ISA Marketing & Sales Summit

ISA’s 7^th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit
“The New Rules of Customer Engagement: Riding the Winds of Change”

CALL FOR PAPERS
Abstracts due 16 April 2012

August 15-17th, 2012
at the Historic Driskill Hotel in Downtown Austin, Texas

You are invited to submit an abstract for ISA’s 7th Annual Marketing and Sales Summit, sponsored by the ISA Management Division.

How do you reach your customer today?

Regardless of how the world’s economies shift and sway, connecting with the customer is what it’s all about. But customer engagement has changed.  How is your company adjusting to these changes? We want to hear from you.

Share your expertise, solutions, and with other marketing and sales professionals in Historic Downtown Austin!  Join us at the 7th Annual ISA Marketing and Sales Summit to discuss these core issues and how it’s affecting companies like yours in the automation market.

How to submit an abstract

Abstracts should be submitted based on the summit theme and topics below. Abstracts should be 500 words or less and describe what the presentation will cover. If your abstract is accepted and you agree to submit a presentation for the conference proceedings, you are also agreeing to register and present at the 7th Annual ISA Marketing & Sales Summit.

Two Conference Tracks:  Marketing & Sales

• Strategy and Business Development
• Integrated Strategies for Marketing and Sales
• Digital Marketing and Social Media
• Complex Sales Best Practices
• Strategies in Vertical Markets

Sample topic areas include best practices in social media, guerilla marketing, brand marketing, winning complex accounts, market-driven product development, business development and engineering, product marketing management vs. product management, sales vs. marketing, branding in the web 2.0 era, redefining advertising in the digital age, and more.

Submit Today!

Please submit your abstract no later than 16 April 2012 to Shari Worthington, program chair at sharilee@telesian.com.

Conference Location

ISA’s 7th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit

15-17 August, 2012 – at the Historic Driskill Hotel in Downtown Austin, Texas

$170/night

http://www.driskillhotel.com/

Webinar:  Wednesday November 16th  12:00 pm EST

Download the presentation PPT

Many technology and process automation firms adhere to a rigorous product development process, but few have mastered the art of adapting that process to build customer-centric, high value solutions.  In this webinar, Matt Leary and Nikki Fisher, Senior Principals with  Solutions Insights, Inc.,  will introduce elements unique to successful solutions development from deep research on customer business imperatives, to building mass customizable solutions.   Matt and Nikki will present examples from industry leaders, and provide you with tips and recommendations on how you can adapt your development process to deliver more effective, high value solutions to your customers.

Solutions Insights, Inc. (SI), is a consulting and training company that works with B2B firms interested in providing real solutions to their customers’ problems through better integration of products and enabling services.  SI has worked with leading technology firms in IT, telecom, industrial automation, manufacturing and professional services.

Attendees will learn:

• Understanding the Solutions Development Continuum
• Building systems that ensure that your customers and channel partners are part of the process
• How to adapt the product development process for solutions
• Filling the competency gap between product managers and solutions creators

System Requirements
PC-based attendees
Required: Windows® 7, Vista, XP or 2003 Server

Macintosh®-based attendees
Required: Mac OS® X 10.5 or newer

Space is limited.

Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/516498182

About the Presenters

Matt Leary, Principal, Solutions Insights
An expert in solutions development, management, and sales, Matt has spent the last 15 years helping leading technology companies improve performance in market strategy and planning, services and solutions development, sales enablement and impact.

Prior to Solutions Insight, Matt was Vice President of Business Development for commercial partnership activities at a Boston-area technology start-up. Previously, he was Director of Member Engagement at ITSMA, where he managed several of ITSMA’s industry segments and developed custom research, consulting, and training programs for a wide variety of leading technology firms. While at ITSMA, Matt led projects in such areas as value proposition for services, customer loyalty, strategic account planning and training, solutions sales training, solutions marketing, and solutions business transformation. Matt also produced a number of thought leadership events, published and spoke on services and solutions issues, and contributed substantially to ITSMA’s ongoing research on marketing and sales for services and solutions.

