Considering attending the Sales and Marketing Summit 2015? Want to learn more before registering? We're here to help!

Ken Schmitt, the President and Founder of TurningPoint Executive Search/Sales Leadership Alliance, and the Moderator of the upcoming Summit, is here to give us the inside scoop about the event while sharing some extra facts with our blog only. Ken, take it away!

What is the Sales and Marketing Summit 2015?
The Summit is an all day, two-track, innovation conference that caters to sales and marketing leaders. While other events may support sales professionals or the marketing community, this Summit will bring these two constituencies together in one place and one time. Rather than focusing on innovative products, this year’s event will focus on innovative sales strategies and creative marketing trends. Our theme is “Dynamic Disruption”, highlighting companies that are truly disrupting their respective marketplace. From leveraging analytics to amplifying customer engagement, our lineup of speakers hail from leading edge organizations and will address the significant changes taking place between buyers and sellers on the externally, and sales and marketing internally.

What was the genesis of this event?
I had been thinking about hosting this type of an all-day event for a couple of years, as the lines between sales and marketing became more and more blurred. Back in 2011, as I rebranded my recruiting firm, TurningPoint Executive Search, to focus on placing sales and marketing professionals, I quickly realized there was a lack of opportunity for sales and marketing professionals to receive training and professional development in the marketplace. I launched the Sales Leadership Alliance (SLA) to meet this need, providing a venue for sales and marketing leaders to learn from some of the region’s best, hear stories of success and lessons learned, while networking and sharing leads with their peers across a variety of industries. The 2015 Sales and Marketing Summit is the next step in fostering this atmosphere of collaboration here in Southern California.

Who should attend and why?
This Summit is uniquely geared toward sales and marketing leaders, small business owners, and entrepreneurs who support the sales and marketing function. Regardless of industry or company size, we see a huge need to provide opportunities for professional development among this group. Our speakers range from industry giants such as GE Capital, CNN, Illumina and Smith Micro, to cutting edge innovators like CrowdStrike, Ziprecruiter and Global Transitional Care. Attending the Summit will expose our attendees to a wealth of best practices and up and coming trends designed to increase customer engagement and conversion.

How would millennials gain value from this summit?
Thanks to social media, the sharing economy, big data and a heightened reliance on consumer generated recommendations and reviews, it is much more difficult to pinpoint where marketing ends and sales begins. Moreover, fewer and fewer companies are providing any formal training to equip their sales and marketing leaders with the tools necessary to build and motivate a successful team. Millennials are bearing the brunt of this training deficiency. As they make their way up the corporate ladder, taking on more and more responsibility, they are expected to foster an environment of partnership and accountability across departments. However, they are afforded very few opportunities to gain exposure to the various functions outside of their area of expertise. More and more of our recruiting clients are asking for sales and marketing talent that possess the communication skills and hands on experience to collaborate with one another. This is the perfect venue for millennials to gain these skills.

Why is it essential that sales and marketing work together?
I have always been a big believer in the power – and need – to bring sales and marketing professionals together. Too often, companies end up creating a somewhat adversarial relationship with sales on one side, and marketing on the other. Marketing blames sales for ignoring the leads they generate and promising the world to their prospects and customers; sales blames marketing for providing less than ideal leads and creating meaningless campaigns. The Sales and Marketing Summit will help break down these walls, allowing these two integral parts of the company to come together and learn from one another, ultimately making the individuals and their respective businesses more productive.

Where can our readers find more information and register for the Sales and Marketing Summit 2015?
The website is www.salesmarketingsummitsd.com. The site includes a video with interviews from some of our speakers, the full agenda and location of the event, and or course, registration links.