February 6, 2025 • 34 mins
Don't you love a sales conference?
Motivating your customer-facing teams to sell with greater enthusiasm...
"There, you've had your sales conference - are you more motivated now?"
"Yeah!"
Really?
Does your sales conference actually deliver the impact you’re hoping for? You’ve invested time, energy, and budget into your annual event – but does it truly equip your team to sell more effectively? A few hours of inspiration is great, but what if your event could turbocharge performance long after it ends?
In this episode, we explore how a well-planned sales conference can drive lasting success – far beyond just a typical social event. From skill development and team morale to employee retention and recruitment, we uncover the overlooked benefits that can make all the difference.
We also tackle the delicate balance between essential training and content overload. What do sales conferences really cost? We discuss the logistical and financial challenges of hosting large-scale events, share entertaining stories from conferences, and offer practical solutions to maximise your return on investment.
Looking ahead, we discuss the future of sales conferences – from AI integration to hybrid work models – and why maintaining high brand standards is crucial. Plus, we explore how unconventional speakers can bring fresh perspectives and real value to your team.
If you want your next sales conference to have a real, measurable impact on your sales team, this episode is a must-listen!
For more info, free resources, useful content & our blog posts, please visit realitytraining.com.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
bob hi.
Um, thanks, you said you'd giveme 10 minutes before you meet
the swiss co-director.
Have you got?
Um?
You know you're completelyundisturbed, your phone is off.
I just want to sort of get youexcited about a bit of an
opportunity an opportunity.
What sort of thing, reallysimple.
Um, I've been looking at theway that we work with our, our
(00:23):
sales team, our european salesteam, and you might not believe
this.
What have we not had for sixyears?
um a decent size bonus well, Ithink you're doing okay, but no,
that wasn't what I was thinking.
What are you thinking inrelation to the sales people?
(00:45):
I've no idea.
Well, you see, and that's thechallenge I have, because it's
quite simple to me we have nothad a sales conference.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
A sales conference?
You mean where we all cometogether and have a few drinks
and go lap dancing, is that?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
what you're talking about.
No that was once.
That was a period that we'vegot over.
That was one conference, theothers it was a yearly event.
We haven't had them for sixyears.
We should introduce them.
They are a driver ofperformance.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I mean Maureen always says it's such a waste of money
to get everyone together and Ican't help but think, looking at
the numbers, I think she's notfar off.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, this is Maureen who didn't want to spend money
on a proper coffee machine,remember.
And when the reps got that theywould actually meet each other
and that improved sales.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, yes, there's something in that.
Okay, well, I'm prepared toconsider it.
I mean, what is it you want todo?
What are you thinking of I?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
want to gather everybody from Europe.
I want us to give them somebrilliant new ways of behaving
with today's challengingcustomer.
We need to look at how we'reusing the phone versus
face-to-face, versus Zoom.
We need to get all of thatcommunication working and our
salespeople can be far morepersuasive and compelling, and
(02:00):
we need to give them some realinsights.
Together, let them work somethings out for themselves, get
them into teams, lift theleaders, reconnect, get everyone
aligned quite a bit more on ourmethodology.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, it all sounds very good.
The only thing is it's the cost.
I mean, listen, let me finishTo get everyone over here.
It's not just the expenses,it's also the fact that they're
not going to be selling for afew days.
You know, that's the hiddencost is quite a lot for this
sort of thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Would you rather have salespeople not selling for two
days or all of your salespeopleselling for 238 days?
With better skills?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Look, I'm happy to look at the business case.
Put together a program for me.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I will.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Look at some dates and then we'll have a chat.
Good, so welcome, ladies andgentlemen, to our latest podcast
(03:22):
on the subject of salesconferences.
And why should you have them?
And we're doing this in Januarybecause we've recently spoken
at a sales conference and we'vebeen booked for a couple of
others, and so we realized thatthis is the time of year when
people think, right, christmasis over and we want to sort of
kickstart our sales people andget them really motivated, and
(03:45):
so they start bringing peopletogether for sales conferences,
and so we thought it'd be a goodidea to have a little bit of a
look at this whole concept of asales conference why people
bother to do it at all and whatit is they're trying to get out
of it and, importantly, how youcan make it really, really good.
That's what we're going tofocus on today.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
That sounds good.
Yeah, we hope we help yourealize how to do them because I
suppose over the years we'vehad wide-ranging experience of
people doing them well and widerange of experience of people
doing them not so well.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Now we should make a distinction that this is for a
sales conference, because ifyou're having an annual company
conference where you bringpeople together from every
single department, then that's avery different motivation to
having a sales team of 10, 15,50, 150 plus people that you
bring together who are allcustomer facing, who are all
(04:42):
trying to sell whatever are theproducts and services that you
have, and getting them motivatedto sell more.
That's the focus of thisepisode.
Good, I like it.
We're going to look at threemain areas.
The first area is what are themain reasons that companies
would bother to have an annualsales conference?
(05:02):
So, jeremy, when you look backon conferences that you've
attended, either as a delegate,when you work for a company or
when you were booked with me asa speaker, can you remember any
of the reasons why the companieswanted to have a sales
conference?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It was never explicit .
They never said we're gatheringyou to improve your sales
skills so that you sell more, sothat we motivate you.
I'd always hear things like agood chance to get everyone
together.
We can go back over the corepriorities of the year ahead, we
can see what we've learned fromlast year and take that into
(05:45):
the year ahead.
that sort of stuff yeah therewas often a sort of unimplied
feeling that by gathering us,some form of osmosis of
something would take place andwe would become better.
But it was never.
Look, we're going to bring youtogether to make you better, to
equip you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It was never that implied yeah, and I think for
many organizations it is simplyan annual thing that they do,
and I'm sure it's changed a lotfrom the way it did 25 years ago
, when it very much was having afew drinks and going to clubs.
But now people are trying to doa few more motivational things.
But I think a lot of themotivation is largely social.
(06:22):
I think that's still where alot of companies do it Now.
I have no argument with that,and we've said this on other
podcasts about internal companymeetings and conferences.
If you want to have a socialthing where you just meet up,
have a few drinks and enjoy eachother's company as a kind of a
motivational thing, I don't havea problem with that.
But I think if you're going todo a sales conference which has
(06:46):
hanging over it some of thesethings you've been talking about
, you know the reasons to do it,that there are very specific
reasons why we're going to dothis then I think it's something
you perhaps would want to spenda bit more time considering Now
.
I've done a lot of researchinto this and there's a number
of reasons why you would have asales conference.
What do you think the numberone reason is for having a sales
(07:08):
conference?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
so you're sitting there going, we need a sales
conference.
Uh, I guess they probably feelthat, uh, people are not aligned
, united so number two isaligning with strategic goals
okay so that's important.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So this is what we're aiming for let's make sure you
understand.
Number one is really simplemotivating the sales.
Okay.
So, and you know so, you dothat through recognition, a bit
of team bonding, and try andcreate some energy and
enthusiasm.
Now, energy and enthusiasm arevery intangible things, aren't
they?
You know, you can sit there ina room.
(07:43):
Everyone's going yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah.
