A long 2-day meeting? Between these two somewhat caricatural extremes, you probably want your company seminars to be a productive moment that makes a positive contribution to the life of the team, and helps create bonds between its members. This event always represents a major investment for your company, so it's important to use it wisely!
To help you achieve this goal, here are a few easy-to-apply tips to get you off to a good start in maintaining your sales performance (An infographic to summarize, followed by an article to go a little further).
Nous reprendrons, au long de cet article, les différents points résumés dans cette infographie réalisée par Kestio
1. Define a clear and unique objective for your corporate seminar
Before jumping headlong into the logistical organization of your corporate seminar and the production of presentation materials, take the time to think things through and to clearly define the objective Is it to communicate new strategic directions? To enable team members to get to know each other and work better together? Undertake an ambitious shift in the definition of your service offering? Update your staff's skills to establish commercial excellence?
Take the time to ask yourself these few key questions before designing the seminar content: who do you want to address? What main message do you want to get across (in one sentence)? What is the ideal outcome of the seminar?
2. Encourage active team participation
The annual company seminar is a symbolically powerful moment in the life of a team, and a unique opportunity to bring together all its members and collectively discuss key issues for the company. Nothing is more damaging to the group's dynamic than to run it like a lecture, with managers taking the floor and employees taking notes without participating, expressing their opinions or communicating their ideas. More than ever, you need to take care of your communication, and your sales management needs to think "collaboratively"!
Provide clear, visually appealing presentation materials and concise texts. Prepare your speech if necessary to ensure that it is dynamic and appeals to the audience. Last but not least, encourage participative formats (workshops, quizzes ....).
3. Give meaning to the proposed activities and setting
Seminars are usually an opportunity to offer team members a moment out of the ordinary, to get to know each other, to relax and create shared "good memories". You can also approach these more informal moments of relaxation as an additional opportunity to convey a strong message in line with the main objective of your seminar : as Victor Hugo said, "form is substance that rises to the surface"! Be aware of the subconscious impact of the chosen venue and the activities on offer.
Choose a venue that reflects the spirit you wish to convey (friendly, intimate, studious, original...). Opt for an activity in line with the objective of the seminar (improv theater for the ability to bounce back, escape game for collective intelligence...).
4. Put into practice the ideas generated during your corporate seminar
The company seminar is often a fairly intense time for exchanging ideas and generating ideas and actions to redefine your sales strategy. It would be a real shame if the energy and proposals born of this moment shared as a team were to be forgotten when you return to everyday life, and remain dead letters! Formalize the fruit of these exchanges, preferably in collaborative mode and on shared media... And above all, translate the proposals validated with the team into concrete actions. If the ideas discussed have no concrete impact on the reality back at the office, teams will not maintain their commitment.
Keep a record of the ideas and proposals generated during discussions, roundtables and workshops. Make sure they are accessible and known to everyone afterwards. Make sure that decisions taken are translated into tangible action as quickly as possible.
5. Propose a shared vision and new perspectives
For teams to be truly committed, during the seminar and in the months that follow, it is essential that the content is based on a solid "foundation" and a shared vision: the company's value proposition, strategic vision, customer commitment, corporate culture and identity.... These elements must be familiar to the team, and make sense to everyone in order to generate collective momentum. You can also take advantage of the seminar to call on outside speakers (lecturers, trainers, etc.) offering an original approach to developing new skills internally.
Work on the founding elements of your corporate identity and the discourse that accompanies them, in "storytelling" mode, to give them depth and encourage their appropriation. Involve external speakers to create new perspectives!
To find out more, download the white paper SALES SEMINAR :
KESTIO is a company specializing in services and solutions to improve Customer Performance. For over 10 years, we have been helping companies to secure and sustainably increase their revenues, by acting on all the levers that enable them to acquire and retain customers.
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