Always Room For Another Diet

I spoke earlier today with a fella that seems courted by the likes of Microsoft and salesforce.com as an SaaS guru (that’s software-as-a-service, or web-accessed gear if you prefer).  He made an interesting comment that people running sales teams are possibly the most put-upon, miserable people on the planet.  He reckoned if you ask any Head of Sales if they’re happy with their sales team, they’d universally say ‘no’!

This is actually a good thing if you supply stuff to sales teams he thought – software, training, whatever, as it means there’s always someone looking for something.

He likened it to the health & fitness industry, saying “there’s always room for another diet”, meaning there’s always room for another vendor peddling sales improvement offerings.  Hearty news for the crm crowd I guess, even though the price per seat appears to be plummeting of late.  Salesforce’s $65 per person can now be bought from as little as $45 in bundles.  The price points seem to be lowering with all the signs of an emerging market land-grab taking shape, and the pressures of companies with larger-perceived offerings, such as erp software, trying to expose the web-sales-software guys as profiteering.