Marc Benioff started his dream job in 1999.

The first thing he has to do was to unlearn everything he has learnt from his previous job.

In his earlier job, he learned:

  • How to trust the rules too much and play it safe.
  • How to be relaxed about competition because of a big brand.
  • How to wait for someone to give you permission to do your job?

When he started his company Salesforce, he was forced to learn:

  • How to be comfortable with uncomfortable.
  • How not to wait for things to happen on their own.
  • How to chase their competitors.

But the problem was that he couldn't just sit down and learn these things.

He has to learn these on the job.

Here I have discussed how Marc used his competitor to build his billion-dollar business. He managed to learn things that he would never have learned in his previous job.

1. Only acknowledge the market leader

In every industry, there is a market leader.

Whether you're starting a clothing brand or a software service, there will be one market leader.

If you are going to start a company, you should check whether there is any market leader in that category. There will definitely be some status quo if there is no market leader.

When Marc started Salesforce, he knew he had to present Salesforce in a way that made it look like an established brand and that it stands for something. Therefore, he decided to first search for a market leader in that category.

He was looking for a company that had the largest market share in the CRM category. He wasn't looking for a company that was second best, he just wanted the shark.

This competitor was going to stay with Salesforce for a long time.

He wanted the Salesforce brand to feel like the underdog and the visionary.

If your industry has no industry leader, you should go after the status quo.

An example

If you visit theatres regularly, you'll notice that people watch movies on a big screen with popcorn and snacks. If you are going to launch a new food item that you think will be good for people in theatres, attack the status quo of popcorn and snacks.

Suppose you are launching a popcorn brand and there is a market leader in the popcorn category. In that case, you only need to acknowledge that leader. You have to design your marketing in a way that will present you as a visionary and an underdog.

You need to remember that the brand or the status quo you will chase and attack will be with you for a long time. So choose wisely.

Salesforce found the market leader

Marc identified Siebel Systems as the only competitor to Salesforce. He only attacked this company from time to time.

Most of Salesforce's marketing campaign was just attacking the market leader in different ways.

2. Go after the market leader and surprise them

Once you have identified the market leader or the status quo.

You should be ready to do something with it.

Going after the market leader can put you in situations you never imagined.

As a founder of a new company, attacking the market leader will give you the opportunity to grow.

Marc knew had identified the market leader which was Siebel Systems. He knew he had to attack this company.

For this, he hired some actors and sent them as protesters to one of the Siebel user group conferences.

He was doing all this because his big idea was the end of traditional software. He wanted to disrupt the way software was delivered to different companies. Earlier, the software was delivered via CD-ROM and he wanted to use the cloud to deliver the software.

His team designed the NO SOFTWARE logo to criticize the way software was delivered.

The actors who were sent to the conference started flashing the NO SOFTWARE logo and started yelling that their software is outdated. By doing this, all the conference attendees began to pay attention to these actors.

One of the Siebel employees called the police.

The salesforce team planned everything legally so that the police can't stop the protest. In fact, police started to give protection to the people who were doing the protest.

The presence of the police at the protest helped them bring more attention to the matter.

That night, Salesforce was having its launch party, so the team at the protest approached everyone who attended the Siebel conference and invited them to attend the party. Many of the people from the conference showed up to the launch party.

This technique worked for Salesforce.

By attacking an industry leader, you will be able to introduce new ideas and technology that your market leader never imagined.

An example

Suppose you built a website that will help creators host their long videos online and get discovered by other people. Now who will be the industry leader in this category? It will definitely be youtube. You have identified the market leader.

Now it is time to attack the market leader. Attacking the market leader gives you an opportunity to disrupt all the traditional practices of YouTube.

On Youtube, creators make money by ad revenue sharing. If you're a new company, you could attack this model and educate people about how YouTube is taking their hard-earned money just for giving them little distribution. You could promote your software by telling them how your product will enable creators to make money using subscription revenue directly from their fans.

There are tons of ways to attack the market leader. Just pick the things that frustrate your customers the most and design your marketing in a way that addresses those popular concerns.

3. Keep an eye on your competitor's activity

Your competitor can help you gain market share.

Let's understand a big problem which every market leader has.

The market leader will never acknowledge a company that is new. Their focus will be on the company with the second-largest market share. The activities of the market leader will be to grow their market share.

They will not focus on a business that has just started.

This's where a small business opportunity arises.

Marc's earlier tactic of leveraging the activity of the competitor has worked well for Salesforce. He wanted to take more advantage of competitors' activity to gain market share.

The entire Salesforce team had an eye on competitor activity. Every now and then they brainstormed what new things could be done to take advantage of the competitors' activity so that the Salesforce brand would benefit from it.

Just by keeping an eye on the competitor's activity, they were able to craft a new message for the Siebel conference. The message was "Wake Up and smell the Salesforce.com coffee."

To circulate this message they did something strange. A senior vice president on the Salesforce team assembled a large number of bicycle taxis called rickshaws outside the centre where the Siebel conference took place.

These taxis provided rides for the 2,000 people who attended the conference. They also handed up doughnuts and a coffee mug that had a quote on it that promoted Salesforce. The quote was "Wake up Siebel, salesforce.com is a disruptive technology and is slowly moving in on the CRM prize."

This messaging also worked wonders for them and they were able to convey their mission to the Siebel die-hard followers.

When you closely monitor your competitor's activities, you will find some loopholes in their products and dissatisfied customer. You can then offer a superior product or a differentiated product.

An example

If you want to build a product that will be a better alternative to Youtube. Become a creator on the youtube platform. Then you will start to understand what are the loopholes in their service. Since you are already a creator on the platform, you will have a better understanding of the situation of other creators.

You will get a basic idea of how the algorithm works and how good or bad the content moderation policy is. You could also attend the conference Youtube does for their creators. These things will help you to design and build a better product.

If you become a creator yourself, you will be keeping an eye on your competitor's activity, which you can never do by simply being a viewer.

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