value added Archives - CACM Accounts

HOSTING A GREAT SEMINAR.

Hosting a seminar is a great way to reach out to new customers and give existing customers a little bit of “value added”. However, putting on a good event isn’t always as easy as it looks. It takes a lot of preparation, coordination and attention to detail to pull off a successful seminar.

SEMINAR

Audience

You should tailor your seminar to your intended audience. As such, you should decide whether you are targeting existing customers, the general public, new businesses etc. Determining who your audience is will help you to decide what content should be included.

Budget

You should consider the aims of your seminar before setting your budget.

For example, if you want to win 5 new customers, you may need 50 or 60 attendees at your event. This means that you will need a venue with the capacity to accommodate this number. Set a realistic budget and try to stick to it.

Venue

Once you determine the size of your desired audience, you will need to find an appropriate venue. A good venue from which to host your event is your business premises, as this will help to raise awareness of your firm’s location among your target audience. Alternatively, you could choose a venue that is synonymous with your industry. For example, a solicitors firm could host a seminar at the local Law Society and an accountancy firm could host their event at the local ACCA or ICAEW office.

Schedule of Events

Having a specific schedule will help you create an agenda for your audience, should one be required. Ensure you have enough “leeway” in your timing to allow for unexpected occurrences (for example lunch not being served on time). Consider what time your speakers should arrive, if you’re providing lunch or dinner etc.

Plan Ahead

Make lists, schedule meetings and touch base with people periodically. Make sure that you’ve listed everything you need. You should create a written plan that is designed to make every detail of the event happen (who is doing what), and talk through this plan with your team to ensure they don’t need additional assistance.

SETTING EFFECTIVE KPIs.

Setting goals and a strategy for your business is important. However you then need to measure how the business is performing in order to understand if the firm is moving forward and is on track to achieve its goals. As such it is necessary to set Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). However many business owners and managers find this difficult to do and see the establishment of KPIs as a pen-pushing exercise and don’t dedicate time to do this.

KPIs however, form a vital element of the business’s sales strategy, both for individuals and for the team itself. In order to create a shared vision, commitment and firm-wide motivation, it is vital that the KPIs are discussed with and agreed by each member of the team from the outset. KPIs should cover:

Team targets (i.e. convert 75% of all leads during the first quarter of 2015)

Individual targets (i.e. 80% of chargeable time billed each month in 2015)

Key tasks

The nature and specific tasks of your KPIs will depend very much on variations including the market sector and geographical area in which you operate. However, managers must ensure that they follow the SMART principal – that is, ensuring that objectives are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely.

Depending on your business, it can be useful to adopt a traffic light approach for each client account, so areas of strength and weakness can be easily and quickly identified. This data can be fed into charts which can also be very useful when preparing KPIs, giving specific objectives and demonstrating how the results have a direct impact on the overall sales and business objectives.

Once set, KPIs should then be reviewed on a regular basis, both with the team as a whole and with individual team members. Any variance in performance can then be identified and flagged appropriately, with remedial actions put in place before any aspect of the traffic light chart turns to amber. Bear in mind that KPIs should always be dynamic. For example, even if a KPI target hasn’t been met, the individual or team performance may still be on course to achieve the overall sales objective, and the KPI target may need to be lowered. Similarly, if a target has been met, then it may need to be increased at intervals, to maintain drive and motivation.