Agenda

Some of the topics we will delve into in the sessions and roundtables include:

CEOs and Presidents Roundtable discussion topics:

• The CEO’s role in transforming marketing and sales – How to rethink your go-to-market strategy and tactics
• The changing skill requirements for managing the sales and marketing functions – and how companies are retraining and/or upgrading key roles
• The integration of marketing and sales and how the leaders of each can better  integrate/align with each other and the CEO/President
• Best practices for overseeing sales and marketing – key metrics, dashboards, reporting and meeting formats
• Strategic pricing: New tools to improve pricing decisions to improve revenue growth and profits

Sales Leaders Roundtable discussion topics:

• What the best sales managers do to significantly out perform their peers on a consistent basis.
• The 10 most important metrics each sales organization should consider to maximize highly profitable sales.
• What are the best companies doing to fill the talent gap of sales talent?
• The most common mistakes in sales force compensation & the key drivers which bring the best results.
• When is industry experience important in selecting sales talent? Are there better predictors than intuitive hiring?
• What kind of sales training is available both on a general basis and at a more advanced level?
• Best practices in lead generation and nurturing
• How to deal with the increasing volume of bids being sent out
• Relationship selling vs. consultative selling: pros and cons of each and implications for hiring, training, process, support, management, measurement

Marketing Leaders Roundtable discussion topics:

• When is “big data” a good marketing tool for the smaller and mid-size company?
• How companies are using big data and analytics to better segment their markets and improve marketing yields and pricing
• The role of content market and marketing automation for lead generation, nurturing and sales force prioritization
• The skill gap – the changing skills required for success in marketing -- and how companies are retraining and/or replacing these capabilities and competing for scarce talent
• Where and how is social media being utilized most effectively in accessing key decision makers?

General Management and Main Session Descriptions:

“Why Should I Buy From You Instead of Your Competition?”

Jaynie Smith, CEO of Smart Advantage

Based on Jaynie’s best-selling business book, Creating Competitive Advantage, and recently released companion, Relevant Selling, this keynote will outline the steps your company can take to ensure marketing and sales content promotes profitable growth and minimizing price as an issue in the buying decision. Most companies consider themselves ‘customer focused, but this presentation shows howand why the majority of those businesses are missing the mark. Data from over 15 years of consulting reveals that regardless of company size or offering, 90% of what businesses are communicating to their customers greatly differ from what customers value.

Among the important concepts this presentation will cover include:

• The difference between strengths and competitive advantages
• The six criteria that a competitive advantage must meet
• How to convince a prospect that you can deliver value they're willing to pay extra for
• How to create content that will:
  • Increase the ROI earned by your marketing/sales investments
  • Enhance your sales close rates
  • Gain more market share without succumbing to price pressure

SPIN Selling in 2014: Reinventing the Sales Organization

Neil Rackham

Sales management guru Neil Rackham will share his newest ideas on how sales processes and sales organizations need to be reinvented to respond to changing customer buying processes and needs.  When Rackham wrote the bestselling sales book SPIN Selling 25 years ago, he started a revolution in how major sales organization go to market. Based on his extensive study of over 35,000 sales calls, he debunked a variety of myths and identified common approaches taken by best performing sales professionals.  For example, he determined that the best sales people ask probing questions and get the customer to do most of the talking before presenting their solution(s).  Xerox, IBM and other leading sales organizations adopted his approaches and saw material improvements.  Over the past few years, Neil Rackham has updated his thinking on how sales people should approach their prospects and how sales functions should be optimally organized.

How B2B Companies are Differentiating With Service

Corporate Executive Board’s research team has conducted extensive research on customer service  and found several important surprises that will change your concept of great customer care.  For example, they found that several innovative companies are successfully differentiating their offerings  by taking away the friction in buying and using their product –thereby reducing service vs. providing outstanding service.  Their findings have implications for all B2B sales and service organizations.

Best Practices Showcase

This session will highlight specific examples of what leading B2B organizations are doing in sales and marketing to gain competitive advantages and drive positive results.

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Sales Leader Track Session Descriptions

Unlocking Explosive Growth

Tom Searcy, CEO of Hunt Big Sales

Any company has the ability to win a big sale, even against much larger competition, but can you do it over and over? Large sales landed over and over again transform companies. In working with hundreds of companies to land large sales Tom Searcy has identified five best practices you can use today to unlock your explosive growth.

• Focus-Disqualify all but 4% of the market place to hunt
• Solve the Real Issue- Big Sales solve only 3 three problems
• A Bigger Buyers’ Table-Today’s big buying decisions are handled through committees-know the players
• Think Like Them-The reason they are interested in you is not the reason they buy from you.
• Hunt Heavy-It takes a team to land big sales.

