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We at Meeting to Win are big fans of Paul Castain and his work. During our 3-week Sales Team Meeting Agenda series on Maximizing Customer Meetings we thought you may enjoy Paul’s thougths on starting your meetings with impact.
Starting Your Meetings with Impact
by Paul Castain of Sales Playbook
OK, pop quiz. How long does it take to make an impression on someone? 30 seconds? 10? Less? …
Here’s something that you can do in your very next client/prospect meeting …
Read the rest here.
Great weekly sales team meetings can be powerful Sales Performance Engines. Is yours? If not, there might be a quick fix to take your team to higher and higher heights.
Take the assessment to determine if there is room to improve your weekly sales team meeting.
Sales Team Meeting Assessment: Is There Room for Improvement in Your Weekly Sales Team Meetings?
1. My team would join my weekly sales team meeting if attendance was optional.
(A) Yes
(B) No
2. I, the Sales Manager, am talking more than 50% of the meeting time.
(A) Less than 50% – Others are talking the other 50%
(B) Yes, I do most of the talking.
3. We set a clear goal for our sales team meetings and leave knowing if we accomplished that goal or not?
(A) Yes, our meetings have a purpose and a clear goal.
(B) No, our meetings do not have a clear objective.
4. In our sales team meetings, everyone is expected to contribute and actively participate?
(A) Yes. Our sales team meetings are a team effort. We see it as everyone’s resposibility to use this time wisely.
(B) No, sometimes I think people are checking email during the meeting.
5. Everyone leaves each meeting with a new idea to try or a new skill to practice in the field that week.
(A) Yes, our meetings equip our teams to sell more that very week.
(B) No. We usually just go over numbers and hear what everyone accomplished last week.
6. My sales team meeting agenda is sent in advance so everyone can prepare for a great meeting.
(A) Yes.
(B) We do not have an agenda and, if we do, it is not sent in advance.
7. My sales team meeting topics
(A) Are relevant to our current selling environment – challenges, initiatives and goals.
(B) Are the same every week.
8. My sales team would say our weekly sales team meeting is a great use of their time.
(A) Yes!
(B) Probably not. I’d be afraid to ask.
If you find yourself marking (B) to any of the above questions, there is probably room for improvement in the way you execute your sales team meetings. This blog lists many resources -articles and tools – to improve your sales team meetings. Of course, Meeting to Win is happy to help, also. Contact us to set up a consultation. We’ll be happy to provide some guidance and point you to the tools available to begin using your sales meetings as sales engines.
(This post brought to you by sales team meeting expert, Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win. Meeting to Win provides weekly sales team meeting agendas and best practices to turn your sales team meetings into sales performance engines. Join us by subscribing here.)
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(Each week Meeting to Win provides a 60-minute sales team meeting agenda for our subscribers. Each week we cover sales and business topics all designed to help salespeople develop as sales professionals, sell more and better serve their customers. The agendas are packed with exercises, discussions and ways for your team to grow. This week’s agenda is Turn Gatekeepers Into Escorts. Visit us at Meeting to Win to learn more.)
How do you turn your current Gatekeepers into Escorts? Imagine… those currently keeping you from bringing solutions to decision makers actually setting up the meeting for you to do just that. Seem like a dream? It’s not…
To do this, sales reps need to think differently about their gatekeepers. First of all, let’s define gatekeeper for the sake of this discussion.
A GATEKEEPER is anyone who is preventing or hindering you from working with a decision maker. These people often take the form of a
To think differently about gatekeepers, consider the important job they do. RFP committiees are doing the legwork of gathering information to help their company solve a problem or get a result. Executive Assistants are limiting the interruptions of a senior leader focused on his or her company’s key priorities. An IT Director is using his or her expertise to compare requirements with capabilities before involving decision makers in the business decisions.
To salespeople who want access to those decision makers, gatekeepers can be seen as nuisances instead of part of an important part of the selling process. If you are currently being hindered by gatekeepers, here is something to try.
Gatekeepers do serve a purpose and are not always easy to deal with. They sometimes abuse their power, make poor decisions and often don’t seem to have the company’s best interest in mind. Teach them how to bring great solutions to their company by partnering with them instead of trying to run them over. You’ll be more efficient and enjoy the process more.
Sales Team Meeting Idea:
At your next sales team meeting, ask each team member to identify the gatekeepers in each of their pipeline opportunities. Figure out the important role they play in the overall decision process. Then, figure out how each rep can help them do their gatekeeper job more effectively so the deal can move forward to the real decision makers.
