November = NADA

Every year Phoenix Car Company take 12 sales staff to America for the NADA conference (National Automobile Dealer Association). Every year every member of staff from the new rookie to the experienced general manager get to apply for one of the spaces. To win a space you have to present your case to the sales director and managing director (not for the faint hearted). They then whittle it down to the dozen or so that get a place on the plane.

This year we are pitching for a place in Las Vegas during the first week of February. I was lucky enough to go last year to San Francisco which was a lovely city and great experience. Its not all fun and games as you have three classes a day to attend to hear different speakers talk about the American approach toward selling cars. After each day we did de-brief's where we would discuss what we had learnt at the classes that day.

My de-brief was in a nice Chinese restaurant at the end of Pier 39, where we had a few soft drinks and some food as we discussed the day's classes. I thought everyone was engrossed in my speech on what I'd learnt, only to find out that the half time show for the super bowl was on the TV behind me and they were paying more attention to that than what I had to say!

We did have some free time at night so on the last day seven of us hired bikes and cycled across the Golden gate bridge, which provided some stunning photo opportunities! I enjoyed my experience so much that I decided to apply again this year. However I feel it will be a long shot to go two years in a row.

To quote a famous company's slogan, "you've got to be in it to win it". Stay tuned to see if I do get invited back again for Vegas, I'll start saving just in case.