Archive for the ‘sales team agenda.’ Category
Wednesday, July 28th, 2010
The pre-work for this week’s Meeting to Win sales team meeting agenda includes two articles by S. Anthony Iannarino of The Sales Blog.
Mr. Iannarino writes an insightful blog and was kind enough to let us use his insights into the bottom 80% of sales performers. Read the articles, add to the list and decide where you want to rank.
To get a sales team meeting agenda that leads your team through this valuable exercise, subscribe before Friday! The agenda goes out at 6am ET. Hope you can join us in the TOP 20%.
Tags: energize sales team, motivate sales team, sales team meeting agenda
Posted in best practice, free sales team meeting topics, sales meeting agenda, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda | No Comments »
Sunday, July 11th, 2010
We here in the northern hemisphere are experiencing the dog days of summer. If you haven’t taken a vacation yet this summer, shame on you. Immediately stop reading this and find a beach house - minimum stay 7 nights. If you are back from vacation, then continue reading. It really doesn’t take a lot of extra effort to gain the competitive edge. It simply takes a few strategic moves to create momentum that will reward you when others are just getting back in the game. Now, mid-July, is the time to take action. You have a good 6-8 weeks to get a headstart that you will not regret.
Check out the Meeting to Win ideas for heading into the next selling season with a head of steam:
Click on this link to get a list of ideas: Getting a Headstart
Sales Team Meeting Idea:
- Ask everyone to read this blog post before your next sales meeting.
- Ask everyone to come with their own ideas to add to the list. During the meeting, create a comprehensive list of ideas.
- During the meeting, ask each person to commit to 1 or more activities that will make the biggest difference in their momentum.
- Ask someone to “own” the Summer Momentum Project (leadership opportunity). It will be their job to monitor and report on the team’s progress until the end of August.
- Then, once a month, Sept – Dec, ask the team to share the results of the SMP. I guarantee you will have RESULTS!
To get sales team meeting agendas that lead your team through exercises to gain momentum, close more pipeline opportunities and stay motivated during the dog – and any other – days, subscribe to Meeting to Win weekly sales team meeting agendas.
Look forward to Monday mornings!
Tags: energize sales team, motivate sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea
Posted in Summer Selling Season, agenda ideas, free sales team meeting topics, sales meeting agenda, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, summer sales | No Comments »
Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010
I am finally reading Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell. I’ve only been carrying it around for 2 years and, yesterday, on a flight read the first half. The concept of 10,000 hours is one of the many pages I’ve dog eared. This is the concept with supporting examples that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert and a stand-out. I’ve always been a believer that experience counts in sales. Think about how much time you actually spend in front of a customer practicing your trade – 10 hours/week if you’re lucky? How long would it take to gain 10,000 hours of practice? 19 years? 25 years?
YIKES!
So, if you want to be an expert, you have to find more practice time. Here are some ideas:
- First of all, use your weekly sales meeting as a one-hour practice session. – 1 hour/week (Who saw that coming?)
- Role play your upcoming customer encounters with a team member or manager before the customer encounter. - 2 hours per week
- Spend time pre-call planning – opening statements, questions, objection responses, etc – 2 hours per week
- Take one sales training class per year. – 16 hours per year
- Spend 2 more hours per week with customers than you do now. – 2 hours per week
- Regularly attend a customer meeting with a peer to observe them. – 2 hours per month
So, adding all of this to your current 10 customer hours per week, you’ll be at 18 hours per week which would put you at expert status in half the time as your peers. My math shows 10 years (which is how long it seems to take in any field – music, technology, sports).
I love this concept because it means you have control over how you stack up against your peers in the marketplace. Invest time in your trade and it pays off.
Sales Team Meeting Idea:
- As a team, ask each person to calculate their own individual sales practice hours. Just use number of years of experience, add in training hours and ask each team member to come up with their number.
- Now, as a team, figure out how to get an additional 5-10 hours per week of sales practice.
- Commit to getting more practice and then track your performance against other sales teams in your own company. What results do you expect?
Enjoy working on your 10,000 hours.
Tags: energize sales team, motivate sales team, practice, sales team agenda.
Posted in agenda ideas, best practice, discipline, free sales team meeting topics, performance, sales meeting agenda, sales meetings, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas | No Comments »
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
We at Meeting to Win are on a mission to end boring sales team meetings. Boring sales team meetings put sales teams to sleep right at the beginning of the selling week when they should be at their very best. The last thing salespeople should have to do is recover from their sales team meeting so they can be productive each Monday. As part of our mission, we want to share a sales team meeting idea for Sales Managers who share our passion.
