It is my pleasure to give you a FREE sales team meeting topic from Meeting to Win.  Meeting to Win provides new sales team meeting topics every week for our subscribers (best deal!).  Also, you may visit the Meeting to Win store and choose from over 90 topics for immediate download (more being added all the time!).

Enjoy this FREE SAMPLE sales team meeting topic, 10 Things Your Customers Don’t Know.

10 Things Your Customers Don’t Know Summary:

It has been proven over and over that it is in the best interest of sales professionals to nurture their existing customer relationships to succeed in the long term. The cost of maintaining and growing an existing customer is considerably less than acquiring a new one. With that in mind, this topic is about continuing to educate our existing customers about how we can help them succeed. Often, we sell them one solution to get one result and we fail to expand that relationship across their organization or across our own suite of solutions.  In this topic, your team will be challenged to think about what their customers don’t know you can do for them.  They will leave the meeting with a strategy for uncovering new needs at existing customers and then sharing solutions to those uncovered needs. The result should be expanded business with existing customers. 

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Good Selling,

Jill Myrick

Owner, Meeting to Win

Spend 20 minutes and get the Top 5 Best Practices for Productive Sales Team Meetings.

Then, download all 15 from Future Selling Institute and Meeting to Win.

Enjoy ALL your future sales team meetings by implementing these top practices.

Keeping Monday morning sales team meetings fresh and energizing takes some effort.  Here are three ideas to liven up your Monday Morning Sales Team Meetings.

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1.  Athletes do this.. why not you?  Baseball players have at-bat music, wrestlers have entrance music and teams have theme songs.  Ask your team to choose and share their theme song for the quarter.  Ask them to share the song and why they chose it.  There are many things you can do with these theme songs throughout the quarter – use them during sales team meetings, set their reports to music, fire them up by playing the song on their voicemail.  Music is powerful – use the power!

2.  Invite customers to your sales team meetings.  Once per month, invite a different customer to join your sales team meeting for a few minutes.  Ask them why they buy from your company, what they hear from your competitors, what they would change about working with your company, what would make them stay or leave and anything else you want to know.  Then, do something with the information in the next meeting.

3.  Change venues for your meeting.  If you meet in person, have your meeting outside or at a coffee house.  If you meet on the phone, ask everyone to visit their local Kinko’s and hop on a videoconference.  Change venues each month.  It is amazing how a change in environment changes a mood.

Enjoy energizing sales team meetings this year.  Please send in your ideas to jill@meetingtowin.com.  We’ll share your ideas and give you all the credit. 

To get new, energizing sales team meeting topics every week, subscribe to Meeting to Win weekly sales team meeting agendas.  Never have another dull sales team meeting again – guaranteed!

Are your sales team meetings painful? Do you feel this pressure to entertain and energize your sales team every Monday morning only to leave feeling disappointed and awkward? You are not alone…

(Get a NEW sales team meeting topic EVERY Friday morning delivered right to your inbox – Subscribe to Meeting to Win by clicking HERE.)

Sales team meetings call into play skill sets and abilities such as facilitation, showmanship, conflict resolution, public speaking, communication skills and likability. There are people who make a living specializing in just one of those skill sets. So, it’s no wonder it’s challenging to execute productive and inspiring sales team meetings week after week.

I have the solution for you.

Quit trying to do it yourself.

Sales team members didn’t buy a ticket to your show. Therefore, they need to stop showing up on Monday mornings with the attitude of an audience waiting to get their money’s worth.

The sales team meeting is for the benefit of the sales team, not the sales manager. It is time to invite your team to participate in this aspect of their success. By the time they arrive at the Monday morning sales team meeting they should already know the topics and be prepared to contribute to a productive discussion with a clearly defined goal for the time they are spending in the meeting.

To achieve this, begin by holding your last performance meeting about the future of your team’s Monday morning sales team meetings. Let the team know that collectively the group has much more to contribute that just you alone. With that reality, it is time to share ownership of the weekly sales team meetings.

