How to Succeed with Sales 3.0

In his keynote, Gerhard Gschwandtner – the founder and CEO of Selling Power magazine and the author of 16 books on selling, psychology, and sales management – will discuss the two major change drivers that are transforming our world and how we conduct business: technology and psychology. He will review what we've gained, what we've lost, and how digital transformation will continue to impact how B2B sales organizations compete and win.

Speaker: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO, Selling Power | @gerhard20

Make Every Minute Count: Diminished Customer Interface Requires Highest Level of Sales Performance

Organizations are investing in all manner of digital tools, such as AI, CRM, social media platforms, automated customer engagement, and lead generation vehicles – all to increase sales efficiency and improve sales professionals' time for high-value interactions and customer experience. Simultaneously, organizations have a growing concern for the quality of the customer experience and extending the customer lifespan. What is the result? Research has exposed a tremendous gap between the perception of providers and their customers regarding the quality of the customer experience being delivered. Sales professionals might actually be spending less time in the overall sales-and-nurture process. This raises the standard for their performance during active selling and customer engagement. As leaders, how can we ensure our sales teams bring maximum value to their shrinking time and engagement with customers, who need more expertise and insights from their partners? Carew International CEO Jeff Seeley will examine the sales strategy and critical skills needed for sales professionals to optimize the customer experience and sales effectiveness while extending customer lifespan and value.

Speaker: Jeff Seeley, CEO, Carew International | @jeffreybseeley

Beyond Lip Service: Attracting Women in Sales with Policies That (Really) Support Their Success

It's easy to sit in front of a female sales job candidate and tell her that your company is a great place for her to work, but do your workplace policies actually support that rhetoric? Many companies are operating under outdated policies and procedures that might not include any support for gender-equality practices. Women in sales, as well as women working in other areas of business (or other sectors of employment altogether), are looking for companies with clear positions on the fair and equitable treatment of men and women. For companies to attract and retain the best saleswomen in both entry-level and leadership positions, they should examine how their policies reflect issues related to gender equality. Our distinguished panel of Women in Sales Influencers will discuss the policies that can help your business create a climate that is conducive to gender equality so that, all things being equal, women will be more willing to work for you.

Moderator: Cynthia Barnes, Founder and CEO, National Association of Women Sales Professionals | @cynthiambarnes
Panelists: Jillian Blackwell, Account Executive for Department of Defense, US Navy, Microsoft | @jillblackwell
Krista Moore, President, CEO, K.Coaching Inc. | @KCoachingKrista

How to Achieve Frictionless Sales Enablement

While technology has improved the sales enablement function, it has also created road bumps that can impede your ability to ramp up sales reps quickly and effectively. It is time to rethink sales training and sales enablement. In this fireside chat, Selling Power CEO Gerhard Gschwandtner and SPA & SPASIGMA CEO David Bauders will discuss those challenges and solutions that will help you create the right mix of human elements and technology for optimal performance and results.

Speakers: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO, Selling Power | @gerhard20
David Bauders, CEO, SPA & SPASIGMA

How to Build Your World-class Sales Culture

In this practical interview, Kevin Higgins from DoubleDigit Sales will reveal the latest sales culture trends and best practices from more than 150 sales organizations across North America. You'll hear from a leading sales expert and Founder of the Kellogg School of Business Sales Institute, Craig Wortmann, on the importance of sales leadership in driving a high-performing sales culture. We'll also dive into how a high sales participation rate (the percentage of salespeople at or above plan) relates to strong sales results and share how knowledge, skill, and discipline are the keys for building a winning sales culture in your organization.

Speakers: Kevin Higgins, CEO, DoubleDigit Sales
Craig Wortmann, CEO, Sales Engine Inc; Operating Partner, Pritzker Group VC; Founder & Executive Director, Kellogg Sales Institute | @CraigWortmann

Breakout A
It's about Time – and Therefore Money!

Get your sales team to master time, and they can master sales. But making the most of their precious selling time is impossible if you and they don't know the time cost and information impact of the core inside sales activities competing for their time: phone, email, social outreach, and online research. In this session, inside sales managers will get a timely breakdown of:

• Whose time matters most: the sales reps' or their prospects'?
• Time illusions and how they trick your reps into spinning their wheels when they could be making deals.
• How to get your team to organize and sequence their selling day to break free of their time traps and make the most of their most powerful asset – selling time.

Speaker: Chris Beall, CEO, ConnectAndSell | @chris8649

Breakout B
Remove Sales Friction and Grow the Bottom Line

Sales is the engine that drives the organization to profitable outcomes and happy shareholders. When you drop the right engine into the right chassis – and that engine is maintained and tuned up to meet the needs of the journey – it gets you where you want and need to be quickly and safely. However, if you fail to maintain that engine or, let's say, you run out of oil while running the engine faster and longer hours than ever before, what do you think happens? Friction – and friction is crippling sales teams. Last year, less than 57 percent of sales teams achieved quota.

