Sales Kick-off Fever, Catch It!

Well as the calendar turns, the performance vendors turn their attention to motivating and inspiring their sales forces to go out and conquer the world, or at least make their number for the next few quarters.

Microsoft kicked off things this week in Seattle with a gathering of their rapidly expanding BI sales and marketing teams, and Business Objects follows-up next week for their fond farewell as they kick-off 2008 one last time in Las Vegas. Cognos follows-on next month for their swan song as well.

Sales kick-offs are a strange type of event. For the marketing folks, it's a lot of work, as presentations, video's skits, and the logistics of running a top quality event for hundreds, or even thousands of people occupy most of the 3rd and certainly the 4th quarters of the year. Many a Christmas break has been spent on presentation revisions and early drafts of witty videos and management skits. Anyone who has been associated with Business Objects, for instance, knows that the executive management skit planning starts in the summer, and it's almost impossible to find an exec in the evenings leading up to the big sales dinner where the skit takes place, so elaborate is the production.

However, for the sales people, it's often just a chance to let loose in a fun city away from the family and get into random mischief to all hours of the morning before stumbling into the next morning's keynotes.

And by the end of the meeting, no one can remember any of the slides and assumes they'll be posted on the intranet, and everyone can't wait to crawl back home and never see each other again--at least for another year--

Good times, good times...