October 24, 2026 | Read online​

Would your customers show up if you weren’t selling?

by Kevin 'KD' Dorsey

Build an event your customers actually want to attend
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Sales leaders, look at the agenda for your next event.
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How much of it helps the people in the room do their jobs better?
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And how much of it helps your team talk about your product?
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A prospecting dinner can sound great in a planning meeting. Good venue. Target accounts. A few executives. A presentation squeezed in before dessert.
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But “we want pipeline” doesn’t give someone a reason to spend their evening with you.
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Start with the customers you already serve.
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What are they trying to figure out? What decision keeps getting delayed? What problem would they genuinely want to compare notes on with someone doing the same job?
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Build around that.
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Prospects can join that conversation too. They get to hear how real customers think, what they’re working through, and where they still need help. Customers get something useful beyond another check-in.
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​Here’s how to make the idea practical.​
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1. Pick a problem worth leaving the office for.​
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   “Networking with peers” is a pretty vague promise.
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   Get specific. Maybe your audience is figuring out how to give new managers more ownership without losing visibility. Maybe they’re trying to improve handoffs between sales and customer success.
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   Ask a few customers what they’d want to discuss. Use their answers to shape the agenda.
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   Try finishing this sentence:
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   “After this conversation, attendees will be better equipped to _____.”
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   If you can only fill the blank with “understand our product,” keep working.
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2. Give customers a real role in the conversation.
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   Invite them to share how they approached the problem, what they tried, and what they would change.
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   Let them talk about the messy parts too.
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   A customer shouldn’t have to turn their experience into a polished endorsement to earn a seat at the table. Ask permission before using their story elsewhere, and make it clear whether anything will be recorded.
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   Your team’s job is to ask good questions, connect people, and listen.
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   Pay attention to the questions prospects ask customers. Those questions can reveal concerns your standard discovery call never gets to.
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3. Plan the follow-up before you plan the menu.​
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   What will someone take back to work?
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   It could be a short summary of the approaches discussed. A checklist the group helped build. An introduction they asked for.
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   Make that useful follow-up part of the plan from the start.
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   If someone wants to explore your product, agree on the next step with them. Don’t assume attending dinner means they agreed to a demo.
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   Then look beyond the registration count.
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   Did customers get something useful? Did people ask to continue a conversation? Did your team learn something it can act on? Were the agreed next steps actually completed?
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   This week, take one event you’re considering and rewrite the agenda around a problem your customers care about.
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   Before you approve the venue, send that agenda to a few customers and ask:
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   “Would this be worth your time? What would make it more useful?”
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   Their answers can save you from building an event that only your sales team wants to attend.
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   KD

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