Heavy Hitter Sales Blog

Top 10 Annual Sales Meeting Hotel Location Ideas

 

I have had the privilege of presenting the Heavy Hitter sales philosophy at more than two hundred national sales meetings and annual sales kickoffs.  Below, you will find my top 10 hotel locations to hold a sales conference. Be forewarned, this list is based upon my personal experience and I wanted to include properties you may not be familiar with from all across the country. Also, I did not want to focus on mega-hotel locations like Orlando and Las Vegas (you already know all the places there). Finally, my list is based upon reasonably priced hotels (even though some may sound expensive) and these hotels offer something  beyond the generic meeting place.

 

1. Château Elan (Atlanta, Georgia) – www.chateauelan.com  Incredible property, great facilities coupled with impeccable attention to detail at a reasonable price make the Cheateu Elan number one on my list.  Atlanta provides good year round weather and is easy to get to from anywhere in the US and even Europe.

 

2. Camelback Inn (Scottsdale, Arizona) - www.camelbackinn.com  A beautiful hotel in a fabulous Southwestern mountain setting make the Camelback Inn one of the best locations for a sales meeting.   

 

3. La Costa Resort (Carlsbad, California) – www.lacosta.com   North of San Diego, the La Costa Resort is a great place for a meeting any time of year. If your meeting will also include your business partners and channel resellers, this is the perfect place.

 

4. Claremont Resort (Berkeley, California) –  www.claremontresort.com  Just twelve miles from San Francisco, the Claremont Resort is a wonderful Silicon Valley location for small and mid-size meetings.

 

5. Amelia Island Plantation (Amelia Island, Florida) – www.aipfl.com  A very different Florida meeting location (better priced in the off-peak season).

 

6. Rancho Los Palmas (Rancho Mirage, California) - www.rancholaspalmas.com While Palm Springs may require an extra airplane connection to get to, the Rancho Los Palmas is worth the extra effort. Highly recommended activities: rent out the Palm Springs air museum for a nighttime event and “Field of Dreams” softball park for team building event.

 

7.  SeaView Marriot (Atlantic City , NJ) www.seaviewmarriott.com  A great place for a meeting in the Northeast US that you probably have never heard of.

 

8. Marco Island Marriott (Marco Island, Florida) www.marcoislandmarriott.com  Marco Island is interesting alternative to the standard meeting in Orlando.

 

9. Long Beach Hilton and Executive Meeting Center (Long Beach, California) - www.hilton.com Good meeting facilities and a great location that provides some excellent evening event possibilities-- group dinner at the Aquarium of the Pacific or on the Queen Mary.

 

10. Embassy Suites (Burlingame, California) – www.embassysuites.com I know you are probably surprised to see an Embassy Suites on this list, but this is a great place to have a meeting in Silicon Valley for up to 500 people. It’s only 5 minutes from San Francisco International Airport and situated right on the bay.

 

Here are some Honorable Mentions:

Westin - Indianapolis, Indiana

Hyatt Regency - Newport Beach, California

Hartford Marriott Downtown – Hartford, Connecticut

Carmel Valley Ranch – Carmel, California

Biltmore Hotel – Phoenix, Arizona

Pinehurst Resort – Pinehurst, North Carolina

 

Other Articles That May Interest You:

 

How to Choose a Sales Kickoff Theme
What Salespeople Want From Meetings
Five Annual Sales Meeting Ideas for the Best Sales Conference
How to Structure the Sales Kickoff Meeting Agenda
Top Five Sales Kickoff Meeting Mistakes
How to Select a Sales Kickoff Keynote Speaker
Special Presidents Club Meeting Program

 

What are the Top 5 Sales Blogs?

What are the Top 5 Sales Blogs to Boost Your Sales Skills? Here’s the list according to Construction Management along with their overview comments:

1. Heavy Hitter Sales Blog - If you’re sick of your sales strategy bunting when it should be hitting home runs, this blog will supercharge your sales game, all while offering practical sales advice for these tough economic times.
2. Garth’s World - Utilizing more humor than most sites, Garth’s world nests all of its advice in blog form, with funny narratives that culminate in practical suggestions.
3. Anthony Cole’s Sales Java Blog - Nearly overflowing with advice, this site offers a number of sales methods broken up by sales type and sales chronology, and also offers tips on how being unique is the best thing you can do in sales.
4. Jonathan Farrington’s Blog - While many sites emphasize the importance of Twitter to sales, few have in-depth articles on how to more influentially tweet, as well as other quirky tips, such as pitching your idea to a bigwig…in the elevator.
5. Alen Majer’s Blog - This site offers tips for presentations, selling your personality, and even the history of American sales culture.

