Collaborate. Motivate. Accelerate.

Archive for the ‘sales management’ Category

« Older Entries

Sales Team Meeting Assessment: Sales Managers, Is There Room for Improvement in Your Weekly Sales Team Meeting?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

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.)

We are packaging our posts and sending them once per week to subscribers each Monday morning.  To get your Meeting to Win Posts every Monday, subscribe now.



Get our Blog Posts by Email Every Monday

* indicates required


Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, best practice, blog, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, meetings, new managers, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Underperforming Sales Reps, Put Yourself on a Performance Plan

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

In most cases, we see an official “performance plan” as the beginning of the end for some poor sales rep.  The performance plan seems to be more of a termination plan as the evidence suggests that the goal is often not better performance, but instead a way to begin documentation to justify termination.  In every case where I’ve seen someone put on a performance plan, that was their cue to start a full court press job search before they were fired.   

So, it’s safe to say that no sales rep wants to be put on a performance plan, right?  Right!

If you are a sales rep facing underperformance, my guess is that you are worried about your job.  You might be hoping no one has noticed, you might spend your time sharing the positive news while keeping everyone’s focus off the negative performance, you might be explaining away your bad sales (customer budget cuts, etc) or.. you might even be job hunting.

Here is something to try instead.  Put yourself on a Performance Plan.   This is a Turnaround Boot Camp style Performance Plan by the way. 

We know that we can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results. That really is the premise of a Performance Plan. 

To get started:

  • Look at what you have been doing and critically analyze exactly how you are spending your time to determine what is producing results and what is not. 
  • Consult with team members who are exceeding goals for advice on what you could be doing differently. 
  • Once you determine which of your sales activities are producing positive sales results, triple your output of those activities.
  • Figure out where you are investing time in non-selling activities (learning a new CRM, sitting on an internal committee, etc) and eliminate those activities from your week. You can politely request to be excused – if you get fired, none of those things will really matter anyway.
  • Start your day earlier and end your day later.
  • Look the part. 
  • Exercise, eat right and get enough sleep.
  • Write out your 30 day plan.  This should include day by day what you will be doing and with which customers or prospects.  For example, maybe every day starts with 50 cold calls, maybe Sundays are research days, Tues-Thurs is for 15 face-to-face appointments, etc. 
  • Have an accountability plan in place – a report, updates in your CRM or something to monitor your progress.
  • Have a clear goal for the end of 30 days and a way to monitor progress along the way.

Now, here’s key element:

Request a meeting with your Sales Manager – NOT during selling hours (you need those).  Have an early coffee or after hours meeting with your Sales Manager to let them know you have put yourself on a Performance Plan, walk them through it and get their input to fine tune it and gain agreement on your course of action. 

By proactively addressing your underperformance with your Sales Manager you will open the doors of communication regarding expectations and possible outcomes of underperformance.  You will show the initiative to address the problem proactively giving your Sales Manager an opportunity to help you succeed instead of look for a way to manage you out.  

Too often we keep moving along hoping no one will bring up the issue everyone knows exists (we do this with customers, too).  If you know you are underperforming, your sales manager knows it, too.  His boss will ask him about it and it will eventually be dealt with.  Wouldn’t it be great if you could change the story by being brave enough to call it out and proactively do something about it? 

So, if you find yourself falling short, stop worrying and start acting.  Build you plan ASAP and start executing with your Sales Manager’s support.

Put yourself on a Performance Plan today.

(Post brought to you by Jill Myrick, CEO of Meeting to Win.   Meeting to Win provides sales team meeting topics for Sales Managers who want to run sales team meetings that aren’t a bore.  Inspire your team with Meeting to Win.  Subscribe here.)

Tags: , , ,
Posted in best practice, communication, discipline, down economy, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings | 1 Comment »

Maximize Customer Meetings, Part 1: Before the Meeting

Sunday, February 28th, 2010

(This Friday Meeting to Win begins a 3-week series called Maximize Customer Meetings – Before, During and After.  To join us, subscribe here.)

