The History of Revenue.io & RingDNA at Dreamforce Over The Years

Revenue Wins First Prize at Dreamforce Hackathon 2011

After an exciting, interactive demonstration, we’re proud to announce that Revenue.io architect Kyle Roche has won the top prize in the Dreamforce Hackathon ’11.

The Twilio-sponsored Hackathon challenged developers to build a social enterprise app with the potential to change the way that companies do business. The app had to utilize one or more of the following: Force.com, Heroku or Database.com. With $23 thousand dollars at stake, developers from all over the world competed in hopes of making it to the top three in order to win a cash prize. Developers were only given six days to write the code, so the pressure was on.

Kyle Roche presented a Revenue.io iPad app with the ability to turn an iPad into a call center. In order to properly simulate a call center, he gave each member of the audience a Revenue.io-generated phone number. As the audience members called the number, his iPad lit up with their call origins.

The app allows sales and customer service representatives to use specific numbers to gain channel-specific information about callers in anticipation of speaking to them. In this way, call centers can provide better customer service and do a better job of targeting customer’s needs.

Dreamforce, which Salesforce.com sponsors, has become the largest cloud technology conference in the United States.

Kyle Roche and the rest of the Revenue.io team look forward to presenting more of Revenue.io’s exciting features in the near future.

Revenue Retro Phone Mania at Dreamforce

We were blown away by the demand for our Revenue.io Retro Phones today at Dreamforce, distributing the first 1,000 in a little under two hours. The phones have already been spotted in Twitter photos, and thanks to all of you who have already downloaded Revenue.io Free for Salesforce in the Apple Store. You don’t need our retro phones to use them, but you look very cool when you do.

If you’d like to come get a demo from Revenue.io (or get a Retro Phone), we’re in the Twilio booth in the dev zone (Moscone West) all week at Dreamforce 2012. We’re thrilled by the feedback we’re getting so far, and we’d love to meet you.

Revenue Spottings at Dreamforce

Thanks to everyone who sported their Revenue.io Retro Receivers at the Dreamforce conference today, and especially those of you who posted pics on Twitter. We enjoyed talking to many of you up in the terrific Twilio Booth in Moscone West, as well as in the jaw-droppingly cool Appirio Club. We’ll be there all week, so please drop by to give us feedback on the new Revenue.io iPad app.

Howard Brown Speaks at Dreamforce

Revenue.io founder & CEO Howard Brown presented at Dreamforce with Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson, CrushPath SVP of Products Matt Wilkinson, and Vinod Sirimalle, Director of Product Management at Cloudsquads. Speaking under the broad theme of the future of voice communication automation, Lawson kicked off the session, discussing how the Internet is forcing changes in sales methodologies, particularly in the B2B sector. Despite a transformational shift in the type of research conducted by buyers, Lawson rightly pointed out that many B2B software companies are still resistant to even posting their prices online, and that technology is gradually helping inside sales teams be more productive than outside sales.

On that note, there’s no question about the price of Revenue.io’s new iPad app. Brown demonstrated how Revenue.io instantly turns any iPad into a truly smart phone, providing sales reps with the ability to have truly intelligent conversations through the real time delivery of contextually relevant conversation. Taking a call from the audience, Brown showed the audience how a contact’s Salesforce.com account data, company news and social media information can be utilized during a call.

Brown also previewed a few upcoming features, including a fully functional Google Maps widget that allowed Brown to pinpoint the caller’s geo-location in real time, and a script feature that autopopulated relevant talking points based on the campaign that led the caller to pick up the phone. Revenue.io campaign phone numbers are powered by Twilio. Premium users will be able to instantly provision these smart numbers on the fly.

Here’s some pics of Howard & the team at Dreamforce this week:

Howard Brown speaks on the future of voice communication automation at Dreamforce.

Howard Brown the Revenue.io staff at the Appirio Club near Moscone Center.

CEO Howard Brown & COO Kanwar Saluja with Revenue.io Retro Receivers at Dreamforce.

Revenue’s Howard Brown and Kyle Roche to Speak at Dreamforce ’12

Dreamforce is less than a week away! We’re working long hours here at Revenue.io getting ready for what’s sure to be not only the cloud computing event of the year, but also the most important business technology event. Last year was a blast. Our VP, Mobile, Kyle Roche won first place in the Dreamforce Hackathon with what would become the first lines of code for the Revenue.io iPad application.

