I have a personal background and experience which dealt with Exhibitions (and the occasional mini-conference), for example launching The Accountants' Exhibition back in the 1980's, when 7,000 assorted financial / City types wandered around two floors of The Barbican Hall A, over 4 days, mixing and doing business with about 150 exhibitors, from Fountain Forestry (investments) to the FT.
| Successful Selling - Secrets - behind closed doors? |
So it has long intrigued me that if such a relatively immobile profession as "Accountancy" comprised of some 150,000 souls needed and wanted and used such a physical gathering point as that, where were the Kings of Press-the-Flesh and See-the-Whites-of-Their-Eyes...."Sales"?
We number some 375,000 Road Warriors and a similar number of Telesales colleagues. And Rep-mobiles, (looks like Audis and Insignias now peeps, is it?) have 3 passenger seats, let's not forget, so why have we never turned out anywhere in vast, milling, market-square crowds?
Do we hate each other? Do we need to keep our recipe for success a closely guarded secret? Is there, in fact, a recipe for success? Or is it all just "luck" for as long as we can get away with shifting all this snake oil? (And best not to expose any of this in case our boss or customers find out?).
I had a great day yesterday, at Successful Selling 2011, and can tell you loads about the people like Sharon Drew Morgen, Gavin Ingham and Sean McPheat who I saw speak in the main conference hall, and possibly hook you up with them if it's mutually beneficial for you. (Michael Portillo is a bit too "celebrity" for the likes of you and me).
I can also connect you better and further with the few exhibitors I stopped by to engage with, in that part of the hall, like TACK International (nearly there with the new website, I can see the head, final push folks...), Sales Team Focus, Growth Engineering and MTD Sales Training, and some of their teams like Louise Gulliver, Jonathan Cox, Simon Blackburn, Jeffrey Bean and Louise Denny. Or maybe even with my new and excellent contact Nigel Morgan, who gave one of the better attended break-out seminars.
Not to mention pretty well the entire and hard-working staff of the ISMM – including maybe sharing some details of the education and qualification plus multi-media communication and learning (phew!), half-hour debate (double-phew!!), I had with Stephen Wright. (We were in the cupboard under the stairs for those who missed it. Good work on the help point too – Ursula Lavis – and thanks indeed for your help).
But really – people – you will have to show a bit more enthusiasm and interest than just sitting there (or in your traffic jam), if you do want to benefit from all this assembled wisdom and the Winning Edge opportunities they hold for you and your sales colleagues. Or if you want to become a Sales Pro like new Head of Sales / Consultant at ISMM Ben Turner (yes, scary isn't it Ben? ;-)
What do you think this is – a "freebie" and / or company jolly!? Ask me though – get engaged - and I'll try to tell or help you...
P.S. Quick hello to Paul Sloane who I found lurking at the back (with me, Neil Warren), but who is (and has also been at Successful Selling) centre-stage as far as Innovations in Modern Successful Selling go...
(i.e. the other word you need is "Change", it's everywhere, it affects you, and it's as reliable as Death & Taxes)...
Update December 2011 - and here's a section of Sean McPheat's keynote, which we should also note features the modern part of selling...
...also known as "The Internet" - and which is where you are just now, in case any of this is a bit confusing? (Not intentionally patronising, but you'd be amazed if I showed you how many UK sales people apparently haven't got the first clue what we're on about here - and fervently believe that the phone + car is still everything they need!).
Questions & Comments
More LinkedIn benefits (and another contact)
Just need to also show us all what happens when you use the "Login with LinkedIn" button to contribute or ask on here - name link appears at the bottom of your post.
And my LinkedIn inbox also reminds me that I missed Shaz Quereshi in the crowds...
http://www.linkedin.com/in/shazquereshi
...and I could tell you about the mischief he and I and some of the other folks up there are planning, but that is Top Secret - so then I'd have to kill you ;-)
Posted by Neil Warren on
Great fun and brilliant networking
Many thanks for the mention Neil, it was good fun presenting a breakout seminar about social media and thank you for your contributions too.
I clearly had an impact judging by inbox today and already am looking forward to working more closely with some members of the audience.
My own blog will be up later today and will reference your own here at Modern Selling.
Posted by Nigel Morgan on
Good Conference - in parts
Good to meet you again Neil. I enjoyed hearing Sean McPheat, Nigel Morgan and Michael Portillo but some of the other speakers missed the mark. Is Linkedin really the answer? I am spending more time on it following the conference.
Posted by Paul Sloane on
Apathy rules - whatever?
Due to a variety of reasons, mostly involving being thousands of miles away, I couldn't be there. Which I'm annoyed about because I've never been and really wanted to go this year!
However, Neil, I'm getting the impression from this and other comments of yours elsewhere that this is not a great event. Is it just a lack of engagement from the attendees? Is the conference trying to run before it can walk? I've had a quick peek at the Twitter #sselling
Posted by Neil Fletcher on
Oops! Pressed the button too soon
...#sselling2011 feed and very few people (over and above the usual and expected suspects e.g Sean McPheat and his ilk) seem to have bothered.
Is the UK sales profession just not open to change?
Or am I way off beam? I know, I should have been there. Next year, I promise.
Posted by Neil Fletcher on
Mixing old selling with modern selling
Well you're a great little demo of all this from the three of you, Gents, if I may say.
