Let’s begin this conversation by examining the innocent, inconspicuous, inert coffee cup.  Although many of us use it every day we likely take it for granted and never give it a second thought. But what does a coffee cup really do?  Why does it exist?  This is not a trick question or one with a hidden subliminal message.  It’s a simple question; what is the overall purpose of a coffee cup?

If your response was to ‘hold coffee’ or ‘hold liquid’, there are three points of interest and one of great significance to discuss. First, welcome to the club where hundreds of people asked this question gave the same answer to ‘hold coffee’ or ‘hold liquid.’  Based on the collection of these responses it can be inferred with statistical significance the overall purpose of a coffee cup is indeed to ‘hold coffee/liquid.’

Secondly, a visceral response to the overall purpose of a coffee cup question is like taking a ‘screenshot’ of your brain.  The brain functions by recognizing patterns.  The coffee cup is a pattern and at some point between your birth and being asked the question your brain learned to associate the coffee cup with ‘hold coffee/liquid.’  Answer the same question of any object, process or activity and you’ll immediately understand what your brain associates with those patterns. 

The third point of interest is everyone responding to the question expresses their answer using just two words; an action verb (hold) and a measurable noun (coffee or liquid).  This is interesting because describing something using verbs and nouns is part of a larger process and set of tools associated with innovative thinking.

A verb and noun combination (i.e., hold coffee) is known as a function.  It is the most basic and elemental way to describe something.  American architect Louis Sullivan coined the term ‘form follows function’ as a principle associated with modernist architecture and industrial design. The principle is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.  In our example the form of the coffee cup follows the function it is performing - hold coffee.

Using functions will instantly free us from our prisons of habit.  Recognize that everything satisfies a function(s).  From our products, business processes and policies to the paint on the walls, lights in the ceiling and our pet dog - they all satisfy functions.  How things are done today (i.e., our products and the way we conduct business, our dog, etc.) simply represent the ways we have chosen or elected to satisfy a function. 

Because most of us don’t think in terms of functions here’s a simple exercise in identifying them.  As you read this post look around your surroundings and pick out five objects at random.  These could be the paper you’re writing on, the pen you’re writing with, the wall switch, the chair you’re sitting in or the picture on the wall.  Write down the names of these five objects on a piece of paper.   Now ask yourself what is the overall purpose of each object; why does it exists.  Offer your top-of-mind response expressed as a verb and noun writing it next to the object's name on your paper. 

You’ve just done two things.  First you’ve successfully identified a function associated with each of the five objects.  Secondly you’ve put on x-ray glasses that allow you to look at anything and instantly see through the facade of habit to discover their underlying function(s). 

Earlier in this post I mentioned three points of interest and one of great significance regarding the function ‘hold coffee/liquid.’  We already touched on the three points; one of which was everyone giving the same answer to the question about a coffee cup’s overall purpose. What’s significant is to ‘hold coffee/liquid’ is not the overall purpose of a coffee cup; it’s simply our perception of the coffee cup.

In it’s simplicity the use of functions to strip away the facade created by our habits is one of the most powerful tools in driving innovative and transformative thinking and ideas.  In my next blog we’ll reveal  the real function of a coffee cup, continue to explore functions and their use in shift existing mindsets.

About the Author

Steven Wilt is a Program Executive in the customer success group and is responsible for delivery of innovation and transformation solutions for enterprise customers at Salesforce.

Consider these seven new year’s resolutions to set yourself up for sales success in 2017!

I Resolve to … Leverage the Sales Stack

Using the right technology in your sales process can sometimes make or break a deal. A sales enablement tool, for example, helps reps to be more productive, efficient, and effective by using predictive analytics and data science to recommend proven, winning content that adds value to the sales conversation and advances prospects.

Even though you are probably not in the position to personally build the sales stack, individual sales reps are often chosen to beta test and offer their opinions about new sales tech. After all, the organization will not be able to see ROI unless reps incorporate the tooling into their workflow. Change can be hard, but your sales stack was chosen to streamline your sales process, to help you stay organized, and to drive productivity. Work with your sales coach to ensure that new sales technology fits seamlessly into your existing processes and be sure to provide any relevant feedback.

I Resolve to … Collaborate with Peers

Collaboration gives sales reps the opportunity to learn from the successes and failures of their peers and leverage the best practices of others. Everybody in the company has something to say and undoubtedly has some value to contribute. By working with each other instead of against each other, the organization as a whole can benefit from smarter, more effective sales processes.

I Resolve to … Close the Gap

Marketing and sales alignment has plagued B2B organizations for years. To this day, it remains one of the top challenges companies face, but alignment is more important now than ever before as prospects increasingly demand content. Unfortunately, this failure to align costs B2B companies lost opportunities, deals, and revenue. Not to mention the fact that many of you are still wasting 30% of your day on average looking for or creating your own content, despite marketing’s resource investment in developing content that drives prospects through the sales funnel.

