SalesForceXP: November/December 2008 Coverstory: What's Next

COVERSTORY

SalesForceXP November/December 2008 Cover

What Do Your Meetings Look Like?

By Gerry Layo

Your sales meetings are a great indication of the culture of your company. The warriors who fight the battles in the field have certain needs that must be met by sales meetings, but the purpose of having them often gets lost by companies and managers.

A sales meeting should never be run without specific time being scheduled for skill enhancement and training. Remember, sales training is never completed. The best salespeople want to continually improve and they need a forum in which to do that. (By the way, even mediocre salespeople will eventually take a drink at the fountain of continual growth if they are led there often enough.)

Many sales managers feel their people are not receptive to additional training. They may be right, but don’t shoot the students; take aim at the teacher. Past experience in lackluster, no-direction sales meetings has tainted many salespeople’s training expectations. Your salespeople need to buy into the premise that you are there to help them grow and reach their goals.

Attitude starts in the heart. It’s a little thing that makes a huge difference.

The attitude of reciprocity principle states that you get what you give. As a manager, you set the pace. Pessimism breeds pessimism. Remember, your sales team will do half of what you do right and twice of what you do wrong.

Create consistency in your delivery, your agendas, your accountability, when you start the meeting, when you end the meeting, etc. Surprises lead to discomfort. Although some discomfort is OK, too much of it kills trust and belief in the message.

What It's All About...
Or At Least Should Be

It's been said that the more you learn, the more you can learn. You should take every opportunity to increase the ability and desire for your salespeople to learn and grow. A great way to find out what your salespeople want from your meetings is to ask them. Here are just a few healthy reasons to gather the troops more regularly:

To get the sales team armed to sell every day
To share success stories
To create a safe environment for problem solving
To provide encouragement and assistance toward goals (individual goals as well as company goals)
To get a view from the frontlines
To tap into the experiences of colleagues and peers with the guidance and facilitation of management
To provide real-world sales skill training for your salespeople's daily battles
To guide them toward appropriate behavior and activity levels for success

Attitude is not noise. Don’t confuse getting passionate buy-in from your people with hyped-up sessions that are platforms for a performance by you. This is about the salespeople and their issues, their goals, their challenges – not yours.

Save the data for memos. Your meetings need to inspire. Too many salespeople get motivated by a daylong training session, then fail to use that enthusiasm to spark the activity necessary for change and increased success.

You must pose regular challenges to pull results out of your people. There are not enough human beings out there with the ability to do it themselves on a regular basis.
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Gerry Layo is the CEO (Chief Energizing Officer) for Sales Coach International. Find out more at www.gerrylayo.com.