Program

Featured Presentations
Agenda

Featured Presentations

Please note: The presentation by Dave Kaplan, Senior Director, Global Customer Programs, Oracle has been canceled due to an unexpected scheduling conflict.

Keynote Speaker: Libby Gill
Libby is a former Hollywood studio executive who ran corporate communications and PR, and was later vice president of television programming and development at Universal Studios. She was the brains behind the media launch that catapulted the Dr. Phil show to the highest ratings in daytime television history. She has appeared on the Today Show, Dr. Phil Show, CNN, National Public Radio, Fox News, CBS Early Show and The Hour of Power. She's been quoted in Time Magazine, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, O Magazine, Good Housekeeping, Self and many more. Of her, Dr. Phil says that "Libby is one of those people who 'gets it.' She has an amazing gift for boiling it down to some truths that people need to hear." Her talk will focus on the intersection between your personal passion and your professional goals.

This week's featured presentation:
You Just Gave Sales the Perfect Reference but Do They Know What To Do With It?
by Oguzhan (Ozzy) Genis, Director, Customer Value & Reference Services, SAP

You land a great customer reference. They tell a great story, complete with compelling business benefits and enticing ROI info. You hand it off to sales, who will know exactly what to do with it, right? Uh, not necessarily. Ozzy will show that most sales people can't recall most of the reference tools you provide them, and aren't making the best use of them when they do. And that means your program isn't living up to its full potential.

Ozzy will show how SAP has squarely addressed the issue by developing a quick, easy and effective e-learning module and working to ensure it gets learned by the people who need it. This is another of our Deep Dive Breakouts, complete with a demo and screen shots. Read more about Ozzy.

Tying Reference Activities to the Sales Cycle for Maximum Impact
by Theresa McClure, Director, Customer Success Network, EMC

From creating initial awareness of your firm and what it does, to closing the deal, the sales cycle is long and complex. Different stages and different types of customers call for different reference activities. Which ones work best at which stage of the process and for which customer? Terri McClure will provide insights from EMC's approach, which is based on surveys of more than 1,000 EMC field reps. Read more about Terri.

Your Customer Reference Program Plays in Peoria but What About Paris, Tokyo, and Shanghai?
by Rhett Livengood, Director, Worldwide Marketing, Intel Solution Services

How do you cover the world with a handful of staff and a small budget? Who calls the shots when managing a customer reference program in different cities throughout the world? How do you set-up a customer reference program that is fully supported by sales and the divisional marketing teams? How do you share references between countries? Are references used the same throughout the world? Rhett tackles these questions every day and will share his insights from around the world. Read more about Rhett.

Deep Dive Breakout!
"Realized Value:" How PTC Moves Beyond Customer ROI
by Rhonda Morgan, Director, Customer Reference Program, PTC

Are you being asked, "How can you deliver customer references with more tangible results? Can you deliver references with quantifiable results?" Rhonda will show how PTC has developed a program that helps their customers realize value through a formalized process of metrics tracking and reporting. See how this approach can vastly improve the quality of your references while helping to improve customer relationships and overall satisfaction. If a customer believes they have realized the value expected, think about how this creates and accelerates future opportunities. Read more about Rhonda.

This will be one of our "Deep Dive" breakouts. The session will be longer than the usual presentation (90 minutes vs. 60 minutes), provide more time for audience Q&A and exchange of ideas, and will include forms, templates, schedules, demos and other such tools so that you'll come away not only with tips on what to do, but actual tools to help you do it.

Best Practices for Demonstrating the Value of a Reference Program
We've had presentations before by individual firms on how to show the value of a reference program. But many of you need more. So we've formed an ongoing Special Interest Group (SIG) on Metrics that is researching and developing true best practices on the subject. Barb Krasner, Director, Client Reference Program at Lucent Technologies chairs the SIG, and Jim Lenskold, one of the world's leading experts on Marketing ROI, is providing guidance. In Dallas, you'll receive the first report from the Metrics SIG, with presentations by members Gayle McClary, Senior Director, North American Customer References at Oracle; Rhonda Morgan, Director, Customer Reference Program at PTC,;and Wendi Wolfgram, Marketing Program Manager, Client References at Tomorrow Now. Each will present a category of metrics and elements within them that represent our best practices. Barb will moderate the presentations.

Deep Dive Breakout!
For Partners By Partners: A Powerful Source for New References at SAP
by Johanna Hafey, SME Global Reference Program Manager, SAP

This will be Part 2 of the well-received presentation Johanna gave at our Fall 2005 Customer Reference Forum in Boston. If you're looking for a rich new source of high impact references, you won't want to miss it. For some time now, SAP Channel Partners have been enrolling their own reference customers in the "SAP Reference Program for Channel Partners" - more than 1500 customers in just one year. Find out what motivated them. You'll also learn how SAP has expanded their support of SAP resellers in the small and midsize enterprise space through the new SME Customer Interview Center. Channel partners send interview links to their prospects so they can hear first-hand how customers are responding - in their own words - to questions about SAP. Answers to questions such as "How would you respond to someone's claim that 'SAP is only for large companies'?" are going a long way to help SAP overcome the misperception that SAP is too big and too complex. Read more about Johanna.

As part of our Deeper Dive Breakout Series, she'll provide specific details, including a demo, forms, web templates and other tools used to build the program. You'll come away not only knowing how to build a partner program, you'll have specific tools to get you started.

Agenda

Following is our schedule outline. Please check back as we add speakers and specific topics.

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