Make the effort to communicate more effectively with your marketing counterparts in order to satisfy the needs of buyers. With a ‘shareconomy’ of knowledge, sales and marketing share content, goals, and feedback. For example, you talk to prospects and customers on a daily basis; with awareness of their pain points, challenges, and needs, marketing can create relevant, effective content.

I Resolve to … Adopt a Customers-First Attitude

Customer experience has long been a priority for B2B companies, but it hasn’t been a focus for B2B organizations until more recently. A customer-centric mindset represents a shift from focusing on the sales reps’ needs to focusing on the customers’ needs, fundamentally changing the game for reps who rely on one-size-fits-all pitches to sell.

To execute a customer-centric strategy, reps must proactively build trusting customer relationships with the goal of solving the buyer’s problem. First, identify the prospect’s pain point or challenge and then be sure to add value to every engagement. Depending on their stage in the purchase process, this value could be in the form of content such as research reports, product information and data sheets, case studies, or even ROI calculators.

I Resolve to … Get More Social

A recent Hubspot report identified social selling as a top sales priority for 2017. So if you aren’t already, expect to get much more social in the new year. Your buyers are already researching solutions and engaging with providers on social media, making it that much more critical that you are present and part of the conversation.

Social selling is key in staying top-of-mind with prospects, and social media can be used in every stage of the sales process, from networking and prospecting to customer service. With easy-to-access insights about prospects such as demographics, top challenges, topics they’re interested in, what’s happening at their company, and what’s going on in their industry, sales reps can engage more intelligently with buyers and effectively drive meaningful conversations.

I Resolve to … Be More Productive

The start of a new year is the perfect time to re-evaluate your sales processes and look for areas to improve. Are your prior productivity efforts still effective? Are there areas where you could make changes in the workflow? Is there tooling that could automate more mundane or repetitive tasks so that you can dedicate more time back to core selling?

All of your productivity measures should relate directly to your personal sales goals, as well as organizational goals. As such, every decision that you make should add value to your day and contribute to hitting those key objectives.

I Resolve to … Use Data in Decision-Making

Data has become a powerful tool for the modern sales rep, and one that you can’t afford to ignore. Data-driven sales strategies have been proven to decrease costs, increase productivity, optimize effectiveness, and boost revenue. Make a point to identify appropriate and relevant KPIs, to collect and analyze this information regularly, and to use the resulting insights to effectively guide your sales strategies. Consider different ways to leverage that information that will support organizational goals and guide your sales process.

Regularly reflect on how this data can be used to your advantage. For example, which factors advance deals throughout the sales cycle? What works and what doesn’t, why or why not? What talking points are most effective? What content generates the highest ROI?  

These resolutions are just the tip of the iceberg. What resolutions do you think will help you see greater sales success in 2017?

Shelley Cernel is the Senior Marketing Manager for KnowledgeTree.

• 65% of consumers expect companies to interact with them in real time.
• 7 in 10 consumers say technology has made it easier than ever for them to take their business elsewhere.
• Only 15% of companies have advanced analytics, processes, and tools to engage in a digital economy.

On the other hand, a 5% increase in customer retention can impact profits by 25-95%. Maintaining customer loyalty isn't a cake walk. But it's necessary if you want to create a long-term customer fan base who buys from you repeatedly, tells their friends and colleagues about you, and saves you tons of money and effort in customer acquisition.

Creating that kind of deep customer loyalty requires practice and skill, so we talked to the customer loyalty expert for details on how it's done. On this week’s episode of the Marketing Cloudcast  —  the marketing podcast from Salesforce  —  Joel and I interview Noah Fleming, President at Fleming Consulting and author of the new book The Customer Loyalty Loop: The Science Behind Creating Great Experiences and Lasting Impressions. We asked Noah to share his proven, science-backed strategies for dramatic customer loyalty increases.

If you’re not yet a subscriber, check out the Marketing Cloudcast on iTunes, Google Play Music, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

Take a listen here:

You should subscribe for the full episode, but here are four tips straight from Noah to start increasing customer loyalty now and maintain it for the long haul.

1. Make customer loyalty core to your marketing strategy.

Noah says too many marketing departments are focused on the latest and greatest customer acquisition strategies instead of truly building customer loyalty efforts into their programs. Customer loyalty shouldn't just be a goal for the service team. Marketers need to get involved, too. He advises, “It's about really understanding how you keep a customer and how you maximize the value of that customer."

“We’re finally realizing that the customer experience does not start once you have a customer. In fact, the customer is experiencing long before they decide to do business with you and long after they do business with you,” he explains.

Noah says that’s the whole gist of the customer loyalty loop, the concept on which this new book is based. “Every time the customer is engaged — whether it’s through an advertisement, marketing, or a tweet — the customer is having an experience, and there’s an impact happening in the customer’s mind."