Click here to see their entire top 100 sales blog list.

Why Are You In Sales? The Surprising Truth

When people in other careers ask salespeople why they are in sales, the most frequent answer is “money.” This is the pat answer salespeople give to outsiders who have never experienced the rush of closing a deal or the satisfaction of building a trusted friendship with a customer.

 

Providing the answer “money” is similar to the way mountain climbers answer “because it’s there” when asked why they climb mountains. The questioners can’t comprehend why someone would intentionally endure such physical and mental exhaustion and take such huge risks. They themselves don’t possess the inward drive to reach the pinnacle or the self-confidence to attempt the impossible.

 

The real answer to the question of why salespeople are in sales is deeper and far more complex. It was best explained by French aristocrat and historian Alexis de Tocqueville when he wrote about the American colonies’ desire to be free from England. “The revolution of the United States was the result of a mature reflecting preference for freedom, not a vague or ill-defined craving for independence,” he concluded. The colonials weren’t as interested in the independence of the colonies as they were in the freedom of the individual. The writers of the Declaration of Independence considered freedom a natural law of nature. Every July 4^th here in the United States we pause to celebrate the most magnificent experiment of freedom in the history of mankind.

 

TIP: The reality is that you are not in sales solely for money. You work in sales not because you have to, but because you have to be free. And this fundamental drive is at the core of the human spirit.

 

Other Articles That Might Interest You:

 

How Ronald Reagan Would Change Your Corporate Presentation

What if General George Patton Was Your VP of Sales?

Handling Tough Questions with Congressman Calvert

Neurolinguistics Sales Lesson: Auditor Obama versus Kinesthetic McCain

Recession Sales Management: Reassign Accounts

In eleventh century England, King William was making preparations to go hunting in the forest. As he was getting ready with his attendants, six exquisitely crafted arrows were presented to him. After praising their craftsmanship, he kept four for himself and handed two to the knight of Poix. “It is only right,” he said, “that the sharpest should be given to the man who knows how to shoot the deadliest shots.”

 

Usually, it is a very difficult judgment call for a manager to reassign an important account from one salesperson to another. Whether the change is initiated by the manager or requested by another salesperson, there are times and circumstances where it must be done for the greater good of the company.

 

Today’s economic recession dictates that the best accounts (those with the ability to generate the most revenue) be assigned to the best salespeople (those with the greatest aptitude to maximize and close the deal). When faced with this circumstance, all parties involved must act with gracious magnanimity, rising above pettiness and overlooking insult.

 

Of course, sales is an “every man for himself” profession, and I respect salespeople who fight for what they believe in deserve respect. However, at times in order for the team to survive as a whole, everyone in the lifeboat has to row in the same direction. Because the sharpest shooter will make the biggest kill, there will be more than enough for everyone to feast upon later. 

 

Related Articles:

 

The Best Recession Sales Strategy

Why Does My Sales Manager Dislike Me? The Seven Different Sales Management Styles

What if General George Patton Was Your VP of Sales?

Selling in a Recession: Avoid the Cesspool

Selling in a Reccsion is different. Just because you won the selection process doesn't mean you have won the deal. At this point you are only half way home because there is an another equally challenging sales process ahead, actually getting the purchase order or contract signed!!! READ BRIAN'S STORY BELOW …”                  

    

Brian was presenting his forecast in front of his teammates and was explaining why a deal that he had originally forecasted to close in the quarter came in three months later. Here’s his story.

    

Brian was excited that the account he had worked on for months had selected his software solution. After several weeks of ensuing price negotiations, a $300,000 purchase order was submitted into the customer’s capital expenditure software system (referred to by the customer internally as the “CES system”). Since several weeks were left in the quarter, Brian expected that he would receive the purchase order well before the quarter’s cutoff.

    

In Brian’s mind the deal was done. The purchase order would be printed and signed and he forecasted the deal accordingly. However, Brian was quite surprised to learn that the rules-based CES system required that a purchase of that magnitude be approved by twenty-one different people. The purchase order had entered the cesspool of order approval.

   

Because of this elaborate sign off procedure, it would take another three months before all twenty-one signatures were gathered. In the meantime, Brian embarrassingly had to explain to his manager why a deal he had positively guaranteed would close wouldn’t.

