For the past four years our firm has sponsored The Sales Execution Forum. This invitation-only event is done over one and one half days in Chicago at the end of July. Again this year we maxed out at 100 financial services executives who joined us from all corners of our nation – from Hawaii to Maine and from Florida to Washington state (DC too). The goal of this annual conference is simple – to help our clients and other financial services executives gain practical knowledge and information from bestselling authors, world class consultants and peers in commercial, retail, training and human resources disciplines. Here are the overviews of each of the speakers. If you are having an event and need someone dealing with these important topics, I would not hesitate to recommend any one of them.
Les Hewitt, an internationally recognized speaker and the author of several books including; The Power of Focus: How to Achieve Your Most Important Goals with Confidence and Clarity. Les wowed the group for 90 minutes and reminded all of us that targeting three important goals is better than trying to do it all. My dad used to say that “you can have anything in life you want but not everything you want.” If you need someone to speak to your group related to both life and business objectives, don’t hesitate to bring Les Hewitt to your organization.
Aaron McDaniel, CEO of Access created lots of energy in the room with his discussion; Maximize Your Gen Y ROI. Aaron combined lighthearted humor about relationships between this young generation of workers and their older counterparts with serious ideas about hiring, training and coaching millennials.
Mary Beth Sullivan, Managing Partner of Capital Performance Group in Washington DS followed. Mary Beth is a well-known expert in strategic planning, earnings improvement and risk management and the only speaker we have asked back to the Forum for a second program. Her focus was Innovation: The Quest for Better Solutions and New Revenue Sources. Disruption and the forever changed nature of our business was highlighted along with five key rules for innovation and the importance of unique value propositions in the sea of financial services sameness.
Ron Balmer, Managing Director at Greenwich Associates, discussed trends and best practices Greenwich is seeing in commercial and business banking sales. Ron’s session, Current Client Expectations in Commercial Banking, was a blend of insights, and challenges our industry faces in the minds and hearts of business clients. Ron ended the program with five key strategic priorities banks should focus on for the remainder of 2015 and into the New Year as well.
Diana Oreck, Vice President, Ritz Carlton Leadership Center, introduced Legendary Service at Ritz Carlton. . From the Credo, Employee Promise and The 12 Service Values, Diana rocked the house with stories and anecdotes – some funny, some heartwarming and all thought provoking.
Meridith Elliott Powell is a former banker who I met in the late 1990s. She has become one of the top consultants in our industry an author of four books and an in demand keynote speaker. Meridith’s program Building Female Talent from the Bottom Up, discussed the nuances of hiring, coaching and fully engaging the women in your organization at every level.
Luis Lobo, Executive Vice President BB&T and Holly Buchanan, CEO of Buchanan Marketing brought the key subject of selling to vertical markets to the table in a unique tag team format. Luis discussed the Hispanic marketplace and the nuances of finding, marketing to and deepening partnerships with this growing segment. Holly discussed selling to Women and how to get to their wallets through their hearts.
Matt Dixon, Group Leader, Financial Services and Customer Contact Practices at CEB, was our closing speaker. Matt’s message of The Challenger Sale: Driving Growth by Taking Control of the Customer Conversation had our guests feverously taking notes. Matt dispelled many of the myths around his book The Challenger Sale and he sent this year’s Forum attendees home thinking about what the next level of relationship development is for their organizations.
What a great summer in Chicago. To receive copies of any of the PowerPoint decks from the above speakers, email me at jhubbard@80y.b23.myftpupload.com and we’ll make certain you have them for your 2016 planning process.
