Let’s face it. With some professional Meetup events, you just don’t know if you’re wasting your time or not. With busy schedules and tough commutes, attending an evening event can require a major commitment on your part. After working 50 plus hours a week making sales calls, trying to meet your quota and handling customer problems, hauling your ass to attend a professional event is a lot to ask for. Sometimes the speakers turn out to be good and other times, well not so good. Then you kick yourself for wasting two hours attending an event when you could have been at home relaxing.
And don’t you just love those paid events where the speaker or speakers fall flat, and you are left wondering how you can get a refund.
If you are like me, you are constantly receiving email invites asking you to attend networking events. The problem we all face – what are the good events to attend?
Well, I have some good news for you. I’ve recently discovered a series of great events that I believe all salespeople should attend – it’s called the “Enterprise Sales Meetup.” (And yes, the events are free).
Based in New York, the meetup events are held in different cities, usually on a monthly basis. The most recent events have occurred in New York City, Boston, Brooklyn, Washington, D.C., Denver and San Francisco. I would encourage you to check out your local Meet-up calendar and see if one of the events will be in your city soon.
The events not only offer good networking opportunities, but you get to listen to some real sales pros. For example, I attended “Scaling High-Velocity Sales Teams” with Brian Zang in D.C. a few weeks ago. Mr. Zang, CRO of Ringio, participated in a question and answer session with Mark Birch, the Founder & Co-Organizer of Enterprise Sales Meetups. Topics range to how do you hire and manage salespeople, the challenges that all sales teams face, and tips to ramp up your sales. After the session, audience members were encouraged to ask questions. (I wanted to stay after the event was over and network more, but I had a long commute and an early scheduled sales call the next day).
Enterprise Sales Meetups have hosted many other sales professionals, including Trish Bertuzzi of the Bridge Group, Marc Jacobs, VP of Sales at Greenhouse, and Chad Burmeister, author of Sales Hack and Senior Director of Sales Development at RingCentral.
The Enterprise Sales Meetup site also includes a good selection of blogs, all written by Mr. Birch. His blog posts offer sound advice on a wide range of topics, including “Seven Tips for Cold Email Effectiveness, How to Reach Anyone,” and “The Perfect Sales Pitch.” His posts are on target and I would encourage you to regularly read them. (I have added a link to his blogs in my Other Blogs section for you to read).
Selling isn’t a lonely profession. There are others like you who are struggling to do their best and achieve their goals. So please, if an Enterprise Sales Meetup event is held in your city, I would encourage you to attend. You will not be disappointed.
Note: If you like my post, please check out my book – Advice for New Salespeople: Tips to Help your Sales Career.
