The Roles Of The Sales Manager At Client Conferences

Customer conferences offer excellent opportunities to strengthen your contact with customers. As covered on any good sales management course, you can use them to find out how your customers use your products and services and what problems they have encountered. Customer conferences, which are normally held once or twice a year, can be used to reach sporadic customers and link them more closely to your company.

Include your sales team

Include your sales department in the planning of customer conferences. It will motivate your sales people if they are permitted to have a say. In the run-up to the conference inform them of the main objectives of holding the conference. Make a written note of what tasks need to be carried out and whom these are assigned to.

The welcome is important

Aim to have plenty staff to be there at the welcome reception and register the names of the participating customers. A welcome cocktail will round the reception off nicely. The whole of the sales department should be there - each customer will automatically search out the face of sales people they know. Introduce customers to other customers. It takes a great deal of diplomacy to decide on who should be introduced to whom. Make sure you mingle with all the customers do not spend too long talking to regulars or favourites.

The opening of the conference

You should wait approximately fifteen minutes before you make the official opening. Naturally, you should speak without the aid of notes. Customers do not need to be individually welcomed, unless they are important personalities from your branch or related associations.  

It is best to keep your opening speech to between five and seven minutes. Guests will stand during this and will only be seated for the subsequent speeches. The opening speech must include an announcement of the programme and the agenda for the day.

You are personally responsible for the selection of the different speakers.

A public relations exercise

Although, as sales manager you carry out the opening speech, this does not mean that you should be the center of attention. Leave the limelight to the expert speakers you have lined up. Your role should be to keep an eye on timing and audience involvement. Good organisation, as taught on any good management course is crucial.

You are in charge of the press reception

A customer conference is a good occasion to gain publicity in the specialist press. Editors will no doubt be interested in a write up of the conference and any interesting photographs, which accompany it (black/white).

Perhaps at the welcome ceremony you could consider arranging for a group photograph of all the attendees to be taken.
Look at publications in the specialist press, which cover other similar events. How is the competition looking? The length of contributions and presentation can give you ideas.  If you invited members of the press to the conference, meet them personally. The people from the press are just as vital as your customers.   

If you get any articles published you should send your customers a copy, including those who were not able to attend the conference.

The post-mortem

After the conference, do not plunge straight into the paperwork that is waiting to be completed. Firstly, sit down with the sales people who took part in the conference and carry out a post-mortem. Certain data will be needed in order for you to assess the conference. The best thing to do is to ask a couple of your sales people to take notes during the conference.

You will need to find out as soon as possible if the whole event has paid off for you, or whether it has turned out to be a costly failure. What went wrong? What corrections are to be made? When doing this, do not look for people to blame - instead look for solutions to the problems, which occurred. You also need to ensure that customer wishes are fulfilled, orders placed, visits planned and contacts intensified.

Approximately a week after the conference you should send out a letter or email thanking all those who took part both customers and staff members. This is just one element of being a successful sales manager. For other hints and tips or to develop your skills further, attend a good management course.


Return to management articles

Testimonials