Nigel worked his way round our ModernSelling.com bear traps and found out how to use his LinkedIn profile to log in - and get back to the discussion page here (a fix I've got coming, amongst hundreds, so we're far from a done deal). That did earn you a second approving Tweet though, from me, if you noticed Nigel.
Paul - you should have one more go I suggest - and in fact I don't think you'll even need to comment again - but do - and you're photo and name link from here...
http://www.linkedin.com/in/paulsloane
...should appear. You do have to confirm the email address you use with LinkedIn, because they do not release it and otherwise we can't send you prompts off discussions like this - but everything else is "standard" privacy and what not, e.g. we're not then pumping your name out to hundreds of list users, just occasional ModSell updates and events, that you'd get anyway. But interested parties can see and connect with you so much better like this.
And some may not know Neil that you are definitely one of the early online (and Modern Selling) adapters / adopters...
http://www.modernselling.com/management/profile-sales-leaders/diary-sales-manager-waving-not-drowning-Neil-Fletcher-20114001.aspx
...and we also swear by our 2,000+ growing band on LinkedIn (Paul & Nigel and ALL passing readers...
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Modern-Selling-com-1328087
...please do join and join in if you have not already) - where a scroll through the members list and discussion topics should tell you if you're in the right place. Thought leaders to thought lead and innovate please, the rest of us to ask questions, challenge, argue, debate, learn and change, as appropriate.
Twitter, as it happens, I find to be something of a hybrid bridge across the B2C and B2B divides, and also with an unusual mix of those "leading" v those "following". I normally need way more than 140 characters to say or ask anything, so just use it to highlight matters (url pages normally) that I hope will be of similar interest to those who choose to use it to follow. Not great for engaging business conversations, in other words, but that's just me.
And as for the future, if I were going to live to be 500, and had a heli-car, I guess getting around in the flesh to see everyone, in the flesh, would still be preferable. But with 1,500 prospects spread nationally (mostly) and internationally, and some 750,000 prospective "readers" to also attend to, that is not likely or possible, and so t'internet is a yoda-send.
And LinkedIn is where I do find everyone, suited and booted (well, getting there), and where we can put our heads together to see which other LI-friendly sites we might want to gather around (like here!) and then if, when, where and why we might want to gather in the flesh. So that's what I'm also aiming to compile with ISMM (Neil), in that the speakers, topics, exhibitors (and even lunch menu) can be "crowd sourced" from the profession, giving everyone 5 times the reasons to make the effort.
All new, all changing, and all shaped by you (all) - so we'll see.
Posted by Neil Warren on
Linkedin connection
..it works and I like it
Posted by Paul Sloane on
Sharon Drew Morgen and her Dirty Little Secrets
Neat Paul - and thanks.
Also I notice that you were apparently less than impressed with SDM, but where my comments, so far, on her "Dirty Little Secrets" also cropped up in this LI discussion...
http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Are-Salespeople-incompetent-because-Sales-1328087.S.75254442
...(panel 25 I think, about half way down). That may or may not be of interest, of course, but I personally think she is pointing the way (clumsily though) at Salvation Road for vast chunks of our old-school sales colleagues.
We struggled too with the technology and outdated Muppet imagery on our webinar, with her, which is nonetheless a free one-hour catch-up for those who want that, see The Marketer's Tale as part of The Canterbury Tales of Modern Selling, here...
http://www.modernselling.com/news-and-events/webinar-corner.aspx
Also features Sean on The Seller's Tale, of course, and is yet another example of blending online with offline. And yes, we are planning a lot more of those, big, bigger, biggest for the Webinar / Conference versions, and small, focused and interactive for the breakout Workshop / Seminar types.
"Search" is also good, using Google / Bing / Yahoo to get us to the main groups and people - which is why they now all point at "Social Media" (including business-social-media - like us), where active discussions easily outweigh even very-well-connected and keyword rich static brochures (Web 1.0).
Then feel free to search within those communities (here or on LinkedIn) and you can find the discussions and topics and problems and people that further interest or involve you and yours.
Posted by Neil Warren on
"The Sky Blues Biggest Crowd Of The Season"
Yes, I know that you guys were expecting that gag from me but I have got some "Cov Pride" you know!
Following the conference I've received a gazzilion emails from conference goers and they agree with the general comments you've all made.
In terms of Online/Twitter buzz, that could have been done a lot better but to be fair to ISMM I think their conference organisers went bust at the last moment so they had to draft in a new company at the last minute.
But to those uninitiated conference goers they're not going to know to use #sselling2011 or whatever the "rules" were.
Most were just quoting ISMM, successfulselling or indeed nothing related to the conference! I also received 13 direct messages on Twitter within 1 hour of my talk (go figure!)
I also had 6 people come up to me on the day and ask me what the pretty pattern was next to my profile image in the brochure (the QR Code)
Oh the joy!
What this tells me are three things:
* The UK market has got some way to go with regards to using LI,FB,Twitter, Online branding etc
* Those using it at the moment are "cashing in"
* We need to focus very heavily on ROI and opportunity cost in terms of cold calling prospecting - that's the next educational piece
Sean
Posted by Sean McPheat on
YouTube clip of Sean McPheat added
Found your clip on your eselling page Sean, and thought it made a nice rich-media, multi-media, re-purposed thought-leadership, modern, (e)selling update. (Breadcrumb number 83,279 or whatever it is)
And Happy (and prosperous) New Year all.
Posted by Neil Warren on
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