Effective Sales Meetings

Written by Eric Petersen, CIC

Raise your hand if you love sales meetings.

I bet not many readers of this article actually raised their hand and I don’t blame them for that. Most sales meetings are not an effective use of the sales person’s time. Sales people do not want to be stuck in a meeting, they want to be out seeing their customers and prospects and their frustration with meetings compounds when they don’t feel that they get any value out of the meeting itself. 

What is the objective of a Sales Meeting? 

It is simply to help your sales team sell more.That’s it. Don’t overcomplicate this during your meetings. 

So how do you make sure you are having effective sales meetings? Here are my six tips to getting the most out of your sales meetings:

1. Define purpose to all involved – The “Why” – Make sure everyone knows why you are holding sales meetings; to help them sell more! This sounds elementary, but this simple purpose must be stated fairly regularly to keep sales people engaged before, during and after the meeting. When they feel that they have your support, salespeople perform better and are more likely to help offer suggestions for improvement. 
2. Set an agenda and stick to it – Without an agenda, sales meetings meander around hoping to help someone in the meeting while undoubtedly wasting most people’s time. No one wants to sit in a meeting and not know what is going to be talked about next or worse yet, not know how long the meeting will last. An agenda that is sent out in advance of the meeting also allows the participants a chance to prepare beforehand to be more effective during the time spent together. For a few sample meeting agenda types, check out this article. 
3. Start AND end on time – This also is pretty basic, but when you ask a sales person to take time out of their day to spend in a meeting versus with their customers/prospects, you need to start the meeting on time and end on time. Respecting your sales people’s time should be a foundational part of any organization. Most tree companies are good at starting on time, but need to work at ending on time. To properly end a meeting on time, your agenda must keep you focused and have a built-in option to table certain items until the next meeting.
4. Celebrate wins – Everyone likes to feel victorious and sharing success stories with your sales team are a great way to do this. Not only does the individual salesperson get recognition for a job well done, the others may learn a thing or two on what went into closing that sale and be able to apply that the next time they have a similar situation. 
5. Ensure collaborative environment – It is easy for a sales meeting to turn into a competitive bragging session between your sales people, especially when you are celebrating individual wins. Ensure that you create a collaborative environment by focusing on team goals throughout the meeting and building in time for everyone to contribute something that they’ve learned/experienced. It’s amazing to hear the sales ideas you get from your team when you foster a team environment in your sales meetings.  
6. Keep meeting minutes – This last tip is probably the hardest for every sales manager, but it is so critical to keep your meetings as effective as possible. Before the meeting starts, someone should be assigned to take the meeting minutes. They do not have to be an entire log of everything that was said, but they should reflect; who was in attendance, summary of each agenda item, goal updates and most importantly who will do what by when. The last part is the crucial accountability part that is often missed with sales meetings. Remember, the purpose of the sales meeting is to help your salespeople sell more, so build this into your meeting structure so there is more accountability for everyone involved.

If you are struggling creating a sales meeting format that works for your team or need help developing a better sales process, reach out to an ArboRisk team member today to get started in our Thrive Sales & Marketing Package.