And you go look, everyone's gotlots of energy and enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Jeremy, how wonderful we fill the tank and then the
tank goes out and that they takethe tank on the road and they
don't need topping up for a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
A bit like a fuel tank, an energy tank yeah, I
mean, three days later it's likeoh yeah, we do that conference,
you know.
So I think that's aninteresting thing to consider.
So motivation is the firstthing.
Aligning with your goals is thesecond thing.
Now, the third is training anddevelopment Skills, product
knowledge and industry trends.
Now, of course, we love thefact that they've got that in
(08:20):
there training and developmentbut sometimes they do try and
cram it in with a load of otherguff that they expect people to
sit through.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And that's if I come in.
The problem with that is thefunding.
A lot of the companies are tootight, even though they've got
huge reserves to pay forthemselves.
So they want sponsors to fundit, so they allow the sponsors a
platform and the sponsors takeover large chunks of their time.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, we've seen evidence of that at conferences
we've attended.
But I think there is somethingimportant about training and
development within a conferencesituation.
You don't want it to be all ofthat, but you do want it to be
some of it because and we'llcome back to the reasons why
that's important in a bit now,as I go down the list, some of
it is just stating the obvious.
I mean fostering collaboration,celebrating success, driving
(09:13):
sales growth, yeah, reinforcingyour corporate culture, that's
quite good.
You will behave like this oh,let's tell you about a new value
that we've got.
You'll never guess our newvalue, Jeremy.
Should I tell you what it is?
We've spent a lot of money withan agency to come up with this
one word.
That's our value.
Do you know what it is?
Is it kindness?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
no trust.
That's brilliant.
Oh, oh, how much did the agencycharge you?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
oh, 50 grand plus 50 grand, they said you've got to
have trust as a value.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Gotta have trust now you've got it as a value, you'll
be seen as so trustworthy.
That will revolutionize thebusiness.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I can just imagine our salespeople sitting in front
of customers going now.
The good news is, our new valueis trust.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Oh, so we didn't need to trust you before, so I just
don't need to negotiate on therates anymore, because you
wouldn oh genius.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So addressing challenges, I think that's quite
a good thing to do, Buildingconfidence.
And then number 10, which Ican't believe isn't higher is
engaging people and retainingthem as employees, because if
you've got a medium-sized salesteam, you've probably got a
(10:29):
relatively high turnover andevery time somebody leaves the
cost of employing another personis a lot in terms of time,
recruitment, interviewing,getting people on, training them
and the lost business inbetween.
That's one of your highestcosts is recruitment, and if you
can do a really good salesconference you might reduce your
(10:50):
average churn of people leavingand I think that could make be
a real return on investment.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Actually your number one, motivation, yeah, a bit
like your number two energy andenthusiasm.
Um, are you much more motivatednow?
Yeah, you know the measure ofthat.
I believe, of course I would dothat.
The reason why people becomemotivated is they're given
something they hadn't consideredbefore yeah, they're given
(11:17):
something practical to apply.
They're given a model learninglanguage system skills.
They're given something oh, Ican do that that's.
Isn't that what makes themmotivated or is that not obvious
?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
well, surely we want all of our people to be full of
energy and excitement for theyear ahead.
That's the that's the thing wereally want from this.
Okay, yeah, now you can kind ofcocoon them for a day and give
them a motivational shot in thearm, but when they come out,
you're still going to have acountry that's facing an energy
crisis, low imports, low exports, high inflation, high taxation.
(11:54):
You know, nothing changes inthat day they need something to
attack those environmentalfactors with yes, and that's a
really key thing, and I wonderwhether the powers that be who
organize these sales conferencesthink right these to them and
we'll design the content aroundit.
It's we need to tell them tosell this.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
We need to tell them about this factor or get them
excited the fact we've got somenew software that may or may not
be actually exciting, sure.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
You're listening to the reality of business, created
by reality, training the mindsbehind the five principles that
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These principles deliverconsistency and certainty in
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Discover how we can help yousell more at realitytrainingcom.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I thought I would really have some fun with you on
the costs of staging a salesconference, because I thought
you'd really enjoy that.
So let's imagine that you have150 salespeople Okay, so quite a
high number of salespeople andthey're all over the UK.
I thought you were going to saythey're all over the uk.
I thought you're going to saythey're all over the age of 60
(13:29):
and let's imagine they're allover europe actually, because
that's more of a decent sizegeography for 150 salespeople
and you're going to bring themall together in london, okay, so
what do you think the venuehire alone for a day in a
central London location couldcost you, just for the room.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Am I not going to get that thrown in with the day
delegate rate?
All being well.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No, you pay something for the room and the day
delegate rate on top.
Oh yeah, really, becauseremember you're paying for food
and all the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, they're going to want 2,500 for the space, au
contraire, Blacker for 150.
They're going to want more thantwo and a half k.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
You're looking at an hourly charge for your room
between 950 and 1250 per hour.
Wow, which means you're goingto be paying up to 10 grand a
day for the room.
And that's if I'm in centrallondon, that's if you're in
central london and your daydelegate rate on top of that,
the approach 170 225.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Okay, it's like teas, coffees, water, food, lunch,
breakfast, yeah, cakes whatever.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Absolutely 225, 225.
Now that also is for staffgetting loads of chairs in.
Yeah, yeah, you know doing allthat kind of stuff as well, so
that's your cost to actuallyhave the place.
Now, if you've got 150 salespeople coming in, a few of them
may live within a commutingdistance of london.
The majority are going to bestaying over.
Okay, so you've got them flyingin.
(15:02):
Yeah, so transportation costsat least.
I mean, they've got an averagehere of 100 pound per person,
but if they're coming fromeurope, you're looking at three
or four hundred pound.
Then, plus the rooms, plus theroom, 150 plus per night, plus
food and uh bits and pieces.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
So that's you're looking at, you know before we
speak in the mic and start toutter anything to them.
What are we set for, oh seriousmoney, so 150 times 225, that's
already 33,000.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Plus the room 43, plus your accommodation, You're
over 50 grand already we're 50Kto get in position At least.
That's just for 150 people,remember.
So then you go.
Well, we want a speaker and Iwant a keynote speaker, and the
range for keynote speakers hasgone up in recent years.
(15:57):
It's now between 10,000 to30,000, if you want something
really good.
Oh, if they're very famous yeahyeah, but you're looking at a
minimum of 10 for a keynoteAudiovisual.
Well, you get to rent all that.
So, depending how much stuffyou need, it could be 500 quid,
it could be five grand for theday, depending on all your AV
(16:18):
and all that.
And if you're going to have astage and lighting and all the
other bits and pieces, thatcould be very, very high.
And then, of course, you're notjust going to want to have the
room and a stage and a lectern,you're going to want to have
posters, great big things thatgo behind.
You're going to want to havestuff to pass around.
So a few grand on promotionalmaterials as well.
(16:41):
So you're looking at a sort ofminimum, really, of about 70 for
the whole thing, going up toabout 100 as a kind of minimum
for 150 people.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
However, this does not at all consider the hidden
costs of taking your entiresales force offline Without
generating income For two orthree days, if some of them are
traveling, yeah, yeah, is thisthe main reason why people are
put off for doing them?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I don't think they are put off for doing them.
