If it's not in salesforce.com, it doesn't exist
Mar 1, 2005For the past several months salesforce.com has been
traveling the country holding local events where customers speak about what’s
made their CRM implementation a success. Today at the city tour event in New York, Rob Grossberg,
the VP of Sales Operations at DoubleClick was presenting and he put the
following quote on the screen.
The thought is that if you can transform your
culture into this mindset; collaboration takes off, data quality improves, and executives
have newfound visibility into their business.
This theme has become so pervasive amongst successful salesforce.com customers than when John Merrill from Cablevision saw the quote he turned to the person sitting next to him to say, “That’s on my presentation too.”
If your organization lives by a similar saying we'd love to hear how it's changed the corporate culture. To tell your story, add a comment below.
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That's about the silliest quote I've heard this year.
If it doesn't exist in Salesforce, it doesn't exist.
A lot of things exist in Salesforce that DON'T exist, at least as long as SFDC delays in making them available to users:
- Tracking the lifecycle of a lead throughout your sales pipeline
- Assigning multiple campaigns to an opportunity
- Data integrity cleansing
- Snapshots in time of customer activity
The idea that I'm going to evangelize SFDC to my sales team, only to have it come back and bite me when it turns out that Salesforce.com can't do what I want it to do, is naive at best, and a career-wrecker at worst.
Yes, I want everybody to keep their data in Salesforce, but until I'm confident that I can get that data out, how can I justify to the guy on the street that he has to spend his valuable time inputting data that will never see the light of day again?
As a big fan of SFDC, I want to see it improve, but I'm not at the fanatical stage yet where I'm willing to drink the kool aid that the company's corporate marketing department wants me to consume.
Posted by: Gersh | March 02, 2005 at 09:04 AM
Gersh,
Apply some perspective here. Simple ideas, rigorously applied, yield remarkable results.
You need to separate your personal feature request list with what is good for adoption.
Posted by: Ted | March 03, 2005 at 04:17 PM
Appreciate the fortune cookie wisdom, but in the real world, features that automate standard business processes are essential to user adoption.
In other words, if I can't stand up in front of my team and say that the information you put into SFDC will be put to good use, and say it credibly, I can't make that assertion.
And by the way, my personal feature request list -- it's shared by hundreds of other marketing users.
Posted by: Gersh | March 11, 2005 at 10:17 AM
I'm brand new to SFDC. Seems like a great product, but I agree they need to go easy on the Kool Aid. The main thing I don't like so far is the overzealous attitude (from what I assume is the marketing department) that says their product is the best in the world and could use little (if any) improvement. Too heavy handed. It's best to stay humble and keep trying to improve. Here's an old adage I'm a big fan of: "When you become content with your product/service/performance, etc... improvement stops". Just a thought from a brand new user.
Posted by: Aaron | March 18, 2005 at 12:39 PM
I apply meaning to this a bit differently. It's exactly what I tell our team whenever they want to pump me up about a contact, account or an opportunity they are excited about. If I don't find it - along with all the glorious narrative details in SFDC - it just doesn't exist. Adoption improves, but fast.
Posted by: Chris | March 18, 2005 at 01:22 PM
Gersh,
I hear what you're saying. My response is directed to you and to SFDC (the two parties in this "relationship") as I believe this is a marraige of sorts.
Gersh: I can't help but think you actually have fallen in love with SFDC (due no doubt to some reedeming qualities and initial attraction) and now you're emotions are high because they are not living up to your expectations. (reminds me of the dating game) Maybe the infatuation is wearing off? Perhaps they are not the love of your life and you should move on and find a better solution? Maybe the marraige is one sided? Maybe you should start a competing product and better the landscape? This is how great products are often created... thru frustration and problem solving.
I find it interesting the slight cult-like fascination with a company like SFDC that drives users emotions so high at times. (anyone have any documented studies on this?) It has to be the kool aid. I too feel myself punch-drunk by it at times. Perhaps our frustrations (i share many with you BTW), are derived from our knowing how great SFDC could be if they diverted a measure of their marketing speak into attention to its customers. Maybe they could use a dashboard called Gersh? Maybe we should get out of marketing and into product devevlopment?
As for SFDC - Kudos on the kool aid. Honestly, part of me (as a marketer), is jealous. All that money to focus all that effort on stirring up a great tasting, hypnotizing kool-aid.
Kool-aid quality - 10, Product Improvements & Listening to your customer base - Priceless.
Back to my relationship analogy... Reminds me of all the time and resources someone I know spent in taking care of himself only to neglect his spouse for years. You can guess the outcome. But who am I to say? I am just a customer.
Posted by: brett | March 20, 2005 at 07:06 AM
My organization is looking at adopting SFDC to replace another CRM install. The slaespeople don't use the current CRM because it is clunky, counter-intuitive, not integrated with other systems, and most importantly not enforced. This simple adage will ensure my sales team uses salesforce. If you don't have an opportunity list in Salesforce...you won't get paid for it. And that is all I think it means. Depending on your organization, you can adopt what you need. But if you want to track your sales pipeline, you need to make sure your deals are in there.
Posted by: jame | April 02, 2005 at 10:56 AM
Well lots doesn't exist in SF and never will.
If you have fantastic people, they will always achieve more than the most "orgainised/managed sf.etc" people, just by being themselves.
If you have less than fantastic people then all the "orgainised/managed sf.etc" approach will still result in less.
An orgainised and managed approach will benifit both the fantastic and the less so, and SF does offer that.
MAYBE..
"If it's in Salesforce.com, we are working together"
Posted by: Krishnan | April 13, 2005 at 06:38 AM
This comment sounds vaguely familiar ... like the Director of the US Patent Office in 1889 when he made the comment that they might as well shut down the Patent Office because "everything that can be invented has already been invented".
Scott
Posted by: Scott Jones | August 01, 2005 at 06:37 AM