I had the privilege (I can say that now) of inheriting a toxic, dysfunctional, under-performing, miserable inside sales team a few years ago. I mean this group was bad off! Everyone was too busy to stop and actually do anything about this small group so the problems just got worse and worse until they were a sales AND HR nightmare. It was time to do something. So, lucky me, I was the chosen one to take this team and it’s troubles on. This team was turned around within 30-60 days and became a model for other teams like it around the country. I thought it might be nice to share how we made this u-turn in case their are other managers struggling with the quicksand of a team with low morale and low performance.
First, I met with the Sales Manager to hear her side of the story. The problems were blatantly obviously and I quickly realized that her team ruled the roost and she had little control. It was like my 4th grade teacher Mrs. Jackson (I won’t even go there!). She had no control and the team took advantage of her weakness.
I worked with this dedicated (most would have run screaming from this mess by now) Manager to help her gain some control and respect and quickly realized this was beyond her abilities and definitely beyond her comfort. I was able to work with my leadership and find her another more suitable role in the company where she thrives today.
I replaced her with a lady from another territory who wasn’t even currently in management. She was in a sales role and demonstrated amazing leadership skills with her customers and internal team. She was process oriented, genuinely cared about her team and customers and made smart decisions about creating solutions that were good for everyone. And – she never got run over by her team mates or customers. In fact, she had successful run and sold a business during her lifetime. I had a gut feeling about her and, man, was I right! The rest of the credit goes to her.
The rest of this success story belongs to this new manager. She immediately did the following things:
First, this Manager just spent a week observing and getting to know the team.
At the end of her first week, she met with the team and acknowledged what everyone already knew. It maybe hadn’t been said out loud, but this new manager said it. No one had confidence in this group, no one respected this group and they didn’t operate like a successful team.
She didn’t necessarily make it personal. There are characteristics of successful teams across organizations and this team did not have most of those characteristics – sales process, goals, work time expectations, etc. She simply pointed this out.
She regularly spent one-on-one time with each team member to find out their frustrations, personal goals, skills and motivations.
She partnered with me and HR along the way as she began to enforce company policies (tardiness, dress code, etc) and implement performance plans.
She quickly identified a troublemaker on the team, gave her a chance to turn things around and, in the end, fired her. That was the only loss on her team. (A good example for the rest, too!)
She very clearly communicated her own performance and conduct expectations as the Manager of this team.
She stood up for her team when needed. This team had done so many things wrong that even when something wasn’t necessarily their fault, the blame still landed there. This Manager put a stop to that right away.
She started a communication plan with the departments her team regularly worked with. They all became great partners with their extended teams instead of a thorn in one anothers’ sides as they had been.
She had confidence in her team’s ability to contribute positive sales results to the organization. She had charts and posters posted all over the office showing them on the way to or at goals they had never come close to achieving. They were becoming confident and proud of their contributions.
She shared these reports with me so I could “brag” on this team to senior leadership, also. It was a PR campaign and everyone began to see this team in a different light. They actually began to figure out ways to utilize their services more because it meant success to them.
She stayed very close to the quality and workload of the team and added to the team as they got busier and busier. She made this a place to work and she had the pick of candidates from an internal pool. NO ONE wanted to work there even 6 months prior.
We paraded senior leaders through there when they came to town to visit and asked our local senior leaders to make this department a regular stop. We realized this was highly motivating for them as they had been ignored and, quite honestly, avoided during the troubled times. They were really proud of their environment and loved showing it off.
In the end, there were a successful team with clear sales activity and professional expectations, they were accountable to activity and sales goals, followed a repeatable sales process, executed a consistent internal and external communication plan, celebrated wins, examined losses and are enjoying successful careers today.
Being part of this team could have been a huge setback in the young careers of these inside sales people. Instead it was an experience that launched many great careers. The key throughout each of our steps was communication. We communicated daily and sometimes hourly in the first 30 days. It was so bad we actually considered shutting the doors and starting over. It turned out to be one of the best experiences of my career. If you are faced with a toxic team, partner with your boss and HR team and get them turned around this month. It takes a lot of energy, heart and even tears, but it is so worth it. That team isn’t happy being miserable either – they just don’t know how to fix it. Step in and improve the lives of each and every one of them – including you.
Good luck!
This post brought to you by Meeting to Win. Have positive weekly sales team meetings by subscribing to Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Agendas. Coming soon – The Summer of Momentum.
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!
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.)
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.
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.)
(This Friday the Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Agenda, 10 Things You Don’t Know, will be delivered to all our subscribers. We are focused on treating prospective customers AND existing customers like prospective customers. Get a new Sales Team Meeting Agenda EVERY Friday by subscribing to Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Agendas today.)