2. Start thinking like a movie director and plan for the ending.

“Typically people remember the beginning of an experience and the ending of an experience,” Noah shares. “When a customer sees your branding and marketing, they’re already creating a movie in their head about what the experience is to come. We call this anticipated memories."

However, when the experience doesn’t live up to a customer's expectations, an anticipation gap occurs. This is common when overzealous sales and marketing teams are solely focused on getting new customers in the door.

Noah says companies need to ask, “How does the experience end, and how will that influence whether the customer will be willing to do business with us again?”

3. Check in with customers about their experience and use their stories.

You may have heard that it’s five times less expensive to keep an existing customer than to get a new one. However, as Noah points out, “This is bad advice because they never tell us how to make that existing customer five times more valuable.”

Customer value comes in many different forms — the most obvious being direct revenue to your company, but word of mouth, referrals, and customer success stories are also highly valuable. Noah says, “Referrals and testimonials carry great value. Getting a case study from a customer carries great value.”

So don't focus on how you can grow your customer base to a massive, and possibly unsustainable, size. Focus instead on reaching out to your customers and genuinely asking how their customer experience is shaping up. For those who are thrilled with their investment in your products and services, maybe it's time to use their experience as part of a word-of-mouth marketing effort, or simply ask if they'd review you on TripAdvisor, Yelp, G2Crowd, or wherever your audience reads reviews online.

4. Use the four stages of the Customer Loyalty Loop.

According to Noah, marketers need to think creatively about customer loyalty in terms of these four stages:

• Imagination before persuasion
• Conversion not coercion
• Experience choreography
• Happily ever after

When it comes to the early parts of the customer relationship, if you’re dependent on the laws of persuasion, you might get the first sale but not the second or third. Noah suggests, “There are other laws of persuasion that we need to pay attention to. That’s removing resistance and reducing friction in the buying process."

Once you have the customer, it all comes down to “delivering those remarkable moments and impactful memories that stick and make them want to come back again." The easiest way to accomplish this? “Deliver on your expectations. Just be good throughout the entire experience. That’s incredibly impactful,” he says.

In the final stage, Noah urges companies to ask, “What is the most appropriate thing to be asking for at this stage? Most of the time it’s not a sale. You need to work on building that relationship so you can take that customer to happily ever after.”

In this podcast episode, Noah Fleming (@noahfleming) shared much more insight on customer loyalty tactics that you can use throughout 2017 to grow customer evangelists. Get the complete scoop on the Customer Loyalty Loop in this episode of the Marketing Cloudcast.

Join the thousands of smart marketers who already subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, and Stitcher.

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Tweet @youngheike with marketing questions or topics you’d like to see covered next on the Marketing Cloudcast.

• Fewer than 60% of B2B sales reps are hitting quota

• Just 42% of marketing qualified leads are accepted and worked by sales

• The #1 sales execution challenge is the lack of qualified leads

Sound familiar? It should because the situation has not changed much in the past several years.

Following are the top five resolutions I recommend that you take to improve results in 2017.

1. Start with the End in Mind – Lead to Revenue Calculator

We developed our comprehensive Lead to Revenue Calculator to factor in metrics frequently ignored by other planning tools. Our calculator is designed to help you adjust the numbers to fit your company; so multiply, add zeros, adjust percentages or make whatever other changes you feel will shed light on your lead generation situation.

The assumptions embedded in the example above are industry benchmarks. For example, the industry estimates that inbound marketing efforts will produce about 35% of desired revenue each year – the balance has to come from existing business or proactive outbound marketing. Some of the other assumptions are estimates based on SiriusDecisions Demand Waterfall metrics. While many industries estimate that sales reps source 60% of their own business, the reality is that each company should provide much more support. Hence the 35% used in this example.

To run your own numbers, click here.

2. Establish a Universal Lead Definition

A friend of mine said: “even a man lost in the woods knows where he wants to go.” I believe that every marketer and sales executive wants to do a great job, but they approach lead definition in silos. As a result, they all stay lost in the woods. That is why so few marketing qualified leads become sales accepted leads. Then, marketing resorts to a cost per lead strategy that exacerbates the problem. Is someone who downloaded a white paper – costing your marketing department $25 – 50 a lead? Is someone who scores above a certain threshold in marketing automation a lead? Is someone who completed a form on your website a lead? Maybe, but probably not.

Unfortunately, establishing a universal lead definition (ULD) is not going to come from some Kumbaya moment around the campfire attended by marketing and sales. In order to establish a ULD that is understood by and agreed to by the entire company there will have to wide participation by executive management including operations, finance, marketing, sales and other executives. How important is this? Critically important.

Look at your own company. How does a lead progress in your organization? Are leads thrown over the fence from marketing to sales and lost in a black hole?