At the end of your meeting, each rep should have a clear gatekeeper strategy for one deal in their pipeline.
For more in depth exercises each week, subscribe to Meeting to Win sales team meeting agendas by visiting us here. The next agenda is Turn Gatekeepers Into Escorts (delivered Friday, February 12th, 2010).
To download the Sales Team Meeting Agenda (60 Minutes), Turn Gatekeepers Into Escorts, visit our Store here.
Neal Boortz is outraged this morning. To be fair, no matter which day I choose to write this, I could start my post the same way and, to be fair again, there is a lot of stuff to get outraged about if you enjoy being outraged. Today’s particular outrage is about a school district here in the Atlanta area spending $400K of federal stimulus money to take 200 teachers to a conference in Hollywood, CA for 4 days of learning and development. The justification for this includes the idea that the teachers will come back from this trip excited about what they learned and eager to implement what they learned in the classrooms.
This topic made me think about the annual sales meeting that many salespeople just came back from. January is a hot time for this. It is typically fair to say that salespeople learn a lot during these annual meetings and do come back excited. But then what happens? Well, the same thing that will happen to these teachers. Back home things continue to churn and students need to pass tests, parent conferences need to continue, a failing student needs to be addressed, discipline problems continue, the school play needs to be rehearsed, tests need to be graded and so on. Before these teachers realize it, they are doing exactly the same things they were doing before they left for the conference and the conference was nothing more than a pep rally and a chance to socialize and sightsee with peers from around the country. Lfie can get in the way of great intentions after all.
Hopefully what will happen is this instead. The school system will follow this Hollywood conference with a plan to implement the top ideas from these meetings that will make the most impact on key areas this school district needs to address. Whether that is increasing graduation rate, implementing more sports programs, raising the SAT test scores or reducing absenteeism. What is the plan and what is the plan to hold these teachers accountable to bringing back the change that will make a difference?
If you’ve just had your annual sales meeting, what is different in the way you help customers because of the time you invested to attend your meeting? Some companies follow these up effectively and many, many do not. Everyone comes back after the company has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars and selling time and salespeople have invested selling and family time and …. do the very same things they did before they left. Sure, they are a little excited, but are also now 4 days behind in their day jobs. Now it’s catch up time instead of implement-what-you’ve-learned time.
Bottom line, you should be outraged like Neal if your company dragged you half way around the country for a big rah-rah session with no plan to advance, reinforce and apply the valuable lessons and information you absorbed during your meeting. I know I would be.
(Post brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win. Meeting to Win provides weekly sales team meeting training topics. Each agenda offers 60 minutes of sales development content along with ideas to reinforce, advance and apply the training in the field. Join us by subscribing today.)
Being a successful salesperson takes unbelieveable self-discipline. It is a job that requires proactive activity to move forward. At the same time, there are enough things to simply react to that a salesperson can stand still instead of move forward. I am in the process of writing a sales team meeting agenda to help our subscribers identify their anchors and then figure out how to pull them up occassionally so they can move forward into the sea of opportunity that exists for them. I thought I’d share the concept in a blog post, also.
How can you tell if you have anchors? Here are a few questions to answer:
If you answered “no” to any of those questions, you may need to find and pull up your anchors so you can move forward and grow your business. Anchors are the things you are doing instead of developing and expanding your business.
To get started, think about everything you do in a week to simply maintain, or not lose, your current business. These are your anchors. Examine those activities closely and determine how to use those to grow your business or how to delegate them to a capable associate with different responsibilties (customer service, etc). Anchors can be good sometimes. Occassionally it makes sense to stop, drop your anchor and get ready to move forward again. Just don’t sit there too long.
Now, replace your anchors with business development activities. Your ship will be sailing again before you know it.
Pull up your anchors – the sea awaits.
Post brought to you by Jill Myrick, Owner of Meeting to Win, LLC. Join our growing community of subscribers for weekly sales team meeting topics in a 60-minute format. Agendas include practical exercises, practice sessions, discussion topics and leadership opportunities. Grow your sales with Meeting to Win.
Each quarter Meeting to Win leads our subscribers through a business book in the Sales Performance Book Club. Each week’s reading assignment and Discussion Guide are included in the weekly sales team meeting agenda newsletter. To subscribe, visit us at our website www.meetingtowin.com. Enter the promo code Q4PUSH and get weekly agendas free for all of Q4 2009. First payment isn’t due until Jan 2010. Learn more here.
Grab the following book, read a chapter per week as a team and use the Discussion Guide during weekly sales team meetings. Your team will be motivated and inspired by the new ideas and practical advice. Happy Selling from Meeting to Win.