Sales Team Meeting Idea – Sales Performance Book Clubs
As a team,
Choose a business or sales book from Amazon.com (choose your own or subscribe to Meeting to Win and follow along with our quarterly Sales Performance Book Club – includes Discussion Guide and Chapter Exercises). Cover one or two new chapters each week during your weekly sales team meeting. Assign the chapters to the members of the team. Each week give them 20 minutes of the agenda to lead the team on that chapter’s topic.
They can:
- Lead a discussion on the information in the chapter.
- Ask the team to apply the lessons to their own business.
- Practice skills or ideas from the chapter.
- Pull one or two key lessons from the chapter.
- Set one action item based on the work done during this meeting.
- Get creative – give them the chance to do whatever they want with the chapter. You’ll see a new side of some team members.
Meeting to Win provides Sales Performance Book Club discussions each quarter as part of our Sales Meeting Agenda Subscription. We cover one new book each quarter. Next one, Mind of the Customer, starts in April 2010. Join us by subscribing today.
Join the MISSION TO END BAD SALES TEAM MEETINGS by having motivating sales team meetings that inspire your team to perform. Everyone wins!
Post brought to you by Jill Myrick, Owner of Meeting to Win. Meeting to Win provides Sales Team Meeting Agendas PLUS for Sales Managers who want to lead great sales team meetings.
Tags: energize sales team, motivate sales team, sales book club, sales performance, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea
Posted in agenda ideas, agendas, best practice, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, performance, sales manager tips, sales meeting agenda, 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 »
Sunday, April 4th, 2010
Who is on your “team”? By team I mean everyone that helps take care of the customer from suspect stage to account management stage. This could be your proposal people, your billing dept, your sales engineers, your operations team, your customer service representatives and the list goes on. It typically takes many people working together to win, keep and grow customer accounts. How well your team works together is being observed and judged by customers and is a big factor in their decision to work with you or not.
There are many challenges facing your extended team. Everyone has different bosses, people are spread all over the country, they leave the company and have conflicting priorities. How do you pull the team together for the good of the customer?
Start by identifying the team. Make a list of everyone who touches every stage of the sales cycle. List these people or functions by sales cycle stage. Include the role they play in that stage.
Now that you have this chart, figure out how to improve your team work. To get started, list 5 areas of breakdown in your team work. Are proposals often late, do customers have billing issues, is Customer Service unresponsive, are orders delivered late? Take each breakdown one by one and figure out how to address it so customers have a better experience.
Some solutions may include:
- Involving an extended team member earlier in the sales cycle.
- Making an effort to get to know each other outside a sales cycle.
- Including the extended team on sales team meetings occasionally.
- Making sure everyone is clear on their role in the customer account.
- Creating a customer-focused culture where everyone sells.
- Encouraging team leaders to focus on working together.
- Creating a communication system across departments.
Work together as a team to win as a team. You’ll enjoy these internal relationships and your customers will be the big winners.
(Meeting to Win provides new sales team meeting agendas every week for Sales Managers who subscribe to the sales meeting agenda service. This Friday, the sales team meeting agenda Work as a Team to Win as a Team will be delivered to our subscribers. Join us and start having better sales team meetings this week.)
Tags: CRM, cusotmer meeting success, energize sales team, motivate sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea, sales teams, sales teamwork, team work, work as a team
Posted in Account Management, CRM, agenda ideas, agendas, free sales team meeting topics, performance, sales meeting agenda, sales meetings, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting | No Comments »
Friday, April 2nd, 2010
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.
Posted in CRM, discipline, management tips, performance, recession, sales management, sales manager tips, sales managers, sales meeting agenda, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting | No Comments »
Thursday, April 1st, 2010
So, now I am getting inspiration from beer ads! The ad says that fortune favors the bold and it supports the Meeting to Win message this week about Playing to Win instead of Playing to NOT Lose.
Top performers take risks. They risk losing deals or entire accounts by speaking up when clients are making bad decisions. They hold their ground during negotiations. They challenge a competitor’s offering. They demonstrate their value and then demand the right price. They walk away from bad deals. They get to decision makers. They risk offending gatekeepers. They ask their referral network to make introductions. They challenge strategy. They point out problems. They share solutions. They say no to non-selling activities. They care more about results than padded activity reports and inflated pipelines. They call higher in organizations.
Fortune favors the bold. Take a risk today – and tomorrow – and the next day. Play with passion.
Just Sell quote from Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919), 26th president of the United States on being bold.
(Meeting to Win provides weekly sales team meeting agendas for Sales Managers who want to lead inspiring sales team meetings. Join us by subscribing today. Upcoming agendas include Playing to Win or Playing to NOT Lose, Work as a Team to Win as a Team, Lost in Translation, System Based Selling and Create Better Buying Experiences.)