Some guidance: a ULD is not BANT, ANUM or one of the other formulas used today. These formulas do a great job of disqualifying opportunities that could actually be great prospects if they are worked right. The high scoring “leads” that are sent to the field are often column fodder exercises where you are competing against a competitor who, because they started earlier and were more agile, won the business before you had the chance to compete for it. While there are millions of words written about this subject, a ULD is going to come down to: firmographics, decision-makers and influencers, pain or need (no matter what anyone tells you), a compelling event and the process for an evaluation. The best leads are going to be those where a sales rep gets involved early in the process – not when the prospect is 57 – 70% of the way through the buying process as some inbound pundits would have you believe. Doubt my word, read this from Julie Schwartz at ITSMA.

3. Establish a Judicial Branch – a universal lead definition is not just a good idea, it’s the law!

Once a ULD has been agreed upon, it needs to be enforced. The judicial branch inspects exceptions. An example - the lead is proactively rejected by sales: The judicial branch determines if the action was appropriate (the lead did or did not fit the ULD); or if the lead was rejected for what SiriusDecisions calls “non-intuitive reasons” (I called three times and they did not call me back so it was not a lead). Another example – no feedback from sales: Most leads end up in a black hole sometimes called CRM. A timeframe SLA must exist between marketing and sales on a lead being rejected or accepted by sales.

The Judicial Branch won’t work if the judges include only members of marketing and/or sales. Operations, finance and others in executive management need to be involved because they with find it additive and enjoy the control this process makes available. And, as tedious as this will be for the first month or two, it will pay huge dividends in the long-run.        

4. Improve Lead Nurturing

Nurturing is essential for successful inbound and outbound lead generation. In fact, I propose that nurturing is the most underutilized marketing activity at a marketer’s disposal. Additional contact using multiple touches and multiple media—including phone, voicemail and email—across multiple cycles is well worth the time and expense (which is nominal):

• Standard B2B lead-generation programs produce an average 3 – 7% lead rate.

• Advanced lead-generation programs (which include nurturing) produce a lead rate three times higher (see table below).

Before we get into the details, note that there are three groups of prospects that require nurturing:

1. Marketing Pipeline. These are prospects with a specific planned next step to be taken within a reasonable timeframe.

2. True Nurture Opportunities. These are fully qualified prospects who are not immediately interested.

3. No Response. These are contacts past the point of diminishing return on a given touch cycle.

5. Make 2017 The Beginning of the Era of Accountability

Accountability is not about punishment or blame. It’s about helping others reach their goals through purposeful, sustainable action. It’s about end-to-end success. It’s 2017, and the new era of accountability is here.  

Specifically, marketing must:

Be accountable for lead quality, be open to taking leads back and nurturing them until they are “sales-ready” and measure their impact in terms of revenue driven by their activity

Sales must:

Be accountable for effective lead follow-up, work each and every lead to win/loss or return to marketing for nurturing, and forecast realistically and accurately

In short, Accountability = Account-Based Marketing.

Account-Based Marketing, where sales and marketing strategically target high-value accounts, has accountability built in. The two organizations work together to approach decision-makers in a highly personalized, coordinated way, to move the account successfully through the pipeline. They use the right tactics, at the right time, with the right channels, to create the personal interactions that move the revenue-generation meter.

That’s a wrap. Happy marketing and selling in 2017!

Dan McDade is President and CEO of PointClear, LLC, a prospect development firm that helps B2B companies drive revenue by nurturing leads, engaging contacts and developing prospects until they're ready to purchase.

I never thought I’d be fortunate enough to get a job at a dream company like Google… certainly not after starting my career as a humble email spammer! But that’s where my journey began. It was an unextraordinary start to a career that was fitting for a guy with a marketing degree from a non-elite college. I’m thankful for that spamming job though, because it led me to become the company’s accidental admin.

I remember my accidental admin path very fondly. Every month, our actual Salesforce admin had to suffer through a tedious, eight-hour long, manual data import process to help our accounting team close the books. One month, I volunteered to do it... and I fell in love with work for the first time in my career. Soon, I became the company's official Salesforce admin.

I immersed myself on the platform and obsessed over finding creative point-and-click solutions to tough business problems. But there was nothing more frustrating to me than having to tell my boss that something wasn't possible without code. Code that, as a marketing major, I had no idea how to write. I wanted to learn, but realistically, I didn't think it was possible without getting another degree.

At this point, learning to code was more of a dream to me than a goal. All of this changed when I went to Dreamforce. I attended a life-changing developer session given by a man named Jason Venable. I sat there in shock as I learned how this extraordinary human being had taught himself to code, became a Salesforce MVP, and moved on to teach code on the big stage. After the session, I told Jason he was my hero and how I was now fully inspired to turn my dream of coding into a goal.

For the next few months, I was eating, breathing, and sleeping code. During lunch, I sat next to the engineers and read my coding books. After work, I was attending coding classes and doing more work—homework. And the last thing I'd do before I fell asleep was read just a few more pages. I told myself that if I was going to learn to code, I'd give it everything I had. Failure would be OK as long as I could one day look back and know that I gave it my all.

