ITA and First Analysis Event: Growing and Managing a Best-in-Class Sales Team

September 5, 2008

Reading time: 4 - 6 minutes

We are happy to be working with the ITA and First Analysis to put on the “Growing and Managing a Best-in-Class Sales Team: A Rock Star Panel” event on Thursday, September 18th at the Hotel Sax Chicago (5:30pm start time). Sales is very important to any company and especially those that are growing quickly. This panel, comprised of some Chicago tech/sales luminaries, will show you how to grow and manage your sales team.

Since you are TECH cocktailers you can register for free. Just type in the code ITAPARTNER in the credit card fields and your cost for this fantastic event will be $0.

Event details:

Presented by: Illinois Technology Association & First Analysis

Sponsored by: TECH cocktail, Illinois Venture Capital Association, Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul University and TiE Midwest.

More info and registration: https://www.illinoistech.org/calendar.aspx/1044

Details and Panel:

Ask any successful CEO in a growth-stage technology company what their #1 priority is and you will get one answer: SALES. What’s the first question a VC asks an entrepreneur about their company: How’s SALES? Despite this, sales force team-building, sourcing, developing, structuring, managing are typically honed on the job – and that poses a 6-7 figure+ risk for each misstep down the learning curve!. Finish 2008 off strong by joining us on the evening of Thursday, September 18 as we dive into the sales deep-end and discuss with a Rock Star Panel of successful technology company-growers where they will share their lessons-learned in:

Creating and Growing a Potent Sales Team
Creating a Sales Culture
Aligning Sales with New Business Models
Sourcing & Compensating Talent
Sales Force Structure
Channels

Registration: https://www.illinoistech.org/calendar.aspx/1044

The Panelists

George Roberts, ex-EVP North American Sales, Oracle Corporation, Venture Partner OpenView Partners

Over 13 years and three million frequent flyer miles, George’s responsibility grew from the Central sales region and $36million in revenue to managing Oracle N. America’s $1billion+ in revenue. Retiring from Oracle in 2003, George is currently a venture partner with Boston-based OpenView Partners. Learn some of the tricks, tips and traps to avoid from this superstar sales executive and how to apply them to your company.

Jai Shekhawat, CEO/co-Founder Fieldglass

Jai has grown award-winning Fieldglass into the technology leader for human capital and services procurement. The ex-McKinsey consultant will share his experiences moving down a steep sales management learning curve as he led Fieldglass through the “Crash”, to industry leadership; this, while keeping his five separate venture fund backers happy and the growth capital flowing. Fieldglass won the 2007 American Business Association’s Stevie Award for Most Innovative Company in North America. Fieldglass has a business model with ~ 99% recurring revenue. Learn from Jai’s experiences designing, building, growing, tweaking, Fieldglass’ multi-channel sales team.

John Aiello, CEO/co-Founder SAVO Group

John leads one of Chicago’s hottest technology companies. SAVO is changing the way sales professionals tap the knowledge base of their companies to deliver the right information to prospective customers at the right time. Among other honors, SAVO was just named 2008’s Most Innovative Service/Business Model winner by the Computing Technology Industry Association, for the novelty of the Company’s service, the scope of business innovation and its impact on the software industry. John will share his hands-on experience with on-demand subscription models and how to align the cost of customer acquisition and the need for sticky revenue streams, with effective sales management practices.