7 Sales Team Meeting Ideas for 2009
The weekly sales team meeting is an important hour of a salesperson’s week if it is not squandered. Busy sales managers sometimes neglect to prepare properly for this meeting and this hour becomes a drain on the team instead of an accelerator. The last thing a sales leader wants to do to their team first thing on a Monday morning is drain their energy.
Instead a sales manager can use these ideas from Meeting to Win (www.meetingtowin.com) for lively, productive meetings that energize the team for the week ahead. Try these out in 2009. For new agendas and topics every week in 2009, sales managers can also subscribe to Meeting to Win sales team meeting agendas. Each week fresh, relevant and current topics are packaged into 60 minute sales team meetings and sent directly to subscribers.
Idea #1: Fishbowl Topic
Ask a member of the team to introduce a topic, thought-provoking question, problem or scenario and ask the team to discuss it and resolve it during the meeting. The outcome should be new ideas or solutions to problems. By asking a member of the team to introduce it the sales meeting is more likely to cover topics of interest to sales team members.
Idea #2: Loss Analysis
In a positive and safe environment, ask someone who recently lost a deal to share the story with the team. Let the team ask questions, discuss and ultimately create a list of lessons the entire team can learn from a loss.
Idea #3: Reading Discussion
As a team, pick a business book and assign certain chapters each week or assign a recent article. During the weekly sales team meeting, set aside some time to discuss the reading assignment and apply any new ideas to your selling world.
Idea #4: Guest Speaker
Invite a guest speaker of the team’s choice. It is even better to get the team to find, invite and plan the guest speaker. Again, it is more likely the topic and speaker will be of interest to the team.
Idea #5: The War Room
During your weekly sales team meeting, set aside time to discuss new developments in your business and your customers’ business based on the economy. Each week presents new challenges and changing strategies. It is a critical time to stay up to speed in real time. The collective experience of the team can reduce surprises.
Idea #6: Reinforce Sales Training
If your company has provided any formal sales training, you can benefit from this investment of your team’s time by reinforcing and applying the training. Each week ask a different person on the team to re-teach a section or module of the training they experienced. Role play, do the exercises, apply it to real deals and hold each other accountable to using your new skills.
Idea #7: 2008 Sales Lessons
Ask the team to create a list of sales lessons from 2008. This list could get long. After they’ve created this list, determine 1 or 2 ways they will apply those lessons to 2009.
Enjoy these ideas and great sales team meetings in 2009!
The Meeting to Win Team
