Three leading industry professionals encouraged the attendees to ‘build personal brands rather than business brands’, ‘sell solutions rather than widgets’, ‘raise the bar to take their business to a higher level’ and ‘build rapport through matching and mirroring’.

The audience learned ‘innovative and inspirational’ ideas on sales and marketing, staff motivation and success attitudes.  Royston Guest of PTI International captured everyone’s imagination with his concepts in ‘the winning edge in sales’.  Angus Ross, of Dale Carnegie Training challenged delegates to think outside their comfort zone and ‘dare to do things differently’.  And Deborah Price of Performance Partnership rounded up the day by enlightening participants with Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) and engaged them in an active role-play session to prove that ‘communication is the key’.

The acclaimed speakers’ ingenuity and charm is said to have boosted morale and excelled expectations. Feedback was excellent: Gero Liotti, retail development manager of Opto International said: “Really good, look forward to attending more”. “Worthwhile and very enjoyable day”was how Michael Bready, sales executive, Foxbarn described the day and Verity Rusk, sales account manager of DZD, added: “Enjoyable as well as being educational.” 

• The Shop and Display Equipment Association