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Archive for the ‘sales team agenda.’ Category

The Secrets of the Bottom 80%

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%.

Summer Momentum Project

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!

10,000 Hours

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.

Sales Team Meeting Idea – Sales Performance Book Club

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 WinMeeting to Win provides Sales Team Meeting Agendas PLUS for Sales Managers who want to lead great sales team meetings.

The Worst Case Scenario

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.

Stop Playing It “Safe” – Ask for Commitments

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.)

Playing to Win or Playing to NOT Lose? (Includes Sales Team Meeting Idea)

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.)