This year Revenue.io CEO Howard Brown is teaming up with Twilio CEO Jeff Lawson to give a presentation entitled Communication Automation – The Future of Salesforce Automation (SFA) Software.

Here’s the description:

Sales is 90% communication and 10% organization, but the brunt of SFA software currently available is not designed with the individual sales user’s needs in mind. The future of SFA software will be streamlining communications into software and processes to help reps have the right communication with the right customer at the right time. Howard will explain how Revenue.io’s current and future offerings will bring about better communications, more focused sales teams and better tracking analytics across all sales functions. This presentation is a great opportunity to find out more about Revenue.io and hear Howard’s vision for the future of Sales.

Don’t miss Howard & Jeff, Wednesday, Sept 19, 12:00 – 1:00pm in Moscone West, Rm 2024.

On the heels of his victory last year, Kyle Roche has been asked to weigh in on Chatter integration in iOS at his session, Live Stadium Challenge: Chatter Integration in iOS. Kyle will demonstrate Chatter integration into our new  Revenue.io iPad app, allowing reps to reference Chatter while taking a business call on their iPad. Kyle will also demonstrate how Chatter can be added to an account, contact, lead or group.

Catch Kyle’s session: Thursday, Sept. 20, 1:45-2:30 at MC West, Touch Stadium.

Revenue Architect Kyle Roche Featured on Developerforce

On the heels of winning first place in the Dreamforce Hackathon ’11, Revenue.io Chief Architect Kyle Roche was featured as a guest contributor to the Developerforce blog. The blog covers topics related to development using the Force.com platform.

Kyle Roche won the Hackathon after presenting a Revenue.io iPad app that simulates a call center complete with advanced caller ID.

In his post, Kyle Roche discusses his experience using the Force.com toolkit for iOS, describes how he used Twilio to power the Revenue.io iPad app and gives an account of the Hackathon. He also discusses his upcoming book on iOS Augmented Reality programming.

This week, Kyle will be presenting Revenue.io at the Twilio Conference in San Francisco.

We are excited about all the awesome new features that Kyle Roche and his team are working on for Revenue.io.

Takeaways From Revenue’s Dreamforce Presentations for Inside Sales & Marketing

Those of you who attended our sold out Dreamforce sessions helped make this the most exciting conference for us to date!  In both sessions, our CEO, Howard Brown, revealed some of the ways that call metrics and contextual data are already transforming the way that businesses interact with customers. For those of you who weren’t able to make it, we thought we’d recap some of the most important points that Howard discussed.

Here are the top 5 takeaways from our Dreamforce sessions.

1. Tracking Call Metrics is Vital to Inside Sales Success

Many companies are undergoing a migration to inside sales. In order to stay competitive, it’s imperative that inside sales managers  have moment-to-moment visibility into their reps’ performance. By tracking call metrics in real time, managers can identify what’s working and what isn’t.

For example, tracking a metric such as the number of outbound by rep per day can enable a manager to see whether top performing reps are making more calls each day than underperforming reps. Reps that aren’t hitting quota can be trained to solve customer pain points faster in order to call more leads every day.

2. Seven Key Call Metrics for Inside Sales Managers

Howard’s first Dreamforce session was entitled 7 Key Call Metrics that Will Accelerate Sales Revenue. In the session, he revealed the metrics that inside sales managers should be tracking. Here they are:

1. Number of outbound calls by rep per day
2. Call disposition per rep by day (e.g. how many calls resulted in appointments, busy signals, disconnected numbers, etc.)
3. Number of calls per lead—are all leads receiving the attention they need?
4. Number of unanswered calls
5. Lead response time—are reps following up fast enough?
6. Average call rating by marketing campaign—Revenue.io enables inside sales reps to rate calls on 1-5 stars so marketers can see, in real time, which campaigns are driving the most effective calls
7. Wins by rep by campaign. Which reps are actually sealing the deal? Are certain reps better at closing deals generated by specific campaigns?

3. Call Metrics Help Sales Managers and Marketers Predict the Future

Nearly half of companies don’t hit their quarterly revenue targets. However, tracking call metrics in Salesforce.com gives inside sales managers the ability to perform predictive analysis to better gauge how much revenue each rep will close per quarter. This gives managers the chance to course-correct, giving the option to either replace laggard reps with more successful ones or provide additional coaching to help them meet their goals. Likewise, tracking which marketing efforts are actually driving leads, opportunities and revenue closed over the telephone enables marketers to make smarter budgeting decisions, empowering them to invest more in efforts proven to drive ROI.

