Team onboarding: sales and internal attendees

The operating model: marketing runs the machine, execs run the meetings

The published pattern that works for founder-led firms: the MarCom team owns the outreach mechanics, list-building, and calendar-filling; the execs' job at the event is attending the meetings, not prospecting (memo-03). Concretely: the comms owner fills the exec calendars per chapter 07; the sales captain runs quotas and capture; the exec walks in with a schedule, a talk track, and a promise ledger to honour.

The briefing pack (contents, in priority order)

1. The one-pager — memorised by everyone: why we're here (one sentence), the team quota, the three lead messages, the never-say list, the opener, the demo, the meeting ask. Half a page, no more; if it doesn't fit, the event isn't focused enough.
2. Target-account map — accounts likely attending, mapped to an owner, with pre-booked meetings marked. Sourced during selection (chapter 01): if this map is thin, that was a scorecard failure, not a prep failure.
3. Talk track — 2–3 flexible message frames, not scripts: the qualifying question sequence (chapter 09's three questions), top objections + responses, and the 90-second demo path. CEF language throughout: Path A / Path B / production-ready MVP / two-week sprints. Copywriter drafts it from templates/sales-enablement.md; the exec sponsor edits it into their own voice.
4. Capture mechanics — the tier definitions, the note schema, the CRM SLA (chapter 09). Two minutes of training saves the pipeline: the documented industry failure is leads captured with no qualification context (CEIR's actual finding — see research-foundations).
5. The follow-up plan, pre-written — sequences drafted before the event (chapter 10). This is the single strongest predictor in the follow-up research: teams that launch a pre-built sequence immediately convert at multiples of teams that start writing on the flight home.
6. Logistics — venue map, shifts, dress code per occasion, contact sheet, the #event-<slug> Slack channel.

The briefing call (T-2w, 45 minutes)

Agenda: the one-pager out loud (10) → target map + who owns whom (10) → talk-track role-play, one objection each (15) → capture + promise-ledger mechanics (5) → logistics + quotas confirmed (5). Recorded, linked from the pack. The eve-of-event refresher is 10 minutes at the hotel: numbers, first meetings, standup time.

The never-say list (brand rules, spoken as well as written)

Events are speech under brand governance — the forbidden patterns in brands/into-consulting/README.md apply to conversation:

• No client names without explicit approval (Tier-7 confidentiality). Case patterns are described by shape ("a hospitality software company", "a research-intelligence product") unless naming is cleared.
• Never "chatbot." INTO sells AI systems, agents, workflows.
• No hype claims ("revolutionary", "10x", "game-changer"), no guaranteed outcomes, no competitor naming or trashing — we talk about our approach, not others'.
• Pricing → "depends on scope; that's exactly what a Path A/B conversation settles."
• Green-room and sponsor-confidential knowledge stays off social and out of conversations (role SKILL.md).

Conduct, comfort, and stamina

• Booth/floor etiquette where relevant: engage within 15–20 seconds, open posture at the front edge, never cluster with colleagues, no phones on shift, ~90 minutes max before a real break (the exhibit-industry trainer consensus — memo-03).
• Everyone represents INTO at the after-party too; after-hours is part of the brief, not an aside.
• Dress code set explicitly per occasion (floor vs dinner vs stage) in the pack, so nobody has to guess.
• Protect one hour a day of no-programming time on multi-day events; exhausted hunters capture badly.

Internal attendee expectations (non-selling travellers included)

Every traveller — engineer at the demo station, producer capturing content — carries a written expectation set before travel is booked: why they're going, what they bring back (N conversations, session learnings to present internally, competitive notes), which sessions they'll attend. The know-before-you-go pack goes out at T-7d: confirmations, agenda + the team's meeting schedule, maps, dress, expectations, contacts — one doc, most important outcome stated at the top.

External attendee onboarding (owned events)

For dinners and workshops, the guests are onboarding too:

• Confirmation with calendar invite, venue + private-room note, and (for UK/international events) the entry-authorisation reminder relevant to them (e.g. UK ETA — chapter 05).
• Know-before-you-go at T-3d: timing, format promise ("12 peers, moderated conversation, no pitch"), dietary confirmation, how to reach the host.
• The host's personal T-48h note — the single highest-leverage show-rate lever for VIP formats (chapter 12).
• Dietary + accessibility answers flow to the logistics tracker; the venue is briefed on allergens as a safety matter.

Readiness gate (T-1w)

The sales captain signs off each traveller: pack read, briefing attended, pre-booked meetings ≥ target, manifest green. Anyone red on meetings gets help or stays home — a traveller without meetings is cost, not capacity (chapter 03).