I think they want to do them,but I don't think they want to
pay anything for them.
I mean, I had an inquiry beforeChristmas.
I didn't tell you this.
I won't say who it was or wherethey are, but it was a company
who knew of us and wasinterested in us and wanted me
to go up to Manchester and do aday as a kind of kickoff for the
(17:36):
busy season that was coming andliterally wanted to spend a
tiny amount of money to get aday's full experience and you
just think what are you actuallydoing?
what's more important, you knowand the roi was a no-brainer
(17:56):
there was there was no reasonfor them not to to book, it was
just they wanted to do it on thecheap.
Yeah, and I think lots oforganizations go oh, oh, that's
expensive.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
You know, they can't see the value well, there's also
the the sort of trend ofsponsors and the sponsors get
stage time yeah because theydon't want to pay the speakers
directly.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
But then the question is what is it that you're
wanting to do this for?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
you want to increase the performance skills yeah,
yeah and skills and theefficiency and level of your
sales force, so that the vastmajority sell more and achieve
geometric growth the followingyear.
They sell more to morecustomers, they increase the
average order value and theyincrease the frequency of
transaction.
You want them to win on threefronts, don't you?
(18:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
absolutely so.
It's an expensive thing toconsider.
Now let's imagine you've onlygot 10 salespeople, or 20
salespeople.
You're going to want to takethem away from their environment
to a nice location.
You're going to want to feedthem.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
A boutique-y thing.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, something nice and enjoy that time together and
make it a fun experience.
So that's the cost.
Now the costs are high, and Ijust want to think a little bit
more about those hidden costs,because that's the cost.
Now the costs are high.
And I just want to think alittle bit more about those
hidden costs, because that'sanother reason why people don't
do it.
They just go oh, this isridiculous.
You know we're going to missthousands of pounds of sales
here.
And they don't think about thelonger term investment and they
(19:20):
don't think about within thecost of employing people, there
is also an additional cost toinvest in those people.
And do you do that once everyfive years?
I mean, what are you going todo with them?
It should be something you'realways looking at.
So it is an opportunity to dothat, rather than opportunity
just to have a conference forthe sake of having it.
(19:42):
I also considered this questionbecause if the number one
reason to have this is morale,it's a morale booster.
I want my Bob morale, bobmorale, morale boosting.
Why should we do that in 2025?
Why should we consider?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, because there's a lot of good stuff happening
in the world.
All we get is good news daily,isn't it?
I mean, there's so much, wedon't need motivation in the
current climate.
I mean, well, there's verylittle war, there's very little
dictatorship, there's verylittle autocratic behaviors.
Well, maybe we'll need it in afew years time.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
So in the UK, the reasons we should consider
people's morale is we haveworkforce resilience amid
economic uncertainty, which isexactly what you just said.
Okay, so that's things likepost-Brexit challenges what's
going on with that?
The cost of living pressuresthat people are still under, and
economic volatility All thethings you just mentioned are
(20:37):
good reasons to boost morale.
Now, retention in a competitivejob market you know, yeah,
that's tough enough as it is,and it's interesting millennials
and Generation Z employees aremore likely to switch jobs if
they feel undervalued orunsupported.
Oh, hugely, absolutely.
So that's a big thing.
Now, this is a good one, whichI hadn't really thought about
(20:59):
much, and I wish that morecompanies would do this.
Emphasis on mental health andwell-being yeah, you know, what
about doing something thatdoesn't just boost people's
excitement about what they'redoing, but actually makes them
feel that you care about them,that you don't want them to burn
out.
You don't want them to feelthat they're kind of remotely
(21:21):
distanced from their employer,especially if they're working
remotely the most recentconference we did.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
we talked right at the start to warm them up about
the five things you need, andnumber two is resilience
absolutely you need a resilienceand we we talked time about how
you build to that, how do youwork on it?
You've got to learn how to doit on your own, largely.
But no, you're absolutely right, you've got to be a company
that gives people ways to feelresilient against the pressures
(21:49):
that they're facing.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Now one which I think is quite an interesting thing
is reputation and brand value.
Now we've talked a lot onprevious podcasts about our book
, dislaw Bonding and StrategicLies, and that's something that
we can also do conferencesessions on.
Yeah, reputation is reallyimportant.
We can also do conferencesessions on Reputation is really
(22:10):
important.
So if you want to get a messageto your people about
maintaining a level of highreputation for the brand, then
what better place to do it at asales conference with your
customer, facing people, whereyou say this is the level of
standard that we expect in termsof how you talk about the brand
and how you come across.
I think that would be a reallygood thing to think about.
(22:32):
Now there's a few other thingshere which are kind of trendy,
not so obvious things.
But another area is future worktrends.
So we're at a place now wherewe've got AI coming in, so any
decent sales conference is goingto think how can we use this,
how can we automate it and makeit work with what?
We're at a place now wherewe've got AI coming in, so any
decent sales conference is goingto think how can we use this,
how can we automate it and makeit work with what we're doing
(22:53):
Hybrid working models.
More and more now, that's thecase.
So how do we make sure thatworks for us?
But then there's also the kindof diverse workforce needs, so
all those various cultural,generational and personal
motivations, or indeed, as we'vecovered in a recent episode,
digital nomads working indifferent places, broadening the
(23:16):
geographical spread of theorganisation.
You know, all those things aregreat areas to focus on.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I've just thought of a sales conference scene.
I've just thought of a salesconference scene.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Isn't there a small sales conference scene in Tin
Men.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yes, there is when they're discussing methodology
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
That's when the guy throws the $5 behind.
Oh lovely, teaching them thetechnique yeah yeah, that's a
great film and, with DannyDeVito and Richard Dreyfuss,
well worth looking up.
Absolutely.
Those are some of the pointsabout why have a sales
conference and what these thingscost and what are the reasons
(23:58):
why you should increase themorale of your people.
So the last area really is whatshould your sales conference
consist of?
And I'll refer you to our otherepisodes on conferences, where
we've talked about the differentsort of speakers and acts that
you can book for your conference, and this will be a theme that
(24:19):
we keep returning to, becausethere's so many different things
that you could, you could have.
But if you think about some ofthose reasons why you're having
it, if the third reason is totrain and develop your people,
then why not give them somethingactionable, something they can
actually take and do somethingwith?
Because inspiration is onething, but inspiration you need
(24:41):
that daily, you don't just needit.
You know that one single day inthe sales conference you need
to have continual inspiration,whereas if you're given
practical things that you canapply to your job from the very
next day, I would say that's apretty decent thing to come out
of a sales conference.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Well, totally, it's funny.
I'm designing the content forone.
I've got coming up in a fewweeks content for one I've got
coming up in a few weeks andit's going to give the people
things that they will literallydo the next meeting they have
with with a customer.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They will test it out and I'm teaching them things
that they may know a bit aboutbut may have forgotten.
They're definitely getting somethings they won't know anything
about, may know a bit about butmay have forgotten.
They're definitely getting somethings they won't know anything
about.
