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Tamara Schenk

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VP Sales Enablement, T-Systems International GmbH

1245 points

I'm focused on holistic and strategic sales enablement to drive our customer's business outcomes.

Check out my blog on sales enablement:
http://blog.tamaraschenk.com/

WEB: Forrester Community

April 25, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 4 other people answered this question

What are current best practices you have seen in new hire sales training?

Great question, Robert!
The challenge for new hires is two-sided: A sales organization wants them to be productive as soon as possible and the new hire wants to be successful as soon as possible. In the meantime, there is a lot of complexity to be ... more

Sales Enablement

April 11, 2012

Tamara Schenk is now following Vito Pandolfo and 1 other person

April 11, 2012

Tamara Schenk recommends this answer by Dave Brock

What are some tips to get better in scalable learning to increase our sales performance?

Tamara, this is a key question that every sales manager has to continually address. Before offering some ideas, I would tune this a little.
As executives we have to look both at effectiveness (doing things right) and efficiently (doing things in the shortest amount of ... more

Online Strategies

Sales Enablement

March 31, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 1 other person answered this question

What are your best practices regarding account planning tools, what are your recommendations regarding a CRM integration?

Thanks, Brian!
Being in the service and outsourcing business, strategic account planning is much more than integration of actual and potential opportunity plans. We try to connect a few dots based on a legal account definition, such as a buyer role reference model, understanding the ... more

Sales Enablement

Sales Management

Feb. 22, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 7 other people answered this question

How can sales convince buyers to buy?

It starts by changing the own attitude from "I have to sell a product" to "I love to solve my customer's problems and to drive their results".
In general, it means working consequently backwards from the customer, from the outside to the inside, model the ... more

Sales Enablement

Feb. 17, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 17 other people answered this question at this roundtable

20 Years of Selling—A Discussion of Truth [2/3 @ 11 am]

What skills are essential for success in sales today?

Interesting discussion!
I will focus on skills especially for IT service provider.
Regarding the information age, it's all about outcomes instead of outputs, which was our focus during the industrial age. It's about the value we create for our clients, about the results,we help them ... more

Marketing Technology

Jan. 29, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 7 other people answered this question

What are the most meaningless sales metrics you have seen?

First of all, we should only measure what really matters - not, what can be measured!
Analyzing metrics - make sure that you distinguish between transactional sales and strategic sales.
Metrics that show us the productivity and the performance to get results are always useful ... more

Sales Management

Jan. 29, 2012

Tamara Schenk recommends this answer by Tony Zambito

How important is it to create different kinds of media for content campaigns, i.e. video, slideshare, etc.?

Hi Lauren,
Good question and nice thread of response. I believe the question is a nuance one related to tactics one might use for a strategy that has a larger purpose. With the current rage of content marketing and demand generation - companies are diving ... more

Branded Content

Content Marketing

Jan. 29, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 3 other people answered this question at this roundtable

The Future of Selling [1/23 @ 11 am]

How do we master the challenge to transform people, processes, organizations from "push" to "pull"?

Thanks all for your time and your thoughtful responses - highly appreciated!
The topic is really very broad and it required some more insights. That's why I provided some additional information on what I actually mean.
In the meantime, I have structured my thoughts and ... more

Lead Management

Jan. 13, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 5 other people answered this question

What is one easy way to increase sales?

This is a remarkable and disappointing list at the same time!
Is anybody aware that all these 12 so-called "easy ways to increase sales" have all one common design point? The vendors' internal organization and steering logic, all ideas are vendor related, "it's all about ... more

Sales Enablement

Jan. 7, 2012

Tamara Schenk answered this question

What sales and/or marketing conferences you are looking forward to the most in 2012? Why?

I'm looking very much forward to the Forrester Sales Enablement Forum, March 19-20, 2012 in San Francisco.
http://www.forrester.com/events/eventdetail/0,9179,2586,00.html
Here is why: The event is focused on how to bridge the gap between strategy and execution, it will show why the strategic dimension is so important ... more

Jan. 4, 2012

Tamara Schenk and 3 other people answered this question

Segmenting accounts - what are your reasons and objectives and which criteria do you use?

Art, thanks very much for your excellent insights!
You are raising very important topics:
Strategy: Segmenting accounts (or suppliers and service providers as you suggest) is a strategic question, not an opportunistic approach to increase this years revenue only. I also think, such a process ... more

Key Account Management

Sales Enablement

Sales Management

Dec. 28, 2011

Tamara Schenk and 5 other people answered this question

What are some of the best blogs on sales enablement?

A few months after launch, I'd love to add my own blog from and for sales enablement professionals - considering sales enablement in a strategic and holistic way:
http://blog.tamaraschenk.com/
I hope, you will find valuable thoughts and ideas to master your challenges.
Your feedback and your thoughts are ... more

Sales Enablement

Dec. 17, 2011

Tamara Schenk and 1 other person commented on this post

Content Marketing and Sales Enablement Must Get Married

Tony, thanks for your valuable feedback.
What do I mean by a "valuable conversation"? First of all, the customer decides what's a valuable conversation. Regarding a variety of research on that topic, a conversation is perceived as valuable, if it's about the customer, tailored to the ... more

Buyer Experience

Dec. 5, 2011

Tamara Schenk recommends this answer by Dave Brock

What does marketing need to understand about sales to align toward common goals?

Lynn: Great question and some great responses. Some of my thoughts:
1. Realize we're playing for the same team. Too often, too much energy and resource is wasted on internal fingerpointing. We have aligned goals to achieve the company business plan, each is dependent on ... more

Sales and Marketing Alignment

Nov. 26, 2011

Tamara Schenk and 12 other people answered this question

Where does selling end and marketing begin?

What a thread! My approach to aggregate some of the findings:
1. Using a quote I appreciate very much: "Marketing exists to help sales people sell." from my friend, the esteemed sales enablement professional and thought leader Michael Fox. It sounds simple, but it's usually effective ... more

Marketing Management

Sales Enablement

Following 10 Topics

Business Development

Content Marketing

Sales & Marketing 2.0

Sales Enablement

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Sales Management

Sales Operations

Following 41 People

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