 As sales professionals we spend a lot of time talking about, reporting on and pursuing … customer meetings.  It makes sense to spend considerable time preparing for these somewhat rare opportunities.  One bad meeting with a client and it may be the last time you ever see them – or at the very least you may get delegated to someone without as much authority.  A good meeting and it could be the beginning of a great relationship.  So, life or death?  Close!

Now, you’ve got the meeting – Congratulations.  What next? 

Today, we will focus on one aspect of meeting preparation to maximize your customer meeting - involve your customer in meeting preparation.  Too often sales professionals don’t include their customers in building the agenda or working toward the meeting goal. What happens instead is that the salesperson shows up with the same slides or brochure they use on every first meeting and the customer sits back waiting for the show.  Years and years of sales meetings have taught sales reps to perform and customers to spectate.  As a customer, I have actually enjoyed some of these shows.  Salespeople can really dazzle.  The problem is that I am allowed to be lazy, watch the show and see if anything intrigues me enough to move forward.  I am not prepared to act or prompted to action.  Before I learned how to be a better buyer I saw some amazing shows, with many performers.  One of those performances was from a company who wanted to build our sales team’s intranet.  They never got a dime of business, but I got a lot of great shows.  If I had been asked to get involved in the process at any point, they would have wasted a lot less of everyone’s time.  That experience taught me to be a better customer and get involved even when I wasn’t asked.  As a salesperson, it taught me to get the buyer in on the work.

Here is something I began to do with great success.  Not only did I have productive meetings, I also consolidated sales cycle steps, met more decision makers and built trust and rapport.  You can try it and see if you get the same results. 

At your next customer meeting, ask the customer to share the responsibility for a productive meeting.   Send them an agenda is advance with the goal for the meeting along with an agenda to follow.  Ask them for their input on the goal and agenda for the meeting.  Once you both agree upon how you will spend your time together it is both parties responsibility to bring the data, people or anything else that will help get the meeting goal accomplished. 

Now, you are sharing responsibility for a great meeting that uses everyone’s time wisely and gets everyone working toward the same goal – helping that company.  You are a partner instead of a vendor.

Sales Team Meeting Agenda Idea:

  • Ask each rep to bring information about all upcoming customer meetings.
  • For each meeting, ask each rep to share the desired outcome or goal of that meeting.
  • Ask each rep to share how they plan to accomplish this outcome (this will be the agenda).
  • Determine what responsibility the customer has in meeting the goal of the meeting.
  • Ask each rep to choose one meeting and write an e-mail script for sharing the meeting goal and agenda and asking for the customer’s agreement and/or input on the goal and agenda.
  • Share the script with the team for feedback.
  • Revise the scripts based on feedback and try this before the customer meeting.
  • Plan to report back on the outcome of using the e-mail scripts before customer meetings
  • (To get more in-depth sales team meeting exercises along with full agendas, sample scripts, field work assignments and sales tips, visit Meeting to Win and subscribe for weekly sales team meeting agendas and exercises.)

Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, best practice, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, sales management, sales meetings, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas | No Comments »

Know Your Risks (Includes Sales Team Meeting Idea)

Thursday, February 25th, 2010

As we continue with Pipeline Health Check week, we want to address risks in pipelines.  If you know your risks, you can reduce the risks or at least manage them more effectively.  As you examine your pipeline this week, check for these risks:

  • A large percentage of the revenue in your pipeline is from one deal.
  • You are not positioned with decision makers in late cycle pipeline opportunities.
  • Your pipeline is heavy on early or late sales cycle deals – no balance.
  • You have not added new “suspect” opportunities to your pipeline consistently.
  • In mid-cycle deals you do not have a crystal clear picture of the decision process and who is involved and in what capacity at each decision point.
  • You haven’t discussed money in mid and late cycle opportunities.
  • You don’t know the competitive landscape in most of your opportunities.
  • Your pipeline does not have at least 3X your sales goal in opportunities.
  • You have deals that have stalled out with no progress forward in a few weeks.
  • You are guessing at the size of opportunities instead of basing it on real diagnosis.
  • You are chasing deals that are not in your company’s sweet spot.

