How Effective Are Your Team Meetings?

It’s on every sales professional’s calendar… the weekly “team sales meeting”.  The meetings are usually on Monday morning… bright and early at 8:00 am.  Sales leaders think Monday mornings are a great time to hold a mandatory sales meeting because it’s first thing after a long weekend, the reps should be undistracted, recharged and ready to start the week.  The meetings go one of two ways:

1.    The meeting is highly effective and the team walks out engaged, entertained, educated, and motivated OR
2.    Your team sits there, glazed over and unengaged. They sip their coffee and look at you like a deer in headlights.

I’ve personally attended and facilitated meetings with both outcomes. The deer in headlights is not an ideal situation. You leave frustrated because you don’t feel they are as motivated and committed as YOU are. As a leader, you wonder why your team is so unengaged.  You wonder if they are the right people for the team, if they have what it takes to win, if they are still excited about the job… I know list seems endless. The list isn’t endless; it’s really one reason and one reason only: YOU WEREN’T PREPARED TO ADD VALUE. 

How much time did you spend preparing for the meeting? If you gave the content of the meeting less than an hour of thought and consideration… then you weren’t prepared. What if your reps “winged” their biggest sales call of the week?

As a leader, the team sales meeting is your BIGGEST sales call of the week.  It’s an opportunity to sell your ENTIRE team on specific ideas, tactics, attitudes and activities. What is the time worth? The morning sales meeting can be an extremely effective tool, IF you are using the time wisely. However, if the meeting is not “effective” … then the polar opposite is true. You waste everyone’s time, you de-motivate, you UN-inspire, you lose credibility, you lose respect… I think you get the point.

An effective sales meeting should positively shape each of your sales reps week, influence their decision making, communicate company information, set weekly expectations, provide valuable sales training, share success stories, inspire and motivate them to go sell something big!

If you want to test your current effectiveness in running team meetings, ask your team if they think holding a team meeting monthly instead of weekly makes more sense. If they say monthly – then you are NOT providing value. You are wasting time. Time = Revenue. OR make your team meetings “optional” vs. “mandatory”… if people start no-showing then your meetings are NOT effective.

If you feel you aren’t providing a valuable ROI for your people, then answer this question:  What is the primary purpose of your current team meeting? If your purpose doesn’t meet the following criteria, then your meeting is falling short. Your team meetings should:

• Engage

• Entertain

• Educate

• Motivate

If you're wondering how to do this or if you don't have the time to create a weekly sales meeting agenda, then call me... I can help you.