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Everyone knows that holding meetings is the absolute best way to promote productivity-not! On the contrary, many meetings are an amazing waste of time. Here are some tips for ensuring your sales meetings don't fall into that category. Good Reasons to Meet Most of the tips for planning and holding great meetings apply to sales meetings; including the advice that you should have clear objectives. Here are some of the reasons to have sales meetings: To Foster team work and share best practices. Salespeople can be lone wolves. Though this trait has some very positive implications in a sales role, it can also create problems. Lone wolves sometimes make things harder for those who support sales, or for the service-providers. If you have sales, support, and service meet and talk about their work as a team, you can prevent such problems. Some salespeople find it hard to ask for help and problems can be camouflaged by a cultured air of confidence. If you have salespeople share their successes and discuss challenges, you can prevent this problem, as well. To Inspect what you expect. Sales meetings are a perfect place to show people you mean what you say. Many mature sales organizations have each salesperson report on three things:
To Foster good selling habits. If you are developing your sales culture, have performance problems, or have a whole bevy of newbies, then you should focus reporting on filling the pipeline. For example, have each person report on:
In addition to inspecting what you expect for the above, your meeting should also cover troubleshooting. If someone isn't making the number of cold calls they say they will, what can they do (and what will they do) to change that? To Share information. What's up? Sure, you could send out emails that share information, but it's often more effective to talk in person. Meetings are great for this, but don't over-do it. To Hold Mini-training sessions. You can use at least part of the meeting time to beef-up product knowledge or selling skills, as needed. Ten or fifteen minutes is all you need for a brief presentation about a product, or for one round of role play practice. To Celebrate! Which sales rep has the best performance for this period? Who made the most progress in developing their cold calling skills? Which service rep has been nominated for "outstanding sales partner"? Who has the hairiest problem to offer for group discussion? Use a sales meeting to celebrate both effort and success! To Foster a Sales Culture. If you are in the process of strengthening your sales culture, then your sales meetings should probably include almost all of the above: cover filling the pipeline, sharing best practices, praising team partners, and celebrate both effort and results. How Often and How Long? If your sales group is working on developing skills then it's probably best to meet weekly. Plan on a meeting that lasts 30 to 45 minutes, at the most. If your sales group is not working on developing skills, then meeting frequency depends a lot on your sales cycle. If your sales cycle is fairly long (more than a few months), then meeting every two weeks, to monthly, is probably plenty. Note: If you have coverage issues, hold two meetings so one-half of your group can cover the phones or the floor. How to Have Great Meetings Create and use an agenda. Using an agenda helps keep the meeting on track, so you don't waste time. Send the agenda out in advance of the meeting, so people can prepare. Whatever reasons drive your sales meetings, make sure you share those reasons with the group. Your agenda should list the reason(s) or objective(s) for each meeting. Have all team members attend. Include support and service reps in these meetings. Be flexible! As things change for your market, company, and sales group, so should the timing and content of your sales meetings. Set the expectation that the above is subject to change. Invite your group to request or suggest agenda items in advance of each meeting. Use a meeting facilitator. The facilitator's job is to keep the meeting on track with the agenda, including reporting and discussion. Rotate the facilitation task among everyone in your group to help them develop this important skill. Learn how to brainstorm. Your meetings may be used to address challenges. When you want to tap into the collective brilliance of your group, brainstorming is the answer! Provide toys to play with. Studies show that meetings are 30% more effective when people can play while they think. Providing desk toys is a perfect way to provide non-distracting play. See www.officeplayground.com for neat desk toys! Schedule meetings-and stick to it. Sales meetings should be a regular part of your sales group's work. That doesn't mean you hold them if things aren't too busy! When you make sales meetings a habit, that says your expectations for your sales team are not optional, either. Meeting via conference call? All of the above still applies! |