These are just a few of the risks to look for as you examine your pipeline.  Know your risks and take steps to minimize them – the smallest steps can make the biggest difference when pursuing sales performance goals.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

At your next sales team meeting,

  • Ask your team to bring their pipelines.
  • Go through each of the risks above as a group. 
  • Add risks to the list that apply to your team.
  • Ask each person to honestly assess their pipeline against the final list of risks.
  • As a team, set one action item each person can do to minimize their most dangerous pipeline risk.
  • Plan to follow up as a team and do this exercise again, setting the next action item as you move toward healthier and healthier pipelines.

Meeting to Win provides in-depth sales team meeting agendas with training exercises, practice sessions, discussion topics and ideas to help your sales team sell more.  This Friday’s agenda is the Pipeline Health Check and will lead your team through exercises that will lead to more balanced, healthier pipelines.  Join us and get your own weekly sales team meeting agendas.  Learn more  here.

Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, communication, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, opportunity, performance, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Sales Team Meeting Idea: The War Room (An Excerpt from Meeting to Win’s 100 Sales Team Meeting Topics e-book)

Friday, February 12th, 2010

Meeting to Win provides Sales Managers with sales team meeting agendas, topics, exercises and training modules all designed to equip selling teams to compete and win.  We know that Sales Managers get pulled in many directions and have to determine the best use of their valuable resource of time.  We believe that outsourcing sales team meeting planning is one way for Sales Managers to wisely manage their time.  That’s where we come in! 

j0407031_small

Below is one topic from the Meeting to Win e-book, 100 Sales Team Meeting Topics.  The topic is what we call The War Room and it has been very popular this past year.  Sales teams that face reality and address it rationally, strategically and head-on succeed in the long run. This means their customers are better served, also.  The customers’ success is the salesperson’s goal and, therefore, the underlying goal of every Meeting to Win agenda and sales team meeting topic.

Enjoy The War Room exercise at your next sales team meeting.  Get more topics by obtaining the e-book or subscribing for new sales team meeting topics to be delivered to your inbox every Friday. 

War Room

The War Room exercise is a time to get together as a team to address the surrounding business climate, how it is affecting the team’s selling efforts and what actions make sense to address it moving forward.

  • As a team, quickly list the ways the current business climate is affecting your business. What are the most recent developments in the economy, your industry, your customer base, your competitors, etc?
  1. ________________________________________
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________
  6. ________________________________________
  7. ________________________________________
  8. ________________________________________
  9. ________________________________________
  10. ________________________________________
  • Begin with one item from the list you just created and, as a group, share some ideas, best practices and strategies for handling that challenge.

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

  1.  ________________________________________
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________

 

  • Continue this with each item until you run out of time.

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

  1.  ________________________________________
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________

 

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

  1.  ________________________________________
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________

 

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

  1.  ________________________________________
  2. ________________________________________
  3. ________________________________________
  4. ________________________________________
  5. ________________________________________

Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, best practice, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, performance, sales management, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings, tough economy | No Comments »

LinkedIn Groups are Valuable Sales Tools – When Used Appropriately (Article & Sales Team Meeting Idea)

Thursday, February 11th, 2010

LinkedIn has become a very valuable tool for me.  I enjoy partnering with my connections for referrals, business opportunities, learning experiences and awareness of our industry and business climate.  In the few years I’ve been using LinkedIn I’ve reconnected with former colleagues, exchanged valuable referrals, developed deeper relationships with clients, kept track of clients when they’ve switched companies, connected employers and employees, created great peer networks and, not lastly, increased sales.  My point?  LinkedIn is a powerful tool in my business. 

In the past year, I have gotten more active on LinkedIn Groups.    I wanted to share my experience and some of my best pratices for using these groups to build business acumen, share and gather best practices and grow as a sales professional. 