How we prepare and train our salespeople today is broken.

In this discussion, Mark shares what has changed and what market-leading organizations are doing to win the race of sales.

Speaker: Mark Roberts, Vice President Sales and Marketing, SPA & SPASIGMA

Breakout A
Efficiency + Effectiveness = Frictionless Selling

Imagine a world where sales eagerly accepted every lead generated by marketing, followed up on them immediately, reached on the first try, and closed by the end of the call. Wouldn't that be awesome? Here's the reality: Marketing spends a fortune generating leads that sales rejects or doesn't follow up fast enough, often enough, or with an optimal cadence – rendering the lead worthless. Marketing blames sales, and sales blames marketing. The result? A lot of unproductive friction. Organizations that successfully eliminate friction invest on both sides of the equation: tools aimed at creating highly efficient sales processes for speed to close, and tools that develop and optimize highly effective sales and support conversations. This panel will discuss the benefits and challenges associated with blending sales engagement with conversational analytics. When done wrong, your poor processes and bad sales habits will tear the organization apart. When done right, your sales team will be empowered to effectively engage leads and close more deals – and your sales will dramatically accelerate.

Speakers: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO, Selling Power | @gerhard20
Darryl Praill, Chief Marketing Officer, VanillaSoft | @ohpinion8ted
Adam Zais, VP Sales North America, Refract | @adamzais

Breakout B
How to Get Appointments with C-level Executives...Fast

Not enough opportunities in the pipeline? Lack of quality pipeline? Long sales cycles? Low proposal-to-win rates? All these challenges are symptoms of a much deeper issue – your salespeople are prospecting and selling to the wrong people: mid-ranking executives who are vested in the status quo and who can't (or don't want to) say yes, but can say no. And here's the kicker: This is a leadership issue. Some executives and sales leaders will admit they're not proficient at setting meetings with senior decision makers, so their salespeople have nobody to model and don't know what "good" looks like. In this highly interactive session, you will learn what the top performing prospectors do differently and better. The session is personally led by Matt Conway, an expert at C-Level prospecting. Matt is a former executive, go-to-market strategy consultant, sales leader, and inside salesperson.

Speaker: Matt Conway, Go-to-Market Strategy Consultant and Sales Leader | @MattJConway

Experience is Everything

The best-run businesses in the world are increasingly focused on bridging experience gaps. This is the difference between what people expect, versus what they receive. If these gaps aren't addressed, frustrated customers will look elsewhere. The sales profession must be on the leading edge of bridging the experience gap. We'll discuss the power of “outside-in” thinking and storytelling as the foundation for frictionless selling in the experience economy.

Speaker: Nick Tzitzon, Executive Vice President, Marketing & Communications, SAP

Millennials: What You Don't Know Is Tanking Your Bottom Line

The struggle is real: If you don't understand your millennial workforce, you can't keep them or help them succeed in their career. Cue the one and only Millennial Translator – Amanda Hammett. In this session, Amanda will cover how you can:

• Uncover the real facts about the millennial generation
• Learn the psychology behind WHY our Gen Y do what they do – and how to leverage this to reach peak productivity levels with your team
• Truly understand what lack of engagement amongst millennials is costing you and your team (hint: it's more costly than avocado toast!)

Speaker: Amanda Hammett, Millennial Translator | @AmandaHammett

TBA

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Speaker: TBA

Fire in the Belly: Strategies to Motivate and Coach Your Sales Force

A high performing sales force is a function of various personal, organizational, and environmental factors. One of these critical factors is the motivation level of individual salespeople. For sales managers, the answer of how to "fire up" salespeople remains elusive. In this session, Dr. Michael Mallin will lead a discussion centered on a deeper understanding of salesperson motivation. Specifically, what it is, how it can be maximized, and the critical role of the reward system in motivating individual salespeople. Sales leaders will come away with ideas to increase salesperson motivation as well as approaches to better customize their coaching strategies based on the skill and motivation level of individual salespeople.

Speaker: Michael L. Mallin, Ph.D. – Edward H. Schmidt School of Professional Sales, The University of Toledo

From Strategy to Execution: An Inside Look at Successful Sales Operations and Sales Enablement

Sales leaders know that, to create a successful sales team, you need the right people, following the right strategy, and the right Sales 3.0 technology to enhance the skills of your sales reps. But finding the right people can be hard. And how do you know if you are leveraging the right strategy? When it comes to the thousands of Sales 3.0 technology options out there, making an informed decision is time consuming and overwhelming. In this fireside chat with Gerhard Gschwandtner, Russ Walker – SVP Sales Operations and Enablement at Merrill Corporation – will share his insight and best practices for successful sales operations and enablement. He will provide specific insight on how his team finds and onboards the right sales talent, and how they evaluate and adopt Sales 3.0 tools.

