Senior executives from the community shared insights and perspectives on the sales leader’s role in driving innovation with customers. The ideas, approaches, and actions shared will help sales people and sales teams ascend to new heights of sales performance. Hosts for the meeting were Georgia State University and SOAR Performance Group.

Who were the senior executives on the panel?

• Justin Breitfelder from Salesforce.com (Vice President of Sales)
• Bob Kelly from The Sales Management Association (Chairman)
• D. Robert Martin from Red Hat (Vice President, North America Sales)
• Charlie Thackston from SOAR Performance Group (President)

Questions discussed at the event:

• To level set as a panel, from a sales leader’s perspective how would you define innovation?
• In your experience with customers, what do you feel customers expect from sales leaders relative to innovation?
• How do you believe the role of the sales leader is changing relative to driving innovation with customers?
• Why is the role of the sales leader changing?
• What would be your top 3 recommendations to other sales leaders for balancing the expectations for “making the number” and driving innovation with customers?