Mike Ortegon, Director of Global Sales Operations at HomeAway, a Stevie® Award-winning online marketplace of vacation rentals based in Austin, Texas, will Chair the Final Judging Committee for the Customer Service and Contact Center Team categories of the 2014 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Services, the world's premier sales awards and customer service awards. The results will be announced on February 21 at the gala awards banquet in Las Vegas. We talked to Mike about the challenges facing today’s sales teams.

“Today’s sales professionals are challenged by savvy customers and prospects,” says Mike Ortegon, Director of Global Sales at HomeAway.  “Thanks to digital and social media advancements, they have many channels of information and are consequently better informed during the purchase cycle. As a result, it is essential for sales professionals to stay one step ahead in preparation, to anticipate upselling and cross-selling opportunities, and to be consultative throughout the process.”

We asked him what steps he would recommend companies should take to establish standardized sales procedures across countries and regions. “You might be prone to think a unique product or service requires a special sales process,” Mike told us. “Some may even argue the selling process has to continually change, but my experience is that the change is occurring in the buying process, as noted above. Today’s buyers are more informed than ever.”

Simplified Methodology

“Many sales people are familiar with the ‘four, five, six, seven...sales cycle’ methodologies,” added Mike. “In reality, each of these can be boiled down to four steps: Qualify; Research; Propose; and Close. A simplified methodology enables people to focus on the sale, not the process.”

Concluded Mike: “It is always important to pay close attention to cultural differences, although just because someone speaks a different language doesn’t mean a different sales process is needed. For example, in some countries such as Southern Europe and Asia, face-to-face selling is a common practice, while other cultures are fine with a phone call. In any scenario, you still need to qualify, research, propose and close.”

Benefits of a Stevie® Award
HomeAway won a Gold Stevie® for Sales Operations Team of the Year in The 2013 Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service. As Chair of one of this year’s Final Judging Committees, he is fully aware of the benefits of being a winner.

“Winning the Stevie® Award really brought to light the effectiveness of the HomeAway team in their first year together,” Mike told us.  “It brought about an even greater appreciation for the experience, talent, and determination possessed by each individual. It was great to be rewarded for our hard work and, ultimately, the team had better camaraderie and became even more motivated to improve sales effectiveness.”

Added Mike: “Winning the Stevie® Award in 2013 showcased the HomeAway sales team’s focus on adding value to the organization through industry-leading tools and best practices.”

Creating Lasting Memories

We asked Mike what most inspired him about his role at HomeAway.  His simple answer: he gets his inspiration from the HomeAway team and product. “We have fantastic people who are passionate about their work,” he told us. “Ours is a product that helps families and groups find their ideal getaway and focus on the most important part of traveling together: creating lasting memories.”

About Mike Ortegon:

Mike Ortegon joined HomeAway in March 2012 and is the Director of Global Sales Operations. In this role he is responsible for supporting sales leaders across the globe with tools, training, and sales insights to help make well-informed business decisions; and to run effective and efficient teams while aligning to corporate strategy.

Previously, Mike worked for Harte-Hanks as Global Account Director focusing on multichannel, data-driven solutions for Fortune 100 companies. Throughout his career, Mike has been in management, operational, and sales and marketing roles in North America, EMEA, Latin America, and APAC.

We are pleased to announce that videos clips of the 2013 (7th annual) Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world’s leading sales awards, customer service awards, and contact center awards program are now available to view on YouTube.

Watch the 2013 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service awards presentations here.

More than 360 entrepreneurs, executives, and their guests from around the world attended the business awards banquet on Monday, February 25th at the Paris Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our 2013 sales award & customer service award video clips showcase business award acceptance speeches made by individuals and organizations from around the world, including:

Ajman Police G.H.Q., Winner of the Bronze Stevie Award for Customer Service Department of the Year
Traveling from the United Arab Emirates, Ajman Police Brigadier thanks the judges and the Stevie Awards. 

Alice Sesay, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Contact Center Leader of the Year
Alice graciously accepts her Gold Stevie Award and thanks her leadership team. Alice also accepted the Gold Stevie Award for Capital One Bank for Customer Service Team of the Year.

FreshBooks, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Front-Line Customer Service Team of the Year
FreshBook's enthusiastic team accepts the Gold Stevie Award, keeping the awards show lively and the audience entertained.

Livius Gonzalez, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Front-Line Customer Service Professional of the Year
Livius humbly accepts his award, thanking his company, managers, colleagues, and teammates.

Time Warner Cable, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Back Office Customer Service Team of the Year
TWC's Eric Burton accepts the award on behalf of his company, highlighting the success of his team and his team leader.

