The Sales 2.0 Conference billed itself as “the number one industry event devoted to excellence in leveraging SaaS technologies.” Attendees were promised they would learn:
- how to create a sales process ruled by metrics and measurement
- how collaboration can promote productivity and enhance the customer experience
- ways to leverage technology to empower your team
Thirty-one sponsors joined Gerhard Gschwandtner, founder & CEO of Selling Power, and his team in early April for two packed days. Gerhard, as usual, was a genial, entertaining and tireless host—ensuring that sponsors and attendees were educated, entertained and well-fed—service was as you would expect from The Four Seasons Hotel.
My takeaways:
- Almost half the sponsors were, in fact, SaaS technology companies with a large number of those companies being what I call information enablement providers. A clear takeaway for me was that big bets are being placed on companies that provide solutions that leverage data from multiple platforms (such as CRM, LinkedIn…). Candidly, my fear about that is that companies will continue to ignore “little data” and drown in big data. In addition to the SaaS sponsors there were four list/database providers, a few services companies, two talent assessment companies, two training companies and one web/mobile agency rounding out the group. Traffic was brisk during well-organized meals, breaks and two receptions.
- It did not surprise me that attendees enjoyed hands-on advice and were impatient with “commercials” from vendors and speakers. Matt Heinz’s excellent breakout session, “Sales Hacks: 22 Tricks, Shortcuts & Other” was standing room only and I heard a lot of positive comments about that session. Some notes I took pointed me toward buffer.com, timetrade, toutapp and rivaliq for competitor social ranking tracking.
- There is not enough room here for me to document the full page of notes I took during Jeffrey Hayzlett’s presentation, but I can tell you that it was one funny, inspirational and educational experience that was worth the price of the whole trip. Some examples:
- Marketing: engage, educate, excite, evangelize
- As a leader: be transparent, real, human and let go (don’t control)
- Six rules to lead: ask everyone, involve everyone, chart progress, reward good behavior, fire bad behavior
- Here is a YouTube example of one of Jeffrey’s keynotes
For me, as an attendee and sponsor, Sales 2.0 delivered on its promises. At close to 500 attendees, it was an intimate, enjoyable affair that provided me with a lot of potential clients and a number of new industry friends. I recommend it.
Read other recaps from fellow attendees:
Sales 2.0 – Are you mission ready?
Top 10 Tweets from Sales 2.0 Conference Day 1
Initial Thoughts from Sales 2.0 Conference – Technology vs. Productivity
