Last week in my blog I wrote about the importance for sales leaders to focus on building belief and the need for your sales team have emotional commitment to your company and your products/services. On Tuesday I spoke on the first day of a three day national sales kick off conference for a firm in Raleigh NC. Even though I was leading off the afternoon with a keynote, I wanted to sit in on the first two hours in the morning to get a feel for the audience and theme for the event.
The first item on the agenda included a welcome by the VP of Sales but what created the perfect atmosphere was he began to randomly ask ten salespeople about a variety of their success stories about 2010. They had NOT been prompted. It was great to “feel” the mood in the room change from one of interest in the meeting to one of warmth, pride, teamwork and excitement about 2011! This is a sales driven organization that is adding salespeople, increasing sales and creative marketing programs. In our sales management workshops we speak to the need for sales leaders to create an annual Drive Statement, a phase that sets the tone or theme for the New Year, theirs was “Soaring to New Heights”, doesn’t that really make the point! This is a sales driven organization that is adding salespeople, increasing sales, winning market share and one that many competitive salespeople want to work for, it was a great experience for me to share my time and ideas on driving personal and professional success with this sales organization. The VP of Sales for this firm included the personal aspects of leadership as well as the professional requirements that builds great teams.
Next I spent Friday-Sunday at the National Speakers Association conference in Atlanta attending their Winter Conference. They normally hold two events a year and as a member I truly enjoy these conferences. It is also very strange, normally I am speaking at a conferences or leading breakout sessions for my clients, at this event I am looking at schedules trying to determine what events I feel I need to attend, taking notes, holding hallway and lunch networking events and absorbing a ton of information. People like Brian Tracy attended and so many other great people that are willing to share information to enhance the level of professionalism of the industry. I attended a full day session on Thought Leadership, presented by Matt Church; he flew in from Australia to share his insights into the consulting, writing and professional speaking business. Throughout the weekend I met and listened to a variety of individuals with a wide variety of experience and expertise, including Alan Weiss, Sam Horn, Mark Sanborn and the last morning just 2 hours before the conference ended, sitting at a table, I leaned over to chat with a woman next to me and she simply asked me a question about my business. I shared some information and she gave me a Break Through Thought for my keynote that made my time at the conference even thought I came away with two pages of to-do’s notes.
My point in mentioning this entire conference is to reinforce that you must always work to get better, read more, invest in yourself and you never know who will give you that gem of an idea that will help you win the next sale or change your life.
Just a note: Our three new books on Sales Management are available and our Success Simplified book on my keynote are available on our web site.
