After hearing Madonna’s recent single with Nicki Minaj and M.I.A., I couldn’t help but think how many times Madonna has reinvented herself. 

1. Adapt to Culture Shifts
   Music has always changed and evolved over time, but some of the most radical and rapid change has come within the last decade. The days of talking to music store employees and browsing the aisles at Tower Records are over. The digital age has brought a whole new set of opportunities and challenges. Today’s customers want convenience, speed, and the ability to communicate and share with their cloud-based and social communities. Customers have a louder voice than ever before, and no industry can afford to ignore it. 

   Born in the 18th century, Coats has a track record of adapting to culture shifts. Coats knew that the only way to remain relevant in the global marketplace was to deliver a differentiated, yet consistent, customer experience. Enabling its employees to own any customer engagement moment was a priority. As Hassen explains, “Our biggest challenge is maintaining a consistent proposition of our brand. We needed a CRM system that is able to deal with the increasing global flow of information...to give us a single and holistic view of our customer.”

2. Engage your Audience
   To survive as a performer in the 21st century, musical artists have to do much more than just deliver quality content. They have to interact with their fans and make a genuine connection. They have to put on highly produced concerts, tweet their weekend plans, post pictures of their new guitars on Facebook, and promote their albums on late-night TV. They have to get personal.

   As a global B2B organization with over 22,000 employees, Coats knew it would take a collaborative effort to personally engage with its wide-spread customer base. Bluewolf helped Hassen and his team implement Salesforce and best-practice sales processes in over 60 countries, to ensure a cohesive touch point with their customers globally. As Hassen recalls, getting thousands of employees from different cultures and backgrounds to adopt and use one platform required an investment in engagement across geographies

   “From the head office in New York, to our contractors in Bangladesh, the end result is to bring together the global teams and local teams across various parts of the world, into a single, powerful sales team that delivers what our customers want, day in and day out.”

3. Look Beyond Expectations
   Asking your audience what they want can be ineffective, because they often don’t know what to ask for. True musicians are visionary and set trends. They are forward-thinking. They know what their fans want without them having to ask for it.

   Similar to top performing artists, businesses need to be constantly innovating and thinking about how they relate to their customers, what their current and prospective customers may want, and how to meet those needs. Hassen says, “With Salesforce, we got an agile, integrated, and powerful selling force that really responds to our customers’ constantly changing requirements.”