Top Sales Teams Across the US Recognized for Sales Programmatic Excellence

VIENNA, Va. - June 11, 2019 - PRLog -- The Institute for Excellence in Sales (IES) announced the winners for its 2019 Sales Excellence Awards. The awards recognize organizational sales operational excellence and have been referred to as the "Oscars" for sales teams and organizations. The awards were presented at a gala breakfast on May 31 in Falls Church, VA.

The winners are in bold:

Excellence in Sales Innovation (tie): DLT and McDermott Will & Emery LLP. Finalists were General Motors, immixGroup, The Keri Shull Team, NeuStar.

·     DLT's industry-first, industry-only Enterprise Agreement Platform (EAP) was tailor-made to help public sector customers, such as the U.S. Department of Commerce, consolidate, centralize, and streamline acquisition, while improving asset visibility, reporting, and trend analysis, with technology partners such as Tableau.

·      Law firm McDermott, Will, Emery needed to innovate its way to a new model of sales excellence. The team built a sophisticated training program that draws content from a research-based assessment of its rainmakers, learnings from its Client Listening Program, and best practices from inside and outside of the law.

Excellence in Sales Training: Hanover Research. Finalists were DISYS, Farm Bureau, Hobsons, MSD, Tyson Group

·      Hanover Research redesigned its training curriculum to maximize the impact of every client interaction, how to navigate difficult conversations, and effective questioning to keep its partners focused on their 3-5-year plans and strategic goals.

Excellence in Sales Management: Earth Networks. Finalists were Benzer Pharmacy, Cloudera, Cvent, NVIDIA, Sabre, SyncDog

·      Earth Networks figured out how to align sales and marketing to grow the business through the adoption of a new technology suite in sales and marketing, and developing new organization, processes and policies, such as a Sales and Marketing SLA, new prospecting and lead generation programs and biweekly lead reviews.

Excellence in Customer Partnering (tie): Carahsoft/Salesforce and Tableau. Finalists were Juniper and Page After Page, Tableau

·      Carahsoft and Salesforce created a unique series of campaigns to help grow business within the state and local market. To bring their message directly to this audience, Carahsoft and Salesforce developed a nationwide series of "Innovation Days" events and an extensive multimedia campaign consisting of thought leadership articles from Salesforce executives and customers, an in-depth report, and an "Innovation" microsite.

·      The Department of Veterans Affairs wanted to identify how many veterans were taking advantage of their available benefits and create an outreach program targeted at regions where benefits usage was low. Tableau's data analysis and mapping capabilities helped them achieve this objective.

The 9^th annual Lifetime Achievement Award was awarded to SAP NS2 CEO Mark Testoni. Amazon Web Services Public Sector GM Teresa Carlson and the 2018 IES Lifetime Achievement Winner presented the award to Testoni at the event. Watch a video celebrating Mark's career here.

Gigi Schumm, Sr. VP of Sales at ThreatQuotient, received the Women in Sales Leadership award.

Heather Combs of 3Pillar Global, received the IES Member of the Year Award.

"The excellence demonstrated by the winners and all of the finalists was inspiring," said Fred Diamond, President and Co-Founder of the IES. "Every year, the IES recognizes companies that are doing great work to show value to their customers, in these cases, across multiple industries. We received tremendous applications from companies ranging from General Motors, Salesforce, Tableau and others. The judges had their work cut out for them."

"The Sales process continues to grow in complexity as customers continue to take the lead in the sales process as more information is now available to them. With this transformation in the buying process, the leading sales organizations and leaders are developing ways to ensure that they provide as much value as possible to help their prospects reach their goals. The winning companies and all of the ones that made it to the finals have demonstrated this excellence," said Diamond.

Diamond also said it was an honor recognizing Mark Testoni, Gigi Schumm and Heather Combs for their career achievements. Alex Robbins, representing Congressman Gerry Connolly, presented the recipients with a Congressional Record.

Finalists were selected from a large pool of nominees by an independent panel of expert judges for their commitment to excellence in multiple sales and business development categories.

Over 300 sales and business development professionals attended the May 31 award event, which was held at the Marriott Fairview Park in Falls Church, Virginia. A portion of the proceeds from the event will be donated to the Northern Virginia Family Service (NVFS).

Award sponsors included Carahsoft, SAP NS2, Cvent, Page After Page, immixGroup, Amazon Web Services, SAP, Red Hat, Newmark, 5WPR and Sage Communications.

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About the Institute for Excellence in Sales

The IES provides a wealth of services to selling professionals at companies large and small throughout the Mid-Atlantic region and across the U.S. It is an unbiased and trusted partner for the delivery of sales programs, speakers, training, services and products. Contact the IES at www.i4esbd.org. A complete list of upcoming IES programs can be found https://i4esbd.com/programs/ies-2019-program-year/