Long days, thunderstorms, and the smell of sunblock. If you’re a JMP employee here’s another thing you almost certainly associate with summer: mid-year meetings. Divisional meetings began in July, with the Americas Sales Mid-Year Meeting taking place July 21 – July 29. With a global travel ban in place because of the coronavirus pandemic, however, this year’s meeting occurred, for the first time in history, completely virtually.
The JMP Americas Mid-Year Meeting kicked off with a plenary session, hosted by Vice President of Sales Americas and EMEA Dave Richardson; Sr. Director of Inside Sales Todd Hoffman; and Director of Pre-Sales Support Ian Cox. While the virtual meetings meant less face time, Richardson promised an “increase of density of information.” The plenary session, like the remainder of the meetings, delivered.
After congratulating the division for first-half results, sales management shared the latest sales numbers and recognized outstanding performers in both the Sales and Pre-Sales organizations. Richardson said that, from a sales standpoint, the first half of 2020 looked a lot like “business as usual,” which in such unusual circumstances, was encouraging. Richardson highlighted the “wonderful mix” of new logo and expanded use JMP secured during the year’s first six months and felt confident that the division was well positioned for the second half.
The plenary featured Lightning Talks from Product Management & Development, including commentary from JMP Chief Architect John Sall. Sall shared exciting new features of JMP 16, highlighting improvements the newest version will provide for customers, especially around model screening and outlier exploration. Updates from JMP Development Directors were provided by Chris Gotwalt, Bradley Jones, Xan Gregg, Brian Corcoran, Shannon Conners and Russ Wolfinger, who highlighted important new features in each of their areas. JMP Product Manager Daniel Valente closed the session encouraging customer-facing staff to start building excitement, and the pipeline, by having conversations with customers about JMP 16.
The plenary’s second hour consisted of updates from JMP’s Customer Care, Business Operations, Digital Operations, and Marketing divisions, who shared how they’ve worked with Sales to ensure success through the first half of the year and highlighted new efforts planned to give us the best chance at success in the coming months.
Technical and Sales Tracks
The remainder of the week’s sessions divided attendees into two groups. A technical track provided role-specific training for sales engineers and other technical staff, while a sales track provided sales-specific training to account executives and inside sales representatives.(View Sales: Session 1 and 2; Session 3 and 4; Technical: Session 1; Session 2; Session 3.)
The technical track included three days of sessions specifically designed to help technical staff better demonstrate the full power of JMP software to existing and JMP prospective users. The talks also included tips for working with Salesforce staff and JMP Customer Care. Specific sessions included a Technical Reference Library Overhaul with Hyde Miller; Good Programming Practice with Don McCormack and Time Series Analysis and Forecasting in JMP with Jian Ciao. In addition to staff in the Americas, technical staff in Europe joined in the sessions. Technical staff in Asia enjoyed the same presentations the following week.
Sales staff spent much of their track time engaged with JMP Product Management, with sessions focused on finding the right accounts, properly defining user roles and efficiently managing the sales process. Sales teams also learned ways to boost their effectiveness in a virtual selling environment, particularly helpful training given the fact that they can’t visit customers in-person. The training included tips on using tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and LinkedIn Sales Navigator. Ed Crouch, CALA Sales Manager led a session on the Top 10 tips for writing effective prospecting emails as well. The sales track concluded with a session on how to stay physically, emotionally, and mentally energized in these unprecedented times.
A Little Bit of Fun
The meetings weren’t all business, though. A virtual scavenger hunt had individuals from throughout the Americas running around their house collecting items and sharing them with their colleagues, while a JMP Virtual Happy Hour brought colleagues and guests together for drinks, snacks and chit-chat. Though it wasn’t quite the same as in-person socializing, the extracurricular events allowed technical, sales and leadership staff a chance to interact and connect with team members they don’t often see on an everyday basis.
Overall, the meetings were a great success, both by celebrating JMP’s 2020 accomplishments to-date and providing the knowledge and training we need to end the year strong.
Learn More
Want to view (or review) sessions from the Sales Americas Midyear Meetings? Visit our Midyear Teams Landing Page, where you’ll find the Sales Americas Midyear 2020 Plenary and all available breakout sessions.
And, don’t forget to stay tuned to Inside JMP for the latest JMP news and additional divisional updates.