Speakers: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO, Selling Power | @gerhard20
Russ Walker, SVP Sales Operations and Enablement, Merrill Corporation | @rjwalker023

The Right Amount of Sales Automation

With up to 64 percent of sales reps' time being spent on non-selling activities, it's becoming harder for sales to build and accelerate pipeline. Smart automation can help a single rep cover more ground, but can come at the detriment of cookie-cutter, bland messaging that gets sent to the spam folder. In this session, we'll cover cutting-edge tactics – balancing automation, mediums, and personalization – that generate more replies, book more meetings, and close more deals. You'll learn:

• The ideal number of sales campaign steps, based on industry insights.
• When a rep should personalize rather than go all-in with automation.
• How to standardize the sales cycle and buying experience across your team.

Speaker: Michael McEuen, Director of Marketing, Mixmax | @lonohead

Close the Performance Gap: Sales Coaching Strategies to Create a Team of Superstars

The business world is full of sales professionals running in all directions trying to make their quota – and not focusing on professional or personal growth. Why? Because their managers are focusing only on the revenue. The result is that, at the end of every period, managers become super-reps, so the company reaches its revenue goals. They close all the deals rather than coaching sales reps on how to close the deals. What's missing in this equation? Sales management coaching. Most managers do a fairly decent job enabling sales reps with assets, messaging, and tools. What they often are not trained to do well is coach sales reps to become better sellers. And that is a significant gap in a lot of companies. In this session you will learn ways to enable your sales managers to become better coaches for your sales reps, so you can have a team of superstar managers AND sales reps.

Speakers: Sarah Fricke, RingCentral Manager, Global Sales Enablement
Sheevaun Thatcher, Head of Global Sales and Services Enablement, RingCentral | @sheevaunt

Achieve Prospecting Dominance through Selling's New Triple Threat

This presentation will share how organizations achieve prospecting dominance by using a proven outreach structure that blends best practices of video, voice, and digital (including email) into one systematic cadence. Attend and learn

• How leading with fact-based research builds prospect engagement
• Why cinematic video is a powerful tool of enticement
• Tips for leveraging limited (but quality) digital touchpoints
• The right harmonic blend of outreach channels

Speaker: Kraig Kleeman, Founder, TheSalesCadence.com

Breakout A
Your Prospects Have the Right to Object

How many classes does it take to master overcoming objections? Selling while securing a much better deal for you and your company is not just a matter of overcoming objections and hoping for the best. It's about understanding the best-kept secret of the most successful buyers and sellers: negotiation.

Negotiation is a skill that pays for itself over and over (and over and over) again. If you're negotiating against skilled negotiators, chances are you feel like you're doing the best you can; but, chances are, you can do better – in some cases, much better. Don't level the playing field; tip the scale to your advantage, and increase commissions and profits every time.

Speaker: Gregory Smith, Executive Vice President, SPA & SPASIGMA

Breakout B
Building a High Performance Sales Team With The Velocity Mindset™

Transform the mindset of your team and create more opportunities while shortening your sales cycle with Ron Karr's Velocity Mindset™. In this breakout, Ron will offer practical strategies on how to differentiate yourself and significantly increase revenues and profits. You'll learn how to

• Increase productivity
• Position products and services more powerfully
• Achieve greater results in less time
• Leverage the psychology of influence
• Discover the counterintuitive engagement strategy of leading with outcomes

Speaker: Ron Karr, CEO, Best Selling Author, Creator of the Velocity Mindset™, Karr Associates, Inc.

Sales Strategies That Work!

It takes an average of 18 calls to actually connect with a buyer, and only 19 percent of buyers want to connect with a salesperson during the initial stages of their buying process. So what do leaders do when the world of sales is changing, customers are more knowledgeable than ever, technology is more sophisticated, marketing and sales are converging, and we're spending less time face-to-face with potential clients? Hear about the principles of sales strategy that have stood up over time – and why – and hear examples applicable to companies in transformation, high-growth, or start-up mode. Leave with key principles that will act as levers to fuel your sales strategy.

Speaker: Mary Delaney, President, Software and Services, CareerBuilder

Creating a Level Four Mindset for Winning in Sales

In his keynote, Gerhard Gschwandtner – the founder and CEO of Selling Power magazine and the author of 16 books on selling, psychology, and sales management – will discuss the two major change drivers that are transforming our world and how we conduct business: technology and psychology. He will review what we've gained, what we've lost, and how digital transformation and our ability to drive personal growth will continue to impact our future. He will also share the four levels of the sales mindset that lead to winning in business and in life.

Speaker: Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO, Selling Power | @gerhard20

TBA

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Speaker: TBA