An excellent opportunity to intensify your contact with customers is customer conferences. You can use them to find out how your customers are using your products and services and what problems have arisen. These are covered on any good sales management course. Usually held once or twice a year these can also used to reach occasional clients and link them more closely to your company.

Include your sales team

Include your sales department in the planning of client conferences. It will motivate your salespeople if they are allowed to have a say. In the run-up to the conference inform them of the main goals of holding the conference. Make a written note of what tasks need to be carried out and to whom you are assigning these.

The welcome is important

Plan to have sufficient staff to be there at the welcome reception and register the names of the participating clients. A welcome cocktail will round the reception off nicely. The entire sales department should be there – every client will automatically search out the face of salespeople they know. Introduce clients to other clients. Who should be introduced to whom naturally takes a great deal of tact. Do not spend too long talking to regular or favorite clients.

The opening of the conference

You can wait fifteen minutes. Then carry out the official opening. Naturally, you should speak without the aid of notes. Any important personalities from your branch or related associations should be welcomed and mentioned by name, but not all customers need to be individually mentioned.

It is advisable that the opening speech be kept to between five and seven minutes. Guests will stand throughout this and will only be seated for the subsequent speeches. The opening speech should include an announcement of the programme and the agenda for the day.

It is your personal task to select the different speakers.

A public relations exercise

Although you as the sales manager carry out the opening speech, this does not mean that you hog the limelight. Leave the limelight to the specialist speakers you have lined up. Your role is more of presenter – keeping an eye on timing and audience participation. Good organization is imperative as taught on any good management course.

You are in charge of the press reception

A client conference is a good event to gain publicity in the specialist press. Editors would no doubt be interested in a report of the conference and any interesting photographs, which accompany it (black/white).

Consider arranging for a group photograph of all the attendees taken. Perhaps at the welcome ceremony?

Take a look at publications in the specialist press covering other similar events. How is the competition looking? The presentation and length of contributions can give you ideas. If any members of the press attend at the conference, meet them personally. The people from the press are just as important as your clients.

You could send your clients a copy of any articles published, particularly including those who did not attend the conference.

The post-mortem

At the end of the conference do not plunge straight away into the paperwork that’s been waiting to be done. First of all, sit down with the salespeople who took part in the conference and carry out a post-mortem. You will need certain data in order to assess the conference. The best thing to do is to take notes during the conference.

On the one hand you need to ensure that client wishes are fulfilled, orders placed, visits planned and contacts intensified. On the other hand, you 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.

About a week after the conference a letter or email of thanks, to acknowledge all those who took part should be sent. 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.

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