Field service conference 2023: From driver safety training to performance doping
Sales employees who attend ipf electronic's annual sales force conference know that they can expect much more than just a 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, security and training".
After arriving and enjoying a snack, Antje Wieners, Detlev Rössel and Christian Fiebach welcomed the participants to the star hotel Platte in the beautiful Repetal in the Sauerland region.
A fixed item on the program 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 turnover.
Sarah Ahrens (3), Karsten Schaller (2) and Peter Hilger were recognized for the highest gross profit ratio. Finally, Guido Stübke (3), Pierre Bernoth (2) and Ralf Henning (1) received awards for the best quotation ratio.
In connection with the management report, Pierre Bernoth, Patrick Wittich, Dominik Jökel and Thomas Wally presented selected success stories about particularly interesting customer projects and also reported on some of the challenges that had to be overcome in this context.
During a walk through the Sauerland countryside afterwards, all participants had the opportunity to talk together and exchange experiences before dinner.
Recognizing, avoiding and overcoming dangers
It is well known that field staff travel a lot by car. Only those who know their vehicle well and react courageously and correctly even in tricky situations will always reach their destination safely. Good reasons for ipf electronic to organize a driver safety training course at the Olpe traffic training center for the second day of the event.
True to 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 deal with critical situations in 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 was devoted to the question: What does selling sensors have to do with high-performance sport?
More sales performance - it's all in the head
Coach Michael Schneider's answer gets to the heart of the matter: "Winning". While in sport this is associated with games and competitions, in sales it is all about winning new customers, whereby, according to the coach, it is the bare result that counts in the end, just like in top-class sport. In this context, sales employees can learn from top-class sport how to improve their performance on a daily basis and focus more on the process and less on the goals or results. "It's all in the head," says Michael Schneider. The "IPF Challenge", in which the participants had to complete 14 tasks in just 30 minutes with a preparation time of just 15 minutes, made it clear exactly what is meant by this. 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 initially seemed like an almost impossible challenge, the team managed to overcome in the end. According to the coach, "peak performance" is all in the head, where the power of mental strength counts. And this can be learned, as everyone realized during the challenge.
At the end of the training, the participants returned home after a snack with new experiences, valuable insights and plenty of motivation.