And the practical application,I think, counters the desire for
a mountaineer, a man who'scrossed continents.
(25:39):
You see, that stuff and some ofthose people come and go in
popularity.
You know, somebody could haveachieved something.
It's funny.
I was listening to the radiolast night and I rung you
because I told you the storyabout the woman who is not
accepting her pardon.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
The 1,500, which is a very round number of people who
have stormed the Capitolbuilding.
She says no, no, I'm taking thepunishment.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I thought let's contact her and get her going on
a speaking tour.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
She'd be a brilliant new booking but she would be a
brilliant trend for this yearBook.
Whatever her name is, She'llcome and we help her put the
slides again.
She talks about accepting thesentence, owning your truth.
I mean, that could just be abrilliant conference speaker.
She speaks brilliantly.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
She's very, I'm sure, but then you might find that
she wouldn't get a singlebooking because people would be
scared to be seen to besupporting that perspective.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Well, I'm talking about in the UK.
Well, either I think she'd dowell in the.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
UK.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Either, I'm not so sure she would Well and I think
the point I'm saying is thatpeople come off a television
program quite often.
Yeah, program quite often, yeah, and one of the podcasts I
listen to is called thecomedian's comedian and the chap
who does that.
He interviews major comediansand when they've had a tv series
they keep saying I've got astack of corporates and they get
(26:59):
booked to do 30 minutes andthey're only booked because
they've been on telly a bit.
But there is no directcorrelation between exposure and
quality of content okay and thepoint being is somebody
achieves something like liketake our olympians yeah they
achieve and some of them areencouraged to speak and they put
(27:21):
together the stock footage ofthe race, whatever it might be,
and many of them can't make theconnection.
And it's a motivational speakerand the audience has to go, wow
, that's human endeavor, that'sterrific, but there isn't always
the connection.
There are some who make theconnection brilliantly and
they've worked it out, but for asales conference going back to
(27:43):
your point, if you want thepeople to leave motivated and
have some things to apply, adownhill skier isn't necessarily
going to give you the materialyou need, even though they might
use metaphors of working yourway through the slalom of sales,
who knows?
(28:05):
It's not necessarily going tobe enough and I think people
don't know how to put togetherthe program.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
If you're having a company conference where
everyone's there, accounts,logistics, every single bit of
your organization is in thatroom.
Yeah, then a sports or anadventurer or something, or a
celebrity appeals to everyone.
I can see the point, but ifit's a sales conference, you
know what's going to make thatperson sitting there go aha.
(28:27):
I can see the point, but ifit's a sales conference, what's
going to make that personsitting there go aha.
I can use that.
That's going to help me sellmore.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
And I don't know about you, but when I see on
LinkedIn the homegrown ones fromquite significant organizations
, saw one of our old contactsputting together something
European wide organization.
It's a cobbled together salesconference with only the sales
people speaking and I justlooked at the imagery and I
thought, mr trick, becausethey're all based across europe
(28:58):
yeah and to get them in the roomtogether.
It was looked like peoplestanding up and the networking
looked awkward.
They needed hosts, they neededsomebody to be the glue to then
build the program together.
But it could be that a lot ofthese things are rushed jobs.
That it's, let's get on with it.
You know it's like um actionbias I haven't got it fully
(29:18):
worked out, but let's do it yeah, let's do it yes yeah, but
actually to put together aconsidered program, which
doesn't mean good, I've got mysponsors paying for the speaker.
tick, it's actually.
What will the people do with it?
It's a bit like strategy how doyou connect?
They'll learn this in January.
They'll take it out on the roadon January the 21st.
(29:39):
We'll check in with them on thecontent we've given them on
February the 15th.
I don't think it's strategic,whereas we can help our clients
do all of that.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But then I think some of it is down to the people
that you book being able tochange their content for the
audience, because I don't thinkwe've ever done a conference
where we haven't thought well,who is it we're actually
speaking to, what type of peopleare they, what is it they're
looking to get from this and howcan we make our material as
relevant as possible?
I don't think everybody doesthat, can I just say when I look
(30:09):
at one of the bits of contentyou put together.
the other day you showed me apresentation I knew exactly the
type of people you designed thatfor, because the way you had
pitched it was aimed exactly atthat type of person and it was
actually very funny.
But also I could see what itwas you were trying to do.
I think there are lots ofpeople who just say, right, this
(30:33):
is what I present on.
It's up to your audience to seethat they can make it work for
themselves.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
But I'm sure everyone's good at doing that
well, interestingly I can't namethe comedian and I've actually
worked with them and helped themat a gig not long ago.
But in his interview on theComedian's Comedian he uses a
very honest phrase.
He says when I'm booked for thecorporates, all I have to do is
have a veneer of connectivityto their industry.
(30:59):
So he says he'll write a jokethat makes the audience think
that he understands flooringinstallers and halfway through
he'll drop something else inabout flooring, and at the end
he'll flooring installers.
And halfway through he'll dropsomething else in about flooring
and at the end he'll saysomething about it.
But he says he's not changedany of it.
He just gives the veneer.
Now they'll get a booking onthe motivation and the laughter,
(31:21):
but they will leave therewithout anything else to change
their behavior.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Well, bob Monkhouse used to do that, so I saw him a
couple of times and they wereindustry dues.
He would use four or fivepeople's names in the first
couple of jokes that he learnedwhen he got on brilliant
ironically, two-thirds of theroom had no idea who those
people were either.
But there we are.
But that was his little bit ofeffort.
But actually, why not try andlearn a little bit about who it
(31:46):
is you're talking to, otherwiseit risks falling flat.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
That's the difficulty with it.
Yeah, my dad saw paul danielsat his sales conference and he
hypnotized the ceo and got himto give them all raises and
stuff and it brought the housedown.
See, that's a great thing to do.
Yeah, and you could just stagethat actually he did he did it,
he.
And then he said he was sayingand do you think that they
should all be paid ten thousandpounds?
Moment, yes, absolutely.
(32:10):
They should all be paid 10,000pounds a moment.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
They should all have 10,000.
And people were cracking up.
That was Paul Daniels in person, so I thought it was a puppet
from 1974.
Say yes, paul.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Okay, I want to sort of give a few pointers that
people go on about social mediabeing.
Content is king.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I think you've got to really just have proper
discussions about the content ofyour conference of course, but
at the same time, think aboutwhat is it that the people need
from this conference thatthey're definitely going to go
away from with that when, whenit's finished, so that you can
then say look, I've spent allthis money bringing these people
(32:47):
to this place and we've it'slanding the bdf formula what are
their existing beliefs, desiresand feelings?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
do I understand my audience, the bdf formula, what
are their beliefs, desires andfeelings?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
and I can design it around that I think if you're
going to have a sales conferenceand you can't see how you're
going to get the money back fromdoing it, you haven't planned
it well enough.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
That gives me one more thing.
You want an roc, not just anROI.
You want a return on conferenceand to that degree, surely the
way you get your return is thematerials that you have imparted
are used.
That give you a direct measureand correlation to the return.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Excellent, well, very good subject.
As I say, we'll be returning tothis and we'll let you know how
some of our conferences go, butin the meantime, thank you for
listening and we'll see you onanother podcast very soon.