   

His assumption about the purchase order turnaround time was dead wrong. If only he’d had the foresight to ask about the details of the procurement process before he committed the deal on his forecast. During a recession you should expect every purchase approval to take three to four times longer than normal. Because every organization exercises another excrutiating level of dilligence to ascertain whether or not the purchase is absolutley necessary.

Tip: During a Recession you must always ascertain the customer’s procurement process with the same diligence you devote to understanding the customer’s selection process

Selling in a Recession: You Must Have a Spy (or Coach) to Win!

In order to win any deal, you need proprietary information about the internal machinations (biases, conspiracies, and secret schemes) of the customer’s decision making process that only a spy can provide. Without a spy, you never know how well you are positioned in an account or what the enemy’s next move will be, and you are susceptible to surprises throughout the sales cycle.  However, during a recession having a spy becomes even more essential because the most formidable competitor today is “No Decision.” It is only through spies that you can truly learn if there is really business to be won in the first place.

The sales vernacular has many different terms for spies. They are also known as coaches, internal advocates, champions, and counselors. All of these advisors share a common characteristic. They have a selfish reason for wanting you or your company to win. This reason may range from the simple fact that they like you to the complicated nature of internal politics, where your solution helps them gain power, prestige, or authority.

 

Our spy acts as our eyes and ears when we are not around. Who is passing along secrets about what the other vendors are up to and telling us about the preferences of the various selection committee members? Who is telling us privileged and proprietary information that the other vendors aren’t receiving? Most importantly, is there really the money available to make the purchase? 

 

Accurate information is the lifeblood of every deal, and the only way to get true information is through the use of a spy. Obviously, the more spies you have inside an account, the better the quality and quantity of information you will receive. The information received from these spies can be used to triangulate your position in an account and help determine your course of action.

 

Triangulation is a technique of comparing multiple data points to determine your true position. Determining your position in an account based upon information from multiple sources is quite the opposite of dead reckoning, where you only have one source of information in an account. Being at the mercy of a single person is a risky position to be in. What if your spy is wrong?

 

Spies can either be weak and strong. Weak spies are observers who provide you information about the internal machinations of the selection process. They report the thoughts of the various selection team members and the movements of other vendors. Strong spies are not only observers, but they are disseminators of information as well. Strong spies have a deeper, more personal connection to you than weak spies do. They’re more akin to confidants than acquaintances. In fact, they are trusted friends who will courageously defend you and your solution when you are not around to do so yourself.

 

One of the most important aspects of spying is that it enables salespeople to truly understand the nature of an organization and who has the real power. Vested interests in a project go far beyond the names and titles on an organization chart. You must have a spy to win a deal. Without one, you never know the true nature of the organization. And, you cannot answer the most important recession time question you must continually ask yourself, “Is there really business here to be won?”

 

Other Articles That Might Interest You:

The Reality of Selling Today: The Best Recession Sales Strategy

 

 

Shocking Presidential Campaign News Video

Rich Heimsch, CEO of Protean Marketing, sent me this shocking news video. I can say with absolute certainty that it is not true!!!

Five Annual Sales Meeting Ideas for the Best Sales Conference

Over the next few weeks, thousands of companies will begin planning their annual sales meeting. Most assuredly, there will be lots of sleepless nights for the people who have to choose the location, facilities, and make sure all the details are in place to ensure the sales kickoff is a success. Having keynoted over a hundred annual sales meetings of companies ranging in size from start-ups to multi-billion dollar giants, here are five ideas to help ensure your sales meeting is a success.

 

1. Salesperson Success Stories 

Most sales meetings don’t include one of the most important topics—salesperson success stories about how they won their key accounts. These stories are very important because they provide models of successful salesperson behavior that can be emulated by the rest of the team. There’s two ways to present salesperson success stories. First, you can have the salespeople present the story themselves via PowerPoint.  However, one of the hardest things for any salesperson to do is to present to colleagues. As a result, these types of presentations usually miss the mark in explaining the intricacy of the sales strategy and account management skills that were actually responsible for winning the deal. They end up being a high level chronological review of the deal as opposed to a real examination of account strategy.

 

Rather, I would recommend that you have your top salespeople be interviewed in a talk show program format by a moderator who has an extensive sales background. I have found these types of panels are the most effective way to relay both the tangible and intangible aspects of winning to the rest of the team.

 

2. Team Building

The goal of every team building event is to build "esprit de corps" or team morale. Unfortunately, some well intended team building events actually have the exact opposite effect. For example, one meeting I participated in required everyone to wear ridiculous costumes as part of the “mandatory” team building event.  Believe me, this group which consisted  of very senior salespeople were not excited in the least.

