How to Start Your Own “Arab Spring” ;)

Posted by Christine on September 18, 2011 under Uncategorized | 2 Comments to Read

The need for change is in the air; it comes up in every conversation.  Marc Benioff, Salesforce’sChairman and CEO passionately espoused change at Dreamforce.  His call to the world was that companies need to change or be left behind.   He went one step further and gave a dire warning to CEOs – change thyself or fall from grace.

His rallying cry was for enterprises to start their own business “Arab Spring”.

Companies that do not become Social Enterprises will not survive this economic cycle.   Becoming a Social Enterprise is, however, more than just having a Facebook page or a Twitter account.  It is a transformation in how your business thinks, decides, works and collaborates.    Brought into the enterprise by the Gen Y generation, social media has since redefined relationships within, between and among enterprises from the bottom up.

It was, however, the Millenniums who forced enterprises on the path of change.  As they entered the workforce en masse, their refusal to use non-Googlesque technology and blindly follow processes dictated by corporate systems was the spark of the revolution.  The rise of mobile as the new computing platform fueled the transformation to the Social Enterprise.

Successful transformations need roadmaps otherwise how do you know how to get from here to there.  A roadmap for transforming to social selling is the Buyers Journey; a set of organizing principles for aligning company functions and roles to enable, engage and establish enduring relationships with buyers and market constituents.  Through an ‘outside-in’ redefinition of how a company interacts with its markets, the Buyers Journey embraces and turns to an advantage the fact that over 70% of B2B purchase cycles are self-directed, trust-based, social and invisible to vendors and suppliers.  Companies that embrace the Buyers Journey experience significantly faster revenue cycles, lower cost of sales and churn rates.

Like all transformations, the one for Social Enterprise is part people, process and technology. Changing people’s perspectives, beliefs, and attitudes about social technology is critical to the transformation.  Frankly, that is Marc Benioff’s calling and one he performs very well.

My quest at Dreamforce was to discover if the technology was there to support Salesforce’s vision.   Who were the technology vendors that help companies operationalize the Buyers Journey?  While I didn’t find any paradigm shifters, I did discover some innovative solutions.

For a review of the vendors discovered, read on at http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2011/09/18/how-to-start-your-own-arab-spring/

The ROI of Booth Babes?

Posted by Christine on September 8, 2011 under Uncategorized | 17 Comments to Read

Last week’s Dreamforce conference was one of those ‘must be there’ events.  Boasting a recording breaking audience, it was a who’s who of speakers, celebrities, attendees, and exhibitors.  The thrill of seeing MC Hammer and Will.i.am up close and personal was only trumpeted by Neil Young’s live interview about how his new company is using Saleforce.com’s software to bring innovative new music products to market.

The Cloud Expo exhibit floor housed over 375 exhibitors ranging from innovative start-ups like Optify to behemoths like Accenture and IBM.   With an attendee to exhibitor ratio of 120 to 1, exhibitors varied in their creativity to get you to stop and hear their pitch.  IBM offered sparkly balls and nifty Watson t-shirts, someone was giving out lighted red-rimmed “sunglasses”, chocolate (my primary food group) abounded, and enough pens where handed out to ensure there will be no shortage of writing instruments for the next millennium.  All was for the taking if you agreed to have your badge scanned.  Based on the constant crowd in the exhibit hall, the takers abound.

Dreamforce attendees were from the business/corporate crowd with one-third to half being women.  Therefore, it seemed out of place to see a number of lovely young ladies suggestively dressed – A.K.A booth babes.

Pardot, a marketing automation vendor, had them dressed as flight attendants to promote a trip giveaway to drive booth traffic. Neolane, also a marketing automation vendor, had them roaming the exhibit floor dressed in boy shorts with the company’s booth number on their t-shirts (at least it wasn’t on their rears) and some other vendor had them passing out chocolate bonbons.  When asked what the company they were promoting did, the stares were blank followed by “Can I scan your badge?”

