5 Biggest Sales Deals and Decisions Ever

How can you tell the difference between good and bad sales? You want to see how much you gained, but you also want to consider how you've impacted the relationship with your business partner.

A good sales deal or decision benefits both parties and helps build a positive relationship. One side might still end up better than the other, or there might be a falling out later, but all of the deals we will talk about today have helped both groups. We talked about 5 of the Worst Sales Deals and Decisions, but these have lessons to teach about being successful in business and the importance of cooperation and foresight.

If you manage to read between the lines, you will uncover excellent tactics to boost your website or online shop. Let's dive in and see what we can discover from these past successes.

Here Are the Top 5 Biggest Sales Ever

Let's discuss the most impressive deals that led to exchanges worth billions. Some of them might surprise you.

Salesforce Acquires Slack

One of the biggest purchases ever made happened in 2021, when Salesforce acquired Slack. Slack is a very popular workplace messaging and collaboration tool, and it was widely used, especially in its prime. The price was a staggering $27.7 billion, which makes it the biggest deal Salesforce has ever made.

This big sales day happened during the COVID-19 pandemic, when tools that help people work remotely were in high demand. When Salesforce acquired Slack, it used its powerful communication features and integrated them into the Customer 360 suite. That way, they were able to create a central hub for all business communications across sales, marketing, and analytics channels.

This move was a direct response to Microsoft Teams. In an effort to compete with them, Salesforce needed to establish a clear presence in the enterprise collaboration sphere, and purchasing Slack solved that issue and kept the company growing. This also transformed Salesforce from a pure CRM provider to a more versatile enterprise platform.

Henry Ford's Salary Increase for Workers

Henry Ford had a problem. He had figured out how to efficiently build cars and was in the process of getting the price down, but his workers were increasingly unhappy. At the start of 1914, he was facing an annual labor turnover rate of 370%. The assembly line jobs weren't worth it to the workers.

So Henry Ford figured out a deal to get the workers firmly on board with the company. He announced that he was shortening the workday by an hour (from nine to eight), doubled the salary rate, and spent an extra $10 million annually to improve the lives of workers. He also reduced the price of cars to make sure his workers could afford them.

They bought the cars, and turnover dropped to 16%. Dissatisfaction decreased, and engagement and productivity went up. The company was more successful, and the workers were happier.

Ray Kroc Franchising McDonald's

McDonald's didn't start out with the expectation of being a global franchise. The first restaurant was run by the two McDonald brothers, who developed the assembly-line style of fast food we're all familiar with today.

However, they were not the ones who turned the restaurant into a franchise. That was done by Ray Kroc, who had previously spent his life in sales. He came up with the idea, and when the brothers weren't interested in franchising themselves, Ray was allowed to take charge.

Ray made a great deal for the rights to McDonald's. Ray would collect 1.9% of gross sales from each new restaurant, and around a fourth of that went to the brothers. The deal was initially too good for the brothers. Ray wasn't making any profit. He then figured out a new plan to own and rent the land of the franchises to the restaurants to increase his profits. 

Later, the brothers and Ray would have a falling out, but initially, both were able to figure out ways of making 10 times more profits from the brand.

Pepsi Cola Merges with Frito-Lay

The Pepsi Cola and Frito-Lay merger to form PepsiCo, Inc. is an ideal merger. Both brands were doing alright at the time of the merger in 1965, but both wanted the extra muscle to expand further. 

Frito-Lay needed Pepsi's distribution network to expand across the entire US and internationally. Pepsi wanted Frito-Lay to diversify products and help with joint marketing. Chips make you thirsty, and Pepsi can help. However, that promotional part of the deal was later stopped by the Federal Trade Commission (there's also the Frito Bandito situation, which we won't comment on).

The merger has been a major success. PepsiCo has become a major international company, offering products all over the world. Even when competing with Coke, Pepsi has always been able to fall back on its Frito-Lays products to help with revenue. They show how a wise merger can be exactly what you need to still be around 50 years later and sell products throughout the year. 

Salesforce Acquires Tableau

As the final entry, we have another Salesforce shopping event. In 2019, Tableau was considered a leading data visualization and business intelligence platform. To improve their capabilities in data analytics, Salesforce's leadership decided to spend 15.7 billion dollars and make it an all-stock deal. At the time, this was their largest acquisition, but as we already know, it won't be.

With Tableau's systems, Salesforce users could now analyze and visualize data more easily. This is crucial if you want to make informed business decisions, and Salesforce realized that they needed to deepen their offer and improve the end-user experience. Since all this complements their CRM offer perfectly, they were able to offer better insights to users by integrating customer data with visual analytics.

As a result, Salesforce stood out against the biggest competitor on the market, Microsoft Power BI, and solidified its position as a top enterprise platform.

Take Advantage of These Tips

These were the biggest sales ever done by some of the most notorious bosses in history, but there is something to be learned here. If you are a CEO in a retail store or someone who works in consumer advertising, you can learn a lot about what it takes to expand globally. Work on improving the features and benefits of your product, research competitors, offer perks like discounts and free delivery, develop exclusive products that make an impact, and when you make a promise, deliver on it.

Only when you have a total grasp of the entire picture can you work on creating a marketing campaign that will make you eligible to expand your reach and develop a winning mentality.