As you may have heard during yesterday’s Dreamforce opening keynote, the next generation of our Customer Success Platform is empowering Trailblazers to make every customer interaction smarter and more personalized.

For the more than 125 million small businesses around the world, developing deeper, more personalized connections with their customers is essential to growth. But, for most small businesses, with limited time and resources, that path is difficult to traverse. Among small business leaders, 66%¹ are personally responsible for three or more areas of their business and only 26% have one or more in-house IT staff, making it difficult to implement new technologies. While most small business owners understand technology can make their lives easier, they often default to managing their data manually in spreadsheets and email. This takes away from time that could otherwise be spent finding, winning and keeping more customers.

That’s why we’re excited to announce Salesforce Essentials, empowering every small business to get started on the world’s #1 CRM platform and blaze new trails to faster growth.

Salesforce Essentials

Salesforce Essentials will make it possible for every small business to tap into the power of Salesforce with apps for sales and service that are easy to use, setup and maintain. Every four months, Salesforce adds new functionality to its platform, so small businesses don’t have to spend additional time and resources keeping up with the latest breakthroughs in technology. They can focus on what matters most—customers.

Sales Cloud Essentials

Available today, Sales Cloud Essentials enables small sales teams to start instantly, work smarter, sell faster and effortlessly scale as they grow.

With Sales Cloud Essentials, small businesses can:

• Start and learn easily with Trailhead: 93% of small businesses say easy setup is important when evaluating new technology for their companies. Trailhead, Salesforce’s interactive, online learning environment, is free and seamlessly integrated into Sales Cloud Essentials. Trailhead will guide customers through a fun and easy setup, ensuring they get up and running in minutes with the knowledge and resources they need to be successful. Small businesses can also use Trailhead to learn about broader business topics, such as how to foster innovation.

• Sell smarter with Einstein artificial intelligence built in: Small business teams spend 23% of their average workday manually inputting data. Sales Cloud Essentials is infused with Einstein, empowering small businesses to automate basic sales activities and work smarter. Einstein Activity Capture automatically keeps customer records up-to-date without any tedious data entry by connecting a user's email and calendar. As a result, they can save time, close business faster and identify new opportunities.

• Sell faster with Lightning and the Salesforce App: 95% of small businesses say ease of use is important when evaluating new technology for their companies. Built on the Salesforce Lightning framework, Sales Cloud Essentials has a consumer-like experience optimized for any device. Relevant information is surfaced on each screen to streamline processes and make workflows more intuitive. With the Salesforce App, small businesses can manage leads, contacts, accounts and opportunities right from their phone. As a result, small business users can sell faster and be more productive from any device.

• Scale as you grow with a complete platform: Nearly three-quarters (74%) of small businesses report that scalability is important when they’re evaluating new technology. Because Sales Cloud Essentials is built on the world’s #1 CRM platform, small businesses don’t have to worry about outgrowing their CRM—they can upgrade quickly and easily. In addition, customers can use the AppExchange to access an ecosystem of business apps that seamlessly integrate with Salesforce, extending the platform to every department and every industry. Visit the Small Business Hub on the AppExchange to view apps that are available today with Sales Cloud Essentials.

And as part of the strategic partnership we announced with Google this week, Salesforce Essentials customers will get three months of G Suite by Google Cloud at no cost. With Salesforce Essentials and G Suite, small businesses can connect their email, calendar, and more to save time, organize their workload and build richer communications. To learn more, visit: salesforce.com/essentials