Want to see more from the sales and customer service awards celebration? Download the awards gala program, view photos from the event, and watch all acceptance speeches.

Today is the entry deadline for The 2012 (10th Annual) American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A. If you haven't yet entered this year, the web site will be open all night to accept your entries. Request your entry kit here and you will receive it right away. Can't make today's deadline? Don't worry, we'll continue to accept entries through April 25 with a late fee of $35.00 per entry.

The American Business Awards honors all facets of workplace, our award categories include: app awards, company / organization awards, customer service awards, HR awards, IT awards, management awards, marketing awards, new product awards, PR awards, and website awards. See all of our business award categories.

All ABA entries are submitted directly online through your account. You can begin by registering here.

If you have any questions regarding the submission process, we have several helpful resources including a step-by-step video on how to submit entries,  past winners' entries for your review, and  7 tips on submitting winning entries to help you make the most out of your entries.

As always, don't hesitate to contact us with your questions about how to prepare and submit entries. You can reach us at + 1 703-547-8389 or email us at help@stevieawards.com and we'll get back to you right away.

The entry deadline for The 2012 (10th Annual) American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., is tomorrow, Wednesday, March 28, 2012.

The submission process is easy. To start, you should:

1. Request an entry kit. The entry kit will have all of the information you need regarding entry preparation and submission.

2. Review the 2012 ABA categories. The ABAs have several categories that honor organizations, departments, teams, individuals and much more. Our awards categories include:

• App Awards
• Company / Organization Awards
• Customer Service Awards
• HR Awards
• IT Awards
• Management Awards
• Marketing Awards
• New Product Awards
• PR Awards
• Web Site Awards

See all business award categories.

3. Submit your entries. Select your categories, write your submissions according to the instructions, and submit your entries.

If you have any trouble selecting categories or submitting entries, you can contact us at + 1 703-547-8389 or email us at help@stevieawards.com.

Late entries will still be accepted through the final entry deadline of April 25 with a late fee of $35.00 per entry. 2012 Finalists will be announced in early May and 2012 ABA winners will be announced at one of our two awards ceremonies. Our traditional banquet will be held at the Marriott Marquis in New York City on June 18th and our second ceremony where we will honor our tech awards winners will be held in San Francisco at the Julia Morgan Ballroom on September 17th. Click here to see the ABA calendar.

The Stevie® Awards is pleased to announce that videos clips of the 6th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service, the world’s leading sales awards, customer service awards, and contact center awards program are now available to view on YouTube.

Watch the 2012 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service awards presentations here.

More than 350 professionals attended the business awards banquet which took place on Monday, February 27th at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada. Our 2012 sales award & customer service award video clips showcase business award acceptance speeches made by individuals and organizations from around the world, including:

Rob Jeppsen of Zions Bank, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Sales Director of the Year
Rob's speech started the night off by recognizing the team effort behind all individual awards.

MarketBridge, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Sales Training or Coaching Program of the Year
MarketBridge's enthusiastic team accepts the Gold Stevie Award and expresses their gratitude for their strong partnerships.

Joey Romaine of Groupon, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Young Customer Service Professional of the Year
Honored for his efforts as a young professional, Joey Romaine keeps the awards show lively and the audience entertained.

Vodafone Turkey, Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Sales Department of the Year, Telecommunications
Traveling from Istanbul, Turkey, Vodafone Turkey's humble speech brought to light the importance business awards have globally.

International Checkout Inc., Winner of the Gold Stevie Award for Telesales Team of the Year
Jackson Strobel, VP of Sales & Operations at International Checkout, and his "lean machine" sales team show the audience that size doesn't matter.

The 6th annual corporate awards banquet was the first to showcase our three levels of distinction: gold, silver and bronze as part of our 10th anniversary celebration. Previously, only overall category winners have received Gold Stevie Awards.

Want more sales and customer service awards celebration? Watch all acceptance speeches, listen to the live recording and view photos from the event.

Donlen of Northbrook, Illinois, USA, received a Stevie® Award for Corporate Environmental Responsibility Program of the Year—Up to 2,500 Employees in the company awards categories of The 2011 American Business Awards. (The American Business Awards are now accepting entries. Download your entry kit here and submit your 2012 ABA entries by the March 28 deadline.) Here we take a closer look at what steps fleet financer and management provider, Donlen is taking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As a global provider of fleet management solutions, the corporate awards winner was concerned with the following facts:

• Greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) are the leading cause of climate change;

• The commercial fleet industry currently manages nearly 3,000,000 vehicles, and one-third of GHG emissions in the United States come from the transportation sector; and

• The average fleet produces nearly 9,000 metric tons of GHG annually, which is equivalent to the GHG emissions produced by burning 1,012,373 gallons of gasoline.