  1. First of all, you need to find a group that is well-managed.  This means that the group manager is actively involved in the discussions and ensures that spam or selling is not tolerated.  The groups that add value are made up of a community of peers that value sharing ideas and best practices for the benefit of the group – and ultimately the customers they serve.  Here are three groups I am active in and would highly recommend:  Sales Blogcast, Sales Gravy, Sales Playbook  (If you know of other good groups, please post a comment and share them with our readers.)  Visit one or more of these groups and request to join.
  2. Once you are a member, you should share your ideas and opinions on discussion questions already posted. 
  3. If you are facing a sales challenge such as getting a prospect to take your call, overcoming a price objection or dealing with customer service issues, you can post your dilemma for the group.  These groups are made up of professionals from the sales industry and are great about sharing their experiences, ideas and suggestions.  You will have a great list of perspectives to consider as you decide how to tackle your sales challenge.
  4. Be respectful of your network.  You can disagree -it is actually interesting and valuable to get differing opinions.  Just do it politely and with respect.
  5. Make an effort to share news that might be useful to the group.  Most groups have a place to post news.   If you find something helpful, share it with the group. 
  6. Follow up on discussions you post.  Thank group members for their input and continue to facilitate the discussion until it runs its course.
  7. Be abundant.  In the The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Dr. Stephen Covey defined this abundance mentality as “a paradigm that there is plenty out there for everyone.”    The Abundance Mentality is in contrast to the Scarcity Mentality.  (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey)
  8. Invite colleagues to join and participate in groups you find useful. 
  9. Stay positive.  The groups I’ve recommended manage to stay realistic and positive. They are solution oriented no matter the challenge.
  10. Remember the Golden Rule always.

These groups are a great enhancement to your life and career when you participate appropriately.  Please feel free to share your own best practices by leaving a comment for our readers.

Get active in LinkedIn Groups and reap the benefits immediately.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

Ask your sales team to

  • all join the same group or
  • each join a different group.

At your sales team meetings, bring one of the discussion questions from your LI group to your own team.  Share the LinkedIn Group’s responses and then build on those.

Or, determine a sales challenge that exists on your team and post it to the group(s) you belong to. The next time you get together, share the answers from the LinkedIn group(s).  Be sure to let your LinkedIn Group(s) know how they helped your team by leaving a comment in the discussion thread, also.

(Meeting to Win offers subscribers sales team meeting agendas every week.  Join us by subscribing at https://www.meetingtowin.com/subscribe.)

Posted in agenda ideas, best practice, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, maximize tools, new managers, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, selling tools, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Neal Boortz is Outraged. You Should Be, Too.

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

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.)

Posted in discipline, down economy, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, meetings, new years resolutions, sales management, sales manager tips, sales meetings, sales team, sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting, tips for meetings | No Comments »

Communicate First

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

(Post brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win.  Meeting to Win provides sales team meeting agendas and topics to our subscribers.  To see subscription options, click here.)

Communication seems to be the common theme in any successful relationship – parent and child, husband and wife, co-worker and co-worker, boss and employee. The most successful salespeople become masters of communication. Before you can master effective communication, it’s OK to … just communicate. If there is a relationship in your life that is suffering or just feels vulnerable (customer, employee, etc), first just communicate. Here’s the powerful part – to communicate you have to be there. You aren’t communicating my sitting in your office wondering about the problem. You have to pick up the phone, spend some time with them – just reach out.

Spend the time on the relationships you care about and communication will happen.  Mastering effective communication can happen over time and even then….you’ve got to be there to do it.

Posted in Uncategorized, agendas, communication, free sales team meeting topics, management tips, new managers, sales management, sales manager tips, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas | No Comments »

Stay “On The Grid” During the Holiday Season

Sunday, December 20th, 2009

It is almost impossible to not “go off the grid” with your prospective customers and customers during the holidays. Everyone is heading to some much needed time off.  You can have a competitive advantage by staying on the grid while your competitors are dropping off.  Here are 5 ways to do it that won’t cut into your much needed and deserved R&R.

