Top 10 things I get asked about Salesforce

Having been a sales engineer with Salesforce for the last three years I've talked shop with lots of prospects and customers across all sorts of different verticals about their current as well as future business needs (side note - we use Salesforce here at Salesforce and capture metrics on pretty much everything - in 2011 I logged just over 850+ hours and in 2012, I'm running about 980 hours of customer facing time).  Despite the huge variance in not just verticals but as well a their needs, there are quite a few questions that come up time and time again.

So here are the top 10 questions I get asked about Salesforce likely in order of how I've remembered them:

- TBD -

• put a few more words around each of the questions 
• shorten the links
• Remove some of the Qs that are similar and whittle down to 10

1. What is the Salesforce CRM?
   • https://www.salesforce.com/au/crm/    
     
2. Can connect/integrate Salesforce with XYZ?
   • http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Integrating_with_the_Force.com_Platform
   • http://appexchange.salesforce.com/results?keywords=Integration
   • http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/An_Introduction_to_Salesforce_to_Salesforce
   • http://salesforce.vo.llnwd.net/o1/us/platbook/Force.com-integration-book-2009.pdf
3. Where is my data kept?
   • http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-infrastructure/reliability.jsp
4. Can you or anyone at Salesforce or any other customers see my data?
5. How do we know that I can trust you with my data?
   • http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-infrastructure/security.jsp
   • http://trust.salesforce.com/trust/
6. How can I get my data out?
   • Weekly Export Service
     • http://login.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/admin_exportdata.htm
     • http://www.shellblack.com/salesforce/administration/data-export/
   • Reports
     • http://www.salesforce.com/customer-resources/learning-center/#reports-dashboards
   • API / Integration
     • http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/Integration
7. How do I get my data into Salesforce?
   • http://blogs.developerforce.com/tech-pubs/2012/10/how-to-load-data-into-salesforce-let-me-count-the-ways.html
8. Can I make my own changes/customizations?
   • http://www.salesforce.com/platform/customization/
9. How hard is it to make customizations?
   • http://www.salesforce.com/platform/customization/
10. What happens to my changes/integrations when you do an upgrade? Do I need to fix them?
    • http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-infrastructure/upgrades.jsp
    • http://www.salesforce.com/platform/customization/
11. What's the best way to get started?
    • http://www.salesforce.com/customer-resources/learning-center/details/getting-started-workbook.jsp
    • https://www.salesforce.com/au/crm/
12. Do you have an offline version?
    • https://login.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/offline_def.htm
13. Can I access Salesforce from my iPad/iPhone/'Droid/Blackberry?
    • http://www.salesforce.com/mobile/apps/
    • Touch: http://www.salesforce.com/sales-cloud/touch.jsp
14. What do I need to run Salesforce?
    • All you need is a web browser
15. Do you sell Salesforce so that I can install it on my machine/server?
16. Can I use Single Sign on with Salesforce?
    • https://login.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/sso_about.htm
    • http://login.salesforce.com/help/doc/en/salesforce_single_sign_on.pdf
    • http://wiki.developerforce.com/page/How_to_Implement_Single_Sign-On_with_Force.com
    • http://appexchange.salesforce.com/results?keywords=Single%20Sign%20on