Thank you! Thank you! Really, Thanks. Please hold your applause until the end of the sales meeting.
What?
You mean that you haven’t been interrupted during your sales meeting by thunderous applause from your salespeople? Really?
Don’t feel too bad. It doesn’t happen all too often to sales managers, especially if your sales meeting agenda is like this…
1) Housekeeping
2) Budget vs Actual
3) Latest News
4) New Sales Packages
5) Go Sell Something NOW
I know that you're surprised that this thrilling sales meeting agenda doesn’t garner the love and adoration that it deserves. But, seriously, if you were a salesperson what would you think of this meeting.
I’d think this would be a great email, not a meeting agenda.
Sales meetings should be beneficial to your team, not just you.
Salespeople want to make good use of their time, too. If they’re not on appointments or closing deals, they want to spend time in valuable, productive meetings. So, if you need to share information, consider sending a weekly email with your housekeeping and budget updates.
Your IFMs (Individual Focus Meetings) should be where you work individually with your reps to grow their business with Target and Key accounts.
As for your weekly sales meetings, use your 30 to 45 minutes to help them develop their sales skills through small doses of training that are relevant and timely for their sales success.
5 Steps to Help Engage Salespeople (and get the applause you want)
1. Get Input
Yes, have a meeting with your sales team to brainstorm topics that they are interested in learning more about. This could be part of a regular meeting or a special meeting. Create a list of 20+ items that will help you plan your sales meetings.
2. Prioritize your list
Have your salespeople rank the list of potential topics from most to least important. You should focus on specific steps within the sales process, such as
3. Create A Schedule
Create a schedule of meeting topics based on the priority ranking of the topics by the sales team and share a month’s schedule of meetings with the team.
4. Ask for Volunteers
Ask for volunteers to lead the training on that week’s topic. Obviously, you should be involved in the content and training direction. The training doesn’t have to be formal. It could be a rep sharing a success story, example, and/or a discussion on the topic with the team.
5. Prepare
Schedule a 30-minute meeting a few days in advance of the meeting with the rep that is leading the training to go over the topic and plan to make sure that you are on the same page and they are prepared.
While you may not get a standing ovation, you will win your salespeople over with engaging sales meetings that help them sharpen their skills. Time is money in their eyes, so help them see sales meetings as productive.
*Editor's Note: This blog was originally written in 2016 and has since been updated.
