Behind the Cloud

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.

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• Foreword by Michael Dell, Chairman and CEO of Dell xiIntroduction xviiPart 1 The Start-Up Playbook: How to Turn a Simple Idea into a High-Growth Company 1Play #1: Allow Yourself Time to Recharge 1Play #2: Have a Big Dream 3Play #3:Believe in Yourself 5Play #4: Trust a Select Few with Your Idea and Listen to Their Advice 7Play #5: Pursue Top Talent as If Your Success Depended on It 8Play #6: Sell Your Idea to Skeptics and Respond Calmly to Critics 9Play #7: Define Your Values and Culture Up Front 11Play #8: Work Only on What Is Important 12Play #9: Listen to Your Prospective Customers 13Play #10: Defy Convention 14Play #11: Have—and Listen to—a Trusted Mentor 14Play #12: Hire the Best Players You Know 15Play #13: Be Willing to Take a Risk—No Hedging 18Play #14: Think Bigger 20Part 2 The Marketing Playbook: How to Cut Through the Noise and Pitch the Bigger Picture 23Play #15: Position Yourself 23Play #16: Party with a Purpose 25Play #17: Create a Persona 27Play #18: Differentiate, Differentiate, Differentiate 28Play #19: Make Every Employee a Key Player on the Marketing Team, and Ensure Everyone Is On Message 33Play #20: Always, Always Go After Goliath 34Play #21: Tactics Dictate Strategy 37Play #22: Engage the Market Leader 39Play #23: Reporters Are Writers; Tell Them a Story 40Play #24: Cultivate Relationships with Select Journalists 41Play #25: Make Your Own Metaphors 44Play #26: No Sacred Cows 44Part 3 The Events Playbook: How to Use Events to Build Buzz and Drive Business 47Play #27: Feed the Word-of-Mouth Phenomenon 47Play #28: Build Street Teams and Leverage Testimony 49Play #29: Sell to the End User 52Play #30: The Event Is the Message 54Play #31: Reduce Costs and Increase Impact 57Play #32: Always Stay in the Forefront 60Play #33: The Truth About Competition (It Is Good for Everyone) 60Play #34: Be Prepared for Every Scenario ... and Have Fun 61Play #35: Seize Unlikely Opportunities to Stay Relevant 63 Play #36: Stay Scrappy ... but Not Too Scrappy 65Part 4 The Sales Playbook: How to Energize Your Customers into a Million-Member Sales Team 67Play #37: Give It Away 67Play #38: Win First Customers by Treating Them Like Partners 69Play #39: Let Your Web Site Be a Sales Rep 72Play #40: Make Every Customer a Member of Your Sales Team 73Play #41: Telesales Works (Even Though Everyone Thinks It Doesn't) 76Play #42: Don't Dis Your First Product with a Discount 78Play #43: Sales Is a Numbers Game 79Play #44: Segment the Markets 80Play #45: Leverage Times of Change 82Play #46: Your Seeds Are Sown, so Grow, Grow, Grow 86Play #47: Land and Expand 95Play #48: Abandon Strategies That No Longer Serve You 96Play #49: Old Customers Need Love 97Play #50: Add It On and Add It Up 98Play #51: Success Is the Number One Selling Feature 100Part 5 The Technology Playbook: How to Develop Products Users Love 103Play #52: Have the Courage to Pursue Your Innovation—Before It Is Obvious to the Market 103Play #53: Invest in the Long Term with a Prototype That Sets a Strong Foundation 106Play #54: Follow the Lead of Companies That Are Loved by Their Customers 107Play #55: Don't Do It All Yourself; Reuse, Don't Rebuild 109Play #56: Embrace Transparency and Build Trust 110Play #57: Let Your Customers Drive Innovation 115Play #58: Make It Easy for Customers to Adopt 119Play #59: Transcend Technical Paradigms 120Play #60: Provide a Marketplace for Solutions 125Play #61: Harness Customers' Ideas 127Play #62: Develop Communities of Collaboration (aka Love Everybody) 131Play #63: Evolve by Intelligent Reaction 132Part 6 The Corporate Philanthropy Playbook: How to Make Your Company About More Than Just the Bottom Line 135Play #64: The Business of Business Is More Than Business 135Play #65: Integrate Philanthropy from the Beginning 139Play #66: Make Your Foundation Part of Your Business Model 140Play #67: Choose a Cause That Makes Sense and Get Experts on Board 144Play #68: Share the Model 146Play #69: Build a Great Program by Listening to the Constituents 148Play #70: Create a Self-Sustaining Model 153Play #71: Share Your Most Valuable Resources — Your Product and Your People 156Play #72: Involve Your Partners, Your Vendors, Your Network 159Play #73: Let Employees Inspire the Foundation 161Play #74: Have Your Foundation Mimic Your Business 166Part7 The Global Playbook" How to Launch Your Product and Introduce Your Model to New Markets 169Play #75: Build Global Capabilities into Your Product 169Play #76: Inject Local Leaders with Your Corporate DNA 170Play #77: Choose Your Headquarters and Territories Wisely 172Play #78: Box Above Your Weight 175Play #79: Scale Without Overspending 176Play #80: Understand Sequential Growth 177Play #81: Uphold a One-Company Attitude Across Borders 178Play #82: Follow Strategy, Not Opportunity 179Play #83: Going Far? Take a Partner. Going Fast? Go Alone 180Play #84: Fine-Tune Your International Strategy 182Play #85: Send Missionaries to Build New Markets 186Play #86: Handle Global Disputes with Diplomacy (aka Light and Love) 188Play #87: Edit an Overarching Outlook 192Play #88: Bring Old Tricks to New Regions 196Play #89: Don't Use a "Seagull Approach;" the Secret to Global Success Is Commitment 198Part8 The Finance Playbook: How to Raise Capital, Create a Return, and Never Sell Your Soul 201Play #90: Don't Underestimate Your Financial Needs 201Play #91: Consider Fundraising Strategies Other Than Venture Capital 203Play #92: Use Internet Models to Reduce Start-Up Costs 206Play #93: Set Yourself Up Properly from the Beginning, Then Allow Your Financial Model to Evolve 207Play #94: Measure a Fast-Growing Company on Revenue, Not Profitability 208Play #95: Build a First-Class Financial Team 209Play #96: Be Innovative and Edgy in Everything You Do—Except When It Comes to Your Finances 210Play #97: When It Comes to Compliance, Always Play by the Rules 215Play #98: Focus on the Future 218Play #99: Allow for Change as Your Company Grows 220Part9 The Leadership Playbook: How to Create Alignment—the Key to Organizational Success 225Play #100: Use V2MOM to Focus Your Goals and Align Your Organization 225Play #101: Use a Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach 230Play #102: Build a Recruiting Culture 233Play #103: Recruiting Is Sales 236Play #104: Keep Your Standards High as You Grow 239Play #105: How to Retain Top Talent 242Play #106: The Importance of Mahalo 244Play #107: Foster Loyalty by Doing the Right Thing 246Play #108: Challenge Your Best People with New Opportunities 247Play #109: Solicit Employee Feedback—and Act On It 249Play #110: Leverage Everything 252The Final Play 255Play #111: Make Everyone Successful 255Notes 261Acknowledgments 265About the Authors 269Index 271