In my post yesterday about bad sales meetings, I opine that the number one problem with weekly sales meetings is that they don't focus on sales. In the post, I list typical qualities of dysfunctional sales meetings.
So what if you are a sales manager, and you want to make your weekly sales meetings more productive and more relevant, and you're committed to making your meetings about selling? What should you do?
One thing you can do is ask yourself the following dozen questions about any topic before you place it on your agenda for a sales meeting:
1. Do I have a clear agenda for this meeting? If not, make one. If you can't make a concise agenda, don't hold the sales meeting.
2. Is a sales meeting the appropriate venue for this topic? Or would a better venue be a one-on-one meeting, or an email, or some other method of communication? If, during the last 125 sales meetings you've reminded your group to turn in the pink copy of the order to accounting, and they're still not doing it, it's unlikely that reminding them again will do the trick. You probably need to manage those offenders to get the job done, not take more sales meeting time to say the same thing. Some sales managers use group talk when disciplinary action for an individual employee is more appropriate (and more effective).
3. Who should attend this meeting? You may have a senior manager that should attend this particular meeting because of the topic. On the other hand, you may have other people (sales support, marketing, receptionist, etc.) that regularly attend your weekly sales meetings that don't or shouldn't be there.
4. What outcome am I trying to achieve by talking about topic X? The same goes with topic Y, Z, etc. Make sure you know how you will determine if your sales meeting was successful BEFORE you plan the meeting.
5. How can I boost the sales-related content of my sales meeting? Since sales meetings should be about sales, how can I spend more time and energy on forecasting, sales training, won sales analysis, lost sales analysis, role-playing, review of sales performance, sales metrics, etc.? Add one or two selling topics to add to your agenda.
6. How can I delete non-sales topics from my agenda and still manage my team? Since sales meetings should be about selling, it's often a very good thing to edit out at least some topics that don't have a direct impact on revenue production or learning.
7. Will we do a better job of closing business, finding new business, attracting new customers, or cutting costs if I spend time on this topic? If the answer is "no" to all of the above, then it probably shouldn't take up valuable sales meeting time.
8. What can/should I do that would make this meeting more engaging to my team? Sales meetings that have something that is different or memorable or novel or fun are more likely to have an impact than the same old same old.
9. Which fifty-percent of the sales meeting can I delete to make the other fifty percent more effective? Trying to do too much in too little time doesn't help make sales meetings effective.
10. What can I do to make this meeting have impact? You might need to do a better job of following up with your individual salespeople after the meeting, or assign action items to yourself or other attendees.
11. Am I prepared for the meeting? If not, don't have the meeting. If you have fifteen salespeople on your staff, and your sales meeting lasts ninety minutes, you're spending 24 man hours on your meeting. That's not a small sum. If you're going to ask for that much commitment from your team, you should have your ducks in a tidy, well-planned row by the time the meeting starts.
12. Stay on topic. If peripheral topics come up during the course of the meeting, write them down and add them to future agendas or consider those ideas or problems after the meeting. Don't let employees hijack the agenda. Emergencies must be dealt with, but there are few emergencies that require all members of a sales department to solve.
If you like this post (or don't) please leave a comment. Skip Anderson is the Founder and President of Selling to Consumers Sales Training. He works with companies and individuals who sell to consumers in retail, in-home selling, and the financial, real estate, and insurance markets.
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