Main Street Institute to Focus on Sales in Today’s ‘Always On’ World
5/29/2009 (Kelley Indianapolis)
If you consider yourself only a salesmen of a product or service, your days in the business likely are numbered, according to David Steele, a lecturer in free market economies and the next featured presenter of the Main Street Institute series.
“The whole sales and marketing process has changed dramatically in the past five to 10 years,” said Steele, an adjunct faculty member at the Kelley School of Business Indianapolis. “It’s gone from simple product selling to value selling and now on to solution selling. The degree of complexity and ambiguity of what you’re trying to sell or the service you’re trying to provide is increasingly complex.”
Steele’s June 12th presentation, titled “Managing New Prospects and Existing Clients in an ‘Always On’ World,” will touch upon many aspects of how to succeed in sales amid today’s climate of instant communication and feedback. He will rely on his vast experience in corporate and entrepreneurial endeavors to show why the sales arena is not what it used to be and continues to evolve.
The Main Street Institute is a partnership between the Kelley School of Business and the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce to provide continuing education to small and mid-sized businesses in Indiana.
These interactive workshops are held at the University Library, 755 W. Michigan St., on the campus of Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis. Registration is $30 for Chamber members and $40 for non-members and can be made at indychamber.com or by calling 317-464-2200.
Steele said he anticipates his presentation to appeal to sales representatives who are looking for new ways to grow their business and their role within it. Among topics he intends to discuss include managing an effective sales pipeline, client management, the different roles of sales and marketing professionals and the impact of social technologies on business.
“I want to focus on bringing discipline to this sometimes fragmented and functional process in a very flat and always-on world,” Steele said.
“People should be looking at sales and marketing using the ‘Awareness, Capture, Fulfillment and Retention’ model,” he added. “It is my fundamental belief that if you do not have all four of those working at the same time you will not be successful in the world we live in.”
Steele is the founder and managing principal of the Steele Group, a business consulting firm that specializes in the energy sector. He has held senior level corporate positions and previously created two start-up ventures as well as the creation of a private equity growth venture recently acquired by a group of New York blue chip investors.
He also had a 20-year tenure with a Midwest public utility and currently is a member of The Alliance, a professional group of senior executives at the Kelley School of Business who specialize in identifying and solving problems commonly encountered by entrepreneurs.
For more information, please visit Kelley IUPUI or contact Dave Hosick, coordinator of communications and media relations with the IU Kelley School of Business Indianapolis, at 274-6856.