Tags: CRM, energize sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea, sales teams
Posted in Account Management, agenda ideas, best practice, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, gatekeeper, sales meeting agenda, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 31st, 2010
(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.)
Tags: CRM, cusotmer meeting success, customer meeting success, energize sales team, sales leadership, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea, sales teams
Posted in CRM, customer meeting, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, meetings, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales managers, sales meeting agenda, sales meetings, sales team, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, tips for meetings | No Comments »
Sunday, March 28th, 2010
I am getting ready to play my first tennis match in over a year and a half. As I look forward to the match, I am reminded of something my father said to me during one of our matches years ago. Something that I have thought about during every match since when I feel like I am on defense more than I’d like to be. He looked frustrated and said “You’re not playing to win. You’re playing to NOT lose.” He described exactly what I was doing. I was back running down shots, going right where he wanted me to go, just getting the ball in play to live for another point. He was in charge, setting the pace and … having more fun than me. During that match and countless others since then, I have had to change my mindset mid-match and play to win instead of play to NOT lose. For me that means, charge the net, put some shots away, get on the offense, control the pace of the game and, in many of those cases (still not against my Dad…), win. Even when I didn’t win, I walked away knowing I did everything I could and was proud of my game, effort and attitude. There was no risk I hadn’t taken and, therefore, no “what ifs”.
I took my Dad’s insightful observation into my sales life, too, and, man, did life get more fun. Instead of sitting back following the process, chasing the RFP, settling for meeting with non-decision makers, wondering what the competitors were doing, giving discounts and sounding like 80% of other reps out there, I made a clear effort to “charge the net”.
How do you know if you are playing to win or playing to not lose?
Are you:
- Following the buying process blindly without challenging steps that don’t help your cusotmers make good decisions?
- Meeting with people who can’t make decisions?
- More worried about your activity report volume than the quality of your activities?
- Spending time on RFPs that restrict your ability to sell by limiting your ability to diagnose and share solutions?
- Constantly running off to fetch the next thing your prospective customer needs with no commitments from them (”send me a proposal”, “do an assessment”, “send me a brochure”, “come do a demo”, etc)?
- Coming in second or third place?
- Getting surprised late in sales cycles?
Or are you:
- Creating opportunities by shining light on problems prospective customers didn’t know they had?
- Challenging dysfunctional buying processes that hinder your customer from getting the best possible solution?
- Sharing solutions your clients didn’t know existed to problems they didn’t know they had?
- Bringing new ideas, industry expertise and innovative solutions to the table?
- Getting full price for the value of service you provide?
- Getting creative on negotiations?
- Risking offending non-decision makers to get to the actual decision makers?
- Addressing sales cycle slow downs head-on and honestly?
- Not afraid to walk away?
- Not afraid to say and do the right thing no matter the outcome?
It is so much more exciting to play to win. It takes more energy and guts, but it is so worth it. Charge the net this week!
Sales team meeting idea:
- At your next sales team meeting, ask each team member to bring their current pipeline.
- Ask each person to examine their pipeline for opportunities to “charge the net”.
- Each rep should pick one deal and take a well-planned risk. Get to decision makers, challenge a bad decision, ask about the competition, exit an RFP opportunity, etc. As long as the risk will ultimately help you help your customer make a better decision (even if it’s not you), then take the risk.
- Each rep should walk away with one risk to take within the next week.
- Plan to report back on the outcomes of the team’s risk-taking. Not all will go well – that’s why we call it a “risk”. So be it…
Play to win. Charge the net. Have more fun.
(Post brought to you by Jill Myrick of Meeting to Win. Meeting to Win provides sales team meeting agendas for Sales Managers who want to take their team to the next level. Play to Win, Not to NOT Lose is the April 2, 2010 Agenda Topic. To get a new sales team meeting topic each week, visit us at http://www.meetingtowin.com/ to subscribe.)
Tags: CRM, cusotmer meeting success, leadership, losing in sales, sales leadership, sales performance, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales teams, winning in sales
Posted in CRM, agenda ideas, agendas, customer meeting, free sales team meeting topics, how to have productive sales team meetings, management tips, maximize tools, performance, sales activity, sales meeting agenda, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas, team meeting | No Comments »
Thursday, March 25th, 2010
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!
Tags: CRM, energize sales team, motivate sales team, new customers, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agendas, sales team meeting idea, sales teams
Posted in Account Management, CRM, agenda ideas, customer meeting, down economy, free sales team meeting topics, meetings, performance, sales activity, sales management, sales managers, sales meeting agenda, sales meetings, sales team agenda., sales team meeting agenda, sales team meeting agenda topics, sales team meeting ideas | No Comments »
