The world of buyers and sellers has changed — vendor CEOs enter 2012 with growth strategies that favor deeper relationships with customers and that push sales to do more cross-selling at higher levels. In this new world, however, buyers are telling us there is a gap. Of the executive buyers Forrester surveyed, a mere 13% believe that a typical salesperson can demonstrate an understanding of their business issues and articulate how to solve them. Enter the VP of "broken things": the leader who is helping shape an emerging discipline into a strategic function: sales enablement. 

During a webinar this coming Wednesday February 15th, I will share Forrester's latest insight into: 

• What is the state of the gap today between what buyers expect and what sales is communicating?
• What successful frameworks and approaches are sales enablement leaders using in 2012?
• How can you engage with Forrester and your peers to advance your company's sales enablement practices and elevate your own role?

Webinar attendees will also receive an exclusive discount off an event ticket to Forrester's Technology Sales Enablement Forum 2012 in San Francisco!

I hope you will join. Thanks, Brad

The plans for the Sales Enablement Forum are in full swing, so here is a quick video update on the theme, the speakers, and why I believe this is a can't miss opportunity to put you and your team on a fast track to delivering measurable results for your CEO.  

I hope to see you in March. Thanks, Brad

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 are communicating strategies that depend on winning deeper relationships with customers. And that is putting pressure on sales teams to cross-sell at higher levels. So how is that working?

Our Buyer Insight study found that on 13% of executive buyers believe that a salesperson can clearly show they understand their business issues and articulate a way to solve them. And 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 today is filled with well-intentioned but uncoordinated activity all intended to help sales sell.

From within that chaos, an emerging discipline is taking hold. Leaders assigned to "fix the broken things" and their teams are beginning to approach the gap with a new vision and some practical ideas. Making the move from random acts to purpose built plans, and shifting their focus from products and services to customer problems, they are making customer focus a new discipline, not just a catchphrase.

What we are seeing and saying is that it's not about how you go to market, it's about how you go to customer. And if you can get that right, you will be a HERO to your CEO.

Something quite remarkable happened in San Francisco this week. Counter to the tectonic norm in this amazing city, sales enablement came into alignment. How so?

Our team gathered with some 250 fellow SE professionals at our inaugural event focused on making those people in the role more successful. Over the course of two days, we talked about what buyers want from tech today, which is not tech but, rather, the end results that tech plays a role in delivering. We heard from George Colony, Forrester's founder, chairman, and CEO, that the majority of tech CEOs he interviewed don't believe their sales teams are keeping pace with their companies' strategic goals.

We learned from Principal Analyst Scott Santucci about outcome selling as a strategy to deliver on buyers' new demands for results, not more stuff. We shared stories about changing the focus of our efforts and investments in supporting sales by starting with customers' problems and using the sales conversation as the key design point. We shared stories about how to build consensus and win executive sponsorship for our initiatives and programs. We shared stories about things we have tried that worked -- and some that didn't. We heard from some remarkable sales enablement leaders, like Marci Meaux of CISCO and David Irwin of Allant Group, both blazing a path of success. In the halls and into the evening, we compared notes, we traded cards and contacts, we learned, and we laughed.

In the end, what was clear to me from both the main stage and the halls is that:

Dean Davison, whom I trust some of you know from his time as the head of the outsourcing practice at Meta Group or Customer Intelligence at EDS, has joined the Forrester team supporting Tech Sales Enablement professionals, and we are launching new research as a result. Dean is going through some big life changes (check out his blog here) among which is the realization that the old ways of selling have to change and, well, so does his research to keep up. Now that is all good, and Dean needs your input. To start, he is asking you to help him home in on the right research around how you manage a portfolio to support the delivery of business outcomes to your customers. Please take a moment to vote in the Client Choice panel to the right of this post, and please also visit Dean's blog and give him your comments and input on this important area of our research, and you can be sure he will get back to you.