As you can imagine, Sales Managers often call us to discuss challenges they face in regards to their sales team meetings.  We are addressing those challenges one-by-one in our Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter in an effort to eradicate the world of bad sales team meetings.  You are welcome. 

Today, we are addressing one we hear as a complaint from sales people and a challenge from sales managers.

Problem: 

Everyone agrees that regularly held sales team meetings add value to a salesperson’s week.  But…many, many teams have these meetings sporadically.  They are often scheduled last minute or, worse yet, cancelled last minute or, in the worst cases, abandoned completely.  Whatever the reason, salespeople experience inconsistent sales team meeting schedules.  We do know that regular, consistent communication is a key activity in any healthy relationship, professional or otherwise.  Why would it be any different on a sales team?  Lack of communication reduces morale, accountability and trust and increases miscommunication, fears and negativity.

Solution:

• Use the technology available to you to proactively schedule your sales team meetings.  Most find it’s best to have the meeting at the same time each week and simply put a recurring appointment on the calendars of the sales team.  (You may want to change quarterly just to keep things fresh.)  That way, you can include an agenda, call-in information, etc right in the meeting notice.  The sales team will plan around this meeting since it is part of their schedule already.
• This next one is the most frustrating thing for a salesperson.  DON’T CANCEL THE MEETING!  Too often, this cancellation goes out at the last minute or every week.  The sales team begins to not believe you when you schedule this meeting.  It is disrespectful to ask salespeople to plan around a meeting that you end up cancelling regularly.  Don’t treat their schedule any different than you want your schedule treated.  It is better to just not schedule the meeting in the first place.
• Salespeople in particular can get very disconnected. Often they are out in the field by themselves all week taking care of customers.  Give them an hour a week to stay connected with their teammates.  This gives them a chance to feed off of the team’s energy, share frustrations, brainstorm solutions and simply connect with those in their shoes.  Don’t deprive them of this motivational hour.
• As the Sales Manager, your team is your only job. Without them, you wouldn’t have all those other tasks anyway. So, make them your priority and let nothing stop you from your weekly team meeting.  They are your job – don’t let other things become your priorities.  At Franklin Covey, they ask managers “What is the one thing that has to happen or else nothing else matters?”.  For you, it’s that your team performs.  Nothing else you do will ultimately matter unless your team performs. A weekly sales team meeting is a key activity to have on your list of top priorities.

This is such a common problem – I hope this is helpful for Sales Managers.  Sometimes managers hesitate to schedule their meetings because they don’t know what they’ll talk about.  Those managers may want to subscribe to Meeting to Win.  We send subscribers 60+ minutes of sales team meeting content every week.  You’ll never lack for great sales topics for your sales team meetings again.  Join today.

 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

Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter – Problem: Data Dump

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