I have the privilege of talking with many of our clients and, surprising as it may sound, many don't have titles that match their real jobs!  Who does these days? Maybe the CFO. So, as we gear up for our second annual Sales Enablement Forum, I want to make sure we don't miss inviting any of our Tech Marketing friends who do a little enablement on the side, or a lot of it as their full-time focus, title or not…

We chose the lead image for this year's Sales Enablement event to grab your attention because we believe you can truly be a HERO to your CEO. But it won't be an everyday task – it will take new skills and strong powers!

Vendor CEOs today want deeper relationships with customers to become their trusted suppliers. And that puts pressure on sales teams – and those who enable them – to cross-sell at higher levels. Is that working?

Our Buyer Insight study found that 13% of executive buyers believe that a salesperson can clearly show they understand their business issues and articulate a way to solve them. When we ask vendor CEOs, "Are you satisfied that your sales force is getting your company to its strategic objectives?" the answer is a resounding "No."

This is the strategy to execution gap that takes up a lot of sales and marketing energy today. It is also filled with well-intentioned but often uncoordinated activity intended to help sales sell.

There is hope! An emerging discipline is taking hold. Leaders assigned to "fix the broken things" are beginning to approach the gap with a new vision and some practical ideas. Moving from random acts to purpose built plans, and shifting the focus from products and services to customer problems, they are making customer focus a new discipline.

In other words, it's not about how you go to market, it's about how you go to customer. Get that right and you will be a HERO to your CEO.

This coming March 19-20 in San Francisco, at the iconic Palace Hotel, I hope you will join me, our entire analyst team, and your peers in practice, to dig deeply into new approaches, and practical insights, you can take back to your company and readily apply. With leaders like Carol Sustala of Symantec and Daniel West of Informatica making key note presentations, you will learn about the skills and strategies they used that you can too. And in the track sessions, we will focus on practical insights and tools to close the gap in strategic accounts, geographic sales, and with your indirect partners, all illustrated though the success of your peers. 

See you in San Francisco.