Getting a Leg Up at your Sales Kickoff

By Garth Moulton, Jigsaw

Happy New Year, everyone! I thought I would buck the trend of all the other “business” blogs out there and wait a couple weeks into the year to post. That is about how long the average person needs to renege on a bunch of hair brained resolutions, or in my case finish reading all the end-of-year pop culture magazine compilations of the Best and Worst (I’m addicted). Remember the last end-of-decade/millennium time? I was actually rooting for the Y2K bug (a now hysterical prediction of the complete meltdown of the world’s computer systems due to a collective over site by early computer nerds to realize that there would be a need to use more than 2 digits to indicate the year after 2000) so I could hit “reset” and slack off around the planet for a year or so. That ultimately happened in 2001, but I digress…

Image by designwallah via Flickr

It’s company sales meeting time! I originally wrote about these corporate masquerade balls a couple of years ago, but that was more of a general comment to sales leadership that they should only hope to accomplish the delivery of a somewhat reasonable sales compensation plan during the few days they spend in the cramped meeting room of a chain hotel in Scottsdale, Orlando, San Jose- or whatever tier 2, semi warm city. Now that the economy has gone to hell in a hand basket (love that expression, although there is no clear visual), the nature of these meetings has changed quite a bit, and I thought maybe I could give some pointers to sales guys for navigating the murky waters of the 2010 annual sales meeting.

First off, if your company is having a sales meeting offsite, congratulations. Most companies are gathering the cast of Survivor-like shambles of their national team at the company headquarters, which is home turf for the even more ragged executive team. Keep this fact in mind at all times while you read the following tips:

Scale down the party. Even if you are the one person with a heart beat that got everyone pumping on the dance floor in past meetings, the general mood is going to be way more somber. This is not the year to brag about how you carried back that great bag of weed on the airplane even though the guy behind you had to go through the new x-ray strip search.

Image by emdot via Flickr
Let the VP pay. Normally it’s a badge of honor to be the sales guys that publicly blows the most money, even if you end up having to hide (or as a last resort, personally eat) some of the more outlandish expenses. Just for these couple days, eat the rubber food, stick to wine and beer, pass on the Glitter Factory, and don’t show up in the tricked out Hummer.

Research the New People. Since a lot of execs and salespeople got let go last year and weren’t replaced, each new face is important. Assume that they were hired because they were very different from the former person in that role, and probably have the survival instincts of a Dust Bowl mongoose. Make sure you are the one doing the sidelong scrutiny.

Reconfirm your Alliances. Every sales guy should have a “friend” in the executive ranks that slips you privileged company info, informally roots for you with the CEO, will be your eventual reference when you get drummed out of this company for HR violations, etc. This person has survived a brutal year and may have morphed into a completely different life form since then, altering his or her relationship to you. Be sure and corner this person alone to check for reptile scales, lobotomy scars, new facial tics or anything that signals that this person is no longer in your camp.

Be aggressive on the Comp Plan. Just like that cheesey (and probably false) idea that the Chinese character for crisis also means opportunity, now is the time to take risks that could pay off in a huge way in December. Take a lower salary with more upside. Go for a turf grab. Try to make nuanced changes in credit for specific products. That VP or Sales Opps flunky that is presenting your plan is looking for someone to help him off the Executive Hot Seat. Look like that person.

That’s all I got for now. Pick up the phone and make some money!