Discover Why Our Sales Team Succeeds

Learning Objectives

After completing this unit, you’ll be able to:

Articulate why the sales organization at Salesforce is unique.
Explain how the sales organization is structured.
Learn why our sales teams are verticalized.

Before we dive in, it’s important to keep in mind that the information here is tailored primarily for account executive (AE) candidates who have been invited to interview with our sales team. But if you happen to be interviewing for another position—or if you’re just curious—there’s a chance you might still find this module to be informative.

Why Salesforce Is the Right Decision for You

If you're like us, you don't settle for the ordinary, but strive for extraordinary. You’re a dynamic professional that desires to influence customers with groundbreaking solutions. If you want to consult with and help customers solve their biggest challenges, then we have the opportunities you're looking for.

So get ready—your career and professional trajectory are about to skyrocket with Salesforce! As a customer-centric company, we see customers at the center of everything we do. And Salesforce sees our employees as customers, too. Here, employee success = customer success. Our goal is to help you visualize how you can transform your everyday in ways that you never imagined, as part of our exciting and dynamic team.

Salesforclandians working together on the Sales team.

An important part of selling solutions is having passion for, and believing in, the value of the solutions you’re selling. And with the Salesforce Platform, you know that the best-in-class solutions have a meaningful impact on your customers’ business. As a Salesforce account executive, you have the opportunity to sell a complete Salesforce Platform, with solutions that touch every line of business.

As an example, one of many Salesforce customer success stories is that of adidas—a global leader in athletic sportswear, shoes, and fashion. We allowed them to better understand their consumers, one shoe buyer at a time. Read how Salesforce helps them put shoppers at the center of its business.

Reimagine the Future of Selling

Do you value collaboration? Do you move at the pace of innovation? Do you keep it authentic and real? We’ve been waiting for you!

We’re excited for you to meet our dynamic organization, one that’s changing the world we live in. How? We’re preparing business leaders for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a technological revolution bringing people and data closer than ever before. To do that, we’re also recruiting top-tier sales executives who are able to align with our values.

But why come to Salesforce? Plenty of other organizations promise security, career development, and competitive compensation. Well, let’s take a look at some of the ways that Salesforce stands out, and why it should be your first choice.

First, our values. We rely on our core values of trust, customer success, innovation, equality, and sustainability across our organization.

Second, Salesforce has a tremendous solution set that isn’t found at every company. The nature of our suite of products also means that you’ll never tire or run out of dynamic, exciting new solutions to sell. You might think of it as a consultant’s role, more than one of traditional sales. We use a customer-focused, consultative sales process that puts the specific business needs of the client at the center of every solution we sell. We make sure that our clients’ investment of time, energy, and money results in a clear business value for them. Our reps will often find themselves selling on-site, face-to-face with customers.

Third, we are a highly competitive organization that thrives on an AE’s desire to win. Every team member has the opportunity to be successful, and we help each other out. A rising tide lifts all ships! We take care of each other, we have fun together, and we work collaboratively to make the world a better place. It all allows you to become the best you.

Fourth, we recognize that enriching work-life integration and community culture is a lost art these days, and we know that work is no longer a 9 to 5 job. At Salesforce, we prioritize personal enrichment and development. Curious? Check out our company culture page to learn more.

Finally, we’re a fast-paced team, one offering you plenty of mobility. We’re also on a path for remarkable growth—in fact, Salesforce continues to see over 20% revenue growth year over year. We sell products that help our customers bring in revenue, so we’re also looking for the right individuals to help us bring in revenue as well. We can then reward those team members who assist us the most in that vision of growth.

Salesforce candidate looking in binoculars at Sales projections.

A Closer Look at Our Sales Team

Now, let’s take a look at how the Salesforce Sales team is structured. This can help you visualize our chain of command, and develop an understanding of how we function and support each other.

So, how do we align to best serve our customers? At Salesforce we have three different types of sales teams: Sales Development, Business Development, and Account Executive teams.

Our Sales Development team qualifies incoming leads via our website, live chat, 800 number, and demand generation channels; our Business Development team is focused on strategically breaking into new prospects and expanding footprints in existing accounts; our Account Executive teams are structured around the size of the accounts they serve.

We offer two specialized sales executive roles in our Account Executive teams: core account executive and cloud sales account executive. Core account executives run the full sales cycles for the client groups that they support, and are the supporting conduit for all of the cross-functional partners (including cloud sales account executives). They are focused on geographic and/or verticalized territories, customers, and are on the hunt for new business within prospects and existing accounts. Cloud account executives are subject matter experts who consult with customers to create solutions and work in partnership with the Core Sales team.

Our account executive teams also have different sales market segments.

Verticalized Sales Teams

Our organization is structured in a way to operate with solutions as industry experts. We’ve developed verticals for Healthcare and Life Sciences, Retail and Consumer Goods, Financial Services, and Manufacturing—that means our reps can leverage repeatable-use cases and learn to speak the unique industry languages of our many customers. It’s a matter of curious and creative problem solving, with a continuously growing portfolio of groundbreaking solutions to address both age-old and evolving business objectives.

As you might imagine, some of our solutions are sold to specific types of clients. In those cases, teams (of all segments) are broken out to support specific markets.

Geo Sales Teams

Our Geo Sales teams service customers (outside of specific industries) in geographic market segments, and our Cloud Sales teams are aligned to specific product suites to provide technical and specialized knowledge.

No one wins alone here, and a healthy team selling environment is how we get things done. We have reps who focus on Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud Engagement, Pardot, Heroku, Platform, Commerce Cloud, and more.

Sales team members working together.

Your unique background and expertise will help us determine which sales roles may be right for you. And, as your career continues, who knows where the adventure will take you—some of our associates continue to grow upmarket, decide to specialize in a product, or will transition into a leadership role. There are countless growth paths here.

Quick Recap

Salesforce solutions are brought to customers around the world by a talented, collaborative team of Trailblazers. We take great pride in all of our professionals, and they have a deep-seated passion for helping us change the world, one data-driven transformation journey at a time. It’s an impressive mission that we can’t do alone—and a verticalized sales team is crucial to our success. At their best, they bring creative problem solving to the sales table, implementing informed groundbreaking solutions to age-old marketplace pain points.

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