Behind the Scenes at commonsku sessions, Dallas

Over 80 sales pros gathered at the quirky Lorenzo Hotel in Dallas for commonsku sessions, a hyper-focused day of sales education, jam-packed with actionable ideas for the modern distributor.

Though a regional event, sales teams flew into Dallas from Florida, Colorado, and North Carolina to attend the industry’s only 1-day conference dedicated to sales training.

Tommy Schroepfer with Meyer Dunlap said, "Unlike other industry seminars, commonsku truly understands how to grow your business the right way. Everything I heard and saw at commonsku sessions made me a better salesperson for my company and for my clients. I highly recommend anyone in our industry to spend one day with these folks."

Carey Guglielmo, President at AST E-Commerce said “commonsku once again put a first-class event together in Dallas with their new sales training initiative, we found the collaboration and the sharing of best practices to be very valuable."

The day kicked off with Catherine Graham’s session “The Floodgates: Create a Never-Ending Pipeline of New Business” where Catherine talked about the three keys to a predictable pipeline and how to leverage the small moments in your sales day to constantly keep a trickle of new business flowing into your portfolio.

Bobby Lehew shared “How to Enchant Your Customers Through the Power of Story,” providing examples from distributors like John Vo with WHOOPLA and Denise Tashereau with Fairware. Bobby discussed three perspectives for storytelling, the perspective of the distributor, the client, and the recipient, and how to weave story into your selling process in a way that becomes memorable to your customer.

After a networking lunch, in the afternoon, Mark Graham shared "8 Ways to Ignite Sales Growth Through Engagement Commerce," featuring best in class examples from Ned Specktor, Monarch and Company, Creative Boulevard, Anthem Branding, Brand+Aid, Meyer Dunlap, and even a sound clip from end-client, Beanfield. Mark’s session was followed by Catherine’s incredibly popular topic, "How to Double Sales without Adding a Single New Customer."

Attendees loved discovering secrets to their own personality profile as well as unlocking secrets to the personalities and preferences of their key buyers in Sam Kates' session "Psychology of Sales: Learn the Secret Weapon to Connect, Relate, and Increase Sales."

One of the most insightful dialogues at skucon sessions was a conversation with David Clifton, former marketing executive at Dell. The conversation focused on David’s experience as he helped attendees understand how marketing departments think and how to use data to influence spend away from poorer performing categories of advertising toward the effective use of promotional products, "you can't fast forward a t-shirt."

And finally, the conference wrapped with a happy hour and final panel session "Turning Grit to Gold," featuring notable promotional products pros from the Dallas market including Paul Gittemeier, CEO of tic toc, Kirk Meyer, founder and partner at Meyer Dunlap, and John Wilkinson, Architect at Promoshak.

commonsku sessions, a 4-city tour, is a high-impact conference that is a fun learning experience with the remaining events being held in Chicago (April 25), Los Angeles (May 9), and New York (May 16), click here to learn more!