General Sales Meeting Builds on Strong Relationships

In September, the entire Sales department, including teams from Hawaii, Guam, and Alaska, as well as the mainland from coast to coast, members of Matson’s senior leadership, and the Customer Service team – gathered in Phoenix for the first time since 2000. The purpose was to bring the entire sales team together to set the tone for 2023. It’s rare to have all salespeople in one place because they are so geographically diverse. So, the meeting provided an excellent opportunity to communicate strategy, provide company updates and collaborate as a team.

“We have many new people on the sales team, primarily through natural attrition,” said Tom Good, vice president, North American domestic sales. “Our Anchorage team was recently rolled into the domestic sales organization, and there are 15 salespeople who have been with the company for less than two years, most of whom had never met the people in attendance, both sales and customer service.

“This is a relationship business, and it starts internally. It’s important to have engaged and knowledgeable salespeople who understand the company’s service offerings and have relationships throughout the organization, enabling them to be effective customer advocates and execute internally.”

One of the events was a dinner, which included approximately 150 of the sales and customer service teams.

“Being able to spend time with the customer service folks was so helpful. The customer service team touches our customers much more than our account executives could ever hope to. Effective collaboration between our teams is so crucial to successful customer interaction. Opportunities like these are invaluable to fostering communication between Sales and Customer Service.

“This post-pandemic timing made it comfortable to meet face-to-face again. Getting to know someone beyond telephone conversations goes a long way toward improving relationships. Better relationships result in better collaboration, which improves overall customer satisfaction.

Matt Cox, John Lauer, Joel Wine, and several other senior leaders made presentations and attended.

“Many of our salespeople had not met our executive team before. So, this allowed all involved to get to know one another personally in a relaxed setting,” said Good.

After presentations and breakout sessions, the final collaborative teambuilding exercise was a “Bike Build” on behalf of the Boys and Girls Club of Phoenix.

“We had eight teams build 16 bikes. The groups consisted of a good mix of team members who don’t often interact with each other. So, it was a good exercise to mix it up a bit. And it was a team-building event with a final result benefiting the local community, in keeping with Matson’s core value of giving back to the communities in which we work and live. The bikes and helmets were presented to the Phoenix Boys and Girls Club, who then distributed them to young people in under-served neighborhoods.

“We plan to hold these General Sales Meetings on a more frequent cadence, likely every other year. The benefits of these gatherings are too great not to take advantage of them more frequently. And I want to extend a big thank you to Andrea Wong-Cheng, who did a terrific job arranging lodging, meals, meetings, transportation, and events. Because of her focus on the details, the GSM was a very well-run event.”