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

by Marc Benioff

Play #6: Sell Your Idea to Skeptics and Respond Calmly to Critics

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How to Stay Calm in the Eye of the Storm “He who is quick tempered can be insulted,” Sun Tzu explained in the Art of War. These four checkpoints can help you stay cool—and retain your power—even in the most heated situations: • Stay in the present moment. • Observe your feelings. Do not become your feelings. Be aware of your reactions. • Do not take on others’ feelings, but listen to others—and yourself. • Ask yourself, “How should I handle this? Should I react at all?”

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Realize that you won’t be able to bring the same focus to everything in the beginning. There won’t be enough people or enough hours in the day. So focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.

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See things in the present, even if they are in the future. (We joked that Larry got his tenses confused because he would talk about things that hadn’t happened yet as if they had. This taught me that a successful leader is one who is always thinking about the future, not just the present. Wayne Gretzky famously put it another way: “Skate to where the puck is going, not where it has been.”)

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Weigh the ability to take risks. Having faith in your abilities is essential, but so is examining where you are in life and whether or not risk-taking is an option.

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Whether or not you engage a PR firm, always ask yourself, “What’s my message?” Position yourself either as the leader or against the leader in your industry. Every experience you give a journalist or potential customer must explain why you are different and incorporate a clear call to action. This does not require a large team or a big budget; it just requires your time and focus.

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“A logo is simply a graphic representation of a company,” says Bruce Campbell, the creator of the logo and our chief creative officer. “A brand is more. It has to be a collective set of memories.”

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There is a Japanese belief that business is temporal, whereas relationships are eternal.

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You must have clarity of mind to make your own decisions—not the ones that your competitors want you to make. You must be transparent to the competition.

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Metaphors are the simplest way to explain your services and communicate your message. Here’s how to do it: relate your product to something that is current and relevant and that everyone understands. Don’t forget to test your metaphors before you put them out there. Try a few and run them by customers, analysts,

#tkaway10 make ur own metaphors

targeting the end user we were creating an economy—with both demand- and supply-side value.

#tkaway11 sell to end user

A market doesn’t exist until there is a competitor, and ideally two or three competitors. Competition is good.

#tkaway12 competition validates bizmodel

if you are going to compete with someone at his or her own game, always remember to step up the innovation.)

#tkaway13 a me too strategy has to be stronger than competition