So on Friday night, around 7:00 PM, I will board a plane and fly for over 20 hours to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to conduct a workshop on Sales Incentive Management for a group of various executives from around southern Asia whom I’ve never met and the only interaction I’ve had with the organizers is via e-mail.

kuala_lumpur_malaysia-normal

Kaula Lumpur

And no…I did not wire them any money in advance.  In fact, they wired me money.

The saga began back in December 19th when I was busy with a number of other programs.  Going through my e-mail quickly, there was one that almost got put in the trash immediately “Trainer invite for Sale Compensation Management.”  It started out, “Dear Mr. Nelson, Good day to you.  We are pleased to formally invite you, on behalf of UNI Strategic, to be the trainer four our 2 day training on Sales Compensation Management…”   It went on to talk about what they wanted and how they “specialize in the provision of business-to-business intelligence.”  It was signed by Ramesh, Conference Producer.

Yeah – I thought it was spam as well.

However, I was intrigued.  I checked out the company via the internet.  They actually looked legit.  I saw some of the videos that showed actual training workshops being led by Americans.  I searched the internet to see what people were saying about them – and they were saying good things.  I researched their history – they’ve been doing this for almost 8 years and have put on a session with Bill Clinton in 2010.

So I e-mailed Ramesh.  I asked him a lot of questions – how did you find me, why did you want me to do this, what is the pay for it, how does it work, who would I be training, etc….  The answers came back and were pretty good and raised my interest more.

Ramesh had found me through a Google search for sales incentive experts.  He had seen my presentation at World at Work.  He looked at my Linked-in file and checked out my background.   He looked at the 4-drive theory work that I had been doing.  He thought that I would be a good match for the people that they recruited to these events.

Needless to say, many e-mails later we had a signed contract, tickets to Malaysia, hotel accommodations and two extra days to see the city.  All because of the internet.

PS – If anyone has any suggestions for things to do while I’m in Kuala Lumpur, I would be thrilled to hear about them.  I have two free days that I want to use to explore and discover.

Thanks.