Most sales reps get to enjoy some long-term customer relationships. Too often sales reps take these customers for granted and settle into an account management mode. Account management can mean many positive things, but in this case, we’ll call it account maintenance. It is not enough to just maintain an account. Your customer signed on for more than that. This week’s Meeting to Win theme is treating existing customers like prospective customers by helping them identify and secure solutions to their problems and tools to get them results.
In our 10 Things You Don’t Knowarticle, we suggested several ways to treat these existing customers like hot prospects. Here is another way.
Get a Fresh Set of Eyes on an Existing Account
Ask a team mate to coffee. Ask them to review your clients’ website before meeting with you. Ask them to pretend this client was a target account that they were trying to acquire as a client. Then get together with them for coffee and ask their initial ideas for pursuing this client. Then, tell them everything you know about the account, who you know at the account, your theories on what you don’t know and your history with them. Now, ask them what you are missing. Find out how they would move forward to help this client.
Guaranteed you’ll walk away with a fresh perspective on an old account. You and your client win when you take a fresh look at their business.
Sales Team Meeting Idea:
In your next sales team meeting, choose 1 existing account on the team that could use a fresh perspective. (Send an email to the team and ask them to nomimate their own accounts.)
Choose one and let the team know the account name.
Ask the team to research the account before the meeting.
Ask the account owner to send a one-page overview of the account – what they know, who they know, history, etc.
During the meeting, ask the Account Owner to share a 5 minute overview of the account that was not included in the pre-work.
Ask the team to be the “fresh eyes” and share new ideas and perspective on the account.
At the end of the hour, get a list of all the new ideas for the Account Owner.
Account Owner should share what they will try from the list of new ideas.
Fieldwork Idea:
Choose teams of 3 and, over the course of the next 3 weeks, each team should spend one hour per rep on one account per rep doing the same thing.
Choose one rep’s account each week and get together for coffee, if possible. If not, do this on the phone.
Each person on the team should end up with a list of fresh ideas and perspectives on one exisiting account.
Get back together during a sales team meeting conference call and each rep should share the outcomes of gaining a fresh perspective on their exisiting account.
What lessons did the team learn?
Enjoy the Fresh Eyes exercise. Join Meeting to Win to get interactive sales team meeting agendas for your sales team every week. We’d love to work with you!
(This week’s Meeting to Win sales team meeting agenda is called 10 Things You Don’t Know. To join us and get new sales team meeting agendas weekly, visit us at Meeting to Win.)
Salespeople are wise to focus on their existing customer base to impact success during economic recovery. Competitors are getting creative and aggressive and existing relationships could be up for grabs … unless…you treat your existing clients like new customers. Think about how you treat new customers.
During economic recovery, treat your customers like new customers by trying the following things:
Conduct a thorough needs-analysis with them to make sure your solutions still are solutions. Their business has likely changed like the rest of the world.
Find out where they need help and deliver.
Figure out how your company can better service them – clear billing, better response on customer service issues, etc.
Bring senior leaders to face-to-face meetings to thank them for their business and show how valuable they are to your company.
Sincerely thank them for their business.
Share new ways to solve old and new problems.
Share industry expertise. Help them be innovative.
Help them help their customers succeed.
Learn everything you can about their business – you’ll recognize ways to help them the more you know their business.
Be attentive, present and part of the team.
Commit to quarterly business reviews to hold yourself accountable to the results you promised.
Make sure they know all that you can do for them. (Exercise: Think of 10 things your top customers may not know about your offering that may help them.) Figure out how to share all your services without giving a sales pitch. Your competitors are sharing this information. It’s best to share this information in response to a business need they have.
Be someone they can’t live without.
Competitors are gunning for your clients. Treat your existing customers like the gold that they are.
(To get sales team meeting agendas with exercises and role plays on topics like 10 Things You Don’t Know and other great selling topics, join the Meeting to Win community by subscribing today.)
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:
A bulleted list of the information the sales representative learned about the customer’s needs.
A list of action items for both the sales rep and the customer along with time lines.
A couple of bullets with high-level ideas on possible solutions you discussed while meeting.
Possible pricing scenarios (if discussed in meeting).
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.
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Enjoy a sales meeting agenda idea for your next sales meeting.
Ask your team to dust off (literally) the sales training manual from your latest sales training session. Assign each person on the team one section and ask them to lead the team in the exercises, role plays and discussions from the training session over the course of the next few sales team meetings. This will reinforce the training you’ve already received and give the team a chance to practice the new skills.
Start each meeting with an update from each person regarding how they used the previous week’s lesson in the field and the outcome of that effort.
Enjoy your sales meetings while building your sales skills.
(To get new sales meeting agendas each week, join Meeting to Win. We provide energizing, fun sales team meeting agendas for motivating sales meetings.)
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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