Take care, bye-dee-bye, thankyou.
bob hi.
Um, thanks, you said you'd giveme 10 minutes before you meet
the swiss co-director.
Have you got?
Um?
You know you're completelyundisturbed, your phone is off.
I just want to sort of get youexcited about a bit of an
opportunity an opportunity.
What sort of thing, reallysimple.
Um, I've been looking at theway that we work with our, our
(00:23):
sales team, our european salesteam, and you might not believe
this.
What have we not had for sixyears?
um a decent size bonus well, Ithink you're doing okay, but no,
that wasn't what I was thinking.
What are you thinking inrelation to the sales people?
(00:45):
I've no idea.
Well, you see, and that's thechallenge I have, because it's
quite simple to me we have nothad a sales conference.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
A sales conference?
You mean where we all cometogether and have a few drinks
and go lap dancing, is that?
Speaker 1 (01:00):
what you're talking about.
No that was once.
That was a period that we'vegot over.
That was one conference, theothers it was a yearly event.
We haven't had them for sixyears.
We should introduce them.
They are a driver ofperformance.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I mean Maureen always says it's such a waste of money
to get everyone together and Ican't help but think, looking at
the numbers, I think she's notfar off.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Yeah, this is Maureen who didn't want to spend money
on a proper coffee machine,remember.
And when the reps got that theywould actually meet each other
and that improved sales.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Well, yes, there's something in that.
Okay, well, I'm prepared toconsider it.
I mean, what is it you want todo?
What are you thinking of I?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
want to gather everybody from Europe.
I want us to give them somebrilliant new ways of behaving
with today's challengingcustomer.
We need to look at how we'reusing the phone versus
face-to-face, versus Zoom.
We need to get all of thatcommunication working and our
salespeople can be far morepersuasive and compelling, and
(02:00):
we need to give them some realinsights.
Together, let them work somethings out for themselves, get
them into teams, lift theleaders, reconnect, get everyone
aligned quite a bit more on ourmethodology.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, it all sounds very good.
The only thing is it's the cost.
I mean, listen, let me finishTo get everyone over here.
It's not just the expenses,it's also the fact that they're
not going to be selling for afew days.
You know, that's the hiddencost is quite a lot for this
sort of thing, you know.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
Would you rather have salespeople not selling for two
days or all of your salespeopleselling for 238 days?
With better skills?
Speaker 2 (02:39):
Look, I'm happy to look at the business case.
Put together a program for me.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I will.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
Look at some dates and then we'll have a chat.
Good, so welcome, ladies andgentlemen, to our latest podcast
(03:22):
on the subject of salesconferences.
And why should you have them?
And we're doing this in Januarybecause we've recently spoken
at a sales conference and we'vebeen booked for a couple of
others, and so we realized thatthis is the time of year when
people think, right, christmasis over and we want to sort of
kickstart our sales people andget them really motivated, and
(03:45):
so they start bringing peopletogether for sales conferences,
and so we thought it'd be a goodidea to have a little bit of a
look at this whole concept of asales conference why people
bother to do it at all and whatit is they're trying to get out
of it and, importantly, how youcan make it really, really good.
That's what we're going tofocus on today.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
That sounds good.
Yeah, we hope we help yourealize how to do them because I
suppose over the years we'vehad wide-ranging experience of
people doing them well and widerange of experience of people
doing them not so well.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
Now we should make a distinction that this is for a
sales conference, because ifyou're having an annual company
conference where you bringpeople together from every
single department, then that's avery different motivation to
having a sales team of 10, 15,50, 150 plus people that you
bring together who are allcustomer facing, who are all
(04:42):
trying to sell whatever are theproducts and services that you
have, and getting them motivatedto sell more.
That's the focus of thisepisode.
Good, I like it.
We're going to look at threemain areas.
The first area is what are themain reasons that companies
would bother to have an annualsales conference?
(05:02):
So, jeremy, when you look backon conferences that you've
attended, either as a delegate,when you work for a company or
when you were booked with me asa speaker, can you remember any
of the reasons why the companieswanted to have a sales
conference?
Speaker 1 (05:23):
It was never explicit .
They never said we're gatheringyou to improve your sales
skills so that you sell more, sothat we motivate you.
I'd always hear things like agood chance to get everyone
together.
We can go back over the corepriorities of the year ahead, we
can see what we've learned fromlast year and take that into
(05:45):
the year ahead.
that sort of stuff yeah therewas often a sort of unimplied
feeling that by gathering us,some form of osmosis of
something would take place andwe would become better.
But it was never.
Look, we're going to bring youtogether to make you better, to
equip you.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It was never that implied yeah, and I think for
many organizations it is simplyan annual thing that they do,
and I'm sure it's changed a lotfrom the way it did 25 years ago
, when it very much was having afew drinks and going to clubs.
But now people are trying to doa few more motivational things.
But I think a lot of themotivation is largely social.
(06:22):
I think that's still where alot of companies do it Now.
I have no argument with that,and we've said this on other
podcasts about internal companymeetings and conferences.
If you want to have a socialthing where you just meet up,
have a few drinks and enjoy eachother's company as a kind of a
motivational thing, I don't havea problem with that.
But I think if you're going todo a sales conference which has
(06:46):
hanging over it some of thesethings you've been talking about
, you know the reasons to do it,that there are very specific
reasons why we're going to dothis then I think it's something
you perhaps would want to spenda bit more time considering Now
.
I've done a lot of researchinto this and there's a number
of reasons why you would have asales conference.
What do you think the numberone reason is for having a sales
(07:08):
conference?
Speaker 1 (07:08):
so you're sitting there going, we need a sales
conference.
Uh, I guess they probably feelthat, uh, people are not aligned
, united so number two isaligning with strategic goals
okay so that's important.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
So this is what we're aiming for let's make sure you
understand.
Number one is really simplemotivating the sales.
Okay.
So, and you know so, you dothat through recognition, a bit
of team bonding, and try andcreate some energy and
enthusiasm.
Now, energy and enthusiasm arevery intangible things, aren't
they?
You know, you can sit there ina room.
(07:43):
Everyone's going yeah, yeah,yeah, yeah.
And you go look, everyone's gotlots of energy and enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (07:48):
Jeremy, how wonderful we fill the tank and then the
tank goes out and that they takethe tank on the road and they
don't need topping up for a bit.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
A bit like a fuel tank, an energy tank yeah, I
mean, three days later it's likeoh yeah, we do that conference,
you know.
So I think that's aninteresting thing to consider.
So motivation is the firstthing.
Aligning with your goals is thesecond thing.
Now, the third is training anddevelopment Skills, product
knowledge and industry trends.
Now, of course, we love thefact that they've got that in
(08:20):
there training and developmentbut sometimes they do try and
cram it in with a load of otherguff that they expect people to
sit through.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
And that's if I come in.
The problem with that is thefunding.
A lot of the companies are tootight, even though they've got
huge reserves to pay forthemselves.
So they want sponsors to fundit, so they allow the sponsors a
platform and the sponsors takeover large chunks of their time.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, we've seen evidence of that at conferences
we've attended.
