Bull`s Eye Awards: Channel Conference of the Year - CHAMPION
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Cisco Systems’ Partner Velocity Marketing Conference
There were many fine channel conferences produced by vendors and distributors
in 2009, but only one stood out as unique in its intent and superior quality.
That conference is the Cisco Partner Velocity Marketing Conference, which set a
new standard for partner enablement.
Hosted in Miami, Velocity broke
from the traditional partner conference models that focus on a vendor’s
technology and partner programs. Instead, this conference was all about exposing
Cisco partners to marketing concepts and best practices. The intent was to get
partners thinking about how they differentiate and convey their value to the
marketplace. Cisco believes this will translate into partners capturing net-new
customers and expanding their sales. Consequently, they will see Cisco unit
sales increase. That’s forward thinking, since most vendors are focused only on
the immediate impact of their partner enablement programs.
Velocity hosted all of the usual suspects you’d expect to see at a Cisco
event—U.S. channel chief Wendy Bahr, channel guru Edison Peres and channel
marketing maven Luanne Tierney. But it also featured such high-profile speakers
as marketing sage Seth Goodin and motivational speaker Daniel Pink (author of
“A Whole New Mind”) to empower partners with concepts to better position and
convey their value proposition to customers and prospects.
Cisco partners that attended Velocity couldn’t say enough about the quality
of the conference. Here are a few of their thoughts.
“I’ve attended dozens of partner and industry conferences in the past 25
years, and Cisco’s Velocity Summit is the best. The entire event is dedicated
to helping channel partners become better marketers and business people.
Analogous to the industry that we’re in, Velocity was jam packed with great
information, fast paced and delivered by energetic industry experts. The
information was very relevant in these challenging economic times.”
“I've been in this industry a long time, and I've been to many Partner
Conferences, and what I value about the Velocity conference is that it is not a
commercial for the OEM; it is completely focused on helping improve my
business.”
“Cisco has identified an area of need in the marketing world and has built a
conference that showcases the best in marketing, social media and branding.
Through their efforts, Cisco has brought world leaders to their partners in a
way that is accessible, meaningful and easily translated into their everyday
business.”
Cisco’s Partner Velocity Conference sets the standard for enabling partners
with real-world business and marketing best practices that aren’t directly
technology by definitely pay dividends when applied to solution providers’
go-to-market efforts. For breaking from the channel norm and producing a unique
enablement event, Cisco’s velocity conference has earned the Channel Insider
Champion Bull’s Eye Award for Channel Conference of the Year.
>> Return to Bull's Eye Winners Page