4. Call Tracking Isn’t Just for Marketers

In Howard’s second session on Integrated Call Tracking, he revealed how call tracking has changed, and now boasts the potential to influence sales workflow in real time. While call tracking started out as a way for marketers to see which channels were driving the highest volume of calls, by integrating call metrics into Salesforce.com, marketers can now view which efforts drive the most phone leads, opportunities and ROI. But as Howard pointed out, this is really just the beginning. Call tracking opens the door to route calls to specialist based on any ad or promotion. It also enables sales reps to view intelligent talking points based on lead sources to know why customers are calling before they even pick up the phone.

5. Context is King

Howard’s sessions both focused on the importance of providing reps with contextual data about prospects. Phone calls are almost always important moments, as a recent Google Study proved (61% of consumers surveyed said they call businesses when they are ready to buy). The more data that sales reps can view within the context of calls, the more successful they can be. When a customer calls for the first time, a sales rep might only be able to see a limited data set such as the caller’s geolocation, which promotion or keyword triggered the call, and talking points based on the referral source. However, in the B2B space, multiple calls are almost always required to close deals. Through the power of progressive profiling, B2B sales reps can gain more data about customers with each call. This contextual data can include content preferences, event attendance, a prospects’ social media streams, news about the prospect’s company and more. The contextual data can help inside sales reps to have smarter conversations, solve pain points quicker and, at the end of the day, close more revenue.

Dreamforce Keynote: How Cloud Computing Transforms the Healthcare Industry

Here at Revenue.io, we are used to helping businesses solve complex problems. We love working with our healthcare customers because our solutions help patients with often life-threatening needs to connect with the right healthcare specialists at the right time. At Dreamforce, our CEO, Howard Brown, gave a presentation on how how we helped a behavioral healthcare customer use integrated call tracking to not only provide new patients with better service, but also increase advertising ROI.

After watching Salesforce’s CEO Marc Benioff’s keynote address, we were excited to see that he is also hyper-focused on ways that cloud computing (and Salesforce in particular) can revolutionize the healthcare industry. About an hour into his keynote address, he did something quite unexpected: he pulled out his toothbrush. “Those of you who know me know that I love brushing my teeth. I always carry my toothbrush.” While oral hygiene isn’t high on the list of subjects you’d expect the CEO of a multi-billion dollar corporation to address in a keynote, his point soon became clear.  He explained that his Phillips Sonicare toothbrush was, in fact, a smart toothbrush that could track his usage patterns and provide a dentist with real-time insight into how often Benioff brushes his teeth and how well he’s brushing.

“It’s a whole new world with my dentist,” Benioff said. But his point is that it is a whole new world of computing in general. For the first time, sales, marketing, customer service, devices can all be linked to each other as well as to customers via the cloud. And customer experience, Benioff argued, must become to cornerstone of every effort. With everything becoming increasingly connected, the so-called “internet of things” must evolve into the “internet of customers.” Those businesses that are most adept at making customer data actionable are poised for success. “You need to get to the future ahead of your customers and be ready to greet them when they arrive,” said Benioff. Truer words have seldom been spoken.

Though all industries must adapt to this new reality, new generations of workflow are absolutely vital to the healthcare industry, where people’s lives are at stake each day. Benioff demonstrated that Phillips not only connects their toothbrushes to the cloud, but also medical equipment like x-ray machines. This enables their customer service team to work with hospitals more efficiently in the event of a problem. And the device cloud is only the beginning. Businesses will increasingly leverage customer data and metadata to not only make better decisions, but make them faster.

We’re proud that multiple healthcare companies are using Revenue.io to power more successful customer engagements. In our session on integrated call tracking, our CEO Howard Brown demonstrated how Revenue.io has helped a behavioral healthcare customer pivot marketing messages in real time to invest more advertisements that have been proven to attract new patients. Howard also showed how Revenue.io can automatically route customers to the right agents at the right time based on metadata. Agents then leverage our apps to have smarter conversations based on data from Google AdWords, Salesforce.com social media and other rich sources of contextual data.

Revenue is Hosting Two Incredible Sales Sessions at Dreamforce 2016

It’s almost time for Dreamforce again, and this year I’m honored to be moderating two panels that are filled with top sales experts from some of the world’s most successful enterprise and growth-stage companies. Both panels are scheduled for Tuesday October 4, with each addressing a vital challenge that sales teams face today.