But I think there is somethingimportant about training and
development within a conferencesituation.
You don't want it to be all ofthat, but you do want it to be
some of it because and we'llcome back to the reasons why
that's important in a bit now,as I go down the list, some of
it is just stating the obvious.
I mean fostering collaboration,celebrating success, driving
(09:13):
sales growth, yeah, reinforcingyour corporate culture, that's
quite good.
You will behave like this oh,let's tell you about a new value
that we've got.
You'll never guess our newvalue, Jeremy.
Should I tell you what it is?
We've spent a lot of money withan agency to come up with this
one word.
That's our value.
Do you know what it is?
Is it kindness?
Speaker 1 (09:35):
no trust.
That's brilliant.
Oh, oh, how much did the agencycharge you?
Speaker 2 (09:41):
oh, 50 grand plus 50 grand, they said you've got to
have trust as a value.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Gotta have trust now you've got it as a value, you'll
be seen as so trustworthy.
That will revolutionize thebusiness.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I can just imagine our salespeople sitting in front
of customers going now.
The good news is, our new valueis trust.
Speaker 1 (09:56):
Oh, so we didn't need to trust you before, so I just
don't need to negotiate on therates anymore, because you
wouldn oh genius.
Speaker 2 (10:04):
So addressing challenges, I think that's quite
a good thing to do, Buildingconfidence.
And then number 10, which Ican't believe isn't higher is
engaging people and retainingthem as employees, because if
you've got a medium-sized salesteam, you've probably got a
(10:29):
relatively high turnover andevery time somebody leaves the
cost of employing another personis a lot in terms of time,
recruitment, interviewing,getting people on, training them
and the lost business inbetween.
That's one of your highestcosts is recruitment, and if you
can do a really good salesconference you might reduce your
(10:50):
average churn of people leavingand I think that could make be
a real return on investment.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
Actually your number one, motivation, yeah, a bit
like your number two energy andenthusiasm.
Um, are you much more motivatednow?
Yeah, you know the measure ofthat.
I believe, of course I would dothat.
The reason why people becomemotivated is they're given
something they hadn't consideredbefore yeah, they're given
(11:17):
something practical to apply.
They're given a model learninglanguage system skills.
They're given something oh, Ican do that that's.
Isn't that what makes themmotivated or is that not obvious
?
Speaker 2 (11:30):
well, surely we want all of our people to be full of
energy and excitement for theyear ahead.
That's the that's the thing wereally want from this.
Okay, yeah, now you can kind ofcocoon them for a day and give
them a motivational shot in thearm, but when they come out,
you're still going to have acountry that's facing an energy
crisis, low imports, low exports, high inflation, high taxation.
(11:54):
You know, nothing changes inthat day they need something to
attack those environmentalfactors with yes, and that's a
really key thing, and I wonderwhether the powers that be who
organize these sales conferencesthink right these to them and
we'll design the content aroundit.
It's we need to tell them tosell this.
Speaker 1 (12:32):
We need to tell them about this factor or get them
excited the fact we've got somenew software that may or may not
be actually exciting, sure.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
You're listening to the reality of business, created
by reality, training the mindsbehind the five principles that
power so many successful salesmodels today.
These principles deliverconsistency and certainty in
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Discover how we can help yousell more at realitytrainingcom.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
I thought I would really have some fun with you on
the costs of staging a salesconference, because I thought
you'd really enjoy that.
So let's imagine that you have150 salespeople Okay, so quite a
high number of salespeople andthey're all over the UK.
I thought you were going to saythey're all over the uk.
I thought you're going to saythey're all over the age of 60
(13:29):
and let's imagine they're allover europe actually, because
that's more of a decent sizegeography for 150 salespeople
and you're going to bring themall together in london, okay, so
what do you think the venuehire alone for a day in a
central London location couldcost you, just for the room.
Speaker 1 (13:51):
Am I not going to get that thrown in with the day
delegate rate?
All being well.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
No, you pay something for the room and the day
delegate rate on top.
Oh yeah, really, becauseremember you're paying for food
and all the other stuff.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
Well, they're going to want 2,500 for the space, au
contraire, Blacker for 150.
They're going to want more thantwo and a half k.
Speaker 2 (14:11):
You're looking at an hourly charge for your room
between 950 and 1250 per hour.
Wow, which means you're goingto be paying up to 10 grand a
day for the room.
And that's if I'm in centrallondon, that's if you're in
central london and your daydelegate rate on top of that,
the approach 170 225.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Okay, it's like teas, coffees, water, food, lunch,
breakfast, yeah, cakes whatever.
Speaker 2 (14:40):
Absolutely 225, 225.
Now that also is for staffgetting loads of chairs in.
Yeah, yeah, you know doing allthat kind of stuff as well, so
that's your cost to actuallyhave the place.
Now, if you've got 150 salespeople coming in, a few of them
may live within a commutingdistance of london.
The majority are going to bestaying over.
Okay, so you've got them flyingin.
(15:02):
Yeah, so transportation costsat least.
I mean, they've got an averagehere of 100 pound per person,
but if they're coming fromeurope, you're looking at three
or four hundred pound.
Then, plus the rooms, plus theroom, 150 plus per night, plus
food and uh bits and pieces.
Speaker 1 (15:17):
So that's you're looking at, you know before we
speak in the mic and start toutter anything to them.
What are we set for, oh seriousmoney, so 150 times 225, that's
already 33,000.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Plus the room 43, plus your accommodation, You're
over 50 grand already we're 50Kto get in position At least.
That's just for 150 people,remember.
So then you go.
Well, we want a speaker and Iwant a keynote speaker, and the
range for keynote speakers hasgone up in recent years.
(15:57):
It's now between 10,000 to30,000, if you want something
really good.
Oh, if they're very famous yeahyeah, but you're looking at a
minimum of 10 for a keynoteAudiovisual.
Well, you get to rent all that.
So, depending how much stuffyou need, it could be 500 quid,
it could be five grand for theday, depending on all your AV
(16:18):
and all that.
And if you're going to have astage and lighting and all the
other bits and pieces, thatcould be very, very high.
And then, of course, you're notjust going to want to have the
room and a stage and a lectern,you're going to want to have
posters, great big things thatgo behind.
You're going to want to havestuff to pass around.
So a few grand on promotionalmaterials as well.
(16:41):
So you're looking at a sort ofminimum, really, of about 70 for
the whole thing, going up toabout 100 as a kind of minimum
for 150 people.
Speaker 1 (16:55):
However, this does not at all consider the hidden
costs of taking your entiresales force offline Without
generating income For two orthree days, if some of them are
traveling, yeah, yeah, is thisthe main reason why people are
put off for doing them?
Speaker 2 (17:13):
I don't think they are put off for doing them.
I think they want to do them,but I don't think they want to
pay anything for them.
I mean, I had an inquiry beforeChristmas.
I didn't tell you this.
I won't say who it was or wherethey are, but it was a company
who knew of us and wasinterested in us and wanted me
to go up to Manchester and do aday as a kind of kickoff for the
(17:36):
busy season that was coming andliterally wanted to spend a
tiny amount of money to get aday's full experience and you
just think what are you actuallydoing?
what's more important, you knowand the roi was a no-brainer
(17:56):
there was there was no reasonfor them not to to book, it was
just they wanted to do it on thecheap.