Completely unknown to me, I soon attended what would be the most important meeting of my life! Somehow I ended up in a room with my company's CEO and executive team mulling over a monster, five-figure contract a Salesforce consultancy was quoting us for automating that eight-hour process of closing our books. This was my moment. I put my hands on the table, looked my CEO straight in the eye, and asked for my shot. I offered to write the code in my own free time, and that I'd do it for free. He took me up on it, and thankfully, I succeeded. They transferred me to the engineering team.

I owe my next Salesforce job to the Administrator certification. While interviewing for a role I was under-qualified for, I noticed the recruiter was concerned that I didn’t have any Salesforce certifications. On the spot, I made a promise that I’d get certified, and he took me up on it. I studied for that certification like it was the college SATs and my life depended on it. I passed, and they gave me a job offer.

A few years later, I decided to try something crazy: apply for a job at Google...again. I had heard all the horror stories about how difficult it was to get in, and to be honest, I myself had already been rejected by them at least 10 times. I had never even reached the phone interview stage! This time, I decided I needed to do something more drastic to have a chance.

I decided to add four new Salesforce certifications to my portfolio. Who could say no to interviewing someone with credentials like that?

Studying for four Salesforce certifications was beyond intimidating. But I had a plan to keep myself motivated. Each time I’d pass a certification, I’d reward myself by buying something nice. Something really nice—like a brand-new snowboard. I figured that whether or not I got the job at Google, each successful certification would contribute thousands of dollars to my annual base salary. It didn’t seem unreasonable to me that a person with say, five certifications was worth at least $10,000 more on the job market than a person with no certifications. So, in my mind, a gift of a few hundred dollars per certification was justified.

I started with the Advanced Administrator certification because I wanted to finish up the admin-related certs before moving onto the Developer and Consultant tracks. I went in that order so I could pass my stronger subjects early and build momentum. My study method for each cert was the same: understand every feature outlined in the official study guide as if I had built the feature myself, and then memorize hundreds of flashcards I found online.

Four certifications later, I got my phone interview. And a few more rejections later, I got a job offer from Google.

Fast forward to today, and I now find myself on the other side of the job-hunting process: hiring. As a person who has looked through hundreds of resumes, one thing I can tell you is that it’s very difficult for a candidate to stand out when they’re getting compared to so many other Salesforce professionals. There are only so many Salesforce-related objective measures someone can put on their resume, and certifications are arguably the most important. Given two people with similar resumes, the person with more certifications will win every time.

My lesson for you is simple: get as many Salesforce certifications as you can. Make it a top priority for your career. Realistically, there aren’t many other things you can do that’ll make a bigger impact. Don’t forget to lavishly reward yourself along the way, too! Also, if deep down you've always wanted to learn to code too, go for it! Learning to code in Salesforce is easier than ever and the job market is unbelievable. You won't regret it.

I still look back sometimes and wonder how this professional email spammer got lucky enough to work for Google. I know that if it wasn’t for the Salesforce certification program, this journey would’ve gone down a much different path. And now that I know the power of Salesforce certifications first-hand, I continue to look for ways to improve myself and my career with even more of them!

So, what’s up next for me? I’m going to start my journey towards the coveted Salesforce Technical Architect certification at Destination Success—where I’ll also be running a session on how you, too, can make the leap from Admin to Developer. Stay tuned for details. And wish me luck!

David's Certifications
Salesforce Certified Administrator January 4, 2012
Salesforce Certified Advanced Administrator February 24, 2013
Salesforce Certified Force.com Developer March 17, 2013
Salesforce Certified Sales Cloud Consultant April 14, 2013
Salesforce Certified Force.com Advanced Developer July 3, 2014
Salesforce Certified Service Cloud Consultant February 9, 2015

If you’ve been inspired by David's story, learn more about how you, too, can become a Salesforce Certified Professional.

This event brought together more than 150 equality champions from all over the country to discuss how we can thrive at work through inclusive leadership. It featured vibrant and inspiring speakers from several leading companies, including customers. Salesforce’s own Christina Kosmowski, SVP of Revenue Lifecycle Management, spoke on our panel, and Peter Coffee, VP of Strategic Research, delivered a wrap-up keynote TED talk-style. And, of course, they both knocked it out of the park!

It was so moving to see such a phenomenal group of leaders share our dedication to driving equality through inclusion. At Salesforce, equality is one of our core values. And for me personally, it is a passion.

As Regional Vice President of Customer Success at Salesforce, I want to share that passion through a personal journey that has taught me that although talent matters to achieving your goals, perseverance and a strong social network ultimately matter more.

Leverage Your Natural Talent

Growing up, I wasn’t encouraged to focus on math and science. My family moved from western New York to a rural town in Oklahoma when I was in high school, and my math skills were more likely to get recognized at the church bake sale than in the classroom.

