Testimonials
Entertainment Book
Gillian was our main keynote speaker at the 2009 Entertainment Book national sales conference attended by more than 100 staff from across Australia and New Zealand.
Her message was motivational and encouraging and helped our people reevaluate their own contributions to the business, creating ownership and accountability. Gillian gave everyone practical tools and added new thought patterns for people to consider.
She definately made our staff look differently at how they work and how they perform, and made everyone feel that they were capable of performing at a higher level.
Heidi Halson, General Manager, Entertainment Book
What Makes A Great Conference?
Heidi Halson Talks To Altitude On What Made Their Conference Such a Standout!
- How many days did the conference run for?
Although we conduct various meetings and training seminars throughout the year, this is our most extensive sales training, lasting an entire week.
- In your view what makes a great conference and what would be your top three tips in planning for a great conference?
For us, a great conference is when everyone has the confidence they need for a successful sales season, and they also are highly motivated about their role and the company. When putting the next conference together I will be thinking about...
1. Don't settle for what I did last year as 'good enough'. Use everyone's feedback and implement as many ideas as you can to make the experience even better.
2. Along with your senior people, work through and give thought to every detail. Whether it is the flight itenaries, what menus to choose, or what 'hot button' works in that role play, I try to work through every detail and prepare so that the conference could run even if I wasn't there.
3. Make the experience fun for everyone. People learn and remember better in a play environment.
- What do you think worked particularly well at the Entertainment Book Conference?
Being a young, social group we need to provide a structure to the meeting that allows for the important team building aspects of bringing everyone together, and also encourages them to come each day ready to participate. The location of the Crowne Plaza Terrigal really helps us achieve a lot of what we're trying to do. It is remote, yet there are good facilities. The weather and beachfront location are ideal for the morning and afternoon activities. There aren't really any distractions, so everyone can stay focused.
Having conducted these conferences for the last 15 years, we’ve worked out a formula and structure that works really well.
1. You need a good ice breaker to kick things off with a bang. This gets everyone's attention and helps them relax.
2. Guest speakers are an excellent addition. Having an independent sales/motivational speaker at the start, gives you a platform to refer back to throughout the conference. The staff feel 'invested in' and value that they've recieved professional training.
3. Morning exercise at 7:00am makes sure everyone has a clear head for the day ahead and also is a fun team building activity.
4. The conferencing part of the day only goes from 8:30 to 3:30. Any later in the day, people tend to lose focus and energy.
5. With a variety of different topics being covered, each topic is introduced by a senior manager. These introductions are brief but illustrate the concept in an interesting way. Then we break into work groups of five people and the topic is thoroughly work shopped, each work group led by senior staff. Lastly then the topic is illustrated in a role play environment, usually in groups of three, two playing characters in the role play and one as an observer. When everyone is back from their role play, we do a quick debrief, and then we're on to the next topic.
6. From 3:30 to 5:30 each afternoon the group is broken down into city teams for a team building activity. They wear a team colored tshirt and they are conducted outside (weather permitting) giving people a break from the intensity of a full day conferencing.
- What was the idea behind a them and what role did the senior management play?
We have done a number of different themes over the years... 2006 was Entertainment University, 2007 was a Bond theme, 2008 was an Olympic theme, and this year we had fun with the game of Monopoly. Having a theme to the conference achieves a number of things:
1. It communicates your overall message in a fun and engaging way that the teams can then take back to their branch office and carry on through their sales season.
2. Every year people look forward to the surprise element of what the theme will be, and they often are impressed by the level of detail the theme is taken to. This makes the conference memorable, which means hopefully it helps them remember what they've learned.
3. Having a fun theme helps people relax and learn. Using the fun context helps people who are worried (about having to role play in particular) to replace the worry with a smile.
Having 'money' is an important part of the conference. On the final night, a number of valuable prizes (holidays, gift certificates, magazine subscriptions) are drawn from a barrell. Everyone signs the back of their money and puts it into the barrell for a lucky dip. These prizes are talked about right from the start of the meeting so everyone knows what they stand to win as they accrue more money, making it an excellent tool to encourage participation. Everyone starts the meeting with say, 10 dollars and accrue more by answering questions correctly, presenting a good role play, etc. The money is also used to fine those who aren't as focused on the meeting as they should be... being late for a session, having their mobile phone ring during the meeting, hasn't turned in their daily evaluation form from the previous day, staying out past the agreed curfew, etc. This is all done in a fun way using the theme.
Ben and I are both very involved in the content and delivery of the materials during the conference. People value hearing things from Ben in particular (CEO), and it is his chance to make sure eveyone has a quality training message.
- Thinking specifically about impacting team performance, what particular inclusions and events held through out the conference do you believe had the greatest impact?
THe Altitude High Performance session had a huge impact on the entire group. People are still talking about their work intensity levels and the results we are seeing this season are proof that they are taking more ownership of their deadlines and results. There are three cities in particular who have had a complete turn around and are leading the others in terms of the deadlines this season. They are focused on the process and getting the results.
Secondly, role playing playing various situations is the fastest way to give people the confidence they need to perform at a higher level. We do a lot of role playing during this meeting and by the end, even the newest staff have more confidence in presenting, phone prospecting and objection handling.
The afternoon activities are an amazing way to explore the team dynamic and observe leadership skills. The teams are given a task of some sort, each team with identical materials. For example, they might be asked to build a boat, cook a meal, prepare one of their team for a fashion show, etc., in line with the theme for that year. They are given an hour to prepare and then must present their results in a 5 minute presentation.
Heidi Halson, General Manager, Entertainment Book