 

Conversely, one of the best team building events I have seen was based upon the TV show Survivor. At the beginning of the meeting, each attendee received a different colored bandana that signified which “tribe” they belonged to. Throughout the meeting after each presentation, random tribal representatives were brought up to answer questions about the previous presentation in attempt to win points.  Prizes (cash and gift cards) were given out to the members of the top two teams.  Consequently, everyone in the room paid very close attention to each  presentation and took copious notes.  The competition (and camaraderie) was fierce!

 

3. Competitive Analysis

Many competitive analysis presentations given at sales meetings are too theoretical. They simply do not provide practical real-world strategies and tactics to defeat arch-rivals. Quite often, the marketing group that creates this session has never “sold.” As a result, their analysis is too simplistic or too generic to provide the silver bullets the salespeople need to vanquish their enemies. Other times, it is at the opposite end of the spectrum and far too complex to be implemented.

 

In addition, these presentations are built on the assumption that the customer is a logical, rational decision maker.  In reality, the decision to buy any given product is a complex decision made by groups of people who have vastly different needs, personalities, and political aspirations.  For all of these reasons, I strongly recommend that you conduct a true win-loss analysis where actual customer decision makers (from wins and losses) are interviewed before the meeting.  The presentation of the study results is the best way to understand the decision making process of your customers. Better yet, it provides a true snapshot of the competition’s strengths and weaknesses according to the person who matters most—the prospective customer.

 

4. Product Training 

Here’s two facts that might surprise you. The average person truly hears only 7 minutes of every hour they spend listening and within 72 hours they forget 95% of what they’ve heard.  Given this information, you should think twice before planning a long, exhaustive product training session. A better strategy is to “chunk” it. That is, break the session into chunks of time no longer than sixty minutes.  Also, break up heavy technical chunks with lighter topics, completely different subject matter, or audience participation activities. This way, the attendees will remain mentally fresh and have higher retention.

 

5. Sales Skills Development  

The audience of the majority of the sales meetings I present at is composed of senior salespeople. Since they have been in the field five, ten or twenty years, they obviously know how to sell. Therefore, the assumption is that there wouldn’t be any need for sales skills development sessions. Nothing could be further from the truth. Heavy Hitters (truly great salespeople) are always on a quest to improve their game. However, they don’t want to hear Sales 101 advice. Rather, I have found that they are extremely interested in learning how to improve their persuasiveness and understanding the most difficult part of sales—people! Therefore, provide sales workshops on topics like advanced sales psychology, customer communication, and sales intuition development to manage the complex sale process.

 

Here’s some more articles that might interest you...

 

Five Annual Sales Meeting Ideas for the Best Sales Conference

How to Choose a Sales Kickoff Theme

Sales Kickoff Agenda: The Most Important Sales Meeting Agenda of the Year

Top Five Sales Kickoff Mistakes

How to Select a Sales Kickoff Keynote Speaker

 

 

Neurolinguistic Sales Lesson: Auditory Obama Versus Kinesthetic McCain

Whether you’re a Senator running for President or a salesperson trying to winover a customer, your most important competitive weapon is your mouth. The words you speak enable you to persuade people to follow your lead, turn skeptics into believers, and defeat your arch-rival. Therefore, it makes sense that you should study language and understand neurolinguistics (the study of how the mind uses and interprets language) to become a more persuasive communicator yourself.

   

Through language, we represent our thoughts and experiences. We use words to represent the sensory experiences of sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste. The mind describes and interprets experiences based upon one of three neurolinguistic word catalogs—visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. “Visual” refers to pictures and imagery, “auditory” to sounds, and “kinesthetic” refers to touch, taste, smell, and internal feelings.

   

The words of Barak Obama and John McCain originate from two minds which are “wired” quite differently. Gary Hart, the former senator from Colorado and long-time friend of McCain offered this perspective of him, “I think his mind is visceral. Driven less by thought and more by feelings. This doesn’t mean he’s totally reactive or without logic or thought processes; it just means he’s a fighter pilot. He reacts to circumstances.”

   

Meanwhile, Fast Company columnist Ruth Sherman made these comments about the masterful way Obama’s mind communicates, “Because of his oratorical prowess, supporters believe in his ability to do the job. Obama’s speech also has an excellent rhythm, the pauses and cadences that allow his audiences to absorb his meaning and participate with echoes, answers and chants.”