Nikki Fisher, Principal, Solutions Insights

As a marketing and sales executive at pioneering companies in telecommunications, mobile technology and Internet consulting, Nikki Fisher gained deep, hands-on experience in developing, marketing and delivering successful market-based solutions.

Before joining Solutions Insights in 2011, Fisher was President of The Fisher Group where she specialized in helping B2B companies improve the effectiveness, customer focus and integration of their sales, marketing and service functions. Strategic projects include helping a multinational company develop a detailed strategy and roadmap to transform itself from a product reseller to a services/solutions business; designing and delivering solutions training for all customer-facing employees at an IT services firm; and creating a new solutions-development process for a Fortune 50 telecommunications company.

As a Senior Associate at ITSMA, Nikki has provided solutions consulting to a number of clients including Dimension Data, Avaya, Nortel and Verizon. Nikki was also the principal ITSMA consultant to Xerox Global Services as that company built it’s award-winning ABM program.

Webinar hosted by ISA’s Management Division

Thanks to all our presenters, sponsors and attendees who came out to St. Louis in early September for the 6th Annual Marketing & Sales Summit.  The available presentations are now posted on our Marketing & Sales Summit SlideShare account.

Here are the presentations available:

Keynotes:

Dr. Peter Martin, Invensys

Julie Fraser, Cambashi

Dick Morley

Pre-Summit Workshops:

Search Marketing: 2011 SEO & PPC Update, Shari Worthington, Telesian Technology

Advanced Content Strategies for Inbound Marketing: Jon DiPietro, Principal, Domesticating IT

Part One: Introduction

Part Two: Characteristics of Effective Content

Part Three: Planning

Part Four: Crafting

Part Five:  Promoting

Sessions:

The Essentials of Webinars, George Buckbee, Expertune

Increasing Our Value to the iPod Generation, Rick Dolezal, ABB Inc

Marketing & PR Food for Thought, Valerie Harding, Ripple Effect Communications

Web 2.0 Strategies to Reach Vertical Markets, Jeff Cawley, Northwest Analytical

Winning Complex Accounts, Katherine Persac, ProSys

Collaborating with Key Accounts: The New Imperative for Marketing & Sales, Steve Hurley and Rob Leavitt, Solutions Insights

Transforming Local Best Practices to a Global Competence, Marcus Tennant, Kyoko Fukuda, Yokogawa

“The Day We Failed” Success Story, Rick Caldwell, SCADAware

How Prepared Are We for Customer 2.0? Juliann Grant, Telesian Technology

Applying Baldridge to the Marketing Function, Doug Brock, Kendall Electric

This topic will be presented by Steve Hurley and Matt Leary of  Solutions Insights at the ISA Marketing and Sales Summit.

Paradox is the new normal for B2B marketing and sales: Customers 2.0 don’t want to spend money but they absolutely want to invest in solutions with real business impact.  They are skeptical of every pitch and want to do their own research, but they’re anxious for new insight and practical advice.  They’re impossible to reach but they want stronger relationships with a few trusted partners.

Amid the paradox, key account relationships are more important than ever.  It’s not just that key accounts typically drive a disproportionate share to the top and bottom lines.  It’s also that working with your key accounts is the best way to gain deeper insight into the market, test new products and solutions, and learn more about what really works in serving customer needs.

Succeeding with key accounts 2.0, however, means going far beyond the basics of strong account leadership and focused sales plans.  Join Steve and Matt for a fast-paced, interactive session that digs into the specific ways marketing and sales can work together with key accounts to build and sustain strategic relationships, deepen understanding of critical challenges and opportunities, co-create new solutions, and generate greater mutual value.  The session will include a model for key account collaboration, examples of where it’s working, and a practical roadmap to guide the move toward key account success.