I always love to share great meeting advice I come across in my reading. Here is some sound advice from Salesopedia’s newsletter this week.

13 Ideas to Run Engaging Meetings

Enjoy!

Nice title, huh?   This article, although the title may suggest otherwise, is presented in a positive tone.  There are actually more than 10 common practices that Sales Managers use that do more to frustrate their teams.  Avoiding these practices takes planning and a strategic approach to sales management which is often lacking.  Across the board organizations spend way more teaching their salespeople process and strategy than they do for their sales managers.  Sales managers are really left to figure it out on their own.  So, after polling many salespeople and using my own experience as a salesperson and a sales manager (not that I ever did any of these things!), I thought I would share a list of 10 Ways for Sales Managers to Ruin their Reputations and Lose their Team’s Respect.

1.  Hold boring, unproductive or negative sales team meetings.  I own Meeting to Win - clearly I’m passionate about this one.  It’s a reputation killer!

2.  Keep introducting the ”flavors of the month”.  A Sales Manager gets an idea from a book, a colleague or divine inspiration.  They march in Monday morning with “we are going to start….”.  It usually comes with a new report, a task force or, at the very least, additional meetings.  It dies in a week with no acknowledgment.  It just quits coming up and salespeople learn to stop taking this stuff seriously.

3.  Don’t protect selling time.  Sales Managers who blindly ablige senior management emergency reports and other fire drills without ever putting up resistance in the protection of selling time are not helping their salespeople succeed.  Salespeople begin to see them as the enemy working against their progress.

4.  Hire bad team members.  The team knows it and it affects the team’s performance and culture immediately.

5.  Don’t address disruptive or underperforming reps in a timely manner.  The team is watching how the managers address or put up with these things.  Managers who address these things early and positively create a culture of performance.  The opposite does, well, the opposite.

6.  Don’t stand up for the team members.  Sales Managers are a bit like parents.  Discipline in private, praise in public. Salespeople need an ally, it should be their Sales Manager.

7.  Take the credit for the team’s successes.  Sales Managers who have successful teams do get the credit, they don’t need to give it to themselves.

8.  Pass the blame for the team’s failures.  This is an ugly one.  Again, Sales Managers are getting the blame even if they try to pass it elsewhere.  They just need to own it and fix it.

9.  Forget what it’s like to be on the front lines.  Sales Managers too often lose the feel for the field.  They get too busy to get in the field, too.  Sales Managers need to spend 3 days a week in the field with their reps and not lose the feel.

10.  Mess up on a customer meeting.  Sales Managers should enhance a customer meeting, not ruin hard work.  Enough said.

BONUS:  A rep just shared this great one with me!  Schedule one-on-ones or meetings and then continually cancel and postpone them.  The team members are planning around and preparing for these and emailing them to postpone the meeting for an hour or even 10 minutes is disrespectful and rude. 

If you are guilty of any of these, now is the time to address it.  Your reputation depends on it.

I received this article today from my Salesopedia subscription.  Two terrifying truths jumped out at me immediately.

1. “Weekly sales meetings have killed more manager authority and respect than probably any other activity a manager engages in with the possible exception of the ride along.” 
2. “They have also driven a great number of high performers to the competition, one of which may be my client Richard who is one of the top 5 sellers in his company’s 300 member sales force.”

Read more about the importance of executing effective sales team meetings in Paul McCord’s article, 

4 Steps to Creating Powerful, Effective Sales Meetings.

Enjoy Paul’s insights and direction and start having better meetings this Monday.    It is critically important.

It seems that when some make the transition from revenue-producing sales rep to sales leader, they forget some very important realities.  They no longer want to hear about the realities of the field.  They want to call those “excuses”.  I admit, I like to look at everything and determine the worst case scenario.  This does not bum me out, it actually makes me feel better to have a game plan should the worst case scenario play out.  It never does and it still feels good to be prepared.

The reality is that things happen that are disruptive.  Some of these things the reps’ own companies do to them, some are economy driven, some are customer driven.  Yet, leadership still expects the reps to turn in 8% revenue growth.  If you kick a marathon runner in the knee at mile 13, that runner may not beat his previous finishing time.  That’s a reality.  I don’t believe that sales reps like to “make excuses”.  I believe they really want to explain their performance, good or bad.  Being able to explain why something happens is a key ingredient in duplicating the good results and avoiding the poor results.

So, I challenge sales leaders to face reality. Among other things, the following is a list of things that ARE disruptive:

• Moving territory lines.
• Adding or taking away accounts.
• Pulling them out of the field for training.
• Asking them to complete a whole new set of reports.
• Introducing a new CRM.
• Giving them a new product to sell.
• Reorganizing your sales team.
• Changing compensation.

And the list goes on.  I challenge sales leaders to face the reality of disruptions instead of pretending like they won’t be disruptions.  It’s delusional to think the sales team won’t be distracted.  They are human beings, not machines. 