What every CEO Needs to Know about Performance-Based Sales Recruiting & Effective Sales Compensation Plans

Alan Rigg, President of 80/20 Sales Performance/MySalesTest

Alan Rigg, author of, How to Beat the 80/20 Rule in Sales Team Performance, and creator of the 80/20 Selling System™ will give a comprehensive executive briefing covering two of the most vexing issues facing CEO’s and Senior Sales & Marketing executives today i.e. selecting top talent & how to design an effective sales compensation system for your sales force. In this briefing Alan will share his proven, step-by-step processes for consistently sourcing and hiring top sales producers, jump-starting new hire sales performance and developing sales compensation plans that will motivate desired behaviors and results. The end result is a predictable, repeatable and scalable sales process that works!

Among the areas covered in this briefing will be:

• How to write an effective sales recruiting ad
• How to create a list of performance-based screening and interview questions
• How to determine whether sales job candidates have the talents required to “walk their talk”
• How to determine whether commissions should be calculated on revenue, gross margin, or some other number
• Why incentives fail, plus several incentives that have proven to be effective
• 9 steps to developing an effective sales compensation plan

Technologies That Are Improving B2B Sales

This session will focus on specific examples of B2B companies that are leveraging technologies to improve their sales teams’ effectiveness. We will zero on how some sales teams are using technologies to better identify, screen, researching, engage, present, close, on-board and retain their customers.

How to Make Your Number in 2014

Greg Alexander, CEO of Sales Benchmark Index

A lot depends on your company hitting it revenue & margin targets for next year. While never an easy task, there are critical inflection points which research demonstrates will significantly improve your odds of winning. Greg’s company has researched mid-size firms and found that there are 4 predictive keys to success.

• Development of Buying Process Maps - which unearth what is happening during the critical sections of the buyer journey.
• Social Selling – Social selling is a modern prospecting technique that generates appointments with decision makers inside of target accounts early in the buyer’s journey.
• Sales Process – Traditional selling methodologies (the ones most companies are using today) no longer work. New buying behavior requires new selling behavior.
• Having a clear view of the “new ‘A’ player” - The new “A” player in 2014 is a very different sales person than the sales person who has been successful in the past. The new “A” player has evolved with the buyer. Greg will discuss a talent portfolio tool based upon competencies & accountabilities which will greatly enhance your ability to spot & attract these key performers.

“Does Our Company Have the Right Sales Management Culture & Are We Ready to Win?” -

Jack Daly, Professional Sales Coach

The key ingredient to increasing profits is enhanced sales management and implementing field proven strategies for productivity improvement. Your sales force is only as good as your sales leadership and the health of your long-term client relationships.

Jack’s presentation will focus on:

• Do you have the right sales management culture? Does it know what is most important (most companies are missing this)?
• Is your sales force up to the task? i.e. do they know how to differentiate your company, grow your existing clients and win the battles for new ones?
• Is your sales management measuring the right things?  

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Marketing Leader Track: Session Descriptions

CEOs From Venus, CMOs from Mars

New research from Stein IAS/CEG: Bridging the divide for better business performance

CEOs Are From Venus, CMOs Are From Mars:  How To Bridge The Gap

Tom Stein, the CEO of Stein IAS (one of the leading B2B ad agencies in the world) will share highlights of recent research his firm has conducted on the gaps between CEOs and CMOs and how best performing organizations consciously overcome biases and align their marketing organizations with their company’s objectives. He will provide specific recommendations to make sure CEOs and their marketing leaders are on the same page and working in harmony to deliver better business results.

Branding Your Company in a Digital World: Branding and Social Media For B2B Companies

In the past, branding and social media marketing were luxuries with unproven ROIs that few mid-market B2B companies benefited from.  The landscape has changed radically and new tools and media channels now make it easier for smaller companies with limited marketing budgets to target and pinpoint their prospects and deliver effective  messages.  These campaigns can also be carefully tracked and measured to ensure positive ROI.  We will delve into specific examples of B2B companies that are leveraging new marketing and social media tools from Google, Linkedin and other media companies to cost effectively build their brands and identify new customer prospects.  We will also discuss the black holes where people are not getting positive returns and which traps to avoid.

Technologies That Are Improving B2B Marketing

This panel will showcase specific case studies and technologies that B2B companies are using to drive marketing success. We will look at specific examples of mid-market B2B companies that are utilizing lead automation, content marketing, big data and social media monitoring tools to drive revenue growth.

How Marketing Leaders Must Evolve

Given the changes in B2B marketing techniques and tools, the requirements for B2B marketers have also changed.  We will discuss how marketing executives need to evolve their teams and themselves to enable their companies to take advantage of the new marketing approaches.  We will also look at how marketing leaders need to rethink what they measure, how they manage their departments and how they interact with their CEOS,  sales, IT, and other parts of their organization.

Rethinking Hiring, Skills Development and Culture for Marketing

Massively new and different skill sets are required in today’s marketing department, and the pace of change is only accelerating. While creative and copywriting skills are still important, today’s marketer also needs strong analytical and technical skills as well as good process discipline.  Learn how some marketing leading are reinventing their marketing departments and how that is affecting who they hire, how they are continuously training and developing these recruits and how they are managing these new employees.