Agenda Abstracts

Monday, May 3rd:

1:30 – 2:15 pm
Tips to a Business that Runs on Autopilot
CJ McClanahan, Owner – Reachmore
During this fast-paced workshop, business owners will learn the fundamentals of how to create a business that runs without them. These proven strategies will help you find answers to some of the most challenging questions facing business owners today, such as:
1. What habits do I need to create in order for my business to run on its own?
2. How do I develop a sales system that automatically brings me leads and sales?
3. How do I develop an operations system that doesn’t require me to work 80 hours per week and 52 weeks a year?
4. What are the key performance indicators (KPIs) for my business?
5. How do I develop a unique selling proposition, so I am not always competing on price?

2:15 – 5:30 pm
Jump Start on Advanced Certification VPS/MPS
This session is for advanced technical users and most appropriate for IT professionals and IT experts managing technical business operations. Learn from Verio’s Senior Technical Support representatives about how to get the most from your MPS and VPS servers. Step-by-step examples on how to improve email, website, application, database performance, migrations, spam, sql optimizations, and TOP 10 common issues. You will also learn ways to ensure your server is optimized and running smoothly.

2:15 – 5:30 pm
Jump Start on Basic Certification VPS/MPS         
This session is ideal for new partners who want a technical overview of our VPS/MPS products, or for the non-technical user who is interested in a beginner technical overview. This session will provide basic technical information relating to the server, email, control panel, database, backroom, urchin (to monitor your own web traffic) and other functionality for the product.

2:15 – 3:15 pm
Marketing Campaigns in a Box
Speaker: Janine Soika, Channel Marketing Leader - Verio
Announcing the new viaVerio “Custom Campaign” program.  This session will provide you with information on the new program that allows you to quickly and easily develop and launch targeted marketing campaigns on the various Verio product offerings to help drive more business and increase your revenue.  Verio has developed a wide range of ready to use marketing templates for each of their hosting services and their MS Hosted Exchange and MS Sharepoint SaaS solutions.  We will review the details of this new program and provide you with a preview of the marketing tools developed to support your campaign efforts including:
                - Custom HTML emails
                - Custom landing pages
                - Custom mailers
               
3:30 – 4:30 pm
SEO and Social Media
Speakers: Tracy Earles, VP Marketing and Business Development – Parallel Path Corp.
Eric Elkins, Chief Executive Officer – Wide Focus
This session will focus on how you can leverage Social Media to increase your search engine optimization (SEO) tactics to attract new customers. You’ll learn what you need to know about this new search engine technology to maximize your SEO results.
Join us to learn:
                - How Social Media can be used to benefit you
                - How to use Social Media to increase your SEO
                - How to integrate your website, blog, and all your Social Media sites
                - What you can do to manage your Social Media activities in an effective manner

4:45 – 5:30 pm
Peer Panel: Getting New Customers - Best Practices
Moderator: Janine Soika, Channel Marketing Leader – Verio
Gabrial Blau, CoFounder and Chief Internet Marketing Strategist – VisibleU
Jason Therrien, President and Owner of Riser Media – thunder::tech
Marketing is a powerful tool for you to generate opportunities, nurture leads, strengthen customer relationships, and obtain new customers.  Get ideas from viaVerio Partners on marketing tactics that are working for them.  This panel discussion is all about using best practices to obtain new customers.
Join us to learn what marketing initiatives are working:
                - Online Marketing
                - SEO
                - Social Media
                - Email Marketing
                - Content Marketing      

Tuesday, May 4th:

9:00 – 10:00 am
Capitalize on SMB Market Trends in 2010
Speaker:  Ray Boggs, Vice President of Small Business Research – International Data Corporation (IDC)
IDC is the premier global provider of analyst research, market intelligence, advisory services, and events for the information technology, telecommunications, and consumer technology markets.  IDC employs over 1000 IDC analysts that provide global, regional, and local expertise on technology and industry opportunities and trends in over 110 countries worldwide. For over 46 years, IDC has provided strategic insights to help clients achieve key business objectives. Ray Boggs, Vice President of Small Business Research at IDC will provide insights into SMB market opportunities and trends that you can capitalize on to grow your business in 2010 and beyond. He will share the most recent technology trends occurring within the SMB market and interpret these trends to identify new business opportunities for you to focus on in 2010 and beyond.