Instead, look 30-90 days out and figure out what is coming down the line that could possibly cause distraction for your sales team.  Figure out the worst case scenario in terms of how this disruption may impact your sales results.  You can’t see everything coming so at least get out in front of what you can see.  Get your team together and face reality together.  Expect to be distracted and proactively figure out how to sell through it.  You’ll reduce distraction and your team will have fewer “excuses”.

Face reality and your reality will be much brighter.

(This week’s Meeting to Win focus is on Playing to Win instead of Playing to NOT Lose.   Meeting to Win provides a new, fresh sales team meeting agenda every week for our Subscribers.  Start having productive sales team meetings that result in superior sales performance with Meeting to Win.)

For some reason, there is often a sense of comfort when a prospective client asks us to do or provide something – see a demo, send me information, etc.  We believe we have a solution that may meet their needs and we take their request as a sign that they may also believe that.  As sales reps, happy to stay engaged with this prospect, we march off to provide the requested information.  This prospective client may very well want this information and have a real plan to evaluate our solution and actually make a go/no-go decision on purchasing from us or not. 

On the other hand, they may be making this request for any number of other reasons – and we may be playing along for any number of reasons.  Those reasons can include:

• They are too nice to tell you that have no intention of spending a dime with you.
• They are busy and the fastest way to get rid of you is to send you on an errand.
• They are really good at kicking the tires, but have no history of actually buying. 
• They stay in the eternal sales cycle never actually moving forward on anything.  Professional window shoppers exist in every company.
• They are afraid if they tell you “no” that you will keep trying to sell them.  No one enjoys being on the receiving end of this tactic.
• Your pursuit makes them feel important (ugly truth alert!).
• They think they have some power to make this decision.  Meanwhile, someone else is actually making the decision at some other level.
• We feel “safe” to simply stay engaged in the sales cycle.  We have something to report on our activity tracker, in our pipelines and during our team meeting updates.  We’ve bought another week of activity.
• You look so happy when they ask you for something.

Those just a few of the reasons sales reps are asked to run these errands.  How do sales reps stop being gophers?  One way is to lay out the next few steps or commitments on both sides.  Next time you are asked to run an errand, ask what decision they plan to make once you provide the requested information and by when.  For example, if they ask to see a demo of your software.  Find out what they hope to gain from the demo (the demo may not be what they even need) and what decision they plan to make upon seeing the demo (no-go, take the next step, involve other decision makers, etc) and by when they plan to make the decision (is there even a timeline?). 

It feels “safe” to stay engaged and really….it’s a collosal waste of time.  Stop playing it “safe” and start helping your clients make decisions that will ultimately help their businesses succeed.  Get commitments before you run the errand – everyone wins when you have an efficient process. 

(This week’s Meeting to Win focus is on Playing to Win instead of Playing to NOT Lose.   Meeting to Win provides a new, fresh sales team meeting agenda every week for our Subscribers.  Start having productive sales team meetings that result in superior sales performance with Meeting to Win.)

I’ve had many conversations lately about movement in the marketplace.  Personally, I’ve been taking calls all week from business leaders moving forward on initiatives they’ve been sitting on for months.  Customers are making moves, looking for solutions and ready to move forward.  I love it!  I can feel it in the air. 

This week our focus has been on treating our existing customers like the gold that they are.  Salespeople need to be proactive to ensure they stay part of the customer team as they forge ahead.  One way to do that is to be visibly accountable.  This means that salespeople need to proactively manage themselves so the client doesn’t have to.  There are a few ways to do this.

First of all, set up a process for regular business reviews.  I believe these should be conducted quarterly and formally.  This means there should be a formal agenda that covers:

• A review of the original scope of work.
• The actual scope of work – what’s changed (something always does!) and what adjustments have been made.  This topic ensures everyone is on the same page with the way the partnership has evolved.
• The successes and shortfalls.  How to make the most of the successes and how to adjust to fix the shortfalls.
• An updated Needs Analysis. Find out what has changed in their business, priorities, etc. Uncover new opportunities.
• Next steps/Action Items

Customers should leave these business reviews feeling great about their investment with you.  They don’t need to micromanage the partnership, you are doing that for them.

Secondly, get to know new people in the account regularly.  Ask to speak to people who are impacted by or work with your solutions.  Find out what they like, what they don’t, etc.  Make sure they have your contact information.  You are probably the only one talking to all involved!  You will have an amazing perspective and be able to bring useful ideas to the table based on these relationships.  Not to mention, your name will be mentioned in many conversations as if you are part of the team!

