Crankathons: Achieve More Sales and Better Service Delivery

We all know about Telethons.  And most of us have heard of Facebook’s famous Hackathons, where an army of engineers get together and pull all-nighters to work on special projects, problem solving, and other creative ideas they may have.

At Lore Systems, we have found an effective way to get more productivity out of our managers and sales execs, in terms of outreach and folllow-ups to clients and prospects. We hold “Crankathons,” where a group of us get into a conference room and bang out dozens of emails at a time, and attack small and large, but important, business problems and issues.  (Note:  Our team’s average age is a few more years than FB’s so we don’t stay up all night!)

This is especially effective when done consistently.  Why?  Every week, lots of action items and follow-up tasks accumulate.  Most of these involve communications with prospects and clients, and Crankathons provide a venue and vehicle where we can get out of our offices and away from all the noise and distractions.  There’s no substitute for concentrated effort, and we each have a common objective:  get most our accumulated “to dos” done in one sitting.  We compare notes, discuss specific approaches and solutions to certain clients, and BOND with each other.

Maybe I’m “Old School,” but I believe the best form of communication is face to face, and when our team convenes together, lots of key information is shared and this allows us to provide a better and more complete service to the outside, as we get to know each other and build trust through our various interactions.  Because of this, I think this also accelerates the creation of high performing teams.

The results have been amazing, in terms of staying focused on each of our highest prioirties and getting real work done.

What do you think?  I am always looking for great new ideas to improve performance, so please share any cool and interesting ways in which you are getting your teams to accomplish more.