   

From a Neurolinguistic standpoint, Hart’s and Sherman’s comments confirm what I have learned about McCain and Obama from the many speeches, interviews, and debates I have analyzed. McCain’s primary word catalog is Kinesthetic. He receives, interprets, and transmits language from the sense of the body.  Meanwhile Obama has extremely strong Kinesthetic and Auditory word catalogs. He processes language not only with a sense of feeling but also primarily in terms of sounds.Why is this important in sales?

   

Most people use one word catalog more frequently than the others. This word catalog has become their default, or “primary,” mode of communication. You can identify people’s primary word catalog by listening to the adjectives, adverbs, and nouns they use in conversation. Kinesthetics like to use words that represent the body such as “feel,” “grab,” “hard,” “heavy,” “sense,” “smell,” “smile,” “smooth,” “touch,” and “weigh.” Auditories use words associated with sounds like “ask,” “assert,” “banter,” “berate,” “call,” “denounce,” “discuss,” “ “promise,” “shout,” “speak,” and “tell.” Finally, Visuals words represent sight such as “bleak,” “bright,” “clear,” “cloudy,” “disappear,” “glance,” “glare,” “illuminate,” “look,” and “watch.” 

   

Customers whose primary word catalog is based on sight will describe their experiences in visual terms. They are likely to say, “I see what you mean,” “Looks good to me,” or “Show me how it works.” Customers with a primary word catalog based on sound will say, “Sounds great,” “Talk to you later,” or “Tell me how it works.” People with a primary word catalog based on feelings might say, “Feels right to me,” “We’ll touch base later,” or “I can’t get a handle on how it works.”

   

The most important goal of every salesperson is to create a friendship with a complete stranger. Obviously, language is at the foundation of establishing rapport. Therefore, it is imperative you understand your own primary word catalog and whether not you process language visually, auditorially or kinesthetically.  Equally important, you must be able to identify the primary word catalog of the person to whom you are speaking.

   

You can think of rapport can be thought of as “harmonious communication.” If you are a Visual talking to a Kinesthetic, speak in terms of feelings. If you are Kinesthetic talking to a Visual, speak in terms of pictures; this will naturally help you build rapport. If you are talking with people who are wired exactly as you are, these are people you naturally communicate with and are the easiest for you to sell to.  However, it takes skill and effort to communicate with someone who is wired opposite of you. 

   

Remember, you ultimately want to become a communication chameleon who can persuade even the most ardent skeptic to believe in you.  And, it will be interesting to see whether our next President will be an Auditory or a Kinesthetic.

   

Intrigued? To learn more about Neurolinguistcs I would recommend reading Heavy Hitter Selling: How Successful Salespeople Use Language and Intuition to Buy. Recommended by the Harvard Business School, it’s a very different book about using language to build customer rapport. More articles can also be found here.

Unhappy Customers: What to do When an Account Goes South

I have flown millions of miles on American Airlines over the course of my career. I am a loyal customer of theirs. However, this past week American Airlines cancelled thousands of flights which infuriated many loyal customers like me.  If you are in sales there’s no doubt you’ve faced your share of angry customers before. I received this e-mail from American Airlines and it provides valuable lessons for dealing with unhappy accounts. 

1. Be proactive in contacting the customer because bad news should always be told ASAP.

2. Apologize.

3. Explain what happened and why.

4.Tell them how you will get better and avoid the problem from happening again.

To: Steve Martin

Subject: An Apology from American Airlines

Dear Steve Martin,

As one of our most valued customers, please accept my apology on behalf of American Airlines^® to you, your family and your fellow AAdvantage^® customers for disrupting so many peoples' lives with the recent flight cancellations related to the inspection of our MD-80 aircraft fleet.

As you can imagine, American's decision to cancel thousands of flights this week was difficult, and it undoubtedly created concern among our best customers – even those who had no travel plans during the period.

If in your travels you were among the many who have been personally affected, I sincerely regret the inconvenience you have experienced. Our employees will continue to work around the clock to accommodate all who still need to reach their desired destinations. We anticipate returning to a full schedule by Monday.

While the media reports have documented the reasons why American took this action and the steps we're taking to re-accommodate and compensate affected customers, I've also attached an explanation of the events for your understanding. It's a bit complex, but at the end of it all, please know this:

First, your safety and the safety of our employees remains our number one priority.

Second, we will learn from this experience, and we will get better.

Finally, we wholeheartedly appreciate your loyalty to American Airlines, and we remain committed to earning your business each and every day.

Respectfully,

Dan Garton
Executive Vice President
Marketing

P.S. You may have already contacted us via AA.com^® or by writing directly to Customer Relations. Let me reassure you that we will respond directly to your contact just as quickly as practical.