Then, provide regular emailed updates to senior decision makers.  Often, once an account is won, the more senior decision makers move on to the next priority leaving functional people to manage the relationship.  Often, the salesperson’s relationship with the real decision makers is harder to maintain and grow.  To keep developing that relationship, send an update once a month or every 6 weeks hitting the highlights of recent events and successes.  (You may be amazed at the places these emails will get forwarded.) They will appreciate it, feel informed and see you as a true partner and you’ll keep developing this important relationship.

Another way to stay visibly accountable is to put your bosses in front of the client regularly.  Bring them to quarterly business reviews or other meetings.   Make sure the client sees that your senior leadership team is aware of the work your companies do together.  They will feel supported and important when they see the team behind you. 

Demonstrate to your clients how important they are by holding yourself accountable in plain sight.  They will see you as a valuable team member who takes initiative and ownership of results.  You’ll be a dream employee they won’t want to see go. 

To get sales team meeting agendas designed to develop your sales team and accelerate sales performance, visit Meeting to Win (http://www.meetingtowin.com/) and subscribe for weekly agendas.  We love to work with Sales Managers who see the value of investing in their teams!

“Micromanagement” is a 4-letter word to most sales professionals.  Most sales reps strive to get to the point where their bosses “leave them alone as long as they get the job done”.  There are times when micromanagement is actually helpful. Two of those times are (1) during the first month on the job or (2) when a sales rep is underperforming. 

During these two time periods, Sales Managers have the responsibility to help their team members succeed.  One “micromanagement” activity that I have seen work over and over during these two time periods in a sales career is the AM/PM Check-In Meeting. 

Each morning and afternoon for one month at the beginning of the sales day and at the end of the sales day, set a time for the sales rep to call the sales manager.  This should a 5-10 minute call with a set agenda.  This is less than an hour a week a Sales Manager and sales rep can invest in the success of a territory.  The AM Agenda should include the rep’s plan for the day and the PM Agenda should include an update on the activity they planned and executed.  This AM/PM Meeting provides needed, regular guidance and accountability as a rep is building their business.

Invest in success with the AM/PM Check-In Meeting and watch the territory grow!

Post brought to you by Jill Myrick, Owner of Meeting to Win.  Subscribe and get a new sales team meeting agenda packed with skill-building, sales-producing topics every week.

This is Part 3 in our Maximize Customer Meetings Series.  This Friday, March 19th, the third agenda in the series goes out to subscribers.  The 3 part series will soon be available on our store, also.  To get weekly sales team meeting exercises that cover this and many more selling topics, subscribe to Meeting to Win today. 

You’ve followed the steps to prepare and execute a productive customer meeting.  You’re not done yet!  To maximize the work done on this customer meeting so far, it is helpful to send comprehensive and organized Meeting Notes after the meeting.  This is where many sales professionals quit.  Following up thoroughly is a great way to gain a competitive edge in a sales cycle.

Get started the day of your customer meeting.

• Typically, sales representatives will send a quick thank you note via email to the customer. 
• In that short thank you e-mail, let the customer know you will send them more comprehensive Meeting Notes to outline everything discussed and agreed upon along with a timeline of next steps.

 This action gives the customer some ownership in this process immediately following the meeting and sets you both up to accomplish something, therefore, maximizing your meeting. 

Within 48 hours send your Meeting Notes.  Meeting Notes should include:

1. A bulleted list of the information the sales representative learned about the customer’s needs.
2. A list of action items for both the sales rep and the customer along with time lines.
3. A couple of bullets with high-level ideas on possible solutions you discussed while meeting.
4. Possible pricing scenarios (if discussed in meeting).
5. Call to action. At this point, let the customer know what to expect next.  For example, “we will contact your administrative assistant to set up a time for you to tour our plant”.

 Benefits of using Meeting Notes after a customer meeting:

• By outlining this in writing post-meeting the customer has the opportunity to correct any wrong or missing information. This is critically important for the sales representative who is formulating a solution.
• This demonstrates to the customer that the sales representative has a clear understanding of the needs which builds confidence and trust and ultimately rapport.
• Customer is agreeing to next steps and is sharing in the ownership of finding a solution.
• Often customers use these Meeting Notes internally to share progress on finding a solution or to report to senior leaders.  This builds your good reputation with more of your customer’s leadership, saves them work and demonstrates that you have their best interests in mind.
• Clear communication along the way is critically important when problems or misunderstandings arise in sales cycles.  The relationship built along the way can make or break a sales as it gets closer to closing.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

• Ask the team to come prepared to discuss a recent customer meeting that resulted in next steps.
• As a team, write your Meeting Notes and share them with the group.
• Provide feedback for each other on appearance, communication style and ease of use.
• To get more in depth sales training exercises and practice on this topic, subscribe for Meeting to Win sales team meeting agendas here.

(To get this blog’s new posts emailed to you every Monday morning , Subscribe to our blog.)

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.

9.  My team ties successes in the field to something they learned during a sales team meeting.

(A)  Yes, often.

(B)  Rarely if ever.

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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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.)