Event Overview

How you sell is increasingly more important than what you sell. Sales teams that converse intelligently about customers' problems can sell higher in the organization, uncover new opportunities, and avoid being shunted to procurement. To get there, marketing and sales leaders must overcome three common failure points to effective sales enablement:

• No shared, best-practice process. Pockets of uncoordinated sales enablement are typically executed within product and field marketing, sales, HR, and training, and these efforts often deliver unintentionally conflicting and unproductive support. Forrester estimates that tech vendors are spending $135,000 per quota-carrying salesperson on such support-related activities alone. Lacking a common vision, process, or success metrics, much of that money is wasted.
• Poor or missing buyer insights. The business problems that buyers need to solve to be successful are the starting point to effective sales enablement. Without those insights, many organizations revert to hit-or-miss lead generation and product pushing with low yields.
• Ineffective technology deployment. You can only hope to align your marketing tactics and sales tools with the changing needs of buyers in dynamic markets if you use data and technology effectively. From campaign management to lead generation and field sales support, the market is littered with examples of little used or much maligned sales tools.

Don’t take it too hard. Sales enablement challenges persist not because marketing and sales professionals are working at odds. Rather, effective sales enablement is exceedingly hard to do.

Forrester’s Technology Sales Enablement Forum 2010 is designed to give attendees a practical way forward. Leading technology industry executives will deliver keynote sessions at this Event and discuss the smart practices they have used successfully to drive sales.

Confirmed Forrester Forum Co-Hosts:

• Eric Brown, Vice President, Research Director
• Scott Santucci, Senior Analyst

Confirmed Forrester Speakers:

• Laura Ramos, Vice President, Principal Analyst
• Ellen Carney, Senior Analyst
• Tim Harmon, Senior Analyst
• Ellen Daley, Vice President, Research Director
• William Band, Vice President, Principal Analyst

Who Should Attend?

Forrester’s Technology Sales Enablement Forum 2010 delivers critical insights and actionable advice at the intersection of marketing execution and sales success. This year’s theme, “Converting Buyer Insights Into Sales Success,” will engage leading executives in the following roles:

• Technology Sales Enablement Professionals.
• Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals.
• Vendor Strategy Professionals.

Why Attend?

At this Event, not only will you learn how to integrate your marketing and sales efforts to drive better sales outcomes, but we will also supply you with the demand-side insights you need to define, tune, and execute your sales enablement strategies within your specific technology market. From cloud services to enterprise apps, from hardware to managed services, from green IT to IT management and more, Forrester will deliver its unique perspective into the personalities, needs, and drivers of technology buyers. The Event agenda will deliver:

• Sales enablement leadership insights. Keynotes and track presentations from both industry leaders and Forrester’s top analysts will arm and inspire participants with practical tools and processes and the evidence that leading companies have broken through the marketing and sales gap to achieve their own sales success.
• Technology buyer challenges and initiatives. Forrester is uniquely positioned to tap our tens of thousands of enterprise IT customers to learn about their technology purchase plans and priorities — and also the role of CIOs, architects, businesspeople, and procurement in the purchase of various categories of technology and services. Forrester believes these insights are the fuel of an effective, customer-centered approach to successful sales enablement.
• Marketing and sales tools and technology recommendations. Effective sales enablement depends in large part on using customer and prospect data, along with social media, in new and innovative ways. Forrester analysts will present our latest research into the campaign management, CRM, and social and sales tools and platforms that form the backbone of an integrated sales enablement approach. Leading companies with smart solutions will also be showing their wares in the Event’s Solutions Showcase.