5 strategies for more effective sales meetings

It’s time to stop box-ticking and get motivating! Here are five ways you can spice up your weekly sales meeting.

What are the weekly sales meetings like in your company? Do they get everyone buzzing, ready for action and looking forward to the week ahead? Or, on the other hand, are they just there to check a box, with your team daydreaming their way through it, counting the minutes until it’s over?

Your weekly sales meeting should be a valuable part of the week, for you as a leader, as well as your team. Here are five ideas to make your sales meeting more effective.

1 — Have a reason for your meeting, every time

When is your weekly sales meeting? Is it on a Monday morning like most companies’? Why is that? Do you have reason to have your sales meeting? Or is it more like, ‘It’s Monday, so we better have one.’?

If you don’t have a clear reason for your meeting, you don’t actually need to have one. So why waste yours and everyone else’s time?

Likewise, if the meeting just consists of you talking, with little or no input from your team, you could just as easily make your points in an email.

2 — Celebrate successes

A great way to motivate your team at the start of the week is to look back at a success story from the previous one.

At a recent Sales Confidence event, Rob Massa from BounceX shared with us how at the start of every sales meeting, he shows recognition to one person in the room for their performance in the previous week.

‘It could be an SDR who got a big meeting. It could be a rep who closed a big deal. It could be just somebody you saw working their ass off!’

Then, everyone stands up and claps. It starts the meeting off on a positive vibe, which then lasts throughout the session.

Try doing something like this in your next weekly sales meeting.

3 — Coaching

Coaching is the most effective way to upskill your sales reps. Salespeople are more likely to retain information if they discover it for themselves than if you just tell them what it is. Coaching is how you facilitate that.

A great way to coach is by playing clips of actual calls that your reps have with prospects. Go through the call and talk about why they said what they did, as well as what they might do differently next time. You can do this with calls that worked, or a really successful call from a top performer. It’s all valuable.

4 — Document action points and follow-up

Never leave a matter that you discuss in a meeting hanging in the air. Decide on the next steps with each individual and put them in writing after the meeting via email. This ensures everyone knows where they stand, creating accountability.

Follow up with the people who have action points. However, you may not want to do this at the next meeting. It can be pretty dull for the other people listening to you discuss things that don’t concern them.

5 — You don’t have to run it

Just because you run the team doesn’t necessarily mean you have to run the team meeting. Why not share the responsibility with the aspiring leaders in your team?

At a Sales Confidence event, Pat Traynor talked about how he does this in his teams, with rotating leaders for each meeting.

‘Every week, they gather sales metrics, create a presentation, invite somebody from another part of the business and facilitate a discussion about an aspect of our sales proposition. It creates a platform for my team leader to be seen to be leading. It creates a safe space for them to experiment and a place where I can support them closely.’

Over to you

Now, we want to know what you think.

Tell us about your weekly sales meetings.

What do you do to ensure your reps leave motivated and ready for action?

Share your tips with the Sales Confidence community by leaving a comment below.