One very evident takeaway I gathered at Dreamforce 10 is that Salesforce is a ‘tomorrow company’.
As former president Bill Clinton shared in his keynote at the event, being a tomorrow country includes investment in research and futuristic technologies.
Salesforce is a tomorrow company. Take a look at the investments they are making today. Their latest announcement about buying software company, Heroku, tells their story loud and clear: they may have once been about powering the sales function for their customers yesterday, but they will be about something much bigger tomorrow.
Throughout recent technological history, observers in the (Silicon) Valley have always had a visionary champion to look up to – a company leading the way in terms of providing growth, opportunity, excitement, buzz and hope for the high-tech industry. There was always a standout “tomorrow company” in the midst of many today companies.
In the last two decades, the streets south of Market in San Francisco have seen many tradeshows, conferences, expos and Black Friday-like frenzies around the ‘tomorrow company’ of the day. Salesforce is now the most promising entrant in the class. Judging from the 25,000 visitors at Dreamforce 10 and the long lines outside of each event session in the Moscone Center, it’s clear that Salesforce is the new big thing.
Apple ruled in the early 1990s, followed by Sun in mid-90s (with their JavaOne missions) and eBay in the late 90s. In the millennium, there were few who emerged as brightly as those players from the 90s. Sun fizzled away while Apple and eBay reemerged in cycles. These companies did a number of things very well. One of the key components of their success was building a cult-like customer engagement following.
Building cult-like customer engagement
Salesforce has successfully nailed building a cult-like customer engagement level, using the same main elements that helped previous celebrity-companies build such high engagement levels. These elements are:
- Focus on customers and give your fans/followers/customers a means to be part of a community. Dreamforce and the nightly parties surrounding the show are the best illustration of how to transform your customers from being “just visitors” to your conference, into a tight-knit and supporting community. eBay did this very well in the 2000s, but today, Salesforce has raised the bar on this game – throwing massive parties and making them free to attend! Yes, free for anyone!
- Give your customers a chance to participate in your success by offering them access to ‘ride on your coattails.’ In the early days, access was often regulated, gated and confined. Today, access is open, such that in an open marketplace, anyone can contribute, grow and pursue the dream of success.
Amazon and eBay allowed sellers to leverage their platform to sell items online and make money. Salesforce allows developers to build applications and distribute them via their AppExchange cloud computing marketplace. With recent acquisitions, Salesforce also fosters hope amongst their developer community that if they deliver their software creations with enough innovation, practicality and alignment with the cloud-facing goals of the mother-ship, they can get invited onboard. - Give your customers a voice, give them attribution and celebrate their success. Amazon celebrated it’s most prolific content contributors with Top Reviewer designations, eBay gave spiffs to their PowerSellers. Salesforce grants attribution today with their Customer Heros program, Featured apps in their AppExchange marketplace and a push to make the user the center of the app (e.g. Chatter). The theory here is that named customers with a voice, are happier customers and become promoters within the marketplace.
With these three elements: focus on the customer, share your assets and success and give them a voice and recognition — Salesforce has been able to create a vibrant, growing following that is more than just a group of visitors to their user conference; they are highly engaged, cult-like and connected evangelists.
I read some of the tweets during Clinton’s keynote speech last Wednesday night and one of them read, “hearing Clinton speak at #df10 and feel connected to the world.” You can’t buy that kind of promotion, but you can certainly create it.
Footnote – My Salesforce 2011 Prediction:
Related to the topic above is my prediction about Salesforce and what makes them a “tomorrow company”:
In 2011, I predict Salesforce will change it’s name to Cloudforce, extend itself beyond a focus limited by its current moniker and will work to position itself as the top platform for all work productivity applications (not just sales-centered applications), extending accessibility to everyone in the cloud for a broad cross-section of applications. From this vantage point, Salesforce will gather insights as to which of these applications are most relevant for customers, and continue to acquire the best of the best.
