Online Dealer Training Blueprint: How to have a wildly successful global dealer training event
hosted by Cindy Zuelsdorf with guest experts Mark Risby and Mike Heaney from Boxer Systems and DigiBox.
As promised, here’s your checklist for success for your next online rep and dealer training:
How to get the attention of reps and dealers so they want to come to your training:
- Preparation is key. People have far less tolerance at an online event.
- Ask what your sales team and key prospects want. Engage with them early. Don’t plan a marketing event without doing this!
- Know your goals. What do you want to achieve and how will you measure it?
- Define your next step. What’s your next action after your event and how will make sure it really happens?
- Simple is generally better.
- Let attendees go where they want to and talk with whomever they like during your event.
Top mistakes to avoid when holding a dealer/rep training:
- Online events are not a solution for everything. What’s the best meeting type for what you want to accomplish?
- Avoid forced break-out rooms. Understand that competitors don’t want to talk with each other in a breakout room or meeting.
- Don’t expect participants to be in 3 places at once just because they are online.
- Don’t’ try and meet with everyone at once. Consider doing a separate tech call, using small groups, doing 1:1 meetings.
Hey, happy Tuesday, glad to see you in our 7-sh minute session today, your 7 marketing Basics, inspiration for your marketing.
We’re going to look at what to do and what to avoid when you’re doing an online event for your sales reps, your team, your prospects, your customers.
And I’m going to go over some of those key things right now, in the next seven or so minutes.
Plus, If this is a topic that you are all about, join me on Tuesday, coming up next Tuesday July19th, along with Mike Heaney and Marc Risby.
We’re going to get into specifics and you’ll have a blueprint to takeaway at the end.
https://about.be-live.live/online-dealer-training-blueprint/ And I’ll put the link in the comments below, too.
The top things that you need to nail when you are doing an online event or training, whether it’s for sales reps, your team, your prospects, your customers…
First thing to note… and this just sounds so basic…
preparation is super important!
People have a lower tolerance for things just going sideways online. They are going to start looking over at another screen, or get up, make a coffee, whatever…
So your prep has got to be nailed so that they’re getting what they need out of your event right away.
Yes, that just sounds super basic, but yes, do the prep.
It’s super crucial.
All right.
Now, secondly, around the prep, really around the whole event, ask your key prospects, your key reps, your sales people exactly what they need, what should be covered in the event. Engage with those folks early on in the process.
So if you’ve got some people on your team, or some sales people you work with, or key customers, talk with them, 2 3, 4, 5 weeks in advance and be sure that what’s happening, really serves them.
Because so many times we’ll see a group of people take off and start to do things that they think’s really crucial but it doesn’t actually serve what the end customer needs, with the sales people need.
And some of these comments I’m really taking from my prep for the upcoming 19 July event, and are comments from Mike and Marc on what they think is super important.
So I’m sharing some of their thoughts along with everything today.
So ask your audience and your people on your team.
What does everybody need?
What do you need?
Don’t talk about a topic over here that just isn’t needed by your customer, your end user, the person that you want to be on the event, right?
Ask what people need.
Next thing to think about is goals. What do you want to achieve from this event?
Is the as the thing you want to have is a ton of people there? Or do you want to have a lot of engagement?
Do you want to have people taking the next steps?
What is the goal?
Because that’s going to affect how you measure your success, what you do, and how you put it all together.
Just decide, “Hey, what do I want to have happen?” What is that, what’s the best next step?
What’s the best outcome from this event?
What do we do?
What happens next?
And then also, what’s YOUR next step?
After somebody comes, what are you going to do?
Are you going to call them?
Do you have somebody to work with who’s going to make those calls?
Are you sending out a free trial?
What’s the actual next thing that’s going to happen?
This shouldn’t be an island of an event.
If you’re doing a training for your reps, customers, prospects, whomever, it shouldn’t be an island.
It needs to..
you gotta have the whole picture there.
And so, what’s going to be the plan for the next step?
So, meeting, demo, trial, group session, whatever the thing is…
And then another point to think about is that simple is generally better.
So these are things that you need to nail when you’re putting it all together.
And when I talk about simple is better, I like to consider, too, is that an online event is not necessarily a solution for everyone.
Online can be great because if you’ve got people all over the world or all over the country, and you want to get folks together, yes, super handy for that. But be sure to make a space for 1:1 meetings as well, because a nice simple event with the space for 1:1 meetings, afterward or separately is really is a good combination.
Hey Fallon, how are you?
Good to see you.
Hey, Bob hi.
And Matthew good to see you!
I know you’re doing some of these as well.
Alright.
So just to recap on the things you need to nail, and then I’m going to hit a few things to avoid, and then we’ll be out…
Alright, so 1) prep is key, ask yourself and ask your prospects, your reps, your clients, your dealers to sales people, what is really needed?
2) Think about your goals.
What goals do you have for the event?
What do you want to achieve?
3) What’s the actual next step that you’re going to take after this event?
The event shouldn’t be a silo and 4) keep it simple.
Online events aren’t the solution for everything but keeping it simple in any case, is the way to go.
So now just a few things to avoid as well.
Don’t try to meet with everybody all at once.
If you’ve got a different group of people and they have different needs, or maybe they’re in the same territory and are competitors.
Think about not trying to meet with them all at once.
You might have a group session where you go over some details, but then set up those 1:1s, and do a separate technical call or separate detail. call with smaller groups.
So 1:1s with people, that’s something to think about.
Another thing is we all go to these sessions and meetings and we might find ourselves almost forced into a room, a breakout room, a group that maybe we don’t really want to go to. Or we might even feel like we need to be in 3 or 4 places at once, and that’s not functional, that just doesn’t work for people.
Marc and Mike and I were talking about this last week, what happens when those things are forced upon the attendees, is we start working on our email and have stuff going on on a second screen.
So don’t do that.
Avoid that forced breakout room feeling, avoid that feeling of being in a space with competitors.
Make it so people can freely move around where they want to and get the info that they need.
So, those are a couple things to avoid.
Oh my gosh, there is so much more.
Join me live on Tuesday 19 July for some more details and I helpful information for you for your next live event.
All right.
See you soon.
Bye.
