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Salesforce Times: We’re Hiring!

As some of know, my day job when not working on Salesforcetimes.com is in providing Internet marketing and social media marketing consulting services. Lately, despite the downturn in the economy, I have been getting busier and my posting on Salesforce Times has taken a hit as a result.

I’ve decided the only way for me to keep it going is to get some help! Interestingly enough, I also need to find help with Adam Killam Internet Marketing, and am hoping to find an assistant who could work on both businesses. 

Recently I asked if anyone would be interested in writing content for the site and had soo many responses that I can’t find the time to set everyone up with an account! (I guess that’s a hint to hire an assistant right?)

If you know anyone who is looking for part time work and is familiar with Wordpress and blogging that would be a great start. Basic SEO experience would be a bonus.

Please have them contact me.

Russian Scientists & the B2B Sales Process

What Can a Tough Russian Scientist Teach Us About B2B Sales Process?

In his groundbreaking book “The Goal”, Dr. Eliyahu M. Goldratt tells the fictional story of Alex Roga who manages a metalworking plant that is at risk of being shut down because of its inability to efficiently drive products through the manufacturing process. Goldratt uses this story line to explain his Theory of Constraints (TOC) thinking process and how Alex could use it to dramatically improve the efficient flow of products.

For those who have not yet been exposed to Dr. Goldratt, he is a highly intelligent individual, with a heavy Russian accent and a direct communication style. He seems to bristle when asked how competing systems management theory - Total Quality Management (TQM) compares to TOC; “it’s a nice theory but unfortunately it does not work”.

 TOC postulates that ‘every organization has at least one binding constraint which limits the organization’s performance relative to its goal’. TQM’s major am is to reduce variation from every process so that greater consistency of effort is obtained. So we have one doctrine that basically says ‘realize optimal efficiency by relieving the single major constraint in the system’ the other doctrine says ‘maximize each component of the system for maximum efficiency’. Which makes more sense? In The Goal, Goldratt Advises Alex that any resources leveraged against a non constraint will be wasted since the system will just bottleneck once the product gets to machine that is the primary bottleneck.

B2B sales is very much like a plant that ‘manufactures’ closed revenue opportunities. Leads and new opportunities flow into the sales ‘system’, they hit different sales stages and produce a certain amount of closed deals. Each sales stage in the system can be analyzed for velocity, volume and conversion. And a primary constraint can be determined. Of course getting that information in an efficient manner can be painful, but that is a topic for another article.

Have you analyzed where your sales funnel constraint is? There are many companies whose sales strategy is to hire the best sales reps they can afford. Great field reps tend to shine at the bottom end of the funnel, but are not s great at prospecting. If the constraint is at top of the sales funnel then the company may be allocating resources inefficiently; it may be better to invest in the prospecting or marketing team until there are enough leads to make that expensive hire.

Randall Isaac is the CEO of Bluetide Management. Bluetide builds software products that support B2B sales people in their efforts to achieve quota. Sales Clarity is an AppExchange certified Sales Forecasting Software that helps B2B sales managers track, inspect and guide sales activity in real time. More information at www.bluetidemanagement.com

Salesforce.com’s New Look: new site in beta

I just noticed a link at the top of Salesforce.com’s site that takes you to a new beta site they are testing.

Looks pretty cool and is obviously focused on the concept of Cloud Computing.

What do you think about the new look?

Salesforce.com Spring 2009 Released: Major New Features

Salesforce.com released the 28th generation of its on-demand CRM today: Spring 2009 edition is here!

In the past year alone, Salesforce.com has added 200+ features to its already robust platform. Spring 2009 does not disappoint with an additional 50 features being rolled out.

Among these features are two major upgrades involving service and sales. In the area of service, Salesforce looks to reduce costs for its customers by leveraging expertise taking place in the cloud. In the realm of sales, SFDC is taking things to the next level with a new level of collaboration between sales, marketing and customers.

The Service Cloud

Built on Force.com, the service cloud brings together Google, Amazon, Facebook and others to capture every conversation and leverage every community expert in the cloud in order to empower companies to deliver expertise to their clients regardless of location or device.