Our first session is called Selling Globally: How to Scale Internationally and Win Big. It’s going to be a must-attend session for sales leaders at companies that have either already started scaling globally or plan to in the future. I’ll be introducing a couple of Hewlett Packard Enterprise’s top sales executives in order to discuss some best practices for scaling globally and selling into diverse markets.

Later that day, I’ll be hosting another panel entitled Sales Operations Superpowers, which will focus on the best ways that companies can enable sales teams to succeed. Our panel, featuring sales operations leaders from Datanyze, Xactly and Cvent, will reveal insider tips that highly successful companies are using to enable sales reps with the latest sales technology and achieve unprecedented visibility into sales activities.

So if you’re planning on coming to Dreamforce this year, be sure to sign up for these sessions while space is still available. I hope to see you there!

How to experience Revenue at Dreamforce

Dreamforce 2018 concluded with over 170,000 attendees, 13.5 million online viewers, and 400 partner companies. There were more than 2,700 sessions, 50 keynotes, and 5,815 hours of hands-on training. One thing is for sure, if you plan to attend this year, there will be no shortage of activities. However, one thing you absolutely cannot miss is Revenue.io.

Nearly eight years ago, Revenue.io was born out of the Dreamforce Hackathon. This year we’ll be unveiling our transformative conversation intelligence solution, the latest addition to our complete engagement platform that leverages the power of AI to enable entire teams to sell smarter, faster, and more effectively.

Here’s how you can connect with Revenue.io at Dreamforce 2019:

Sales Enablement Soiree

Thursday, November 21

On Thursday, ringDNA will demonstrate its groundbreaking conversation intelligence solution at the Sales Enablement Soiree in the Four Seasons San Francisco.

Revenue.io will be performing live demos of conversationAI* in our booth at the soiree, so come experience Revenue.io for yourself and chat with the team.

The event also includes breakfast, networking events, panels, and keynotes that include all-stars like Paul DePodesta, Chief Strategy Officer of the Cleveland Browns, Brent Adamson of Gartner, Mary Shea of Forrester Research, Peter Ostrow of SiriusDecisions, and Seleste Lunsford of CSO Insights.

Find out more.

Sales OpsStars

Tuesday, November 19 – Thursday, November 21

Revenue.io is both sponsoring and attending LeanData’s OpsStars event. In its fourth year, with over 2,500 attendees, OpsStars focuses on the journey from sales operations to revenue operations and what it means for your business. Attendees include those from sales, marketing, and operations who will learn how to drive scalable growth with Revenue Operations. Speakers include Jacco van der Kooij, Brett Culp, Nate Skinner (VP Product Marketing, Salesforce), Chris Cabrera (Founder & CEO Xactly), and more.

Find out more.

Revenue.io VIP Lounge

Tuesday, November 19 – Thursday, November 21

The Revenue.io Executive Team will meet with customers and interested parties in our VIP lounge right across from the Moscone Center. Those shopping for sales tools, as well as current Revenue.io customers, are welcome to take a break from the Dreamforce madness to come chat, relax, and recharge.

The Sales Enablement Soirée at Dreamforce: A Must-Attend Event for Revenue Leaders

Revenue.io is excited to sponsor the Sales Enablement Soiree at Dreamforce. This exclusive one-day event takes place on Thursday, November 21, 2019, from 8 AM – 7 PM at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco. Bringing together sales and marketing leaders, analysts and vendors to exchange best practices and real-world advice to elevate sales effectiveness. It’s the place to garner the information that matters most to you, from thought leaders who live and breathe sales enablement by sharing tips, tricks and highlights from their learnings in a more relaxed atmosphere.

With more than 60% of companies implementing sales enablement, it’s not surprising that attendance of the Soiree has increased each year since its inception in 2015. It has become increasingly important to continually move toward a formalized practice to reap the rewards of increased revenue, productivity and sales win rates. And this event provides attendees with the information and insights needed to do so.

This event covers every aspect of sales enablement including initiating, implementing and improving an existing practice. Designed for sales enablement professionals with all levels of experience and backgrounds, it’s the place to meet others with similar challenges and build relationships while sharing experiences and learning from industry luminaries. This is your chance to meet others like you during the networking sessions throughout the day and build long-lasting relationships that will last your entire career.

