One general comment for improvement that we heard from several representatives and managers was that too much time was spent on presentations in the general session from company executives. "There are too many speeches from marketing and other home office people that I don't even know," said one rep we spoke with. "Most of what they have to say really has nothing to do with what I do on a daily basis," noted a Texas-based rep with more than a dozen years in the industry. Another representative put it this way: "I could have read that in an e-mail or a memo. It's a real inconvenience to leave my husband and my kids. Let's get down to business and let me get back to my territory. It seems like we could shave a day off the agenda and nobody would miss it."

Home office viewpoint

In researching this article, we spoke with home office personnel covering a wide range of responsibilities – from those who plan every detail of the event to the sales and marketing managers responsible for setting the vision for the meeting. Here's how one sales vice president summed up his company's approach to the national sales meeting: "Our meetings focus first and foremost on getting everyone on the same page regarding our objectives and quotas for the coming year. This is a real opportunity to lay out our marching orders, and we make sure our managers follow through on communicating where we are going and what we expect. We also like to mix in a good amount of fun as well – we work hard but we play hard, too." A top marketing executive had this to say: "Our focus is on education, new promotional programs and the sharing of information. This meeting is really about the sales force and how we can help them to be more effective."

In terms of making the meeting better or more productive, we heard from one home office manager that reps could be better prepared when they arrive at the meeting. "I know the training department works hard to get information to the reps prior to the meeting," she acknowledged, "But it seems that no matter what we do there are still people showing up to the meeting without having completed their pre-work. I don't think it's too much to ask that everyone fulfills their obligation to the success of the meeting." Another home office manager touched on the topic of the general session presentations by saying, "We spend a healthy portion of our budgets on the national sales meeting, often as much as $3,500 per person, once you add up travel, food, hotel and entertainment. Everyone should pay attention during the general session. Last year I looked around and a rep sitting behind me was actually asleep. I thought it was very rude, and it gives the home office a bad impression of the sales force."

We also discovered that departments within the home office often have disagreements amongst themselves as to how national sales meeting time is best spent. One trainer we spoke with lamented the fullness of the national sales meeting agenda by telling us, "Everyone wants training for the reps, but no one will free up the agenda time to do it. Marketing thinks talking about a new sales piece from the podium is important, but where is the time to have the reps actually work with the piece before they go home? Then they complain that the sales force doesn't use the selling material enough. No one is going to use something they are not comfortable with."