Read the following mini-case, and then answer the questions that follow. Make sure your answers are concise.  

 

The company of Salesforce is a leading software developer of business solutions, their products include Customer Relationship Management packages and Marketing Automation tools and services.

The company has recently decided to launch a new product, an accounting software for businesses. The new cloud-based accounting software will be targeting owners of Small to Medium enterprises (SME) and will compete with current accounting software solutions in a few ways, like being associated with a large brand name (Salesforce) and therefore being able to provide more reliable technology.  

The new software will also use Artificial Intelligence guided technology, which is able to identify in abnormalities in spending, this technology is believed to assist business owners and managers to discover unnecessary expenses or sudden increases in prices, which will help the managers and owners to keep better track of their operational expenses.

The company is planning to sell the product in the Greater Toronto Area directly to business owners and managers of businesses such as restaurants, retailers, and small clinics, with annual revenue of at least 5 million Dollars and do not have a dedicated full-time accountant taking care of business expenses.  

The company will start by targeting their current customers of their different solutions, the current list of clients includes over 5,000 businesses in the Greater Toronto Area of restaurants, retailers, and clinics. The company will also use a marketing campaign to create product awareness and will also hire a team to salespeople to sell the products to current Salesforce clients and new clients using the method of Relationship Selling.


Questions

1. What is the meaning of Relationship Selling in this particular case? Provide 2 examples of what salespeople at Salesforce are going to do differently from other similar companies following the traditional selling approach.  
 

2. To qualify as a viable sales opportunity, a prospect should demonstrate certain attributes. What are these attributes in the case? How could the salespeople at Salesforce obtain some information necessary to help them qualify the leads from the current database and marketing activities?  

3. What is the FAB elements in this case? Identify each element individually.