I once saw a comic strip that showed a bunch of people glumly leaving a conference room. The caption showed what someone behind the group was shouting: “And we’ll keep having meetings like this until we find out why nothing gets done around here!”
Consider the sales meeting.
In theory, sales meetings have a solid and important purpose. But done wrong they can be demotivating, momentum–killing opportunities for a manager’s ego to run amuck over the course of way too many minutes which could have been spent doing the thing the manager was trying to get the reps to do: Sell.
Alternatively, a sales meeting can be a motivational shot in the arm, education–filled, team- building calendar event sales people actually look forward to.
Here’s how:
- Start on time. Do not reward late-arrivals by waiting for them. Make a promise to the reps: You arrive on time and the meeting will end on time.
- Have a set agenda you follow each week. This requires preparation and along with the next suggestion helps short attention span sales reps know how long they must be attentive…
- Announce how long the meeting will be at the onset.
- Stick to that time promise.
Anything that keeps a sales rep from selling is counterproductive to the job description and requirements of a sales rep. That includes the sales meeting. The more a manager can do to create and run a tight agenda, on time and in time meeting, the better chance everyone has of benefiting from it.
In conclusion, I encourage you to follow the advice of my father’s former boss, the Episcopal Bishop of Western, Massachusetts Alexander Stewart: “A great sermon has a strong beginning, a thoughtful ending, and as a little space in between those two things as possible.”