The most senseless Booth Babe encounter was on the morning of the third day as I was threading my way to the Starbucks next to Moscone West to jump-start my brain.  There on the corner of 3^rd and Howard were three lovely young ladies dressed in skimpy ‘French maid’ outfits that had to have come from Fredrick’s of Hollywood.   I’m not sure what caused more cognitive dissonance – that some VP of Marketing thought this was a good investment or that said VP allowed these ladies to stand in the fog visibly shaking from the cold.  No one paid attention to them as people streamed past.

What is the return on investment on booth babes?   The responses to an impromptu poll varied from increased badge scans, even though these may not be legitimate leads, to an increase in mindshare as evidenced by me writing about them.  Touché on the last point but I’m not sure that’s the kind of mindshare the marketing teams had in mind.

Marketing’s challenge is credibility and relevance at a time when the discipline is expected to demonstrate how it delivers financial results in a market where the traditional B2B buy cycle has been radically redefined by social technologies.   B2B buying is largely a self-directed journey outside of the control of vendors and Sales.

What are Buyers looking for?  They want an experience and realize value that is indicative of what it’ll be like as a customer.  Instead of titillating the buyer with something they can’t have (or may not want), educate them by placing meaningful content at the places, real and virtual, that buyers frequent.

Offer them easy to use free products through which the buyer can realize value as they learn how to use the solution.  Build a deep social database of your target buyers and prospects so that, as marketers, you can better understand what is important to them while providing Sales meaningful context so their conversations are relevant, impactful and worthwhile. Teach Sales to talk about outcomes versus features and functions.  Partner with Service/Support to purposefully craft the experience buyers will have over their lifetime as a customer. Lastly, partner with your CEO to help them reshape the company culture and processes to align all roles outward to the Buyer instead of inward to each other.

Tradeshows are a step in the Buyers Journey. Buyers are looking to experience the product and gauge the knowledge of company representatives.  More importantly, Buyers see these types of events as an opportunity to understand the values and culture of a vendor. At Dreamforce, the best lead generation was done by Hubspot, an inbound marketing software vendor.  Booth staff dressed in day glow orange running suits and invited attendees to an “unbooth” comprised of a series of tables to compete in a quiz based on their product.  In a short amount of time the Buyer experienced the product, its ease of use, and met some smart people.

If you had any follow-on questions, a Hubspot employee was easy to find, just look for the orange running suit – low sex appeal but high on the ROI scale.

Salesforce.com CEO Calls for a Business ‘Arab Spring’

Posted by Christine on September 3, 2011 under Uncategorized | Be the First to Comment

Salesforce.com’s DreamForce conference lived up to its reputation. It was bigger, better, and the place to be this week. This wasn’t a conference, it was a cult convention.

The atmosphere in the convention center before each morning’s keynote reminds me of the energy you feel before a rock concert or a San Francisco Giants game. Pre-show entertainment included roving interviews with customers like Autodesk, Nissan, NBC Universal, and celebrities like Neil Young against a backdrop of heavy bass music from a DJ mix. You know the music; the kind you hear at a baseball or football game. Folks lined up hours early to get a seat in front to be that much closer to Marc Benioff, Salesforce’s CEO and Chairman. The pre-game tailgate party was donuts and coffee in the brisk fog of San Francisco. The energy was palpable. Bloggers in the ‘Pound’ flexed their fingers warming up in order to tweet and blog as fast as they could in order to be the first one with the quote, announcement or insight.

It’s well known that Marc Benioff’s role model is Steve Jobs and his goal is to create a cult following – for him and the company. With 45,000 record-breaking attendees, over 300 partners exhibiting, and 475 breakout sessions this event is evidence that he’s achieved that. Salesforce’s success is impressive with $2.1 billion in revenue and over 100,000 customers processing over 36 billion transactions per quarter. This is the poster child in the SaaS industry as the company to model.

The keynote hall throbbed with anticipation and every attendee’s secret hope was that Benioff would stop and shake their hand as he customarily does during his roving keynotes. Finally the room goes black and the crowd erupts into a roar; the King is coming.

This year the message was the Social Enterprise and the need for a social revolution.

Read the rest of this post on Forbes at http://www.forbes.com/sites/christinecrandell/2011/09/03/salesforce-com-ceo-calls-for-a-business-arab-spring/