10:15 – 3:30 pm
Interactive Product Opportunity Sessions:
               Shared Update / Product Lead Workshop
               Added Value Update / Product Lead Workshop
               VPS Update / Product Lead Workshop
               MPS Update / Product Lead Workshop
These are not your typical general sessions,these sessions will be interactive workshops, focusing not only on the updates for each solution, but more importantly on how to position and sell these solutions and what makes Verio unique from the competition. Consider these your sales training sessions.  These sessions will be educational along with entertaining!  
We will cover:
                - How customers are using each of these solutions (outside of traditional Web hosting)
                - Best practices in selling these solutions (and not by your normal PowerPoint slides)
                - How to overcome objections
                - Key differentiators between our solutions and the competition
                - Did you know tips and tricks per product line

10:15 – 3:30 pm
Opportunity Implementation Sessions                                
               Shared Implementation Session
               Added Value Implementation Session
               VPS Implementation Session
               MPS Implementation Session
You attended the Product Interactive Sessions and heard all about the updates and best practices in positioning and selling these solutions.  Now it’s time to take that learning and put it to the test!  During the implementation sessions you will break off into teams to work on a challenging, real-life business case – all led by the Verio Sales Training Team (the people who train the Verio sales team).  Each group will be evaluated based on a standard set of criteria and a group of Verio Product and Marketing expert judges will score each team on how well they have performed against these criteria.  The team with the highest scores from each session will be announced Tuesday evening and each member on the winning teams will be awarded valuable prizes!

3:45 – 5:00 pm
PCI Compliance
Speaker: Ken Maier, Senior Director Information Systems - Verio
Ken Maier will lead a panel discussion of Verio Product Team members to discuss PCI and how it relates to the Shared and VPS products.  This session will focus on passing PCI scans, PCI compliant payment options for e-commerce, VPS server PCI plans and where to go at Verio for PCI education and updates

5:00 – 5:45 pm
Cloud Computing Update
Speaker: Mitch Merrifield, Senior Director of Managed Computing Solutions
Cloud is one of the hottest industry topics, and possibly the most misunderstood.  Mitch will lead a discussion with the MCS Product team to share industry information on the development of Cloud Computing solutions, key benefits of “cloud” and the future direction for Verio Cloud products.  This is a first-hand opportunity to learn about Verio’s cloud infrastructure and the practical applications of Cloud Computing.

Wednesday, May 5th:

8:00 – 9:00 am
Customer Care – 2009 in Review and Improvements for 2010
Speaker: Harvey Hughes, Director Customer Care - Verio
This general session will review the long term vision and strategy that Customer Care embarked upon in 2009 and discuss the changes and progress made toward the vision. Harvey will share details about tools, processes, and projects underway in 2010 that are aimed at improving care for Verio customers and partners, and helping partners support their customers.


9:00 – 10:00 am
Backroom and API Update
Speaker: Ken Maier, Senior Director Information Systems - Verio
Verio has been making significant changes to both our API and Backroom functionality and performance.  Join Ken Maier as he walks through the changes and what is on the horizon for the remainder of the year.  Partners have told us that improving Backroom and API functionality is one of the most important issues for Verio to tackle, so you don’t want to miss out on this discussion.

               
10:15 – 11:00 am
How to use your VST’s To Your Advantage
Speaker: April Mirabella, Senior Channel Manager - Verio
Your VST is an extension to your sales team.  This session will discuss how you can use your VST to your fullest advantage.  We will cover items such as what is a VST, what support can they provide, and how to maximize their involvement with your business to increase your revenue and acquire new customers.