Some things you can do during this meeting to improve all future meetings include:

• Ask the team for their ideas to improve sales team meetings.
• Ask the team to share what they believe to be the value of a well-executed weekly sales team meeting.
• Set up a schedule for each team member to own sales team meetings – find topics and exercises, create and send agenda, meet goals.
• As a team, create a list of useful topics.
• As a team, set rules of engagment for sales team meetings.

Expecting your team to take ownership in the weekly sales team meeting accomplishes several things. 

First, they will be more engaged and make better use of that hour.

Second, they get the chance to develop leadership skills.

Third, they get the chance to improve meeting management skills which will be evident in future meetings with customers.

Enjoy better meetings in 2011.  If you would like a sales team meeting template to help you faciliate this meeting we described above, simply visit our Store to Purchase and Download the Topic-to-Win Sales Team Meeting Success.

Everyone wants more for their money these days.  A powerful way to outsmart and out-win the competition is to keep providing your clients more value – before they ask.  Creating simpler invoices, providing valuable information or finding better delivery options are all ways to accomplish this.

The new year is a great time to solidify your value with your clients.  When was the last time one of your vendors approached you with an idea to help you do something more effectively?  If it’s happened, chances are you really remember it because …. it’s rare!

Examine the business practices and goals of your top customers and determine if there is a way you can help them do something more effectively.  Then, set a meeting to discuss your ideas.  At the very least, you will leave that meeting with a more loyal customer than before the meeting.  At the very best, they partner with you to work together to add more value for you both.

To lead your team through an exercise that helps them all accomplish this, purchase for immediate download the sales team meeting topic, Be Innovative to Create More Value, from the Meeting to Win Store.  Your customers will love it and your competitors will pay for it.

Visit the Meeting to Win Store to find 90+ topics to use to energize your sales teams every Monday morning.

The Monday Morning Sales Team Meeting is a critically important hour in the week of a salesperson.  Executing these sales team meetings poorly can leave your team unmotivated, desperate and, as we’ll address today, overwhelmed.  Because I am guessing you want to do none of these things to your sales team first thing on a Monday morning,  I am sharing the Meeting to Win  Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter one trouble at a time.  Thanks for joining us.  As they say, if you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.  With a small amount of attention, your meetings can be the exceptions to poorly executed sales team meetings that plague sales teams the world over.

Solve your sales meeting problems with The Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter.

Problem: 

You, the Sales Manager, want to have inspiring, interactive and energizing sales team meetings.  Afterall, you have been a sales rep before and have endured countless horrible, motivation-robbing sales meetings.  And, yet, you find yourself leading those very meetings. 

The problem is that you barely have enough time to cover the volumes of information your boss, home office, marketing team, product team, HR team and Collections teams demand that you cover with your sales team.  Have you ever noticed that everyone wants a piece of the sales team?  HR wants to reorganize them, Finance wants to count their sales, Operations wants to get along with them, Marketing wants to promote underperforming products, Product teams want to promote their products and the Executives want to sell more.  The sales team is the vehicle for all these departments and they all want to communicate – often.  This leaves your sales team meetings full of powerpoint decks and, ultimately, turn your meetings into Data Dumps.  And, no one is paying attention unless the particular topic happens to affect something they are currently working on.  So, boring sales meeting?  Check.

