20 Years of Salesforce: What B2B Companies Can Learn from the CRM Pioneer’s Storytelling

Twenty years is a long time. When you celebrate your twentieth birthday, you have been an adult for two years already, have a driver’s license, have graduated from school and are starting your career. Companies also have something to celebrate when they break twenty. In a time of constant change, staying in the market for so long is not a matter of course. The Salesforce founders probably didn’t really think so either. But they did it. 2019 they celebrated 20 years of Salesforce.

How do you tell the story of a CRM software without boring your audience with features, databases, and technical details? Salesforce shows a different approach: by focusing on people, personal challenges, and stories of change. Instead of putting its own technology in the spotlight, the company makes customers, employees, and so-called “Trailblazers” the heroes of its communications.

To mark its 20th anniversary, we took a look at how Salesforce uses its company history, values, and the experiences of its community for brand storytelling—and why B2B companies, in particular, can learn a thing or two from this approach.

How Does Salesforce Use Storytelling in B2B Marketing?

Salesforce combines different forms of brand storytelling: Its founding story conveys the vision behind the brand; the Ohana philosophy embodies community and belonging; and personal stories from customers and employees bring the impact of the software and the company culture to life. In doing so, Salesforce often takes on the role of mentor, while the people who work with its solutions become the heroes of their own stories. Thus, the focus is not solely on the technology, but on what people can achieve with the help of this technology.

The Founding Story: How Salesforce Tells Its Vision

March San Francisco 1999: Marc Benioff, Parker Harris, Dave Moellenhoff and Frank Dominguez founded Salesforce in a one-bedroom apartment. The reasons? They wanted to make software as easy to use as Amazon. To this end, operating applications should be offered directly via the Internet, without additional software. Benioff and co. have succeeded in doing just that. Even after 20 years, Salesforce is still one of the fastest growing software companies and is now number 1 in the CRM sector. Over 150,000 Salesforce customers worldwide have already achieved their goals, e.g. better marketing.

Ohana: How Salesforce Turns Community into Brand Storytelling

The philosophy of the giant from San Francisco is “Ohana“. The Hawaiian word means family. This is exactly what the giant from the USA wants to present to its customers, employees and community. The company’s core values are also based on this. These include innovation, trust, growth, transparency, customer success, social commitment, well-being, fun and equality. The 1-1-1 system was introduced with the Salesforce.org foundation. In the process, 1% of resources are made available for charitable projects. This corresponds to seven paid days for each employee to carry out charitable work, 1% of equity is used as donations, mostly for regional projects, and 1% of products can be used free of charge by non-profit organizations.

Customer Stories: Why Salesforce Turns Its Customers into Heroes

Anyone selling CRM software could, of course, talk at length about features, interfaces, and technical capabilities. Salesforce, however, takes a different approach to storytelling: Instead of making its own software the star of the story, the company puts the people who work with it front and center. Their challenges, ideas, and successes provide the material for stories that other companies can relate to.

One example of this is the story of the Berlin-based startup Lemoncat, which Salesforce featured as a customer reference as early as 2019. The focus here is not solely on the technology used, but on the development of a young company and the question of how digital solutions can support its growth. Salesforce takes on the role of a mentor who guides the protagonists along their journey, while the customers themselves remain the heroes of their own story.

This shift in perspective is particularly evident in Salesforce’s “Trailblazer” messaging. Salesforce uses the term “Trailblazer” to describe people who blaze new trails, overcome challenges, and drive change. Their stories speak to entrepreneurial courage, personal growth, and innovative ideas. The software is a tool in this context, but it is not the main focus.

Salesforce also demonstrated just how effectively this approach can be implemented editorially with its customer magazine, Nah. Instead of simply stringing together traditional product information, the magazine focused on people, their perspectives, and their business challenges. This transformed customer communication into a platform for stories that are interesting in their own right, regardless of the specific product.

