Great Minds & A Great Time: Insider Summit 2013 Recap

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Great Minds & A Great Time: Insider Summit 2013 Recap
by Heidi Anspaugh

The second annual Insider Summit was held a couple weeks ago on May 21-22 at the InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco. We think it did a great job building off the momentum from last year?s first Summit . Last year?s event had 16 sessions, 35 speakers, and a full morning of training with nine different tracks on best practices and sales methodology. This year we kicked it up a notch and hosted 26 sessions, 61 industry experts, and added a new track on account management. If you?re a stats fanatic, you might want to refer back to our earlier blog and this free infographic about all things Insider Summit 2013!

Many InsideView employees were on hand to meet and greet, lead panel discussions, and give presentations on such key topics as how to accelerate revenue with CRM Intelligence, walkthroughs of InsideView Connections and how to use it to generate leads in tandem with social media, and how to measure marketing campaign effectiveness. We were also honored to have some great minds in CRM intelligence speak at the event, including Matt Dixon, who gave a keynote on his new book, The Challenger Sale, and Jason Miller of Marketo, whose popular session on ?Incorporating Social Intelligence into Your Lead Generation Process? was much talked (and tweeted) about.

In the second keynote of the morning, Scott Santucci of Forrester Research declared that the traditional four ?P?s? of Marketing (Product, Price, Place and Promotion) have been replaced with ?Problem, Patterns, Path and Proof.? We also had a great presentation from Fred Studer, GM of Microsoft Dynamics CRM, who shared stories of customers tapping into social intelligence to create highly personalized marketing programs that resulted in exceptional customer experiences and dramatic sales results. He was joined on stage by Gary Peterson, SVP, Hitachi-Solution, to talk about how the Seattle Seahawks are using CRM intelligence to delight their fans and solidify loyalty. One year after completing their Microsoft Dynamics CRM installation, the Hawks went from a 7 and 9 record (in 2011) to 11 and 5 (in 2012). Coincidence? We?re just saying...

In addition to spotlighting some of our new products, like InsideView for Marketing, we also threw some parties in true InsideView fashion: dynamic, exciting, and full of great conversation. Check out our Grand Prix after-party photo album on Pinterest. The Summit luncheon on Day One was also an occasion to kick back and network with other attendees and speakers while enjoying a great lunch on the terrace at the hotel?s Partner Pavilion. See photos of this, plus more highlights in our Insider Summit 2013 photo album. Feel free to tag yourselves and share the photos with your networks ? after all, sharing is caring. You can also watch and share our highlights reel on YouTube.

If you missed the Summit and still would like to learn from our industry experts, select presentations are available on SlideShare. We?d also like to share some session highlights, such as this most-tweeted slide from Umberto Milletti?s keynote ?Accelerating Revenue with CRM Intelligence? discussing the future of sales and customer intelligence and its impactful quote:

Attendees enjoyed learning about the five different types of sales reps from Matt Dixon?s ?The Challenger Sale? keynote.

The revelation was that most sales managers assume Relationship Builders make the best sellers, while the research shows Challengers outperform all other types and Relationship Builders come in at the bottom of the heap. For you stats fanatics, we?ve got a few more numbers. In highly complex sales, 54% of high performers are Challengers, while only 4% are Relationship Builders.

In his keynote, Scott Santucci flipped the coin and talked about various buyer profiles and the importance of understanding which type you are selling to. We also learned how important sales intelligence is to sales reps at last year?s Summit.

Quite a few of InsideView?s staff gave walkthroughs, demos, and generally talked through ways to use InsideView Connections for more quality leads, better customer relationship management, and more targeted use of your social networking connections. This slide illustrated how you can get access not only to your own business connections, but to those of your colleagues who use InsideView as well:

We greatly enjoyed meeting so many of our customers face-to-face, giving hands-on training on some of our products, and hobnobbing with other industry leaders. Thanks to all participants ? attendees, speakers, and sponsors ? for helping to make this a success. We can?t wait to see you next year at Insider Summit 2014!