ISA Marketing & Sales Summit

Are you interested in meeting influential marketing and sales executives from industrial automation companies?  If so, we’ve got an event for you.  The 7th annual ISA Marketing & Sales Summit in Austin (August 15-17, 2012) will bring together top marketing and sales professionals for a deep dive into the specific marketing and sales challenges unique to the automation industry.  Past events have included attendees from a number of Fortune 500 companies including ABB, Emerson, Honeywell, Jacobs Engineering, MatrikonOPC, Phoenix Contact, Rockwell, and Siemens.

We are seeking sponsors to support the continued success of the event.  I’m sure that you receive a number of requests to sponsor various events and activities.  So, what is it about this event that makes it different?  Following are some reasons to consider sponsoring…

1. The majority of attendees at the event have budget responsibility for marketing and sales related purchases for their companies.
2. The event schedule includes dedicated time for the attendees to mix and mingle with the sponsors.  All sponsors will receive a table in the networking area at which they can promote their companies products and/or services.
3. Sponsors will be vigorously promoted by ISA.  This promotion will include pre-event recognition on websites and social media as well as in-event recognition including signage, along with an opportunity to address attendees.  Sponsors are invited to contribute on a very active event blog that generates good traffic and referral links.
4. Sponsors will receive a complimentary registration for the event, among other benefits.
5. Sponsors will receive a list of all attendees (including email addresses) for post-event follow-up.

Some additional details about this year’s Summit…

The theme of the event is “The New Rules of Customer Engagement: Riding the Winds of Change.”  The event will include two conference tracks centered around Marketing and Sales.  Additionally, pre-Summit workshops will be offered on Inbound Marketing, Creating a Content Engine, and Solution Selling Strategies.

Please consider becoming a sponsor for the 2012 ISA Marketing and Sales Summit.  For more information, you can contact me via e-mail (kpp@prosys.com) or phone (225-291-9591).  Thanks for your consideration!

Rick Caldwell will be presenting on this topic at the ISA Marketing and Sales Summit.

This is the evolution of how one idea turned years of production monitoring experience into a revolutionary product development that enhanced the software that was being produced and resulted in increased orders.  The key to this story that was originally deemed a “failure”, was the ability to adapt, listen and provide what the customer actually wanted, turning it into a success.   

Rick Caldwell is the founder and President of SCADAware, a leading system integration company specializing in large PC based SCADA systems. He pioneered one of the largest early SCADA systems in 1989 using a DOS 286 computer with 40 serial communication lines connected to 370 PLCs (Programmable Logic Controllers). This system monitored 40,000 data points in real time.   The SME (Society of Manufacturing Engineering) published this work in their handbook, “Continuous Improvement” in 1993.  Rick has also authored articles for Industrial Computing Magazine, Control Engineering Magazine, as well as other publications. His experience from that early system extends from Manufacturing to Gas Transmission Pipelines, Water/Waste Water Treatment, all the way to involvement in the SCADA design for NASA’s Space Shuttle launch pads.  As an entrepreneur and innovator, Rick has attended EmTech, MIT’s Emerging Technology Conference and is recognized as a mentor for top entrepreneurial MBA students. He facilitated a series of Fireside Chats for MBA students at Babson College and mentored students from the University of Missouri for their Capstone Project.  He was recently a guest speaker at a SCADA Conference in Bogota, Columbia.  Rick is involved in Lean Manufacturing initiatives and holds an annual conference to discuss methods and new technology.  He has developed several products from within his integration company, SCADAware, that help enhance production efficiencies.  StatusWatch® production monitoring software and StatusLight Smart Andon system are used in companies world-wide.

George Buckbee is presenting on this topic.

Would you like to meet face-to-face with 100 of your best prospects for an hour? With Webinars you can efficiently have positive, in-depth, targeted interactions with hundreds of clients, from all over the world, without ever leaving your office.

This session focuses on the basics of webinars: Uncover the motivations for webinars.  Learn how to choose topics, venues, format, structure, and content of your webinar.  Learn when to charge for webinars and when to do them for free.   Find out how to choose a host service.   Discover how to market your webinars for maximum effect, and how to stretch the  value of every webinar.   Come to this session to learn how you can apply webinars to prospect for new sales, to establish better customer relationships, and to reach your sales and marketing goals.

George Buckbee is V.P. of Marketing for ExperTune, and has personally hosted hundreds of webinars.  He has over 20 years of experience in process control engineering and extensive experience optimizing process operations. George is a skilled trainer and public speaker who knows how to translate experiences into engineering and maintenance practices.  George has a BS in Chemical Engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and a MS in Chemical Engineering/Process Control from the University of Californina, Santa Barbara.

This topic will be presented by Robert Sammons and Katherine Persac

Current economic environments and the high demand for excellence put more pressure than ever on Business Development, Sales, and Marketing personnel. In addition the highly technical nature of selling automation adds a layer of complexity to the sales environment.  This means a demand of full utilization of sales & technical personnel to ensure the best solution is presented to meet today’s customers demand for the high value & low cost solution. These two key criteria make every step of the sales process hyper critical to winning a sales pursuit for a Control System upgrade, replacement, or expansion project.  Although relationship sells, it is absolutely crucial that any company pursuing sales in the technical marketplace establish solid relationships with product distributors while maintaining trained personnel and repeatable strategies and tactics in their sales process. This session will discuss key aspects in developing, executing and winning complex projects through managing critical areas of the sales process, developing and maintaining strong distributor relationships, and establishing the processes by which you may be more successful in screening, forecasting, and closing deals in your pipeline through new customer relationship management tools and techniques.

Robert Sammons is currently the VP Operations & Business Development at Moore Control Systems.  He has more than 20 years of experience in the energy sector supporting all phases of the project lifecycle from Conceptualization through commissioning.   His roles have included: Project designer, Project Engineer, Field Engineer, Project Manager, Technical Sales Representative, and Business Development Manager working with EPC’s, Automation Vendors, and Software Solutions providers catering to Owner Operators in the Energy Sector.   In the last 10 years he has performed in various Sales Representative & Business Development roles which have included selling software and Automation solutions to Fortune 100 & 500 customers.  He has both domestic and international work experience.

Katherine Persac is currently the Sales, Marketing and Recruiting Director as well as Corporate Secretary for ProSys Inc.  She joined ProSys as Accounting and Office Manager in 1996.  She accepted the position of Secretary/Treasurer in 1999, continuing in her accounting management position.  Since 2007 she has fulfilled the roles of Director of Sales, Marketing and Recruiting, as well as Corporate Secretary.  Katherine’s base is the U.S. office, but she maintains relationships with customers from the European office as well as in Asia and the Middle East.  She also oversees the sales and marketing departments.  She has 15 years of prior experience in Sales, Sales Management and Business Management roles.