So after graduation, I moved to Dallas and put myself through school at Southern Methodist University (SMU). While I was in school, I got a job working at a telecom test equipment company where I interacted with a lot of very talented engineers. They were so bright, in fact, it seemed like they were speaking a different language most the time. It was intimidating.

That is, until I realized that those talented engineers had focused on developing their ability to write code, and most had not focused much on developing strong communication skills, which was very natural to me. So our skills were very complementary. And although I didn’t know it at the time, that realization was my lightbulb moment. I changed my major, and then launched a career leveraging my communication skills to help companies simplify technical complexity in order to drive meaningful business transformation.

And it was that experience that ultimately led me to Salesforce.

Perseverance Will See You Through

A lot of hard work mixed with a little bit of talent landed me a job at Salesforce, and got me promoted to Regional Vice President of Customer Success earlier this year. But it was perseverance that has sustained me. You see, within the first 90 days in my new role, I was diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. And my world was turned completely upside down.

I had two young sons, a thriving career, and lots of friends and family – what I did not have was time for cancer. Now, I could have taken my diagnosis as a sign of defeat. I could have crawled into bed and felt sorry for myself. But I’m way too stubborn for that. I was determined to accomplish all my goals and beat cancer. I just needed a plan.

So I found the strength to ask for help with my children, complemented my treatment with a diet and exercise regime, and set a vision for my Salesforce team that got everyone focused on key behaviors needed to drive results.

Today, I am still wrapping up treatment. It hasn't been easy. But I was proclaimed tumor-free, our family dynamic is stronger than ever, and I am proud to report that my team is crushing their goals … thanks to determination, persistence, and perseverance.

But Don’t Go it Alone

I couldn’t have done any of this alone. The leadership at Salesforce, my employees, co-workers, friends and family members all played a big part in my journey. I’ve learned that the people you surround yourself with will either lift you up or tear you down. And I am fortunate to have so many people in my life who have helped me through tough times by continuously elevating me, spurring me on and keeping me laughing.

For example, during the treatment period I changed my hair on a daily basis – one day I was a blonde, then a brunette, a redhead, and I even bought a silver wig! I did this because a friend of mine, after listening to me complain about how devastating it was to lose my hair, helped me change my attitude. My friend said, “Angela, your hair does not define you. But since you are going to lose it anyway, why not make it fun.” So I did.

Now, although I won’t miss cancer, I will miss matching my hair to my shoes.

The Bottom Line? Inclusion is a Journey

My experience with cancer – and my emphasis on talent, perseverance and community –  has taught me many lessons that can be applied to the journey to inclusion. Today, less than 5% of the CEO’s on the S&P 500 are women. We have to pave it forward if we are going to achieve equality at the upper escalons. Talent alone is not enough to see us through on this journey. There will be setbacks. We have to persevere through them and do it as a team. We have to lift one another up and help each other out. If we do that, the journey will be a lot more fun and success will be imminent.

Want to learn more about what equality means to us at Salesforce? Visit salesforce.com/equality.

Where to start? We recently spoke to a handful of savvy business leaders across different industries who offered up some very insightful marketing and sales predictions for this coming year, and we want to share them with you. Hopefully their words will help you transform your 2017.

Customer Service Will be Much More Than a Differentiator

Sales, marketing, and customer service are continuing to merge. It's all about making customers successful from their first interaction.

Customers have greater expectations than ever. They expect the businesses they deal with to know who they are, and to deliver an amazing experience every time, without exceptions. Great customer service is no longer a differentiator — it's table stakes to build a brand and a business that will thrive over the coming years.
—James Gill, CEO at GoSquared

Marketing Goes to the Movies

No one actually wants to read anymore. Instead, everything is about binge-watching videos with kids and millennials glued to YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook Live Feed videos for hours on end, liking, commenting on, and sharing video content.

Sure, video has been popular in the past years, but it's practically taking over marketing in 2017 because it is a much more enjoyable way to get information sought without the hassle of trying to search through words to get to the heart of the matter. Plus, it appeals so much more to the emotions that your audience is bound to remember any video marketing you do for longer.

Part of the trend will be toward ephemeral videos — that's short, temporary videos now populating Snapchat and Instagram. This is a way to generate excitement and need in your audience because they are now afraid they might miss that really cool video that all their peers saw.

—John Rampton, Founder and CEO at Due.com

Closing Deals Via Text Will Be Totally Normal  

The sales team of the future will need to be comfortable communicating and even closing deals through newer media channels, such as text and Facebook Messenger. These channels, which were formerly reserved for marketing and customer care teams, will become the preferred means of conversational selling as consumers shift their everyday communication habits away from the phone and email and toward text and messenger apps.

There are two big trends driving this shift in conversational selling: First, for most people under 40, texting is every bit as intimate as talking on the phone, so the idea of making a purchase from someone you've merely "texted" is no longer strange. Second, thanks to the web and marketing automation, consumers are better educated than they’ve ever been, meaning that by the time they're reaching out to a salesperson, they're usually more than halfway through the sales cycle, and in some cases are ready to buy right now without jumping through the usual hoops and formalities that often come with phone calls and online demos.