Solution:

• To begin with, I happen to believe that, if done appropriately and in the best interest of sales and the customers, it is OK to push back on some of these requests.  At the very least, ask that they be reprioritized and spread out.  It’s worth a shot… I did have a VP of Sales who set up barriers around the sales teams Tues-Fri to protect selling time.  Great move!
• The reality is that companies feel that it is necessary to dump this data and aside from respectful push-backs and reprioritization, ultimately, it’s going to have to be…dumped.  So, as a team, acknowledge that this information needs to be shared and, hopefully, in many cases it is actually helpful.  Then, figure out a better way to share it so you can reserve Monday mornings for sales-generating sales and customer topics.
  • Some ideas:
    • If you have an intranet, carve out a team page and post any information that can simply be posted.  As a team, set a standard for reading updates once per week or whatever makes sense.  Last time I checked, we are all adults and can be trusted to keep ourselves updated.  Expect that.
    • Since Monday mornings are the worst time to dump, set aside one hour (outside of selling time) to Data Dump.  Call it what it is and dump away.  Everyone can come prepared for an administrative meeting.
    • Share information on a recorded webinar.  Send your team a note when there is a new webinar so they can access it when it is more convenient for them.  They can call you with any questions.
    • Create a team newsletter.  Once per week or less frequently, update the newsletter with necessary data dumps.  Again, set a team standard that this needs to be read regularly. 
    • Send this information in e-mails with clear subject lines.  I’ve seen coding systems used, too.  “A” meant read/take action within 24 hours (everyone hates fire drills); “B” meant “read/take action within the next week”; “C” meant “FYI/good info to save”.  With a good system, the team members can prioritize and manage their time around all the information coming at them. 
      • The inbox can be the most overwhelming place!  Teach everyone to use Outlook most efficiently.  E-mails can be coded and filed as they come in.  They can set aside informational e-mails to read outside of selling time.  Color code emails from important people (customers!). The best thing I did was differentiate between e-mails sent to just me and those sent to a distribution list that just included me with a code in Outlook.  Guess which one got filed in “read later”?

So, Sales Managers, be the filter and manager of all the information your team needs to be successful.  As we suggest on almost every selling challenge.  Discuss this challenge as a team, throw around ideas and come up with a solution that the team agrees on.  Then, execute effectively.  Dump your data, just do it in the least disruptive way possible.  Your team will feel more motivated and less overwhelmed.

Stay tuned to the Meeting to Win blog for solutions to all your sales meeting troubles as we continue adding to The Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter.  To get new sales team meeting topics every week, complete with a 60 minute agenda,  join Meeting to Win.  We’d love to work with you and your team!

 To see solutions to other sales team meeting problems, visit other articles in this series:

Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter – Problem: The Dominator

Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter – Problem: Chirp…Chirp…

Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter – Problem: Latecomers

For a list of ideas for your upcoming sales meeting, visit Sales Team Meeting Ideas You Can Use Today.

The Monday Morning Sales Team Meeting is the pace car for a sales team’s weekly race.  It can either slow the team down or set them on a course to the checkered flag.  The benefits of executing effective sales team meetings are exciting and worth the effort.  And….it does take effort.  There are so many things that can go wrong in any given moment during a sales team meeting.  About 5% of sales team meetings are done well.  Those teams have a competitive advantage that anyone can have with the proper amount of preparation and attention.  Do not be discouraged!  The Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter can set a sales team’s week at the right pace. 

Solve your sales meeting problems with The Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter.

Problem: 

Your sales team has one loud mouth that tends to dominate the conversation causing everyone to tune out.  This person sometimes gets negative, focusing on one insurmountable problem with any topic.  This person can get so focused on one detail irrelevant to 99% of the people on the call.  Or, they brag…  Whatever the direction, it’s always determined by the loud mouth and it’s never interesting to anyone other than the loud mouth.

Solution:

• To begin with, a clear agenda with a specific time allotment for each topic is key.  The manager or timekeeper (Meeting to Win suggests having a time keeper) can simply speak up and say “to make sure we stay on track, we need to move on.  Let’s add that topic to a later agenda (if relevant to others) or save it for your one-on-one (if not relevant to everyone else)”.
• Part of the agenda is to set goals for the meeting.  Based on the meeting topics, the team should set a goal for the meeting.  For example, if the agenda calls for role playing objections, the goal could be “at the end of this meeting, each person on the team should have one new idea for addressing an objection they have heard in the past month“.  To meet that goal, again, the meeting cannot divert from the agenda or timeline.
• Third, if your loud mouth brings up a problem or seems to negate every idea, initiative or activity, ask them for a solution.  Say something like, “Loud Mouth (best to  use their name), you’ve pointed out the problem with doing 8 appointments a week.  The reason for that goal is that statistics show that we need to see that many customers to get the sales results we need, (state needed result).  Not meeting that goal is not an option.  What other ideas do you have to meet that goal?”  You may even say, “don’t answer that now, let’s table that conversation and we’ll allot 10 minutes on our next agenda for your ideas.”

