David Karrasch, Mark Sichel, Mark McKinney, Derek Whipple, Michelle Peterson and Margo Mayes from Salesforce.org brainstorming with Arturo Noriega, Founder and Executive Director of Centro Community Partners.
An entrepreneurship education program that can help just about anyone create a business plan by using a mobile app is a breakthrough solution for an enormous segment of the U.S. population and the developing world who seek to start small businesses to lift themselves out of poverty, and create jobs for others.
For years, our friends at Salesforce.org have understood and supported our standing for economic development through entrepreneurship by providing us great council on how to best use their flagship product. But this time, they have opened up their doors, time and expertise on sales execution to strategize with us new go-to market initiatives for Centro's entrepreneurship training product - ultimately, allowing us to rely less on fundraising efforts and be more self sufficient.
We thank Mark Sichel, Vice-president of Enterprise Sales at Salesforce.org, for enabling two pro-bono work sessions with his entire team. Together, we looked at how, where, to whom and for how much to sell our curriculum materials. We went over several new go-to market strategies and further explored the viability of our trainer model.
To support entrepreneurs in more communities throughout the country, we will:
- Revise our infrastructure/processes to handle new partnerships and provide them with continued support.
- Use Salesforce to make data-driven decisions, run reports easier, and create a smooth/streamlined systems for marketing, communications, follow-up, impact evaluation, referrals.
- Consider partnerships with larger organizations.
- Possibly create an account manager position.
We do this with the hope that more people will be able to benefit from our services, and more small businesses emerge for the benefit of families, entire communities and economies.
Thank you Salesforce for sharing your expertise and great-product with us!