My Week in Vegas: Talent, Zombies, and a Little Magic

Last week I was fortunate enough to attend CEB’s Sales and Marketing Summit in Las Vegas, and I came home impressed and motivated to apply what I saw and learned.  As in previous years, the summit sold out several months in advance, as it has established itself as the premier learning gathering for heads of sales and marketing.

The theme of the conference was “The Next Generation of Commercial Talent”.  Across the conference content and throughout the networking discussions, three underpinning topics coalesced:  consensus, reputation, and effort.

1.  The Era of Consensus Buying – and Marketing’s Mandate:

Anyone who has been around CEB’s research the past few years has witnessed the impact that The Challenger Sale has had on B2B sales and marketing strategies.  Challenger was born not out of a change in selling, however, but a change in buying.  And the latest evolution in buying is around consensus decision-making.  Today, on average, more than five different people get involved in any given decision for a business purchase.  And CEB’s research shows that the more people are involved in the decision, the more it is likely that NO action will be taken.

When group decisions are made, they aren’t only about which supplier to choose; they are also about what type of solution will solve the challenge facing the group.  And that decision is made well before any interaction happens with suppliers.  So what can suppliers do?  Marketing needs to influence the decision outcome before Sales can even get involved.  How?  Enable mobilizers.  Arm them with tools that lead to the type of solution you provide, (not just your specific flavor) in a vendor-neutral fashion.  And then arm your Sales reps with commercial insight.

2.  The Evolving Reputation of Sales:

As organizations transform their sales functions for insight selling, they often gravitate towards skill development of their existing sales reps.  This helps expedite training initiatives, but it inevitably leads to interesting debates around what makes for today’s ideal sales rep – and what makes for an ideal place for reps to work.

Several presentations at the summit focused on the culture that organizations should foster — not just to develop their current sellers, but to attract tomorrow’s stars based on the promise of a good career.   Depaul University has established a Center for Sales Leadership – effectively a “Major” in Sales.  Daniel Strunk, Depaul’s managing director for the center, anchored a fascinating panel session about the image of sales, and what attracts young college graduates to sales today.

Other sessions focused on the cultural importance of front-line managers.  Established managers must be able to adopt to the changing buying and selling environment.  First-time managers must make the leap from selling to leading teams.    But in some ways the transition to Insight Selling is harder for existing front-line managers, as they must “Flip” from directive to supportive styles of management.

3.  The Effortless Experience – Not Just for Customer Service:

Last month, the newest book from CEB went on sale in North America and Europe.  Matthew Dixon, (coauthor of The Challenger Sale), Nick Toman and Rick Delisi published The Effortless Experience.  At the summit, the authors outlined key findings from the book, and later gave out signed copies.  The book based on research from CEB’s Customer Contact practice, identifies a major flaw in the conventional wisdom that businesses should over-invest to delight customers in service interactions.  It turns out that the biggest driver of customer loyalty and repeat purchase is actually providing a low-effort service experience.  Here’s a nifty video overview.

So why was this featured at a sales and marketing conference (and why did it generate so much buzz)?  Because customer effort is deceivingly important for leaders of those functions.  In Sales, many leaders either directly oversee customer service or care greatly about post-sales customer service in the interest of account health.  And for marketers, understanding how the customer experience can be improved to help generate more loyalty – and therefore more revenue – is a primary concern for both B2B and B2C marketing leaders.

Other Highlights

Haniel Lynn channels the un-dead to kick off the CEB Sales & Marketing Summit.

Scariest presentation:  Any good speaker gets people’s attention, but CEB General Manager Haniel Lynn took things a step further by loading up his presentation with a montage of zombie photos.  I was relieved that he didn’t use any “live” props.
Best use of video:  Handshakez CEO Jason Wesbecher gave an entertaining presentation comparing B2B selling to dating, including this compilation video of speed dating fails.
Most often-heard advice:  Near universal agreement from the various presenters on the need to shift beyond email marketing and accelerate Social Selling.
Most entertaining moment:  Shimshi the illusionist worked the crowd at the Tuesday night reception.  I won’t reveal too many details of his magic, but let’s just say that everyone who saw him in action will be talking about it for a long time.

CEB Members:  Visit the CEB Sales and CEB Marketing websites to access all the conference materials and share with your team members.

Were you at the Summit?  Share your takeaways, highlights, or scariest moments.

This is a guest post by Ian Walsh, Senior Director and Channel Marketing Lead at CEB.