funnel data, one conversation and one sales opportunity at a time. Better funnel data is what makes the metrics and probabilities valuable at all. This is done through a BuyCycle Funnel™ design and an ongoing dialogue between salespeople and managers.

Mark also sent me an article called Forecast Nightmare, that I’ll post later in the week. If you like the article and want more, be sure to sign up for the Tips to Breakthrough Newsletter on the Breakthrough Sales Performance website.

Written by dcunningham · Filed Under Features

Clash of the TITANS

April 2, 2008

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff and SAP Co-founder to dual it out in debate.

Shout-outs to Boyan over at Warrior point for sending this my way. Apparently, Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff will be going toe to toe with SAP Co-Founder and ex-CEO Hasso Plattner tomorrow night.

Learn more on the Warrior Point Blog here.
Find out more about the Clash of the Titan’s Movie here.
Or catch the live webcast from Salesforce.com here.

Update: the IT Spot blog has posted a recap of the debate and declared Benioff the winner by technical knockout…CNet also posted a recap here.

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

Sales Performance Optimization report released: CRM implementations at an all time high

April 2, 2008

Destination CRM released an interesting article today on the results of the latest Sales Performance Optimization survey.

A few points of note:

70% of the 1500 firms surveyed had bought into and implemented a CRM
Of those 70%, a large number of them had implemented additional technologies such as collaboration and lead management tools (no surprise there!)
13% of companies who have had a CRM for 5 years or more were considering switching to a different platform

From the article:

“The percentage of companies “buying in” and implementing a core CRM system (from Oracle, Salesforce.com, Microsoft, etc.) continues to increase: 70 percent of the firms surveyed, an all-time high. The steady increase in technology adoption over the past four years is being primarily driven by software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions. The SaaS model has made CRM financially and technically attractive for a growing number of firms, especially small and midsize businesses (SMBs).”

Follow this link to get your free copy of the Sales Performance Optimization report.

Written by Adam Killam · Filed Under Salesforce.com News

« Previous Page