My First Stage Experience

I promised to post my experience of my first seminar address, which I delivered at a first conference where hundreds of C.E.O.s, chief engineers, general managers, and engineers of various top companies and other prominent invitees were present.

I am willing to share my first-stage experience with you all:

It was during the beginning of my career as an area sales manager for a multinational company that worked in collaboration with Germany and Switzerland to manufacture welding equipment and special electrodes. I had just returned from my onsite training in a distant country and was assigned a territory consisting of two big states.

I was sent to this metro in N.C.R as the resident area sales manager just after completing my on-site training, and I was really excited to show my capability. Soon after, I received a message from my GM North informing me that the company was planning a sales seminar in my city to which all of the CEOs, G.Ms, chief engineers, and maintenance engineers from the major industries in my territory would be invited.

Great! I was given the charge of doing all the legwork, booking hotels, a seminar hall, and everything.

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What was the occasion?

The company decided to hold a seminar, inviting all the distributors, dealers, and customers, mainly the big industrial houses of that particular region where I was appointed. We were booked in one of the best five-star hotels in the city where I was posted, so I was supposed to take care of bookings, etc.

Then the seminar day came, and it brought with it the responsibility and anxiety that were taking over my nerves. Our general manager, along with other managers, including the seminar manager, had already arrived and was staying in the same hotel where the conference was scheduled.

The stage was set. The seminar hall was overcrowded with almost 700 top-notch people from various industries in the area. The drinks and snacks were served regularly to the invitees as my seniors spoke one after the other and took their place.

What was your role?

As an area sales manager, I was the junior-most person in the rank that was to deliver their speeches in that conference. Besides, I was to deliver the concluding speech and thank everyone that was present in the hall or who spoke in that conference, so my speech was at the end, but trust me, my legs were shaking when my name was announced by the seminar manager.

How did you feel?

I don’t remember what I said, in spite of my 4-5 days of rehearsing and revising the entire speech many times over. As I approached the podium, I wished someone would say, "Hey, enough of these speeches, it's time for lunch."But no, I was not that lucky. I don't remember when my address was over, but I came back to myself when I heard a loud cheer from the crowd. I was like, was this cheering for me and my speech?

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By the way, I knew more than half of the crowd, as I had been meeting them during my visits to their companies for business-related meetings for the last six months or so, but I could not look even at them.

How did you manage the whole scene?

Support from my seminar manager was crucial, fortunately, my seminar manager was there to encourage me, and somehow I managed to deliver my 6-7-minute speech. If you ask me now, I have no idea how I did it at that time, but I only realized I was done with the job when I heard the loud cheering and clapping from the crowd.

I have done a large number of conferences and seminars since then, but that first one will always be in my mind.

I invite-
@jyoti-thelight
@lavanyalakshman
@deepak94
Note- Not for contest