My colleagues and I were standing in the hotel lobby with Robert, the guest CEO, who came to share the experience his company had with our new business service. Just moments before the sales event was to start Robert suggested we agree on how many participants we wanted to ‘generate’ for the next business service training.
A hesitant group of attendees were gathering in front of the conference room. We quickly agreed to 80%. Robert was pleased with the goal, but encouraged us to focus our efforts on “…creating the space for an 80% conversion rate…”, from the attendees in the audience, while he did the rest. We were willing to give it our best, but reviewing the tentative faces of the crowd, my colleagues and I were skeptical about our intended outcome.
The energy in the room was reserved, but everyone in the audience was attentive to the Robert. Eyes were focused on on the front of the room. I was standing in the back of the room with the rest of my colleagues, “…holding the space…” for the event and watching the audience.
Most of the attendees started the event by sitting back in their chairs. But, shortly after Robert started talking, and almost in unison, the attendees leaned forward toward the CEO, totally engaged in the conversation. They stayed forward for a while, then started drifting back in their chairs losing focus on talk. Robert drew them once again into the conversation and everyone leaned forward in their chairs again.
This mojo dance of forward and back in the chairs went on for an hour and a half. At the end of the presentation, the attendees were totally enrolled in the business service! Ninety percent of the attendees signed up for some kind of opportunity…there was magic in the room that day.
There was a definite shift in the room from a sales event a week earlier: we all generated creating the vision, reality and possibility for the success of our sales event and the conversion of the attendees. We came together and through the process of holding space for success and the influence and persuasive conversation from Robert the magic appeared.
So, I want to commend the team on an extra special, awesome job! Let’s keep on generating in a big way. I especially want to give a big shout out to Robert and and my colleagues for holding the space for success. And Robert, keep that mojo flo’n dood.