What can other B2B companies learn from this? A compelling customer story doesn’t start with the question of what features a product offers, but with the challenge facing a person or a company. Only when we understand what the protagonists want to achieve and what obstacles they must overcome does it become clear how a brand contributes to their progress. And that’s exactly when a traditional customer testimonial becomes a story that sticks in people’s minds.

Salesforce Storytelling: Focusing on People, Not Software

Be it descriptive videos, reports or photos, at Salesforce everything seems to have a story. The company from San Francisco is not necessarily the hero of the story. The company acts as a mentor to its customers and supports them. But the employees’ stories are also shaped by their work. Be it the day-to-day work, the social commitment or also learnings that employees had. It is listened to and then reported on various channels such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

A #dualesStudium is the perfect combination for Leonard Klein and Pauline Rößle! You can find out why the two students chose #Salesforce here: https://t.co/VsZ2iFOdMj pic.twitter.com/zO1oM8CaFo

– Salesforce Germany (@SalesforceDE) June 4, 2019

Video Storytelling: How Salesforce Gives Employees a Platform

Videos of customers, products and employees are published on YouTube. Their stories, whether hobbies, strokes of fate or the path they have taken in life, form the focus. They take on the role of the hero. One example of this is the “Make a Change Women” video series.

Here, women in senior management positions talk about what drives them in life, what is important to them and their recipe for success. Take Stephanie Buscemi for example, who has had many mentors in her life who have helped her both professionally and personally. She now wants to pass this on to others and be a mentor too. Or Sarah Franklin, who works as a woman in a technical profession and has been confronted with many prejudices. She has asserted herself and now wants to help making changes for other women as a mentor.

What B2B Companies Can Learn from Salesforce’s Storytelling

Salesforce creates the feeling that everyone can be a hero and that it is almost child’s play to implement as a team. Despite its size, the company continues to adhere to its family philosophy Ohana. The company’s storytelling makes a major contribution to its success. Be it employer branding or the presentation of products, everything has a story that Salesforce skillfully stages. Customers and employees listen, watch and are captivated by Salesforce’s various stories. Their goal is to become the number one provider of cloud solutions.

Who says complex software can’t be presented in an emotional way? Salesforce shows that even technical products have stories behind them—stories about people, challenges, and change. The key isn’t to package every product feature in the most exciting way possible, but to shift the perspective: away from the software and toward the people who work with it.

Three storytelling principles can be derived from Salesforce’s communications:

• Turning Customers into Heroes: Instead of simply showcasing products and features, Salesforce uses personal stories to highlight the challenges customers overcome and the changes they achieve. In doing so, the brand takes on the role of a mentor.
• Bringing corporate values to life: Through the Ohana philosophy and social engagement, Salesforce aligns its brand with an overarching ethos. In this way, values are not merely stated but conveyed through concrete actions.
• Let people speak, not logos: Whether they’re customers, employees, or executives—personal experiences give corporate communications a human face and create opportunities for people to identify with the company.

So the secret to success isn’t suddenly turning CRM software into an emotional product. Rather, Salesforce tells stories about the people who are making a difference with this technology. And that’s precisely where an important lesson lies for other B2B companies as well: It’s not the product that has to take center stage. Sometimes it’s enough to give the real heroes a platform.

TL;DR: Salesforce Storytelling in a Nutshell

• 🚀 From startup to CRM pioneer: Salesforce was founded in 1999 with the vision of making business software more easily accessible via the Internet.
• ❤️ Ohana as a brand philosophy: Community, trust, and social responsibility shape the brand’s narrative.
• 🦸 Customers as Heroes: Customer stories highlight personal challenges, growth, and successes rather than just product features.
• 🤝 Salesforce as a Mentor: The software helps people and companies achieve their own goals.
• 🎬 Putting People First: Employee videos, personal profiles, and customer magazines make the brand more tangible.
• 💡 Lessons for B2B companies: Even technical products can be presented in an emotionally engaging way when the focus is on the human benefits.