Sales Meeting Speed Dating
One of my prospects enjoyed an annual sales kick-off in Thailand last week. All right for some. Determined not to be the usual powerpoint poisoned session, one of the four global sales managers took the reins and asked if he could run one of the slots. He announced to the CEO it would be called ‘speed dating’. The boss immediately complained about the name.
Undeterred, a plan was constructed. The idea was for all the sales and product guys to fill-in slots on a big calendar, and for everyone to have a ‘speed date’ in each slot.
The ‘date’ would then involve the two people talking about a pre-arranged topic to each other. Conversations were primarily to include either:
- discussing how to pitch/sell a particular product, or
- where two people contacted the same organisation but continents apart, knowing what was going on inside each
When the session finished, the conference was by all accounts buzzing. And the Chief Exec even modified his view, saying what fun it was ‘to see men on dates’. A cracking idea for sales meetings all over.