Your next sales strategy meeting is on the calendar, and you’re scrambling. Now that the meeting’s virtual, the usual lineup of ideas won’t cut it. You need a captivating way to inject both team building and skill building activities into the day. What do you do?

Take a cue from Bottle Rocket.

Make Your Next Sales Kickoff Meeting a Blast 

Bottle Rocket Studios is a consulting firm that serves up strategy, product, design and technology services to enhance the digital experience. As a WPP company that’s been on the cutting edge of business and technology innovation since its inception in 2008, it’s no surprise the company introduced a new way of working to its employees.

A permanent “Work from Wherever” program was announced in May 2020, giving employees a more personalized, relevant and productive way to work. 

Their Ask

As their 2021 sales kickoff meeting rolled around, Andrew Sevin, Bottle Rocket’s Executive VP of Revenue, began searching for a novel solution to shake things up and provide an injection of adrenaline into its distributed sales + marketing teams.

The facilitated workshop also had to align with the sales team’s 2021 goals of leaning into empathy, being good listeners and fostering a consultative mindset.

Enter Pitch Lab.

Their Solution

Pitch Lab produced a custom workshop dubbed: “Improvisation to Foster a Consultative Mindset.” The outcomes were to provide actionable takeaways to be more nimble, creative and courageous in making hypotheses that will serve their clients. 

In short, when your client-facing team evolves from an “order-taker mindset” to a “consultative mindset,” it cements your company as a trusted partner and helps grow your client relationships.

Our Approach 

To provide the most value during our time with Bottle Rocket, Pitch Lab leveraged its proven, three-pronged approach:

1 - Learn: 

Through various learning modules, Pitch Lab broke down comedy techniques the pros use on-stage to provide Bottle Rocket with a ton of actionable takeaways to be more nimble, creative and courageous including:

• How to more effectively read non-verbal cues over Zoom

• Why breaking the fourth wall builds trust with clients  

• How to use improvisation to be a better listener, take responsible risks and stay positive in the face of adversity 

2 - Practice: 

The workshop was fully interactive utilizing chat, polls and breakout rooms to practice a handful of applied improvisation exercises. 

These exercises included: mirroring, one-word stories and lobbing bombs (& gifts). Each activity is designed to drive home the importance of active listening, identifying non-verbal communication cues and then pivoting the agenda based on their clients’ needs.

3 - Reflect: 

At the end of each module, we discussed how the lesson ties back to Bottle Rocket’s goals of empathy, being good listeners and fostering a consultative mindset.

Their Feedback  

91% of Bottle Rocket survey respondents said the 90-minute workshop gave them the tools to feel more confident and in control of the room.

“Fantastic session. Most engaging Zoom meeting I have ever been on! Pulling this off pre-COVID was hard enough. Doing this in a virtual session is way harder and you guys nailed it. Great energy and solid insights for our teams to keep top of mind.”

“Great pace, great exercises and great job keeping the audience engaged!  Very relevant material for sales teams!” 

“It was amazing how you did this workshop on Zoom. It was the best ‘we normally do this in person’ session I've seen done in the COVID world.”

How Will You Shake Things Up at Your Next Sales Strategy Meeting?

Savvy sales leader most frequently turn to us for a unique experience at the intersection of education + entertainment that serves as an icebreaker to set the stage for your next day (or two) of focused strategy meetings. 

Regardless of the when, our client’s needs are always the same. They are looking for a solution to help their client-facing teams differentiate from the competition, build stronger connections and win more deals.

As we say, Pitch Lab is funny training that delivers serious sales results. 

Want to learn more? Click here to find out if our workshops are right for your team.