Why You Should Not Let Sales Work the Booth at Tradeshows!

Unless they are in sync with your event goals.  It is kind of hypocritcal that I write this post given my actions as both a direct sales contributor and sales leader working tradeshow exhibits.  I say these things in repent knowing that I was wrong in my actions and ask for forgiveness from my previous co-workers.  I used to manage a large sales team for a $120 million company in Seattle; we sold a large enterprise application with an average sales price of $125,000.  I had a total of 25 sales reps reporting to me from three regions and was one…

It’s budget time! Was your marketing budget cut?

 As a former sales leader and direct sales contributor, I have been on the receiving end of leads for many years.  Throughout I have seen firsthand the challenge marketing teams have in articulating their value to a CFO.  By value, I mean revenue production.  If your marketing budget was $4 million, what revenue impact did your company receive through this investment?  These are the types of questions that typically come up:   1)      How many deals did we land through the 40 tradeshows we attended? 2)      How much revenue was driven from our user’s conference?  3)      How many leads came…

Corporate Events – A sales person’s perspective on users’ conferences

As a recovering sales manager and active sales person, this story may resonate with those of you who produce internal corporate events as a means to increase sales to existing and prospective customers. Today, I still see corporate events being managed in a similar fashion with regards to data capture and hopefully this will get your mind flowing for 2010 planning. I used to manage a large sales team for a $120 million company in Seattle; we sold a large enterprise application with an average sales price of $125,000. Every year we would put on our Annual Users' Conference that…