In 2010, Donlen stepped forward as an industry leader and became a member of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), collaborating with Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) in a CGI Commitment to Action titled “Commercial Fleet 20% GHG Emissions Reduction,” and launching Fleets for Change, a fully independent website and robust reporting database.

Utilizing significant Donlen resources, Fleets for Change works with companies to help transform the environmental impact of the U.S. commercial fleet industry. This five-year commitment will help to reduce fleet emission levels by 20%, generating a reduction of more than 500,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gases.

Pledging Reductions
Any company that is committed to working to track and reduce GHG is welcome to join Fleets for Change. After joining, participants pledge reduction levels then upload their fuel usage and MPG data into a secure database. There, they can not only track their progress against their own goals, but anonymously benchmark against similar fleets with regard to vehicle type and/or class, industry, fleet size, and other criteria. (No company names or identifiers are ever disclosed to other participants.) Access to this cross-industry and fleet data is unprecedented in the fleet management industry.

Creating Change
The organization awards winner's commitment to creating meaningful industry change is easily recognizable through their Fleets for Change initiative:

• This is an industry-wide initiative open to any fleet that wishes to participate, whether or not they are a Donlen customer. Fleets for Change is a fully secure, independent site.

• There is no cost for a company to participate in Fleets for Change. Donlen is underwriting all associated costs of the site, database, reporting, and analysis.
  
  
• Donlen is committed to protecting the security of participant information: no individual data is identified or used for any purpose other than confidential reporting by Fleets for Change to the Clinton Global Initiative.

Best Practices
For companies needing assistance to identify their reduction goals and strategies, business award winner, Donlen offers best practices based on extensive experience helping their customers to develop and implement sustainability initiatives. For their customers, Donlen consultants provide performance metrics, benchmarking data, analytical support, facilitating discussions around lifecycle costs and cost reduction. These effective strategies, some of which are shared with Fleets for Change participants, help to measure and reduce fleet GHG.

Corporate award winner and CEO Gary Rappeport spearheads Donlen’s innovation and unparalleled success in the fleet industry. His focus on employee and customer satisfaction, corporate social responsibility, and environmental consciousness has put Donlen in the forefront of workplace excellence, and allowed Donlen to experience unprecedented growth under his leadership.

“The transportation industry is responsible for 28% of the overall greenhouse gas emissions in the United States,” stated Rappeport.“As a leader in the fleet management industry, it’s important that Donlen takes the initiative to help reduce commercial fleet GHG on a broader scale. The Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) offers us the ideal venue to address this critically important issue, and we're proud to collaborate with EDF to be part of the larger work of CGI.”

About Gary Rappeport:
Chief Executive Officer Gary Rappeport joined Donlen in 1986 and held a variety of roles prior to taking the leadership position in 1996. Named Executive of the Year-Services in The 2009 American Business Awards, Gary is committed to both employee and customer satisfaction, and developed the Donlen Service Success Chain in which annual goals are set and achievements benchmarked. Gary received a Bachelor's degree in Finance at the University of Florida and an MBA in Finance and Information Systems at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is a member of the Chicago Chapter of the World Presidents’ Organization, and serves as chairman of the American Automotive Leasing Association. Gary is on the Dean's Advisory Board of the University of Wisconsin Business School. He is an active member of The Sierra Club and is diligently involved with Children's Oncology Services, Inc. Prior to joining Donlen, he held sales and management positions at NCR and HP.

About Donlen:
A wholly owned subsidiary of The Hertz Corporation (NYSE:HTZ), Donlen (www.donlen.com), with headquarters in Northbrook, Illinois, is a global provider of fleet financing and management solutions. Since 1965, Donlen has offered its clients highly personalized and responsive customer service, and their workplace excellence has been recognized as one of Crain's Chicago Business "List of 20 Best Places to Work in Chicago" each year from 2009-2011, a Leader on "The Global Outsourcing 100®" list by the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) for five of the last six years, a National Association for Business Resources "101 Best and Brightest Places to Work For in Chicago" each year from 2007-2011, the 2012 Gold Stevie® Award winner for Business Intelligence, and the 2012 Silver Stevie Award winner for Front Line Customer Service Team of the Year in the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

The entry deadline for The 10th Annual American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., is quickly approaching – it’s Wednesday, March 28, 2012. You can start submitting your entries today here.