For example, at DigitalMarketer.com, our sales team is closing more and more big-ticket deals through Facebook Messenger, without ever talking to the customer on the phone. Similarly, we now have our customer success team answering questions via text/SMS, and giving customers the opportunity to buy right then and there on their phones. And best of all, since chat and Messenger allow you to maintain multiple, simultaneous 1:1 conversations, we're able to qualify and close more deals with less salespeople.

If you play your cards right and stay up to date, you can expect shorter sales cycles, shorter training cycles, and less experienced sales reps bringing in larger deals over less expensive and more efficient communication channels.

—Ryan Deiss, CEO at DigitalMarketer.com

Ecommerce Will Rule 2017

2017 will be the best year yet for B2B ecommerce. I know it feels like ecommerce is anything but a phenomenon for most of us anymore, but there still is vast potential for expansion. Considered purchases characterize the B2B space much more than B2B’s impulsive B2C counterpart and, for that reason, the former hasn’t gotten much love, relatively speaking, during the meteoric rise of buying stuff on the Internet.

I already see it during my day-to-day at work and on my personal social feeds. Consultancies are investing more heavily in their online presences, accounting firms are advertising on my Instagram feed, and a business attorney friend of mine keeps me abreast of the cases he wins for his clients via Facebook.

Close your eyes and think of someplace you were five years ago. Now try to imagine those three things happening (more important, happening effectively) back then.

—Brandon Staton, Marketing Director, Transportation Impact

When beginning this process, you first need to identify what level of conceptualization you're looking to achieve. Concepts are typically classified into three categories: Proof of Concept (PoC), Prototype, and Pilot. PoCs are used to show exploratory evidence to validate the technical feasibility of your project and determine scope, but commonly do not require formal conceptualization. Prototypes and Pilots simulate a real implementation with a higher level of polish, sometimes approaching a fully working model.

No matter which method you choose to use, prototyping helps facilitate communication internally with conceptualization, align stakeholders to your team's vision, and ensure nothing is lost in translation during various hand-offs within the process. Simply put, a good prototype is your project's North Star — it's there guiding your team every step of the way.

There are a number of different kinds of prototypes, from the most basic whiteboard scribbles to fully clickable design concepts. Sometimes your prototype may need to accommodate a certain level of dynamic interactivity. As you choose the best prototype for your project, consider the following methods and their corresponding products (where applicable):

• Whiteboarding sessions, paper cutouts, notebook sketches
• Flat mockups, storyboarding (Sketch, OmniGraffle)
• Clickable design concepts, example user flows (InVision, Adobe XD, Principle)
• Demo video prototypes (After Effects, Premiere)
• Interactive, dynamic prototypes (Framer.js, Origami) 

What type of prototype is best for your project?

Consider the following:

1. Time: How quickly does this prototype need to be assembled? Will this serve a one-time purpose or will this become the basis for a series of iterations? Do you have actual content/copy to present or will placeholder images and text suffice? My team typically starts out with wireframes inspired by whiteboarding sessions and scratch notes (designed in Sketch), then converted into clickable prototypes in software like InVision.

2. Quality/Fidelity: How buttoned-up does your prototype need to be? Will you need to tweak and refine specific elements of your prototype such as the UI or overall content strategy? Do you need to be able to click-through certain elements within your concept to help lead your stakeholder through a user’s complete journey? Concepts that make it into an InVision prototype have a medium- to high-level of design detail and finesse, and often have multiple collaborators that can sync their Sketch file changes.

3. Interactivity: Are there multiple layers of interaction in your prototype? To really understand the usage of your prototype, does the viewer need to be able to experiment with the tool itself? Is your user flow dependent upon interaction to show the working concept? Sometimes being able to merely click through an experience isn't enough. Certain UI elements, such as sliders and user inputs, as well as dynamically generated outputs may require programs such as Adobe Xd, Principle, and Framer.js to program custom interactions.

Occasionally a prototype or pilot becomes complex enough that preliminary HTML, CSS, and JavaScript may need to be created to fully demonstrate your working product to your team and stakeholders. By setting up a foundation like this, roadblocks and challenges are more quickly identified — assisting your development team in devising more accurate project estimates and timelines when developing the final product.

Finding a prototyping methodology that fits into your existing workflow, and allows for rapid changes and adjustments will make it easy to shop around your ideas internally. Your team will soon see what was once a simple conference room what-if turn into a sales-boosting component of your marketing strategy.

