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

Table of contents

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