Sales Performance Book Club
Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Play
by Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Discussion questions:
Exercise:
Discussion:
Chapter 5
Discussion questions:
Exercise:
Chapter 6
Discussion:
Exercise:
Chapter 7
Discussion:
Exercise:
Last Words
Discussion:
Exercise:
Helping Clients Succeed sales training is based on Let’s Get Real or Let’s Not Playby Mahan Khalsa and Randy Illig. To learn more and follow their blog, visit ninety five 5 at http://www.nf5.com/default.aspx.
Meeting to Win leads a new Sales Performance Book Club every quarter. These are included on weekly sales team meeting agenda newsletters. To learn more and subscribe, visit Meeting to Win at http://www.meetingtowin.com/.
This has been a tough year for many. It’s Q4 and salespeople could be feeling tired and ready to “write this one off” and take another shot at it in 2010. Here’s the problem with that. Momentum is a very cool thing and it’s great when it’s working for you and horrible when it’s working against you. So, even if 2009 is a lost cause in terms of goal achievement, there is no better time (well, a month ago would have been better, but…) to get momentum going for 2010.
To gain more and more momentum as you close in on 2010, try these strategies:
The first five on the list come from the advice my friend Alvin of Tactivity shared in a LinkedIn discussion. I’ve added (and repeated) a few ideas that have helped me, also.
2010 can be an amazing year. Salespeople that build momentum now can get a head start and be rewarded by helping more customers in 2010 than they ever thought possible. Not to mention, for some 2009 can be a distant memory…. Get started today. Staring in January 2010 will be TOO LATE.
To help sales teams build momentum during Q4, Meeting to Win is running a Q4 Push Promotion which means…free sales team meeting agendas for Sales Managers. Sales Managers can subscribe for sales team meeting agendas and get all of Q4 for free. First payment of $10/month won’t be charged until January 2010 (sales managers can unsubscribe any time in Q4 and never be charged). The agendas are designed to motivate sales teams and accelerate performance while continually gaining and maintaining incredible momentum.
Read more HERE then join us by subscribing HERE and entering the Promo Code “Q4PUSH”.
Sales Managers, have you and your teams ever noticed how when times are tough and that begins showing up in the company’s results, some senior leaders resort to “communicating” more? All of a sudden, the noise level goes up dramatically. It takes many forms such as new reports to do, new conference calls to join, new discounts and offers to pass along, new activity goals, etc, etc, etc. What does this do to salespeople? It DISTRACTS them, often PARALYZES them and sends them running in circles which really isn’t a recommended approach for winning in any arena (business, sports, etc).
The best sales leaders I have had were really GREAT at something — RUNNING INTERFERENCE. They blocked a huge percentage of the noise and pushed back on senior leaders when there was too much noise.
Here are some ways you can run interference for your team:
1. With your team, pick one or two things that you can do that can make the biggest difference in your results. Focus on those things, report on those things, make minor adjustments as needed and don’t give into the temptation to abandon a good plan before it gets momentum.
2. Don’t just pass along everything that your leadership sends your way. If you must pass it along, do it in a controlled way. Decide with your team how they would like to receive all this information. Can you save it up and send all the information on a Friday afternoon, can you put it in newsletter form, does your team have a team blog or webpage where you could post these items. Figure out a way with your team to NOT distract them during the selling week with non-urgent matters.
3. Protect your team’s selling time. When times are tough, every department wants a piece of the sales team. Let anyone who wants access to your team know that you will decide what makes it through the filter and then when they can access them. I had a Sales VP who didn’t allow ANY internal conference calls, e-mails or any other communication except on Mondays. If you wanted access to her sales team, you went through her and if she decided it would help grow sales, you got limited access on Mondays. You cannot imagine how much the noise level dropped and everyone got back to selling.
4. Reports! If senior leaders want another slice of data, a quick report, etc, figure out how you can gather the information without asking your team to stop what they are doing to run a new report. Go into your CRM and get the info yourself, gather the info during your regularly scheduled one-on-ones – anything other than ask them to stop selling and start reporting.
5. Push back on senior leaders who are causing the noise. Follow your chain of command, but push hard to protect your team’s selling time and stop the distractions. Show senior leaders what you will do in return – more face-to-face sales calls, more sales activity, etc.
These are just 5 ideas for dealing with the additional noise our own company’s produce. Please share your experiences in regards to dealing with the noise.
(Information gathered and shared by Meeting to Win, LLC. Visit us at www.meetingtowin.com for engaging, relevant, productive team conference calls every week.)
