Field Service Conference 2023: From Driver Safety Training to Performance Doping
Sales employees who attend ipf electronic's annual field sales conference know that they can expect much more here than the presentation of company figures and targets. The participants of this year's conference could therefore look forward to the multi-day event with the motto "Information, Safety and Training".
After arriving and enjoying a snack, Antje Wieners, Detlev Rössel and Christian Fiebach welcomed the participants to the Platte star hotel in the beautiful Repetal region of the Sauerland.
A fixed item on the agenda of every conference is the awarding of particularly successful employees with a bonus for their outstanding performance in the areas of "highest sales increase", "highest gross profit ratio" and "best quotation ratio".
Thorsten Faust (3), Demetrio DiSanto (2) and Thomas Westendorf (1) received an award for the highest increase in sales.
With the highest gross profit ratio, Sarah Ahrens (3), Karsten Schaller (2) and Peter Hilger were convincing. Finally, Guido Stübke (3), Pierre Bernoth (2) and Ralf Henning (1) received awards for the best offer ratio.
Following the management report, Pierre Bernoth, Patrick Wittich, Dominik Jökel and Thomas Wally presented selected success stories on particularly interesting customer projects and also reported on some of the challenges that had to be overcome in this context.
During a subsequent walk through the Sauerland countryside, all participants had the opportunity to talk together and exchange experiences before dinner.
Recognizing, avoiding and overcoming dangers
It is a well-known fact that field staff spend a lot of time on the road in their cars. Only those who know their vehicle well and react courageously and thus correctly even in dicey situations will always reach their destination safely. Good reasons for ipf electronic to organize a driving safety training course at the Olpe traffic training center for the second day of the event.
Freely following the motto "Recognize dangers, avoid dangers, overcome dangers", the colleagues learned how to safely recognize dangers in road traffic and how to avoid them by driving with foresight. During the training, the participants were also shown how to handle critical situations with their own cars through knowledge and vehicle control and learned, among other things, how vehicle assistance systems such as ABS and ESP react in such situations. All participants were enthusiastic and gained valuable experience before the third day of the event focused on the question: What does selling sensors have to do with high-performance sports?
More sales performance - it's all in the head
Coach Michael Schneider's answer gets to the heart of the matter: "Winning". Whereas in sports this means games and competitions, in sales it's all about winning new customers. According to the coach, it's the naked result that counts in the end, just like in top-class sports. In this context, sales employees can learn from top-class sports how to improve their performance on a daily basis, focusing more on the process and less on the goals or the results. "It's all in the head," says Michael Schneider. What exactly is meant by this in concrete terms was made clear by the "IPF Challenge," in which participants had to complete 14 tasks in just 30 minutes with a preparation time of only 15 minutes. Here are just a few examples: Perform a magic trick. Write a poem under the theme "This is how we achieve our goals" with at least 8 verses or find a term for each letter in the alphabet that describes the ipf team. What at first seemed like an almost insurmountable challenge, the team was nevertheless able to master in the end. According to the coach, "peak performance" is all a matter of the head, where the power of mental strength counts. And this can be learned, as everyone discovered during the challenge.
At the end of the training, after a snack, the participants finally started their journey home with new experiences, valuable insights and a lot of motivation.