Whether you’re just starting to research sales enablement solutions, are ready to get started, considering making a change or are interested in keeping current with available solutions, you’ll be able to visit the solution evaluation area. There, the industry’s leading sales enablement vendors will be waiting to answer your questions. Chat with solutions providers, see demos and gather some of the cool giveaways in the process.

Speakers include top industry leaders such as Mary Shea of Forrester Research, Peter Ostrow of SiriusDecisions and Seleste Lunsford of CSO Insights. The agenda includes keynotes, presentations, panels, and workshops for every step of your sales enablement journey, plus plenty of networking opportunities. These sessions include:

Keynotes by:

• Paul DePodesta, the chief strategy officer for the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and the brains behind acclaimed sports film, Moneyball, talking about one of the hottest topics in sales enablement today: analytics.
• SiriusDecisions, called “Enablement is the New Black: Driving Peak Competence Across the Entire Revenue Engine,” about ensuring internal consistency and excellence in all interactions throughout the buyer and customer journeys to build external loyalty, advocacy, and growth. The importance of unifying internal enablement allowing sellers, partners, customer success and customer marketing teams to optimize the customer experience.
• Forrester, called “The Future Of Sales Enablement Is The C-Suite,” to help B2B marketing and sales professionals identify gaps in the critical processes and capabilities needed to support a modern sales enablement function.
• Gartner, called “Escaping the Pain of Commercial Complexity,” about their research into how the best sales executives are helping build the buyer’s confidence that is crucial for making complex purchases.

Panel discussions including:

• Planting the Seeds for Sales Enablement Led Growth about how sales enablement can start establishing itself as a key for organizational growth.
• Cohesive Training & Coaching That Impacts Seller Performance discussing building cohesive sales training and coaching programs, delivering those programs to your sales team, and measuring program success.
• Managers Matter: Impactful Front-Line Manager Metrics discussing the tips and tricks for enabling front-line managers and the metrics to measure them against.
• Enablement’s Impact on the Customer Experience about how sales enablement practitioners must widen their scope to encompass personalized, meaningful initiatives that span the entire buyer’s journey.

Workshops about:

• Research-driven steps to explore the unique aspects of your own organization and hone the attributes necessary to develop a more agile salesforce.
• Four must-win conversations to keep and grow your customers, plus research that reveals what motivates your existing customers to buy during these interactions.
• How to drive change through sales enablement.

• How to build modern playbooks with sales plays to focus sellers on a set of activities, enablement, and coaching guidance within a prioritized period of time to optimize deal velocity and sales conversations.

Check out the full agenda here.

Revenue.io is sponsoring this exciting event in an effort to support the burgeoning sales enablement space and the people within it. It’s a must-attend event if you’re interested in learning more about sales enablement or already actively engaged in it.

If you’ve already registered, you’re probably anxiously anticipating attending, but if you aren’t, you need to reserve your spot now because space is limited! We look forward to seeing you there.

Dive deeper into learnings from the Soiree and learn more about sales enablement comprehensively.

Sales Innovation FAQs from Revenue.io at Dreamforce

1. When did Revenue.io first appear at Dreamforce?
Revenue.io made its debut at Dreamforce in 2011, where Chief Architect Kyle Roche won first prize at the Twilio-sponsored Hackathon for building an iPad app that transformed the device into a fully functioning call center.

2. How has Revenue.io evolved since its first Dreamforce appearance?
Since 2011, Revenue.io has gone from a hackathon standout to a multi-category G2 Leader. From building Salesforce-native call tracking to launching AI-powered sales enablement and Guided Selling, we’ve introduced innovations at nearly every Dreamforce.

3. What is Revenue.io’s most notable Dreamforce product demo?
One standout was the launch of our conversation intelligence platform at the Sales Enablement Soiree, where live demos showed how Revenue.io uses AI to provide in-the-moment coaching, lead prioritization, and deal acceleration—all native to Salesforce.

4. What are some major topics Revenue.io has presented at Dreamforce?
Revenue.io has led sessions on sales automation, contextual calling, call metrics for inside sales, and scaling global sales teams. Key themes have included the future of Sales Force Automation (SFA), real-time coaching, and the convergence of AI and RevOps.

5. Why is Dreamforce important to Revenue.io’s mission?
Dreamforce is where Revenue.io consistently shares what’s next in sales innovation. It’s also where we connect directly with sales leaders, share real use cases, and validate our mission: to help revenue teams sell smarter, faster, and more humanely.