How to Nail a Global Sales Event
…or how I entertained over 600 sales reps in Las Vegas without casino games or cocktails.
Since joining Meraki two years ago, I’ve had the opportunity to work on more types of events than most: trade shows, conferences, roadshows, executive summits, product launches, town halls, sales incentive programs, corporate culture events, and my personal favorite, sales kickoffs.
SALES KICKOFFS
Meraki hosts a bi-annual Sales Kickoff (known as “SKO”) to help train, educate, and inspire the people who drive the business, the global Meraki sales force. During SKO the reps hear from our top executives (including engineering and product leaders) to learn about the latest product features and upcoming launches, and how best to communicate this exciting news to our customers…but before this happens, months of planning go into making this event the best one yet…every time.
From an event professional’s perspective, it’s one of the most time consuming, multi-faceted, and stressful events we put on; however, I am in love with this event. It’s a live event where so many things could go wrong so it’s all the more satisfying to pull it off.
SOME HISTORY
SKO started as a two-day event back before Meraki was Cisco + Meraki. Today the program is a week-long event with product announcements, a sales training program called Meraki University (with our very own Meraki “professors”), leadership training, technical and department breakouts, a resource fair, and finally a team celebration to wrap it all up. As our sales team gets bigger, the event becomes more complicated to manage and the production values more impressive. We have to come up with inventive ways to educate and engage our peers, all while outdoing our previous production each time. The bar is set high and it is our job to exceed expectations.
Keep in mind the audience: the Meraki sales team is a lively, driven (and extremely competitive) group that likes to have fun. Also keep in mind that we take the global sales team to Las Vegas for this event. Yes sir, Vegas! It’s a tall order indeed, but a project that yields incredible results.
Throughout the history of SKOs, the Meraki Events team has brought in different inspirational speakers like Cisco executives (including Chuck Robbins, Wendy Bahr, and David Goeckeler) and entertainment like cheerleaders, backup dancers, paparazzi, t-shirt guns, and even Britney Spears! OK — I’m kidding about Brit (a girl can dream she’ll hire her favorite childhood popstar one day!) The others are all true.
Now this all sounds like fun and games for the attendees because we want to keep folks engaged but let’s remember the goal: this is a highly strategic and focused conference with sales education as the number one priority. How should the goals set by the Vice President of Sales be artfully incorporated into a live event?
HOW TO GET THE JOB DONE
For starters, you enlist the help of your entire team. Here at Meraki, each member of our Event Marketing team owns a different piece of this monster puzzle, and each member of our team is a total #boss. Teamwork and communication are crucial. Being able to get the job done is even more crucial.
To get a deeper glimpse into the planning process, here’s a snapshot of my to-do list before the live event:
6 MONTHS TO SHOWTIME
- Select venue and dates
- Identify sales goals
- Build narrative to be told through main sessions
- Identify what sessions and presenters will be on the main stage
- Host weekly meetings with our VP of Sales
- Kickoff meetings with presenters on goals and expectations
3 MONTHS TO SHOWTIME
- Outline presentation brand guidelines
- Work with presenters on content
- Reserve any special items (e.g. coffee carts with custom branding)
- Book guest speakers (i.e. talking to the assistant’s assistant)
- Finalize venue layout, contracts, catering, BEOs, signage, and more
- Update event website with agenda, transportation, and accommodation details
1 MONTH TO SHOWTIME
- Choreograph the musical
- Convince leadership to dance onstage (ranks in the top-5 hardest items to complete, hands down)
- Place all final A/V orders
- Write A/V scripts
- Finalize transition videos
- Finalize all live entertainment during main sessions
- Make sure attendees know the schedule and where they are supposed to be
1 WEEK TO SHOWTIME
- Collect “final” presentation decks from presenters
- Final practice for the musical performers
- Make sure shipments of signage, props, and collateral arrived in Vegas
- Pack (pro tip! Don’t forget to pack.)
- Compile presentations into one slide deck and reformat (why are there so many?)
24 HOURS TO SHOWTIME
- Fly to Las Vegas
- Setup tech table in the main ballroom
- Dress rehearsal with presenters
- Collect last-minute updates to presentations and re-load laptops with the most updated deck
- Go to bed at 3am
3 HOURS TO SHOWTIME
- Wake up at 5am
- Set up a surprise live dashboard demo on stage with the A/V team. Someone forgot to tell me this would be part of their presentation :)
- Set up 7 laptops for main stage program: 1) Main presentation deck 2) Backup presentation deck 3) Videos 4) Music 5) Speaker Notes 6) Next Slide 7) Backup for ALL these things
SHOWTIME!
- 8am — Let the games begin!
- Call all the live event cues on my Britney Spears headset — cue for mics, music, videos, presenter transitions
- 11am — Webinar the Musical Live! In Las Vegas
- 1pm — Meraki University breakouts begin
EVENT ENDS (*phew*)
- 6pm — Pack up
- 7pm — Go to the Meraki After Party (team celebration/working out the stress on the dance floor)
- 12am — Finally go to your hotel room with your team and order room service in your bathrobes.
- 12:01am — Pass out from exhaustion
- Try not to sleep through your alarm
- Back to airport
- Fly home
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO DO THIS?
With each event there is a cycle that your mind and body go through — you start with the calm and collected months of strategizing, planning, and coordinating. Life is manageable during this phase. Then as you get closer to the event you start going over every detail so much so that the details start saturating your dreams (or nightmares). You’ve done everything you can to prepare at this point. Finally, the event starts and things go into motion but you can’t stop to think, you just keep going because there is no one else who is going to get it done or knows the plan as well as you do.
Then there is an unexpected hiccup (no matter who you are, something will always come up) but you stay calm and find a solution because you have to, and again, you just keep going. And then, there is finally a moment when the event is self sufficient, when you can stand back, take a deep breath, look at your work and smile. Event professionals, rejoice! You think, I created this. You give yourself an internal high five because you just nailed it. None of this would have been possible without the work of a [crazy] passionate event manager who is in love with this feeling. Then you can finally get some sleep.
….and wake up the next day and listen to the Vice President of Sales’ feedback and start planning the next one.
The Cisco Meraki Event Marketing team is always looking for good people! Check out our job listings.
