This post brought to you by Meeting to Win. 

Subscribe and get a NEW sales team meeting topic every week or visit our STORE for 90+ sales team meeting topics across 21 different categories (see CATALOG HERE). 

Sales Team Meeting Idea – Sales Performance Book Club

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.

(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.)

(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 Know article, 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 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.)

We at Meeting to Win are big fans of Paul Castain and his work.  During our 3-week Sales Team Meeting Agenda series on Maximizing Customer Meetings we thought you may enjoy Paul’s thougths on starting your meetings with impact. 

Starting Your Meetings with Impact

by Paul Castain of Sales Playbook

OK, pop quiz. How long does it take to make an impression on someone? 30 seconds? 10? Less? …
Here’s something that you can do in your very next client/prospect meeting …

Read the rest here.

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.)

We are packaging our posts and sending them once per week to subscribers each Monday morning.  To get your Meeting to Win Posts every Monday, subscribe now.

As we continue with Pipeline Health Check week, we want to address risks in pipelines.  If you know your risks, you can reduce the risks or at least manage them more effectively.  As you examine your pipeline this week, check for these risks:

• A large percentage of the revenue in your pipeline is from one deal.
• You are not positioned with decision makers in late cycle pipeline opportunities.
• Your pipeline is heavy on early or late sales cycle deals – no balance.
• You have not added new “suspect” opportunities to your pipeline consistently.
• In mid-cycle deals you do not have a crystal clear picture of the decision process and who is involved and in what capacity at each decision point.
• You haven’t discussed money in mid and late cycle opportunities.
• You don’t know the competitive landscape in most of your opportunities.
• Your pipeline does not have at least 3X your sales goal in opportunities.
• You have deals that have stalled out with no progress forward in a few weeks.
• You are guessing at the size of opportunities instead of basing it on real diagnosis.
• You are chasing deals that are not in your company’s sweet spot.

These are just a few of the risks to look for as you examine your pipeline.  Know your risks and take steps to minimize them – the smallest steps can make the biggest difference when pursuing sales performance goals.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

At your next sales team meeting,

• Ask your team to bring their pipelines.
• Go through each of the risks above as a group. 
• Add risks to the list that apply to your team.
• Ask each person to honestly assess their pipeline against the final list of risks.
• As a team, set one action item each person can do to minimize their most dangerous pipeline risk.
• Plan to follow up as a team and do this exercise again, setting the next action item as you move toward healthier and healthier pipelines.

Meeting to Win provides in-depth sales team meeting agendas with training exercises, practice sessions, discussion topics and ideas to help your sales team sell more.  This Friday’s agenda is the Pipeline Health Check and will lead your team through exercises that will lead to more balanced, healthier pipelines.  Join us and get your own weekly sales team meeting agendas.  Learn more  here.

I came across this article and liked Kelley’s perspective on effective sales team meetings.  I want to share his insights with our readers.  Enjoy!  (To get new sales team meeting agendas each week visit Meeting to Win.)  

How to Run an Effective Sales Meeting by Kelley Robertson

Sales meetings are a fact of life and business and they are important for a variety of reasons.

-They allow larger companies to address the entire sales team as a group.

-They offer opportunities to provide additional training (product, skills, and technical).

-They help keep your team up-to-date.

-And, they present a tremendous opportunity for your team to connect and develop stronger relationships with each other.

Unfortunately, many sales meetings are unproductive and not nearly as effective as they could be. Here are a few of the most common mistakes people make when scheduling and running sales meetings.

Read the rest….HERE

This post brought to you by Meeting to Win. 

Subscribe and get a NEW sales team meeting topic every week or visit our STORE for 90+ sales team meeting topics across 21 different categories (see CATALOG HERE).

Sales Team Meeting Idea: The War Room

This topic is what we call The War Room and it has been very popular this past year.  Sales teams that face reality and address it rationally, strategically and head-on succeed in the long run. This means their customers are better served, also.  The customers’ success is the salesperson’s goal and, therefore, the underlying goal of every Meeting to Win agenda and sales team meeting topic.

Enjoy The War Room exercise at your next sales team meeting.  Get more topics by subscribing for new sales team meeting topics to be delivered to your inbox every Friday. 

