Marc Benioff > Quotes

“One idea alone is a tactic, but if it can be executed a number of different ways, it becomes a great strategy.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“There is a Japanese belief that business is temporal, whereas relationships are eternal. That’s true. One day you compete. The next day you partner. One day someone is your subordinate; the next day he or she may be your superior. At its finest, business is friendly competition, just like a game of tennis. As”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

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

“Seize the opportunity in front of you. Imagine. Invent. Disrupt. Do good. I know that you must be passionate, unreasonable, and a little bit crazy to follow your own ideas and do things differently. But it’s worth it. Life grows relative to one’s investment in it.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Life grows relative to one’s investment in it.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“It’s amazing to consider that no matter what size customer we were pitching, or where in the world we were selling, a singular idea drove all our accomplishments: we never sold features. We sold the model and we sold the customer’s success.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“you must always examine what’s working, evolve your ideas, and change the way you do things.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“like the culture developed by Coach Steve Kerr for my beloved Golden State Warriors. Even though he helms a team, Steve believes that having good people is more important that just having good basketball players; he understands that players come and go, but the ethos on the court gets passed down from one game and one season to another. The best teams play together like a family who trust one another to have their back.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“As I write this, I know there are countless mysteries about the future of business that we’ve yet to unravel. That’s a process that will never end. When it comes to customer success, however, I have achieved absolute clarity on four points. First, technology will never stop evolving. In the years to come, machine learning and artificial intelligence will probably make or break your business. Success will involve using these tools to understand your customers like never before so that you can deliver more intelligent, personalized experiences. The second point is this: We’ve never had a better set of tools to help meet every possible standard of success, whether it’s finding a better way to match investment opportunities with interested clients, or making customers feel thrilled about the experience of renovating their home. The third point is that customer success depends on every stakeholder. By that I mean employees who feel engaged and responsible and are growing their careers in an environment that allows them to do their best work—and this applies to all employees, from the interns to the CEO. The same goes for partners working to design and implement customer solutions, as well as our communities, which provide the schools, hospitals, parks, and other facilities to support us all. The fourth and most important point is this: The gap between what customers really want from businesses and what’s actually possible is vanishing rapidly. And that’s going to change everything. The future isn’t about learning to be better at doing what we already do, it’s about how far we can stretch the boundaries of our imagination. The ability to produce success stories that weren’t possible a few years ago, to help customers thrive in dramatic new ways—that is going to become a driver of growth for any successful company. I believe we’re entering a new age in which customers will increasingly expect miracles from you. If you don’t value putting the customer at the center of everything you do, then you are going to fall behind. Whether you make cars, solar panels, television programs, or anything else, untold opportunities exist. Every company should invest in helping its customers find new destinations, and in blazing new trails to reach them. To do so, we have to resist the urge to make quick, marginal improvements and spend more time listening deeply to what customers really want, even if they’re not fully aware of it yet. In the end, it’s a matter of accepting that your success is inextricably linked to theirs.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“the V2MOM process. You might have more than one answer to each question; be sure to prioritize your answers: VISION (What do you want?): ________________________________________ VALUES (What’s important about it?): ________________________________________ METHODS (How do you get it?): ________________________________________ OBSTACLES (What might stand in the way?): ________________________________________ MEASURES (How will you know when you have it?): ________________________________________”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“1) Out of clutter find simplicity; 2) From discord find harmony; 3) In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“It’s about how to create a culture where doing well is synonymous with doing good in order to thrive in a world where a company is only as strong as the principles it adopts.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“Companies, and the people who lead them, can no longer afford to separate business objectives from the social issues surrounding them. They can no longer view their mission as a set of binary choices: growing vs. giving back, making a profit vs. promoting the public good, or innovating vs. making the world a better place.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“Lots of businesses talk about values, but in turbulent times, when they matter most, executives often forget to operationalize them.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“the power of each customer exchange. If the exchange was executed as well as possible—if we made the customer truly successful—we had the opportunity to transform him or her into an Apple loyalist and evangelist. This opened my eyes to the importance of customer success.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Reliability Is a Tech Problem, but the Way You Solve It Is Not with Technology Alone—It’s with Communication”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“I was learning from the best.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Keep in mind that the landscape is always changing; you must always examine what’s working, evolve your ideas, and change the way you do things.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“After all, the better the developers you have, the better the product you build.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Doing well by doing good is no longer just a competitive advantage. It’s becoming a business imperative.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“The total cost for 200 people to use a low-end product in the 1990s could exceed $1.8 million in the first year alone.2”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Whether you’re starting a business, managing a team, or running an entire company, trusting your instincts can be essential in bringing a vision or idea to life. I now understand that trusting yourself is only half the story. To be effective as a leader, you need a reservoir of trust to draw from. And once you use it all up, it can take years and years to replenish.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“There’s no way to put a dollar value on values. And yes, there will be times when prioritizing values, especially trust, will come at the expense of profits. In the short term, that is. But the money your company makes in any given quarter will never be more valuable than the trust you stand to lose over time.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“Don’t ever let the competition make you angry. You must have clarity of mind to make your own decisions—not the ones that your competitors want you to make.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“So focus on the 20 percent that makes 80 percent of the difference.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Nine times out of ten, companies fail because they don’t set up a large enough sales force and thus have no way to collect enough revenue.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“Our differentiators were ease of use, a business model of shared risk, and low-risk commitment—everything that software was not.”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry

“we’re at a crossroads, and the actions we take from this moment forward will have a defining impact on what kind of world we leave behind for future generations.”
― Marc Benioff, Trailblazer: The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change

“The more developers you have, the more products you can build. Essentially, recruiting is the engine that drives distribution”
― Marc Benioff, Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company-and Revolutionized an Industry