Yeah, and I think lots oforganizations go oh, oh, that's
expensive.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
You know, they can't see the value well, there's also
the the sort of trend ofsponsors and the sponsors get
stage time yeah because theydon't want to pay the speakers
directly.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
But then the question is what is it that you're
wanting to do this for?
Speaker 1 (18:21):
you want to increase the performance skills yeah,
yeah and skills and theefficiency and level of your
sales force, so that the vastmajority sell more and achieve
geometric growth the followingyear.
They sell more to morecustomers, they increase the
average order value and theyincrease the frequency of
transaction.
You want them to win on threefronts, don't you?
(18:41):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (18:41):
absolutely so.
It's an expensive thing toconsider.
Now let's imagine you've onlygot 10 salespeople, or 20
salespeople.
You're going to want to takethem away from their environment
to a nice location.
You're going to want to feedthem.
Speaker 1 (18:55):
A boutique-y thing.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Yeah, something nice and enjoy that time together and
make it a fun experience.
So that's the cost.
Now the costs are high, and Ijust want to think a little bit
more about those hidden costs,because that's the cost.
Now the costs are high.
And I just want to think alittle bit more about those
hidden costs, because that'sanother reason why people don't
do it.
They just go oh, this isridiculous.
You know we're going to missthousands of pounds of sales
here.
And they don't think about thelonger term investment and they
(19:20):
don't think about within thecost of employing people, there
is also an additional cost toinvest in those people.
And do you do that once everyfive years?
I mean, what are you going todo with them?
It should be something you'realways looking at.
So it is an opportunity to dothat, rather than opportunity
just to have a conference forthe sake of having it.
(19:42):
I also considered this questionbecause if the number one
reason to have this is morale,it's a morale booster.
I want my Bob morale, bobmorale, morale boosting.
Why should we do that in 2025?
Why should we consider?
Speaker 1 (19:58):
Yeah, because there's a lot of good stuff happening
in the world.
All we get is good news daily,isn't it?
I mean, there's so much, wedon't need motivation in the
current climate.
I mean, well, there's verylittle war, there's very little
dictatorship, there's verylittle autocratic behaviors.
Well, maybe we'll need it in afew years time.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
So in the UK, the reasons we should consider
people's morale is we haveworkforce resilience amid
economic uncertainty, which isexactly what you just said.
Okay, so that's things likepost-Brexit challenges what's
going on with that?
The cost of living pressuresthat people are still under, and
economic volatility All thethings you just mentioned are
(20:37):
good reasons to boost morale.
Now, retention in a competitivejob market you know, yeah,
that's tough enough as it is,and it's interesting millennials
and Generation Z employees aremore likely to switch jobs if
they feel undervalued orunsupported.
Oh, hugely, absolutely.
So that's a big thing.
Now, this is a good one, whichI hadn't really thought about
(20:59):
much, and I wish that morecompanies would do this.
Emphasis on mental health andwell-being yeah, you know, what
about doing something thatdoesn't just boost people's
excitement about what they'redoing, but actually makes them
feel that you care about them,that you don't want them to burn
out.
You don't want them to feelthat they're kind of remotely
(21:21):
distanced from their employer,especially if they're working
remotely the most recentconference we did.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
we talked right at the start to warm them up about
the five things you need, andnumber two is resilience
absolutely you need a resilienceand we we talked time about how
you build to that, how do youwork on it?
You've got to learn how to doit on your own, largely.
But no, you're absolutely right, you've got to be a company
that gives people ways to feelresilient against the pressures
(21:49):
that they're facing.
Speaker 2 (21:50):
Now one which I think is quite an interesting thing
is reputation and brand value.
Now we've talked a lot onprevious podcasts about our book
, dislaw Bonding and StrategicLies, and that's something that
we can also do conferencesessions on.
Yeah, reputation is reallyimportant.
We can also do conferencesessions on Reputation is really
(22:10):
important.
So if you want to get a messageto your people about
maintaining a level of highreputation for the brand, then
what better place to do it at asales conference with your
customer, facing people, whereyou say this is the level of
standard that we expect in termsof how you talk about the brand
and how you come across.
I think that would be a reallygood thing to think about.
(22:32):
Now there's a few other thingshere which are kind of trendy,
not so obvious things.
But another area is future worktrends.
So we're at a place now wherewe've got AI coming in, so any
decent sales conference is goingto think how can we use this,
how can we automate it and makeit work with what?
We're at a place now wherewe've got AI coming in, so any
decent sales conference is goingto think how can we use this,
how can we automate it and makeit work with what we're doing
(22:53):
Hybrid working models.
More and more now, that's thecase.
So how do we make sure thatworks for us?
But then there's also the kindof diverse workforce needs, so
all those various cultural,generational and personal
motivations, or indeed, as we'vecovered in a recent episode,
digital nomads working indifferent places, broadening the
(23:16):
geographical spread of theorganisation.
You know, all those things aregreat areas to focus on.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
I've just thought of a sales conference scene.
I've just thought of a salesconference scene.
Speaker 2 (23:31):
Isn't there a small sales conference scene in Tin
Men.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
Yes, there is when they're discussing methodology
and stuff.
Speaker 2 (23:37):
That's when the guy throws the $5 behind.
Oh lovely, teaching them thetechnique yeah yeah, that's a
great film and, with DannyDeVito and Richard Dreyfuss,
well worth looking up.
Absolutely.
Those are some of the pointsabout why have a sales
conference and what these thingscost and what are the reasons
(23:58):
why you should increase themorale of your people.
So the last area really is whatshould your sales conference
consist of?
And I'll refer you to our otherepisodes on conferences, where
we've talked about the differentsort of speakers and acts that
you can book for your conference, and this will be a theme that
(24:19):
we keep returning to, becausethere's so many different things
that you could, you could have.
But if you think about some ofthose reasons why you're having
it, if the third reason is totrain and develop your people,
then why not give them somethingactionable, something they can
actually take and do somethingwith?
Because inspiration is onething, but inspiration you need
(24:41):
that daily, you don't just needit.
You know that one single day inthe sales conference you need
to have continual inspiration,whereas if you're given
practical things that you canapply to your job from the very
next day, I would say that's apretty decent thing to come out
of a sales conference.
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
Well, totally, it's funny.
I'm designing the content forone.
I've got coming up in a fewweeks content for one I've got
coming up in a few weeks andit's going to give the people
things that they will literallydo the next meeting they have
with with a customer.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
They will test it out and I'm teaching them things
that they may know a bit aboutbut may have forgotten.
They're definitely getting somethings they won't know anything
about, may know a bit about butmay have forgotten.
They're definitely getting somethings they won't know anything
about.
And the practical application,I think, counters the desire for
a mountaineer, a man who'scrossed continents.
(25:39):
You see, that stuff and some ofthose people come and go in
popularity.
You know, somebody could haveachieved something.
It's funny.