1.  Send Happy New Year cards to your clients.  These cards should arrive right before or right after Jan 1st. Your greeting will stand out since it won’t be arriving with the pre-Christmas gifts and cards that get lost in the shuffle or arrive during vacations.  Your New Year’s greeting could include a calendar or some useful information for the new year. 

2.  Send an article or book that is relevant to the current business climate or their current business issues.  They can start the new year thinking about you and gaining some fresh ideas.

3.  Get on their calendar for a January meeting.  The new year is a great time to evaluate the business you did the previous year and set plans for the new year.  Requesting a Jan meeting in December is extremely effective.  Customers want to feel they have a productive Jan set up before they leave for the holidays, also.  Setting up a meeting with a good objective is a good way to help them do this.

4. Help them prepare for new year planning meetings.  If they are a current customer, one way to do this is to send them a slide deck outlining the work and accomplishments in 2009 along with some ideas to continue the good work in 2010.  Your email can start with “Often our clients ask us for a recap of the previous year so they can use it during thier new year planning sessions.  I thought you may also find this helpful.   Please see attached document.  I am happy to walk through the slides with you at your convenience.  Hope it’s helpful as you head into the new year.“  Write it in a way that they could use it with their superiors and in planning meetings.  They will see you as a true partner and you’ll cut their 2010 workload before the year even begins.

5.  Instead of just an “out of office” reply, send a proactive note to your customers and prospective customers several days in advance of your vacation.  Let them know you’ll be out and how they can get in touch with you if appropriate, or at least how to get in touch with someone who can help them in your absence.  They probably will be out, too, but they will have you in mind and feel that you took an extra step to ensure they are taken care of even when you are out.  (It’s a great reason to reach out to them when you return to let them know you are back in the office and move your relationship forward.)

Enjoy your time “off the grid” while a few small efforts will keep you “on the grid”.  Happy New Year!

Tags:
Posted in communication, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, new managers, new years resolutions, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales tips, tips for meetings, tough economy | No Comments »

The Q4 Push – Are You In? The Time to Act on 2010 is NOW!

Sunday, October 11th, 2009

j0433410This 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.

  1. If you’re on pace to the President’s Club in your organization, then increase your activity.
  2. If what you are doing hasn’t been working, then complete a thorough cleansing of the pipeline/funnel: Is it real? Is it good business? Can you win?
  3. Prioritize your activities around the health of your newly cleaned funnel
  4. Brainstorm a list of possible actions for your top opportunities; then choose only the 3-5 activities that will really advance them towards closure
  5. Go get it done!
  6. Conduct business reviews with existing clients to secure relationships, identify risks and uncover new ways to help them.
  7. Examine your territory for new opportunities a tough economy has turned up.
  8. Increase your sales activity.  Oh, did we already mention that one?  Action creates action, energy creates energy.  Make more calls!
  9. Solidify referral partners.  Decide to gain 20 referral partners and stay in touch with them, ask for referrals, be accessible and be someone they would be proud to refer (hint: send them referrals, also).
  10. Stay “on the grid” with prospects and existing customers.  Share useful information to help them run their business more effectively.  Don’t be out of sight or you know where you’ll be…. Out of mind.  Many of their sales reps have “gone dark” lately as companies do lay-offs and reorganizations.  Just being there may differentiate you!
  11. Have a team meeting every week to celebrate successes, share ideas, collaborate on hot deals and challenge each other.  This team accountability and celebration is fuel for your sales engine.  (You know we couldn’t leave this one out!)
  12. BONUS:  Increase sales activity.  In my experience, there is NO substitute.  Commit to accelerated sales activity in Q4 if you do nothing else.  Yeah, it’s worth mentioning 3 times. 

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”.

Posted in LinkedIn, Uncategorized, agendas, best practice, communication, culture, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, management tips, meetings, new managers, new years resolutions, opportunity, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meetings, sales team, sales team meeting ideas, sales tips, tough economy | No Comments »

« Older Entries