Stay tuned to the Meeting to Win blog for solutions to all your sales meeting troubles as we continue adding to The Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter.  To get new sales team meeting topics every week, complete with a 60 minute agenda, join Meeting to Win.  We’d love to work with you and your team!

I was watching football last weekend which I love to do for many reasons.  One of those reasons is I like the strategy of the game.  Those coaches and players have to think fast, know the game, have good instincts and be able to execute plans.  In this particular play, our team turned the ball over and, therefore, off the field went the offense and on the field came the caught-off-guard defense.  First play, the other team throws a long pass for a huge gain. 

The coach on that team knew that when faced with that exact scenario, he would run that particular play.  He ran it quickly and successfully because it was planned in advance to use against this defense in this moment of the game.

Salespeople would be wise to have their own “design plays”.  This week’s Meeting to Win sales team meeting agenda will lead your team through an exercise to anticipate these opportunities and have a plan for them when they arise.  Join us and spend one hour at the chalkboard designing plays that your team can execute every time they’re on the field where it really matters.

Anticipate every scenario you will face in each deal and design a plan to address it.  Build your sales book and gain the competitive advantage.  Join Meeting to Win for new exercises like this one every week.

THE IMAGE TO WIN SERIES

I heard Tom Cruise on a talk show many years ago talking about the brand “Tom Cruise“.  He is the product and the brand and everything he says, does, wears or is involved in adds or detracts from the Tom Cruise brand.  This is the same for salespeople; just with a smaller audience in most cases.

Today’s installment of the Image to Win Series focuses on defining the brand of YOU.  Tom Cruise knows what he wants his brand to be.  What an important first step!  Thinking about celebrities, you can assume that Madonna’s brand is very different from Barack Obama’s brand.  Everything any of these public figures does sends a message and creates an image of their brand in the minds of the public.  They know how to act, what to write, what to say, what to wear and where to be seen based on the image they want the public to have.  They often have the advantage of publicists and managers who help guide them – let’s call them their VPs of Marketing.

Do you know the brand or image you want the world to see from you as a sales professional?  Take a moment and write a list of 10 adjectives you want customers to use to describe your image or brand.

1.   __________________________
2. ___________________________
3. ___________________________
4. ___________________________
5. ___________________________
6. ___________________________
7. ___________________________
8. ___________________________
9. ___________________________
10. ___________________________

Now, what actions would people have to see from you to create that image in their minds?  Also, think about what they would see from you to detract from that image.

Tom Cruise jumped around on Oprah’s couch and severely detracted from the brand and image he spent 20+ years developing.  I think I read he had also just fired his manager…   Don’t leave your image to chance.  Take the time to define your brand and what your brand stands for.  Then, carefully choose your words, images, virtual presence and appearance to fit your brand.

We’ll continue with this Image to Win Series and dig into specifics on developing your brand.  In the meantime, pay attention to brands you respect – Coke, Starbucks, Target, etc.  Look at every action they take, where they show up, what messages they share, how their employees dress and every other detail of their brand.  Should be a fun series!

Sales Managers, to take your team on an Image to Win journey, sign up for weekly sales team meeting agendas from Meeting to Win.  The Image to Win sales meeting series starts in October.

This was shared by a connection on LinkedIn – enjoy!

Less Time + More Meaning = Better Meetings

(Competitive Solutions, Inc)