A winning sales meeting is all about the details
Published on 04/14/2003 under Potpourri
In a sense, we’re all experts on sales meetings because we’ve been to good ones and we’ve been to really bad ones. We certainly know a good one when we sit through it. But have you ever stopped to analyze what separates the winners from the losers?
Here are five key ideas that might help garner an all-star nomination for your next meeting:
• You set the tone with a theme. A theme helps both speakers and attendees understand the overall purpose for gathering. Do not choose a theme by executive whim or even by popular vote: Select it the same way you would choose a headline for an important ad or a name for a new product.
One appropriate sales meeting theme example I can recall was “Building to Win,” for a company that was being spun off from a large conglomerate. Lots of issues were swirling around (sinking morale, limited resources, competitive disadvantages) and we wanted to focus the meeting on things we could do in the short term to get the new company on its feet.
Each speaker came to the podium carrying a large cardboard box wrapped in brightly colored paper with a single word on one side. The word represented a key attribute we wanted to associate with the new company, and the speaker was instructed to work that word into his or her presentation in some significant way.
The boxes were stacked in a pyramid formation to the right of the podium, building as the three-day meeting progressed. By the end of the meeting, we had a huge collection of attributes that reminded us all that the new company had a lot going for it—extremely uplifting.
• Not all speakers are great speakers. Some people are natural speakers, but most of us have to work at it. If you’re in charge of a meeting, you should make sure that each speaker is putting in the proper amount of preparation. And it would be great if that preparation wasn’t done the week before the meeting.
Check to make sure each presenter understands the theme and has incorporated its meaning into his talk. Encourage him to use visual aids—and lots of them. If he has 30 minutes on the program and is planning to use five slides, well that’s a problem. My rule of thumb is 30 seconds per slide, one minute at most. Even if you come back to a theme art or title slide several times for transition purposes, don’t leave one slide on the screen too long.
• Build teamwork, but recognize the competitive factor. Most everybody understands that sales meetings are for building teamwork, but you may not have fully grasped how to use the naturally competitive nature of salespeople to help this along. Salespeople have short attention spans and are easily bored. The experienced ones are jaded and skeptical. But they’re also driven to win.
So, how do you harness and leverage this energy? By pitting them against each other, of course. Split them up in small groups and give them a challenge to solve. Create a light-hearted award such as “The Bell Ringer” and ring it loudly every time a good idea is suggested. I once divided the room in half, gave each side a team name and kept score with a giant paper scoreboard posted on the wall. Just like an old-fashioned baseball scoreboard, we put a new number on the board every time someone brought forward an idea or concept that would create extra value for our customers.
• Have some fun; it’s not punishment. Some managers think that because sales meeting attendance is mandatory, you can subject attendees to cruel and unusual punishment. I’ve seen hour after hour of excruciating key account reviews where the entire sales force is required to listen to the same basic discussion over and over. It numbs the mind.
I’ve also worked with managers who felt it was OK to meet from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., break quickly for dinner, and then go right back at it into the night. What this does is teach people they don’t want to have anything to do with this company.
Your meeting should seek a balance between serious subjects and fun. And while we’re on the subject of fun, let me voice an unpopular opinion about golf at sales meetings. Most meetings are held at resorts and conference centers within spitting distance of fabulous golf courses, which has golfers already licking their lips when they step off the shuttle bus. But golf is not a sport that lends itself to team-building. For the most part, you share a cart with one other person, and you have two additional people in your foursome. But the rest of the group might as well be in another city. Yes, you share a common experience and you can revisit that afterward, but my advice is: Save the golf for another time and schedule an activity that brings everyone together in one place.
• Do something people will remember. It’s OK to take risks at a sales meeting because, let’s face it, most of the stuff you talk about will be long forgotten by the time people get home. Plan at least one or two events that will remind everyone of your basic theme and give them something to tell people about who didn’t get an invitation. The worst thing they can say when asked how the meeting went is “same old thing.”
Invite an outside “expert” speaker. Dress up in a costume. Arrange a surprise stunt. I can still remember a dinner many years ago at which the chairman of the company came out in an astronaut’s space suit. (The theme was “Ready To Soar.”) You should have seen the looks on everybody’s faces.
Sales meetings are like anything else in business: The more you invest, the greater the benefit you’re likely to receive. And that extra effort is what separates the winners from the losers.