Sales Kick-off Most Memorable Moments...

I thought I’d follow up on Guys SKO note with a few sales kickoff most memorable moments… January marks the beginning of a new year and chance for those product marketing guys to get in front of sales and pitch the new roadmaps, demos, product direction, solutions, case studies and best practices to energize and get the sales teams jazzed about the upcoming year. Sometimes these events can be a bit of a boondoggle/pep rally, but hopefully there’s always some learning to take away and some energy generated to get the promise of BI out in front of customers in the upcoming year. That being said, whenever you get a bunch of marketing and sales guys together some crazy things always seem to happen. Looking back over the years, there has certainly been some interesting moments and I’ve been fortunate to be a part of three different BI organizations so I thought I’d list a few of the memorable ones:
1. XI is announced – Crystal and Business Objects come together
2. The C-suite and VPs of Business Objects do a super hero skit
3. “And now for something completely different” - Monty Pythons own John Cleese keynotes
4. Sinbad hosts the evening reception at the Bellagio in Vegas
5. Crystal unveils the “Beat the BO Campaign” with VP of sales Bill Gibson boxing with a big blue guy on stage, six months later they are acquired by BO
6. Checking out the penguins in the world’s largest aquarium in Atlanta
7. EPM and EIM are like Oreo cookies!
8. The marketing team takes out a hotel chandelier with a t-shirt launcher while rehearsing their segment
Cheers to the new year in BI and the memorable moments to come!

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...