War Room

The War Room exercise is a time to get together as a team to address the surrounding business climate, how it is affecting the team’s selling efforts and what actions make sense to address it moving forward.

• As a team, quickly list the ways the current business climate is affecting your business. What are the most recent developments in the economy, your industry, your customer base, your competitors, etc?

1. ________________________________________
2. ________________________________________
3. ________________________________________
4. ________________________________________
5. ________________________________________
6. ________________________________________
7. ________________________________________
8. ________________________________________
9. ________________________________________
10. ________________________________________

• Begin with one item from the list you just created and, as a group, share some ideas, best practices and strategies for handling that challenge.

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

1.  ________________________________________
2. ________________________________________
3. ________________________________________
4. ________________________________________
5. ________________________________________

• Continue this with each item until you run out of time.

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

1.  ________________________________________
2. ________________________________________
3. ________________________________________
4. ________________________________________
5. ________________________________________

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

1.  ________________________________________
2. ________________________________________
3. ________________________________________
4. ________________________________________
5. ________________________________________

Challenge:  ______________________________________

Strategies: 

1.  ________________________________________
2. ________________________________________
3. ________________________________________
4. ________________________________________
5. ________________________________________

LinkedIn has become a very valuable tool for me.  I enjoy partnering with my connections for referrals, business opportunities, learning experiences and awareness of our industry and business climate.  In the few years I’ve been using LinkedIn I’ve reconnected with former colleagues, exchanged valuable referrals, developed deeper relationships with clients, kept track of clients when they’ve switched companies, connected employers and employees, created great peer networks and, not lastly, increased sales.  My point?  LinkedIn is a powerful tool in my business. 

In the past year, I have gotten more active on LinkedIn Groups.    I wanted to share my experience and some of my best pratices for using these groups to build business acumen, share and gather best practices and grow as a sales professional. 

1. First of all, you need to find a group that is well-managed.  This means that the group manager is actively involved in the discussions and ensures that spam or selling is not tolerated.  The groups that add value are made up of a community of peers that value sharing ideas and best practices for the benefit of the group – and ultimately the customers they serve.  Here are three groups I am active in and would highly recommend:  Sales Blogcast, Sales Gravy, Sales Playbook  (If you know of other good groups, please post a comment and share them with our readers.)  Visit one or more of these groups and request to join.
2. Once you are a member, you should share your ideas and opinions on discussion questions already posted. 
3. If you are facing a sales challenge such as getting a prospect to take your call, overcoming a price objection or dealing with customer service issues, you can post your dilemma for the group.  These groups are made up of professionals from the sales industry and are great about sharing their experiences, ideas and suggestions.  You will have a great list of perspectives to consider as you decide how to tackle your sales challenge.
4. Be respectful of your network.  You can disagree -it is actually interesting and valuable to get differing opinions.  Just do it politely and with respect.
5. Make an effort to share news that might be useful to the group.  Most groups have a place to post news.   If you find something helpful, share it with the group. 
6. Follow up on discussions you post.  Thank group members for their input and continue to facilitate the discussion until it runs its course.
7. Be abundant.  In the The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Dr. Stephen Covey defined this abundance mentality as “a paradigm that there is plenty out there for everyone.”    The Abundance Mentality is in contrast to the Scarcity Mentality.  (The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen R. Covey)
8. Invite colleagues to join and participate in groups you find useful. 
9. Stay positive.  The groups I’ve recommended manage to stay realistic and positive. They are solution oriented no matter the challenge.
10. Remember the Golden Rule always.

These groups are a great enhancement to your life and career when you participate appropriately.  Please feel free to share your own best practices by leaving a comment for our readers.

Get active in LinkedIn Groups and reap the benefits immediately.

Sales Team Meeting Idea:

Ask your sales team to

• all join the same group or
• each join a different group.

At your sales team meetings, bring one of the discussion questions from your LI group to your own team.  Share the LinkedIn Group’s responses and then build on those.

Or, determine a sales challenge that exists on your team and post it to the group(s) you belong to. The next time you get together, share the answers from the LinkedIn group(s).  Be sure to let your LinkedIn Group(s) know how they helped your team by leaving a comment in the discussion thread, also.

(Meeting to Win offers subscribers sales team meeting agendas every week.  Join us by subscribing at https://www.meetingtowin.com/subscribe.)