Ex-Salesforce exec: how Salesforce partners win at Dreamforce

It might surprise you, but Salesforce, in fact, has a Dreamforce strategy.

And if you're a Salesforce partner, you should have a well-thought-out plan at this year's event before you set foot in Moscone (with tens of thousands of people visiting).

Yes, it should be more than just walking up to people at the expo booth and scanning people's badges that walk up. And yes, it should be more than schmoozing with prospects at the after-parties.

The biggest mistake Josh Eich, former Salesforce AVP and co-founder of Carve Consulting, has found is that partners make the expo floor and entertainment their only strategy.

If partners want to succeed in San Francisco, they must align their approach with the Salesforce team to drive better leads and support customers directly during the buying process.

Here's the main takeaway: people buy from partners they trust. And partners show trust by showing value to prospects in the selling cycle.

Here's how Salesforce thinks about Dreamforce 2023

Dreamforce is there to close deals

Dreamforce is a means to an end. They're building for the biggest quarter of the fiscal year: Q4. Everything that happens at Dreamforce progresses deals to close in Q4. 

This strategy is to communicate their value to the public markets.

To deliver on this strategy, Salesforce gets its top executives and parades them to their customers. This action builds confidence in the customer that the Salesforce team can make good on the promises the Sales function promised these customers.

How Salesforce partners can win

How can Salesforce partners leverage this to their benefit? By bringing their top executives as well. If Salesforce will put its best and brightest employees in front of customers, partners should, too.

Storytime: While Josh was at Salesforce, he brought in the CEO of a Salesforce partner on a deal to discuss strategy with one of his customers. Josh was having trouble executing a vision he laid out, all because a customer was concerned they wouldn't be able to deliver in the timeline provided. In 30 minutes, they sat the customer down with a real-world CEO, and that CEO outlined how they helped similar customers deliver on that same rapid timeline.

The customer could ask questions and discuss what speed bumps they anticipate hitting along the way, including the challenges they should prepare for.

That conversation was invaluable to the customer and wasn't a Salesforce sales team pitch. It was a conversation with a partner that had "been there, done that," and that enabled Salesforce to close a deal. Plus, the partners got to sign a multi-million dollar deal for themselves.

The deal may not have closed if the partner didn't bring their top executives.

Show up with the best and brightest from your company.

Dreamforce builds pipeline

Pipeline, pipeline, pipeline. It's the second most crucial goal for Salesforce at Dreamforce.

They want to make big announcements to generate buzz and build the next set of opportunities. For Dreamforce 2023, the significant initiative is AI, AI, AI. Did I mention it was AI?

The CRM giant wants to identify the following products, features, services, and capabilities and create so much buzz that it inspires prospects and existing customers to purchase what's on the horizon.

This action helps Salesforce grow its deal sizes and build for deals that will happen in the future. Salesforce wins because it gets continuous revenue; customers win because of constant innovation.

How Salesforce partners can win

Salesforce partners can win by focusing on the 1 or 2 new products Salesforce is promoting and being the expert on it as it comes to market.

Salesforce partners think they're clever by coming to Salesforce and saying they do everything on the platform. But that's not how Salesforce sales functions think. They don't think about those partners. They think about the partners that can say they do a particular part of the platform well (e.g., AI Cloud or Salesforce CPQ). 

The next time a Salesforce AVP is in a meeting with a CIO, and the CIO mentions they're having problems with their quoting and configuration, that AVP will go to the partner that has solidified themselves as experts in solving that problem.

So, Salesforce partners should get up to speed, be privy to upcoming announcements, and see if they can get ahead of where Salesforce is innovating.

Value add at Dreamforce

If you're not speaking at Dreamforce, you can at least attend the smaller sessions and lodges and let the speaker go through their conversation. Then, you can add your own story or point of view and talk about how you're doing the same thing with customers.

Additionally, you can go directly to Salesforce selling teams and talk to them. You can offer a complimentary 1-hour whiteboard with customers that cover 3 topics. Salesforce LOVES this because its customers love it. 

Where can you run the workshops at Dreamforce? Salesforce has its tower close to campus and even has other meeting locations.

Come prepared, share this information with your counterparts at Salesforce ahead of time, and figure out which customers you can get in front of with them. 

Dreamforce inspires customers

It's no wonder people outside of Salesforce call the ecosystem a "cult." Marc Benioff calls it the Ohana. But Dreamforce is there to inspire customers and to get them to drink the blue Kool-Aid. 

Dreamforce builds a vision for what their future could look like on Salesforce. How can Dreamforce inspire customers to think beyond how they ensure business continuity?

Why do you think Salesforce brings customers on stage? To tell incredible stories and to get you to put yourself in their shoes. What could you accomplish in your industry, at your organization?

Salesforce accomplishes this through luminaries: industry experts, thought leaders, and more. 

As a Salesforce partner, bring your best industry executives to inspire Salesforce's customers about what's on the horizon. For example, Josh brought his customers to partner-hosted luncheons because he was looking to get his customers to relax outside of Dreamforce. 

If Salesforce partners can host a happy hour or lunch, a captive audience can now hear the stories they want to share. It's a huge opportunity to reach more potential customers and inspire them to think bigger. 

Dreamforce builds relationships

Remember: people buy from people they trust. And where is trust usually built? In the after-hours connections and real-talk that happens outside of the Dreamforce sessions.

"I'm struggling with EinsteinGPT in Salesforce and can't figure it out. I need help."

The best Salesforce partners will have venues to host these conversations during the day (especially after-hours events). Customers can sit down and make connections. Salesforce customers come to Dreamforce to have the opportunity to connect with other customers.

Customers can get most of the session information on the snooze-fest topics like "5 Ways To Eliminate Data Downtime with Salesforce" on Salesforce+. They come because there is no substitute for the in-person, face-to-face experience of talking to someone in the same industry or an adjacent sector. 

How Salesforce partners can win

Salesforce partners can use this as an opportunity to connect with existing customers and prospects conversing with the Salesforce team.

A Salesforce partner could go to Salesforce and say, "This is my customer base. These are the stories of customers who have been successful with the platform. I could bring these customers and stories to your customers. Who could we connect your customers with from our side while we're at Dreamforce?"

A talk track like this is not about Salesforce but connecting two customers to help each other. 

The customers will remember the partner that brought them together, which builds trust for the partner and the Salesforce organization.