The Sales Manager leads a sales team meeting and brings together the people responsible for achieving your company's sales goals to review progress and priorities.
Summary1 – Have a clear objective and agenda2 . Create clear sales meeting expectations3. Keep the conversation on track4. Review progress towards goals5. Discuss challenges and solutions6. Recognizing successes and acknowledging top performers7. Discuss next steps and key action items Sales meeting tools End resultThe right format, frequency, and content of these meetings can make the difference between hitting your revenue target or not and putting your business at risk. We've outlined the seven steps to running an effective sales meeting.
There's nothing more boring for sales team members than when sales managers have an ongoing sales meeting with no clear objective or when they feel like they're meeting "just to meet" . Make sure your meeting has a clear purpose. For example, some meetings are designed to review performance and progress toward set goals, while others may involve goal planning and some may be reserved for specific training.
Whatever the purpose of the meeting, share the agenda beforehand via email. If you expect your reps to be prepared with specific information, such as a current business status report, be sure to ask them a few days in advance.
Here are some common types of sales team meetings:
Sales meetings should be mandatory to make sure everyone is aware of the team's priorities and goals, making sure everyone knows they're supposed to be there, unless they're either on paid leave or on sick leave. If so, sales managers can record meetings for absent team members to watch later or give them an update afterwards.
Team members should also participate in sales team meetings rather than just being present. For example, each person should provide an update on the status of their deals. Another big expectation is that no one brings phones or computers to the meeting, or at least that cell phones are put away for the duration of the meeting.
A computer may be needed to review reports or take notes, but this should be the exception. Team members should also be transparent when discussing sales deals and focus on collaboration rather than competition. Finally, meetings should start on time and end on time to show respect for everyone's valuable working time during the day.
The job of the sales manager is to keep things on track during the meeting and follow the agenda. However, it is not uncommon for an agenda item to take too long and derail the meeting. Or, an unrelated issue may arise and disrupt the agenda.
If this happens, schedule a time to discuss it later rather than dismissing the issue or letting the meeting drag on for a long time. A great way to stay on track is to give each agenda item a set amount of minutes and wrap up and move on to the next topic when the time is up.
During a general sales meeting, one of the most important things your team will discuss is to review progress against your monthly sales goals. It's a great idea to have each sales representative come to the table with their current won deals, anticipated won deals, and lost deals. Once you have a good idea of your sales forecast, you can make adjustments.
For example, if it looks like you're not close to hitting your monthly revenue goal, you can add more leads to the pipeline to create more sales opportunities. Conversely, if the team is doing better than expected overall, you can change your monthly sales target to a higher number and encourage the team to stretch to reach it.
Sales meetings provide a good opportunity to collaborate rather than just giving status reports. This gives reps a chance to talk about deals that are stuck in the pipeline that they can't seem to move forward or talk about objections from potential customers.
For example, a sales rep might mention that a promising sales deal seems to have fizzled out because they haven't been able to contact them for more than two weeks. Sales managers and other reps can give them tips on engaging the prospect with follow-up email templates or talk about the best time to contact people on the phone.
While the sales team is gathered in a meeting, it's a great time to discuss successes and recognize top performers. For example, sales managers should publicly recognize the reps who closed the most sales or generated the most revenue in the previous month.
You can also recognize upcoming reps as a "most improved" recognition. Consider giving small rewards, they don't have to be expensive. For example, you can print certificates of achievement, frame them and present them at the meeting or give gift cards to a local coffee shop. It also helps keep your sales team motivated.
Before each sales meeting, designate someone to take meeting notes so you can keep track of what you discussed and record action items. Write down key goals and revenue goals for the next month (or by your next meeting).
You should also outline any new products or tools the team will be using and highlight any additional responsibilities for certain team members, such as mentoring new hires. Finally, send meeting notes to each team member after each meeting so everyone knows what is expected of them and what they should be working to accomplish before the next sales meeting. P>
There are several sales management tools that can be used to help you run a productive sales meeting. Here are some of the tools used by many small businesses:
operating team members.
Sales meetings are an essential part of fostering a healthy and transparent sales environment. However, be careful not to have "just to meet" meetings. Instead, every sales meeting should have a clear purpose and agenda, encourage strong attendance, build relationships, and end with action items and next steps.
