Sales Meetings that get results

(Estimated reading time: 60 Seconds)

Sales meetings need to move deals forward or uncover roadblocks to their advancement. Sales leaders must avoid the pitfalls around sales meetings that make them unproductive. Specifically: Group sales meetings are not the place for reviewing every deal. THey are for identifying roadblocks and hurdles and additional resources required to advance the opportunity. Individual sales meetings are reviews of deals but not sales manager led. The best 1:1 sales meetings are led by the salesperson. Here’s the key point for 1:1 meetings- Sales leaders have to prepare for them that means reviewing the deal notes and being prepared to ask insightful questions and make suggestions on how to tactically help the salesperson attain quota and stretch goals.

Good Group Meetings are:

As leaders, we must be in the habit of holding good group sales meetings (also known as huddles/ pulse meetings/ standup meetings/ or sales strategy meetings. The reporting is group oriented for leads and overall attainment, marketing initiatives or results of past initiatives or programs. These meetings must (not should, must) be consistent and attended by all. I would propose that leaders from other departments be invited and optimally have a regular 10 minute slot to share data about new initiatives or teachable moments that sales can use in the prospecting, discovery, scoping, or closing segments of their work. Think: resourcing salespeople to drive outcomes.

Good 1:1 Meetings are:

There is a pattern forming for leadership; be accountable for planning/ meeting/ coaching and leading the team effectively. Set the example and hold people accountable in their time management practices as well. Consistent meeting times and supporting that consistency with other sales leadership behaviors like ride-a-long and practice exercises are best practices.

I don’t use the term “roleplay”, instead I find the term “practice” to be more acceptable to competitive salespeople.

1:1 meetings have to have an honest and unvarnished approach to building successful outcomes with salespeople. I worked with a salesperson this week on their pipeline and they are behind quota, have a small pipeline and according to their calendar, do not have much prospecting/networking time blocked. So the honest and unvarnished approach is to point out the shortcoming, set short term activities to bolster success, and give feedback regularly to encourage winning behaviors. With this salesperson, in our 1:1, we discussed adding 2x daily dedicated prospecting activities and goals to support the activity in parity with in-person and virtual networking and prospecting. To support additional growth in other ways, we documented a plan to attend specific industry events and estimated ROI on that expense of time and $. Additionally, we crafted a strategy to reach out to dormant relationships from their past selling success and reached out to marketing to launch some specific digital content to a specific persona to be targeted in the next 2 weeks to offer multiple touches on that target audience.

As leaders, we are accountable to the larger success goal so it is imperative to lean into the individual and help them grow to attain or exceed their part of the goal. Be the best steward of someone else’s time and in turn you will have more productive meetings and more reliable forecasts and goal attainment.

Get the results you need by creating environments conducive to achieving the goal you want.