The Sales Cloud

• Opportunity Genius: OG connects various sales representatives so that companies can tap the collective wisdom of their sales teams to close more deals by giving reps access to best practices and the best knowledge to close each deal.
• Content Assembly: CA gives SFDC users the ability to use existing marketing collateral to construct new presentations within Salesforce.com. A simple drag and drop interface allows users to easily find the slides of information they need from one presentation and then drag and drop this information into a new presentation.
• Content Delivery: CD will streamline the delivery of video, audio, text and graphics by allowing users to send customers external links and view content outside of Salesforce.com. No more need to send large bulky files through email.
• Content Tracking: by delivering content via hyperlink, marketing users will be able to track who downloads their content so they can follow up immediately.

More on Spring 2009 to follow. Please post your thoughts on the Spring 2009 release to comments.

Salesforce.com Best Apps of 2008 Announced

By way of the linkedin.com grapevine, I’ve just heard Salesforce.com has released their Best Apps of 2008.

The awards include:

• Best Contract Management Apps
• Best Data Cleansing Tool
• Best Data Integration Tool
• Best Demand Generation App
• Best Document Management App
• Best Mass Email Tool
• Best Marketing Automation Solution
• Best Productivity Tools
• Best Recruiting App
• Best Sales Forecasting App
• Best Sales Intelligence App
• Best Service & Support App

Congrats to the companies who hit it out of the park in 2008!

Thanks to Mark Hobson for the post idea.

Benioff on Bloomberg

Marc Benioff spoke on Bloomberg Television today.

Thanks for Mark Mangano for Tweeting about this!

Brief Outtage: Salesforce.com outtage covered on Twitter

I experienced my first outtage in over two years as a customer of Salesforce.com today. It was brief - only minutes and the interesting thing was the immediate response I noticed in the Twitterverse. (Yes, I did just say twitterverse :P)

For a recap of the general confusion and dialogue that took place follow Salesforce.com on Twitter and view conversations that took place around 1:00 PM today.

Funny thing how word travels so fast these days.

Salesforce status update: Aaaayyyyyy!

(Aaaaayyyyyyyy!  Cool like the Fonz right?)

CRM Buyer’s Elise Ackerman is infomative and intelligent yet again with a Salesforce/Cloud status update.

I’m astounded by L. Ellison’s quotable yet again, I think “cloud computing” is just as stupid a buzzword for “do it on the internet instead” now as putting “e-” in front of the title of digital devices was a few years ago (e-toothbrush, e-organizer, e-phone, e-piano… etc.)

I guess Larry’s not really coming to grips with the legions of slick buzzword creating-marketing people who are overwhelming the exceptionally dull analytical types of the internet, and they’re doing it with style.  I like the marketing people, they make the internet less cluttered.

Well, that’s that! (2008)

I know full well that you successful marketing dynamos and your daily goal setting have no need of the foolish single-day-of-goals celebration known to the savage peoples as; “neu yars”, but as we transition from the reason six fears seven (because it eight nine) there’s plenty of people looking back and speculating ahead about what’s in store for all of us in the coming year.

BBC’s Maggie Shiels has an article on 2009 in silicon valley, Appirio set out it’s predictions for the next year just over a week ago, cloud computing journal has a whole smack of CEO predictions for the coming year and lastly Michael Sheehan is offering us even more in-depth predictions of his own.

My opinion?  December 31st, 2009:  SaaS will still exist, the people in that industry will have more business, and “cloud computing” will hopefuly have a more accurate name.  I’m a big fan of simplicity.

Good luck in the new year, everyone!

PaaS not passed up in India

Yeah it’s boxing day and I opened with a pun!

Akhtar Pasha of Express Computer has done a very thorough “what is PaaS?” style article and grabs a few quotes from the delightfuly bearded Doug Farber.

My personal favourite: “One thing we always keep in mind—people always overestimate what they can do in one year, and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. We are at the beginning of a huge technology shift, and only time will tell.”

True to life and to PaaS, I think.  Check out the article here if you’re interested in a bit of holiday reading after the murderous knife-fights and savage present beat-downs of the boxing day near you!

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• Sales is From Venus, Marketing is from Mars
• Salesforce Times: We’re Hiring!
• Russian Scientists & the B2B Sales Process
• Sales 2.0: Why the Recession is Making it Imperative To Change the Way We Sell
• Salesforce.com’s New Look: new site in beta
• Salesforce.com Spring 2009 Released: Major New Features
• Salesforce.com Best Apps of 2008 Announced
• IDC 2009 Sales Barometer & Top 10 Predictions
• Benioff on Bloomberg
• Brief Outtage: Salesforce.com outtage covered on Twitter

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