00:08:55 · Alex Immerman, John Somorjai
[00:08:55] S1: Yeah. And then with enterprise sales in particular, you're earning a larger share of the labor budget, in your Fin example, that could be customer support, a little bit of sales. And so, in a Salesforce context at large, that can be my AI team is prospecting, it's finding leads, it's qualifying leads, it's following up, it's closing deals. Right. And so, as you're earning a greater share of that labor budget, sure, your customers may be paying you quite a bit more than they did in the past, but their overall cost of selling has gone down. [00:09:31] S0: Absolutely. And qualified is probably one of the great examples of what you just said. So that can replace your sales development rep organization, essentially, where basically it's taking all the traffic that's coming in through the website and answering questions with its Piper agent. And it's a very human like experience where you're speaking to a very lifelike avatar and they can explain what the products do, and help set up meetings for you all automatically without touching a human.
00:09:31 · John Somorjai, Alex Immerman
[00:09:31] S0: Absolutely. And qualified is probably one of the great examples of what you just said. So that can replace your sales development rep organization, essentially, where basically it's taking all the traffic that's coming in through the website and answering questions with its Piper agent. And it's a very human like experience where you're speaking to a very lifelike avatar and they can explain what the products do, and help set up meetings for you all automatically without touching a human. [00:10:05] S1: Makes a ton of sense. We just started to touch on a number of your acquisitions. You have a long history of acquisitions, I think nearly 100,000,000,000 of acquisitions over the course of your tenure, 12 over the last year. Really amazing. As you think about M and A as your strategy, there were the large ones, Slack, and MuleSoft, Informatica, and then more recently, you've gotten to the AI native companies. You mentioned Fin, Listen Labs is another. Your framework for acquisitions, you touched on, like financials is the third component, the second strategic, and then first was what are your customers asking for? [00:10:50] S0: And also how can we accelerate them [00:10:52] S1: Accelerate them. [00:10:53] S0: With our distribution. I mean, remember we have 15,000 sales reps. And so if you can plug one of these acquisitions into that really, in the case of Listen, you know, only a handful of reps, you suddenly make it available to your entire sales team, you're gonna grow that business.
00:10:53 · John Somorjai, Alex Immerman
[00:10:53] S0: With our distribution. I mean, remember we have 15,000 sales reps. And so if you can plug one of these acquisitions into that really, in the case of Listen, you know, only a handful of reps, you suddenly make it available to your entire sales team, you're gonna grow that business. [00:11:10] S1: And so, maybe like, imagine I'm at the other side of the table, I am at Alfred, I'm at Listen Labs, I'm a really ambitious AI founder. I get approached, I'm spending time with Salesforce, and it sounds great to partner with your 15,000 sales reps, and get me pushed through your channel, I would love that. How do I think about partnering with Salesforce, versus, you know, selling to Salesforce? [00:11:45] S0: Well, I think we approach partnerships in a very open way, and so we have probably more than 8,000 partners at this time that we work with. These are ISV partners. Sometimes we invest in the partners by the way as well, and that's part of the role of Salesforce Ventures. But we want to have an open ecosystem where we're bringing as many solutions as possible to our customers, and they make the decision. They can buy a partner solution, they can buy a solution from Salesforce, but I think we... I think the the hallmark of of our company is making sure that we have this as broad of an ecosystem as possible because you want to have as much to offer as you possibly can. So there are there are definitely ways to partner with us. We have multiple types of partner programs, and a great organization that does that.
00:11:45 · John Somorjai, Alex Immerman
[00:11:45] S0: Well, I think we approach partnerships in a very open way, and so we have probably more than 8,000 partners at this time that we work with. These are ISV partners. Sometimes we invest in the partners by the way as well, and that's part of the role of Salesforce Ventures. But we want to have an open ecosystem where we're bringing as many solutions as possible to our customers, and they make the decision. They can buy a partner solution, they can buy a solution from Salesforce, but I think we... I think the the hallmark of of our company is making sure that we have this as broad of an ecosystem as possible because you want to have as much to offer as you possibly can. So there are there are definitely ways to partner with us. We have multiple types of partner programs, and a great organization that does that. [00:12:39] S1: And so, you know, maybe like, as I think about, you know, I'm an ambitious AI founder, and selling to Salesforce, why is that the more ambitious choice for me?
00:12:39 · Alex Immerman, John Somorjai
[00:12:39] S1: And so, you know, maybe like, as I think about, you know, I'm an ambitious AI founder, and selling to Salesforce, why is that the more ambitious choice for me? [00:12:53] S0: Well, imagine having to build that distribution channel on your own, and how long that will take to hire the reps, ramp the reps, enable them, and get them productive. It takes a very, very long time to build that at scale. Oh, and by the way, you've gotta do that across small business, medium sized business, and enterprises. Oh, and you also have to do that globally. It's a heavy heavy task for anyone to take on. And I think that, you know, entrepreneurs have to like make that decision. Is this the right time to sell and and plug my technology into a company that already has that? Or can I continue and go it alone and try to build it on my own and continue to raise money and dilute yourself further and further and further? And it's just many years of undertaking versus getting your technology in the hands of customers as widely as possible, and as quickly as possible. And that's the decision you have to make. [00:13:54] S1: Fair enough. And as you try to integrate these folks into your culture, they bring a certain entrepreneurial spirit their own way, [00:14:06] S0: Which we love, yes. [00:14:08] S1: And so how do you think about bringing them in, and integrating them appropriately, so that that spirit can continue to spread and thrive while being a part of the, you know, larger platform.
00:14:08 · Alex Immerman, John Somorjai
[00:14:08] S1: And so how do you think about bringing them in, and integrating them appropriately, so that that spirit can continue to spread and thrive while being a part of the, you know, larger platform. [00:14:21] S0: I think that's one of the most exciting things about what we do when we buy a company, is is bring in this exceptional talent to help transform the company. And and in many ways refresh us, you know, and make sure that, like, we're bringing in that entrepreneurial spirit into the company and thinking about new ways of doing doing things. A key focal point of the integration team is on the people and making sure that they're successful in onboarding, learning how things work within Salesforce, but also growing their careers internally. And we've had many many stories of people who have come in, sold their companies to us, and have risen to become our chief product officer. It's happened actually four times now. And or people who have taken on big roles within our sales organization or other leadership roles. And so I think I think it's been an important part of how we've grown the company too through bringing in new talent. [00:15:26] S1: Yeah, mean, have 80,000 employees, I can imagine. You bring in these companies, they help turbocharge certain areas. Is there an example of one of these acquired companies that you point to as having big impact on the culture of the organization?