[dropcap]I[/dropcap]am not a big fan of meetings. Most of the time, they are a waste of time. If you can’t keep things focused, what can (and usually does) happen is the topic goes out the window and you sit around telling jokes or stories about your weekend that are greatly exaggerated for comedic effect.

Thanks in large part to modern technologies like email and smartphones, I rarely need to gather everyone all in the same room to say what could be said in a group email or text. Such is the world we live in, but there are other meetings that are entirely different and more necessary than ever in the industry today. I’m talking about Sales Meetings, specifically the WPS National Sales Meeting that was recently held in the hometown of Western Power Sports – Boise, Idaho.

For three full days in January, I felt like I had quit my day job and joined the ranks of the WPS sales force! We sat through countless presentations from manufacturer reps along with the WPS regional sales people. Every 15 or 20 minutes the bell would ring (in this case it was a motorcycle revving its engine) and we all rotated to the next booth.

I have a new respect for how much sales reps have to learn about a specific product line before they are knowledgeable enough to go out and tell you, the dealers, about it. Even in the age of smartphones and 24/7 newscycles, the reps still go out and build business the old fashioned way: one dealer at a time. As WPS

President Craig Shoemaker said, “It’s about the relationships.” And so we were honored to be able to build relationships with the folks in Boise.

But I still don’t do meetings!