It was the beginning of fall in 2009. Bob the CEO of a mid-sized services company in Colorado was worried. He was worried about the coming winter. His business was cyclical and peaked during six summer months and suffered during winter and spring. The market had changed and his old ways of doing business were not working anymore. In spite of several coaching sessions and messages from the CEO, the salespeople were not receptive to the idea of networking to generate leads for themselves.
As we listened to Bob pour his heart out over lunch, I said,
“We need to teach them how to fish.”
Bob looked up puzzled. He had just taken another bite out of the salmon dish he was having for lunch.
“We need to teach them how to network and generate their own leads”
we clarified.
He nodded in agreement and looked relieved, inspired and curious all the same time. Over the next week or so we pulled a team together and designed the entire day’s program including the networking game.
The event was held in a hotel in a nearby town. And we played the game. At the end of the game the salespeople demanded that we quickly conduct a training program for them on how to network and generate leads. The event was a success! But there was more work to do – We now had to design the training program!