So, what do sales teams need to focus on in 2017 to provide an excellent customer experience and lead in their markets? Here are six New Year’s resolutions for your sales team, based on insights gathered from Salesforce Research’s “Second Annual State of Sales” report:

1. Elevate Customer Experience to a Top Sales Benchmark

Many understand the importance of the customer experience, but without a method of measurement this will become too intangible to achieve. While customer experience is the top KPI type used by sales organizations to measure success, it’s also difficult to track. For those who didn’t list customer experience or success as one of their top three types of KPIs used to measure success, “not easy to track” was the top reason.

It’s important to arm your teams with the right tools to effectively track this metric. For example, high performers are 2.4x more likely than underperformers to rate their team’s analytics and insights capabilities as outstanding or very good. Click to Tweet. 

2. Prioritize Cross-Company Collaboration

This year it’s time to get serious about true cross-company collaboration. When your sales team can leverage marketing and service data, they can better understand their customers and tailor the sales process to their unique needs. Seventy-three percent of sales teams say collaborating across departments is absolutely critical or very important to their overall sales process. Click to Tweet.

3. Build Your Partner Ecosystem

Collaborative selling in 2017 should extend to your partners. Why? The extended reach of partners provides even richer information about your customers. Alignment with your partners can that facilitates a truly unique and holistic sales  experience. Imagine an airline partnership with a hotel chain, or a hotel chain partnership with a ride service. Top teams are already focusing on their partner ecosystems: 76% of high-performing sales teams rate their partner and customer/prospect collaboration capabilities as outstanding or very good. Click to Tweet.

4. Seek to Scale Personalization

Personalization differentiates an “okay” customer experience from a truly delightful customer experience. While communication channels that allow for deeper personal interactions — like in-person or phone-based conversations — are still the most important channels for sales teams, it’s important for businesses to be able to scale personalization. Self-service options allow customers to engage on their terms while freeing reps to have more in-depth conversations when needed. High-performing sales teams are 2.7x more likely than underperforming teams to rate online communities as absolutely critical or very important and 1.9x more likely to say the same about knowledge bases. Click to Tweet. 

5. Adopt a Mobile Mindset

Over the past 12–18 months, 70% of sales teams have become more focused on providing customers with real-time response and feedback as a result of changing customer expectations. Sixty-four percent of consumers expect companies to respond and interact with them in real time, according to the “State of the Connected Customer” report. Mobile enables sales reps to connect with customers from anywhere, at any time and collaborate with team members in an instant. Sales teams that arm their reps with mobile are better positioned to deliver a great customer experience. Below are the top benefits sales teams cite from using a mobile app:

6. Start Selling Smarter

On average, sales reps spend 64% of their time on non-selling tasks. The next frontier of sales is smart technologies, anchored by artificial intelligence (AI), that can help transform your sales team to be efficient, quick, and able to meet customer needs before they ever reach out. It may seem daunting to push your team toward this new technology, but the productivity impact is immense. For example, high-performing sales teams are 2.8x more likely to be outstanding or very good at predictive intelligence. AI is the top growth area for intelligent selling capabilities — 139% expected increase in usage in the next three years. Make smarter selling a top priority for your 2017 resolution list. Click to Tweet. 

Don’t just write these down, kick off the new year by aligning your team around key goals that will help propel your company into the future. Want to learn more about how top teams are executing on performance-boosting sales trends? Download the complete “Second Annual State of Sales” report.

Which brings me to my next point: It takes a lot more art than science to nail a sales presentation. But if you need a compelling story to make a sales pitch effective, then what’s the formula for telling a good story? Here area few thoughts to help you close your next sale with a great story:  

Be genuine

That probably seems obvious as you read it, but when you’re standing in front of a group of soon-to-be customers (hopefully!), your natural ability to remain natural can get diluted by data overload or just uncontrollable nerves. So here’s a friendly reminder: Be yourself. Make every sales pitch your own — rely on your personality and honest quirks to help shape your story.  

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Draw from your own experiences

What better way to tell a good story than with another good story? Having a sales pitch that’s laced with your own personal and professional vignettes (whether funny, sad, or embarrassing) will add that much-appreciated human element to your presentation. Editor’s Note: In my experience, a little self-deprecation goes a long way.    

Find the tension/conflict and use it

Everyone loves (other people’s) drama. Consider conflict a key ingredient in your dish. Remember, the point of your sales pitch is to offer a solution to a problem. Use that to your advantage. Focus on the conflicts, challenges, and corresponding problem-solving aspects of whatever you’re selling.

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Stimulate with entertaining visuals

Just as science is backed with strong data, a compelling narrative is backed with fun-to-look-at visuals. That doesn’t mean you need a degree in design. It means you need to show your audience something memorable, humorous, or otherwise delightful. Awkward childhood photos are always a crowdpleaser.

Give them a good kicker

It’s never enough to just be informative, funny, and dramatic. You need to wrap up all of that with a strong takeaway, something that will leave everyone feeling nourished and perfectly full — and ready to sign on the dotted line.

So when you're walking into your next sales meeting, remember this: there's a reason why some of the best stories become best sellers. 

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