The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

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?

Sales meetings have always been stressful. But with the recent shift to digital, many sales professionals have had to adapt to a whole new way of closing deals.

Naturally, as with anything new, mistakes are still being made. And since sales meeting blunders can cost you business, we've created a list of the five most common ones so you can avoid them in the future.

Case Studies and campaign recaps are powerful tools to help sell success. When managers share individual wins with their team, it boosts morale, sparks ideas, and motivates others to do similar work.

Salespeople value the real-life experience of their peers. After all, the best part of working in sales is celebrating your biggest wins after hours, weeks, maybe even months of hard work. Sales wins are a combination of strategies, tools, and content — doesn't other players on your team want to know what worked well for the salesperson who sealed the deal?

Someone once said that perceptions can’t be wrong because it’s a perception, an opinion and impression of someone else. However, perceptions are often wrong because if they were right, they would be called facts.  

Whether we deserve it or not, we’re judged by every person that we connect with. The words that come out of our mouth firmly establish an imaginary tattoo on our forehead as we stand in front of a quality prospect.

Perception is everything, and how you’re seen by your team, prospects, and clients is a key to success. New research shows that you have 27 seconds to make a positive impression and 1 minute to prove value in any given situation. Like it or not, how you look, dress, and speak helps people to form an opinion of you.

Sales professionals are inherently focused on closing deals and increasing the number of accounts under their purview. As such, they are often impatient when it comes to their time and meetings with superiors are no exception.

One-on-one sales meetings need not be inefficient. Sales managers that want to maximize the effectiveness of their sales team can do so with Individual Focus Meetings. Far from your average sales pow-wow, these intense sessions will motivate your sales team to meet goals that may have seemed impossible before.

Your IFM's should be the most productive and most important time spent with your sales reps every week.

For those unfamiliar with the acronym IFM, it stands for Individual Focus Meeting. What is an IFM? It's what our team at The Center for Sales Strategy (CSS) calls your weekly one-on-one meetings with your salespeople (CSS loves to create an acronym for more common sales terms to keep you on your toes.)

Numerous studies support the fact that one-on-one meetings have a large impact on your team’s performance. So, if you’re struggling with IFM’s, it’s time to prioritize and improve with these three tips.

When you think about the sales meetings you attend, are you delighted or disappointed? Are you engaged or enraged? Is your time spent in the meetings worthwhile or wasted?

Sales meetings are a staple in most every sales department. Time is money to every salesperson and sales leader. It’s up to the sales leader to make sure each meeting is positive, motivating, and worthwhile. Treat your sales team like customers who want to feel like their needs have been met and that they leave the meeting enlightened and energized.

Once you have an appointment with a strong prospect, it’s time to prepare for a successful needs analysis so all the effort you spent getting the appointment isn’t wasted. You want to make sure that you have a strong and thorough needs analysis—because understanding your prospect's desired business results, challenges, and expectations is essential for developing a solution that will achieve results.

At the core of every successful workforce management practice is communication. As managers and sellers adapt to this new normal, clear communication and scheduled talk time is more important than ever before. Talk time comes in forms such as:

• Manager to seller talk time
• Manager to key customer talk time
• Seller to key and secondary customer talk time

Email is great for communicating data and confirming details, but nothing beats a conversation. Especially when the person on the other end of the line—phone or video—has a problem and needs to tap into your problem-solving expertise. Whether with your sales team, customers, or prospects, regular check-ins promote open communication and stop larger issues from festering, as well as allow for immediate feedback.