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Salesforce's most successful salesman made

tons of money by following this secret
playbook

 Eugene Kim
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 Aug. 5, 2015, 3:57 PM

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Salesforce

David Rudnitsky's legacy lives on at Salesforce through "The Rudnitsky Sales Playbook."

Salesforce is now a $50 billion cloud-computing juggernaut, but early on it was a software
upstart mostly selling to small and midsize businesses.

It wasn’t until a guy named David Rudnitsky was hired as a sales executive in 2002 that it really
saw its enterprise sales grow.

In fact, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff was so impressed by Rudnitsky’s sales tactics that he
dedicated a whole section about it in his own book, “Behind the Cloud.”

Rudnitsky has now moved to a company called Insidesales.com, but his legacy lives on through
what Benioff calls "The Rudnitsky Sales Playbook."

1. "Think BIG, Have Attitude": Think big (dollars and scope), not just the immediate opportunity in
front of you. Behave as if your company is big, even if it's not. Salesforce's average customer had 12
users when Rudnitsky started out.

2. "No deal is won or lost alone": Bring in the entire team to work on new deals, and brainstorm
about how to do a better job. "I'm less impressed with someone who closes a $2 million deal alone
than I am with someone who brought all of us in and still closed the same $2 million deal,"
Rudnitsky said.

3. "Connect the dots": Never cold-call — always call with a plan. Constantly reach out to contacts and
find connections before engaging with a prospect.
4. "Focus on 'why not'": Instead of thinking about why a deal will close, focus on why it might not.
"Anticipating the 'why nots' gives you a significant advantage over [competitors]," he writes.

5. "Always take the deal off the table": Make sure every deal is closed if it's ready to close. Don't
waste any time, leaving a chance for the deal stalling and potentially getting away.

6. "Get your face in the place": Meet your customers in person. You won't be able to learn anything
about them by just talking on the phone. It also strengthens the customers' confidence in you.

7. "Fun facts build instant credibility": Try to learn everything about your customer and collect 'fun
facts' that could be used to build your credibility.

8. "Be proactive on all paperwork": Make sure all paperwork is in place. Otherwise, it will "come back
to bite you."

9. "Always get quid pro quo in negotiations": Don't be afraid to ask for more and say no when
needed. For example, make sure you're allowed to announce the deal in the press because it gives
huge publicity that could lead to other opportunities.

10. "Share best practices": Share great emails or proposals with the rest of the team and try to learn
from them. And use them in other deals too.

11. "Go after game changers": Look for deals that can take the company to the next level. "These deals
are revolutionary in a company's evolution. Winning huge customers, such as Dell and Japan Post,
was game changing for our company," Benioff writes.