I was listening to the radiolast night and I rung you
because I told you the storyabout the woman who is not
accepting her pardon.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (25:57):
The 1,500, which is a very round number of people who
have stormed the Capitolbuilding.
She says no, no, I'm taking thepunishment.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I thought let's contact her and get her going on
a speaking tour.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
She'd be a brilliant new booking but she would be a
brilliant trend for this yearBook.
Whatever her name is, She'llcome and we help her put the
slides again.
She talks about accepting thesentence, owning your truth.
I mean, that could just be abrilliant conference speaker.
She speaks brilliantly.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
She's very, I'm sure, but then you might find that
she wouldn't get a singlebooking because people would be
scared to be seen to besupporting that perspective.
Speaker 1 (26:33):
Well, I'm talking about in the UK.
Well, either I think she'd dowell in the.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
UK.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Either, I'm not so sure she would Well and I think
the point I'm saying is thatpeople come off a television
program quite often.
Yeah, program quite often, yeah, and one of the podcasts I
listen to is called thecomedian's comedian and the chap
who does that.
He interviews major comediansand when they've had a tv series
they keep saying I've got astack of corporates and they get
(26:59):
booked to do 30 minutes andthey're only booked because
they've been on telly a bit.
But there is no directcorrelation between exposure and
quality of content okay and thepoint being is somebody
achieves something like liketake our olympians yeah they
achieve and some of them areencouraged to speak and they put
(27:21):
together the stock footage ofthe race, whatever it might be,
and many of them can't make theconnection.
And it's a motivational speakerand the audience has to go, wow
, that's human endeavor, that'sterrific, but there isn't always
the connection.
There are some who make theconnection brilliantly and
they've worked it out, but for asales conference going back to
(27:43):
your point, if you want thepeople to leave motivated and
have some things to apply, adownhill skier isn't necessarily
going to give you the materialyou need, even though they might
use metaphors of working yourway through the slalom of sales,
who knows?
(28:05):
It's not necessarily going tobe enough and I think people
don't know how to put togetherthe program.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
If you're having a company conference where
everyone's there, accounts,logistics, every single bit of
your organization is in thatroom.
Yeah, then a sports or anadventurer or something, or a
celebrity appeals to everyone.
I can see the point, but ifit's a sales conference, you
know what's going to make thatperson sitting there go aha.
(28:27):
I can see the point, but ifit's a sales conference, what's
going to make that personsitting there go aha.
I can use that.
That's going to help me sellmore.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
And I don't know about you, but when I see on
LinkedIn the homegrown ones fromquite significant organizations
, saw one of our old contactsputting together something
European wide organization.
It's a cobbled together salesconference with only the sales
people speaking and I justlooked at the imagery and I
thought, mr trick, becausethey're all based across europe
(28:58):
yeah and to get them in the roomtogether.
It was looked like peoplestanding up and the networking
looked awkward.
They needed hosts, they neededsomebody to be the glue to then
build the program together.
But it could be that a lot ofthese things are rushed jobs.
That it's, let's get on with it.
You know it's like um actionbias I haven't got it fully
(29:18):
worked out, but let's do it yeah, let's do it yes yeah, but
actually to put together aconsidered program, which
doesn't mean good, I've got mysponsors paying for the speaker.
tick, it's actually.
What will the people do with it?
It's a bit like strategy how doyou connect?
They'll learn this in January.
They'll take it out on the roadon January the 21st.
(29:39):
We'll check in with them on thecontent we've given them on
February the 15th.
I don't think it's strategic,whereas we can help our clients
do all of that.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
But then I think some of it is down to the people
that you book being able tochange their content for the
audience, because I don't thinkwe've ever done a conference
where we haven't thought well,who is it we're actually
speaking to, what type of peopleare they, what is it they're
looking to get from this and howcan we make our material as
relevant as possible?
I don't think everybody doesthat, can I just say when I look
(30:09):
at one of the bits of contentyou put together.
the other day you showed me apresentation I knew exactly the
type of people you designed thatfor, because the way you had
pitched it was aimed exactly atthat type of person and it was
actually very funny.
But also I could see what itwas you were trying to do.
I think there are lots ofpeople who just say, right, this
(30:33):
is what I present on.
It's up to your audience to seethat they can make it work for
themselves.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
But I'm sure everyone's good at doing that
well, interestingly I can't namethe comedian and I've actually
worked with them and helped themat a gig not long ago.
But in his interview on theComedian's Comedian he uses a
very honest phrase.
He says when I'm booked for thecorporates, all I have to do is
have a veneer of connectivityto their industry.
(30:59):
So he says he'll write a jokethat makes the audience think
that he understands flooringinstallers and halfway through
he'll drop something else inabout flooring, and at the end
he'll flooring installers.
And halfway through he'll dropsomething else in about flooring
and at the end he'll saysomething about it.
But he says he's not changedany of it.
He just gives the veneer.
Now they'll get a booking onthe motivation and the laughter,
(31:21):
but they will leave therewithout anything else to change
their behavior.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Well, bob Monkhouse used to do that, so I saw him a
couple of times and they wereindustry dues.
He would use four or fivepeople's names in the first
couple of jokes that he learnedwhen he got on brilliant
ironically, two-thirds of theroom had no idea who those
people were either.
But there we are.
But that was his little bit ofeffort.
But actually, why not try andlearn a little bit about who it
(31:46):
is you're talking to, otherwiseit risks falling flat.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
That's the difficulty with it.
Yeah, my dad saw paul danielsat his sales conference and he
hypnotized the ceo and got himto give them all raises and
stuff and it brought the housedown.
See, that's a great thing to do.
Yeah, and you could just stagethat actually he did he did it,
he.
And then he said he was sayingand do you think that they
should all be paid ten thousandpounds?
Moment, yes, absolutely.
(32:10):
They should all be paid 10,000pounds a moment.
Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
They should all have 10,000.
And people were cracking up.
That was Paul Daniels in person, so I thought it was a puppet
from 1974.
Say yes, paul.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Okay, I want to sort of give a few pointers that
people go on about social mediabeing.
Content is king.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
I think you've got to really just have proper
discussions about the content ofyour conference of course, but
at the same time, think aboutwhat is it that the people need
from this conference thatthey're definitely going to go
away from with that when, whenit's finished, so that you can
then say look, I've spent allthis money bringing these people
(32:47):
to this place and we've it'slanding the bdf formula what are
their existing beliefs, desiresand feelings?
Speaker 1 (32:52):
do I understand my audience, the bdf formula, what
are their beliefs, desires andfeelings?
Speaker 2 (32:57):
and I can design it around that I think if you're
going to have a sales conferenceand you can't see how you're
going to get the money back fromdoing it, you haven't planned
it well enough.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
That gives me one more thing.
You want an roc, not just anROI.
You want a return on conferenceand to that degree, surely the
way you get your return is thematerials that you have imparted
are used.
That give you a direct measureand correlation to the return.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
Excellent, well, very good subject.
As I say, we'll be returning tothis and we'll let you know how
some of our conferences go, butin the meantime, thank you for
listening and we'll see you onanother podcast very soon.
Take care, bye-dee-bye, thankyou.
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