Article for “Sales Guru” Magazine
”One of the biggest challenges for a sales manager is to keep his/her sales meetings exciting and productive week after week.
Try these proven ideas to put a “sizzle” into your meetings.
- Rotate Who is in Charge
“To give meetings a lift every second week have a different salesperson take charge of the sales meeting. As the sales manager you may cover a few key issues and then turn it over to the salesperson or to two people if necessary. When the meeting is over ask the salesperson:
1. What went well?
2. Where could you have improved?
3. What potential problems, hurdles or challenges do you see for the future?
4. What opportunities do you see for the future?
- Unique and Different Venues
What if once a month you had a unique and different venue for your meetings? Word would get out and your style of management would be seen as innovative and unique. These things attract good salespeople plus they impress the clients as well and above all change the state of mind of your people. How about a meeting…
- On someone’s boat parked at the lake or harbour?
- At someone’s home and have breakfast at the same time?
- In a unique place. E.g. a ride up a gondola to the restaurant at the top of Table Mountain?
- In a passenger train (moving or parked)?
- At a go-cart track (tie in racing)?
- At an upscale pool hall – include pool?
- In the ‘Sports Box’ – 2 hours before the game?
Why not consider a theme song and play it at the start of each meeting. When you hit budget, bring some hats, horns, decorations, refreshments and have some fun at the meeting.
Have a couple of your people do a “skit” to introduce a new product. You could even bring in a couple of amateur actors or actresses as a surprise. The possibilities are unlimited. We do these things at conferences so why not do it at your meeting.
- Sales People Visit Other Sales Meetings
Have your sales people attend an associate’s meetings, and be willing to reciprocate. Then have that person bring back the positives unless the negative is something that also happens at your meetings and they can use the example to help eliminate or reduce the problem in your meetings. A team member’s observations and suggestions is much more powerful than you suggesting it as a sales manager.
- One “Quick Tool” Per Meeting
At every meeting start a tradition of focusing on “one good sales tool” or “skill of the week”. That way you are continually reinforcing winning principles.
- I “Shopped The Competition” Report
Every 60 days you could have a couple of your people “shop the competition” “in person or on the telephone” and give the team feedback and make suggestions how your team can take advantage of that information.
- We Were Shopped Report
Consider once a quarter, having someone “shop your business and your team” and give feedback. You could in advance agree with the team what would qualify as good service or what skilfully handling enquiries looks like. You could set up incentives based on the results.
Bill Gibson is the author/developer of The Complete Sales Action System, The Managing Complex Business Relationship System and a host of other sales and sales management programs. He has spoken to over one million people would wide. He is a Canadian living in South Africa. For more tips on Putting “Sizzle” Into Your Sales Meetings view Bill speaking on the subject a few years ago, Part 1: Running A Productive Sales Meetinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR4YiLoi10w and Part 2: 11 Tips For Sales Meetingshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=632OA_TFdW0. Bill can be contacted at +27-11-784-1720 or bill@kbitraining.com, www.kbitraining.com