The Night before Christmas (Sales Compass Edition)

Twas the night before Christmas, when all the through the house
Not a hard drive was stirring, not even a mouse.

The pipeline reports were tallied with care
In hopes that the revenue soon would be there.

The sales teams were in hotel rooms, snug in their beds
While visions of commissions danced in their heads

The CFO had his latte, and I had my cap[puccino],
because after working all night we really wanted a nap.

When in the conference room arose such a clatter,
That meant we wouldn’t make numbers– that was the matter.

To my dashboards I flew like a flash,
I knew I had found a great source of cash.

Sales Compass showed our profit on each deal in flow
Which ones were met target, and which were below.

And then what to my wondering eyes should appear
But deal approval alerts and analytics so clear.

That I didn’t need Excel, I could be nimble and quick
And I knew which deals needed which kind of trick.

More rapid than eagles the deals they came
And I whistled and shouted and called them by name.

“Now Upsell! Now Cross-sell! Now Big Deal and such!
On this one and that one there’s no need to discount so much!

If we drop the price here our profit will fall!
And we’ll give away all our hard work after all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the Target Price the deals they flew,
With price optimization and simple comparisons, too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the phone
The happy laughter of successful sales reps back home.

As I drew in my hand, and was turning around,
Across the wi-fi St. Benioff came with a bound.

He was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, true to form
Because the North Pole is cold but The Cloud is quite warm.

A bundle of toys he had on the AppExchange,
Some expensive, some cheap, some just a bit of change.

Under his breath he was singing about “The Cloud”
And I’m not sure he knew he was singing out loud.

The stump of a cigar he held tight in his teeth
And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.

He was long haired and bearded, a bit tall for an elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

With the click of a mouse and a twist of his head,
He gave me great insight to move some deals out of the red.

He spoke many words, and went straight to work
And filled my page layouts with Apex and Visual Force,

And swiping a finger across his iPhone,
He approved several deals, including one of my own;

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
While data sync’d in the cloud, gently as the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,
Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.