Three Concepts That Build High-Performing Sales Teams

A longtime IBM executive, John Teltsch has held titles such as vice president of software sales, general manager of global sales and IBM.com business unit executive. Currently general manager of global business partners at IBM, John Teltsch is adept at building high-performance sales teams.

Below are three tips for putting together a sales team:

*Define the sales culture
The sales culture of a team guides everyone’s actions and behavior. However, some leaders talk about their sales culture, but don’t actually live by it. Instead, the people hired into the team, and the training and coaching they receive, should reflect the culture. This ensures everyone is on the same page when it comes to the sales process, and promotes a uniform experience for customers.

*Incorporate data
Data provides sales teams with a huge range of information, such as who their customers are, problems that exist, and the different ways customers may respond at points in the sales process. Data plays a huge role in helping team members succeed. However, leaders must make sure the entire sales team can understand this data.

*Promote collaboration over competition
With competition, someone always wins and everyone else loses. While this may encourage big earners, it’s not very helpful for encouraging success among the entire team. Instead, leaders should promote collaboration and encourage high-earning salespeople to coach and mentor team members who may not perform as well. Doing so encourages teams to work together more efficiently.

IBM Technology at the US Open

John Teltsch joined IBM in 1982 as a marketing representative. Over the course of nearly four decades, he has held a number of leadership positions with the company, including vice president of European software sales and general manager of global enterprise and commercial sales. For over a year, John Teltsch has served IBM in Armonk, New York, as general manager of global business partners.

For more than 25 years, IBM has functioned as a technology partner for the US Open tennis tournament in Flushing. Recent editions of the tournament, one of the sport’s four major championships, have benefitted from a variety of predictive analytics technology, including the Watson-powered IBM SlamTracker, which provides fans with real-time insights into matches. The 2017 US Open saw the introduction of Watson Media, a machine learning tool that utilizes a Cognitive Highlights feature to analyze match footage and edit the most attractive highlights reel possible.

IBM’s technological influence at the US Open can be seen away from the court as well. Speech to Text API, for example, creates automatic subtitle support for all of the tournament’s video segments and player interviews, while Visual Recognition API helps identify players in pictures taken by tournament photographers. 

For more information about how the US Open takes advantage of the real-time, cloud-computing power of Watson, please visit the sports section at www.ibm.com.

IBM Launches Cognitive Computing Unit

With more than three and a half decades of experience in global roles with IBM, John Teltsch has provided transformational leadership across sales efforts, hardware division oversight, and the expansion of the IBM.com platform. Presently serving as general manager with IBM’s Global Business Partners, John Teltsch oversees a network partner-driven platform that spans mobile and cloud platforms.

In early 2017, IBM launched an OpenPower-driven cognitive computing hardware unit. The aim is to leverage the firm’s Power architecture and research in ways that expand machine learning, unstructured data, and artificial intelligence navigation capacities. As described by the head of the unit, this reflects a changing landscape in which computer systems are valued for the insight they provide rather than for strictly procedural, programmatic, and transactional qualities. 

Reflecting this mandate, the cognitive initiative will work across multiple sectors and with a variety of partners, with a focus on utilizing software and cloud capacities to generate insights in near real time. By pairing AI and analytics with cloud and on-premises infrastructure, comprehensive solutions can be provided to organizations of all types and sizes. This will be leveraged and extended across IBM's global partner ecosystem that John Teltsch continues to drive change and transformation across all it's offerings.

IBM Watson - Helping Teachers Find High-Impact Teaching Materials

Over the course of his 37-year career at IBM, John Teltsch has served in numerous divisions in several countries. Since July 2017, John Teltsch has held the role of general manager of Global Business Partners at IBM, which operates several community initiatives, including IBM Watson.

An agile search tool that allows teachers to quickly find learning activities, lessons, information on learning standards, and teaching strategies, Watson also helps teachers locate grade-specific didactic content that reaches students at their developmental level. The computer system even pairs teaching resources to help teachers explore materials in context and develop relevant lesson plans.

The evolution of Watson was informed by the input of educators from across the United States to ensure that all of the content aligns with the latest education standards. Teachers can rest assured that the materials they find through the use of Watson have been vetted by experienced educators with knowledge of evidence-based teaching practices.

3 Top Trends in Cloud Technology

A veteran leader at IBM with more than 37 years of experience at the company, John Teltsch
serves as general manager of IBM’s Global Business Partners. In this role, John Teltsch works with the company’s business partners on a variety of services related to the cloud, which continues to rapidly evolve. Following are a few of the latest trends in cloud technology. 

-Multi-cloud strategies. Instead of placing all their applications in one cloud provider, businesses are placing them in multiple public clouds. This multi-cloud strategy allows them to avoid being locked in with any single vendor.

-Increased storage. Cloud-based services have become such a mainstream way of doing business that storage providers are creating more and bigger data storage centers. To stay ahead of the curve, businesses should know how to leverage the additional storage to accomplish their goals. For instance, small businesses can find a custom storage space that suits their needs, and large businesses that employ big data can find storage centers capable of storing large data sets. 

-Increased need for security. With cyber threats a growing concern, businesses need to take additional precautions to protect their sensitive data. To thwart security threats, businesses without the resources to employ full security measures may want to contract cloud-based managed security service providers, who can provide stronger security services to protect their data.

IBM System x Servers

An experienced technology industry sales leader and senior administrator, John Teltsch has worked at IBM for more than 35 years, serving as general manger of global business partners since 2017. John Teltsch’s accomplishments with IBM include spearheading sales of its System x servers at the global level.

Hitting the global marketplace in the late 2000s, the IBM System x family of Intel and AMD chip based servers offered significant technological advancements in the march toward smarter, more efficient computing in the business environment. System x servers also increased corporate customers’ ability to manage levels of risk, respond rapidly to business opportunities, maintain ongoing business operations, reduce overall operational costs, and engender ongoing growth. The System x line incorporated best-in-class remote access and future-proof information technology measures with the latest in state-of-the-art energy management. 

In 2013, IBM sold System x to Lenovo as part of a $2.3 billion agreement that included the entire IBM x86 business line.

Spring Hill College President Transitions to President Emeritus Role

The general manager of IBM Global Business Partners, John Teltsch brings to this position more than 36 years of experience in leadership roles across numerous IBM divisions. Prior to beginning his career, John Teltsch earned a bachelor of science in economics and business administration from Spring Hill College in Mobile, Alabama, which recently announced a change in leadership.

Spring Hill College has announced that Christopher P. Puto, PhD, is shifting from the role of president to that of president emeritus. As such, he will fulfill numerous leadership positions, including as founding director of the John J. Burke Center for the Study and Advancement of Free Enterprise, chair of the Board of Trustees Real Estate Task Force, and chair of the Spring Hill College Foundation Trust. 

An alumnus of the Spring Hill College class of 1964, Christopher P. Puto, PhD, studied economics and went on to earn both an MBA in marketing from the University of Miami and a PhD in business administration from Duke University. His transition to the role of president emeritus is part of a larger succession plan of the Spring Hill College Board of Trustees, the chair of which shared the college’s appreciation for Puto’s dedicated service during his tenure as president.