How the submission process works:

1. Request your entry kit. 
   Once emailed to you, the kit will be your guide on everything you'll need to know about how to prepare and submit your entries.
2. Review the 2012 ABA categories.
   Pick who you would like to recognize and why they should be recognized. We have categories highlighting organizations, teams, departments, and individuals, as well as:

• App Awards
• Company / Organization Awards
• Customer Service Awards
• HR Awards 
• IT Awards
• Management Awards
• Marketing Awards
• New Product Awards
• PR Awards
• Web Site Awards

3. Submit your entries.
   Select your categories, write your submissions according to the instructions, and submit your entries.

Benefits of submitting a business award entry:

1. More chances to win
   All Finalists in the Best New Product or Service categories will automatically be included in the People's Choice Stevie Awards for Favorite New Products, a public vote that will commence in July. The People's Choice Winners will be honored at the new tech awards ceremony in San Francisco on September 17. Finalists in the Best New Product or Service categories will have an opportunity to win two awards: a Stevie® Award, as voted by your peers, and a crystal People's Choice Stevie Award, as voted by your customers.
2. New award distinctions
   The American Business Awards banquets will showcase our three levels of award distinction: Gold, Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards. You can learn more about the new awards here.
3. Multiple awards banquets
   The 10th Annual corporate awards will have two awards ceremonies. We will hold our traditional banquet at the Marriott Marquis in New York City on June 18th and have a second ceremony in San Francisco at the Julia Morgan Ballroom on September 17th where we will announce our tech award winners.

Helpful resources to make your submission process easier:

1. Step-by-step video on how to submit entries
   Watch our helpful video tutorial on how to successfully enter submissions.
2. Review past winners' entries here.
   They're great models for how you should write your entries.
3. 7 tips on submitting winning entries
   Read our tips on how to submit winning entries.

If you have any questions regarding your ABA submissions, call us at + 1 703-547-8389 or email us at help@stevieawards.com and we'll get back to you right away.

Not going to make the March 28th deadline? Don't worry, you can still submit entries through April 25 with a $35.00 late fee.   Click here to see the ABA's calendar.  

We have made two changes to our 2012 American Business Awards, the premier business awards program in the U.S.A., to help make your Stevie Awards® submission process easier. (The 2012 American Business Awards are now accepting entries. Download your entry kit here and submit entries by the March 28th deadline.)

Our business awards updates include:

• A new link/file uploader
  We've added a Link/File Uploader to the online entry form. Click the link that says "Add Attachments, Videos or Links to This Entry" to add or upload any number of URLs or offline supporting attachments to an entry. Your attachments and links will then be presented to the judges.
  
  
• Online only submission acceptance
  Entries may no longer be submitted offline. All entries must be submitted online, even if you enter a category for which you'll provide materials for judging offline (e.g. Best Annual Report).

Our business award updates will help you to:

• Easily enhance your submission
  With our new link/file uploader, you have the option to upload a collection of supporting files and web addresses to our server to support your entry and provide more background information to the judges.
  
  
• Keep track of the progress of your submission
  Our online submission center allows for you see all of your submissions in one easy-to-view location.
  
  
• Save your entries while perfecting your submissions
  Since all submissions will be entered online, you can save your submissions while you continue to work on other entries. You have the option to submit entries individually or all at once.

Let us know what you think about our new updates - leave us a comment!

In celebration of the 10th anniversary of the start of the Stevie® Awards, we will introduce Silver and Bronze Stevie Awards at our 6th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service banquet. Henceforth, all honorees in Stevie Awards programs will be Gold, Silver, or Bronze Stevie Award winners. (Entries for our 2012 sales and customer service awards, which honor good customer service and sales excellence, are still being accepted. The last day to submit entries is this Wednesday, January 18; download your entry kit here.)

Finalists that receive the top scoring qualifying entry in each category will receive a Gold Stevie Award.  Finalists that receive a final average score of at least 8.0 out of a possible 10 will be named Silver Stevie Award winners. All other Finalists will be designated as Bronze Stevie Award winners.

Gold Stevie winners will automatically receive a Gold Stevie trophy.  Silver and Bronze Stevie winners will automatically receive a Silver or Bronze medal and will have the option to purchase their Stevie trophy. With the introduction of our new business awards distinctions, there will no longer be Finalist certificates.

Finalists at The 2012 Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service banquet will be the first to receive our new corporate awards distinctions. The annual banquet will be held on February 27 at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas.

How will your organization strive to win a Gold Stevie Award?