What’s Missing from Your Sales Meeting?
Home 9 Leader's Digest 9 What’s Missing from Your Sales Meeting?

by | Dec 5, 2017 | Leader's Digest

The annual national sales meeting represents a rare opportunity to re-charge and unify your sales team for the coming year. Motivation and recognition of the sales team are standard fare and primary objectives for this gathering, but could you be getting more out of your sales meeting? Here are two agenda items with tremendous potential to boost your sales team’s morale and performance that are often overlooked:

  • Skill Development
    What if members of your sales team left the sales meeting better equipped to do their job than when they arrived? Motivation of the sales team is always a primary goal of the sales meeting, but you should consider something beyond up-beat music, inspirational speeches and entertainment. These activities can go a long way to set the tone for an energizing meeting, but their impact on morale is fleeting, and their impact on long-term performance is negligible. Improving the skills, competence and confidence of your sales professionals will create a deeper, more significant type of motivation with a lasting impact to your organization’s bottom line. This session may include new skill development or sharpening/reinforcement of existing skills.
  • Sales Team Input
    Consider the collective insight, experience and expertise gathered during your national sales meeting, and then consider the degree to which you harness that mind power for the benefit of the company. The most invigorating sessions at the sales meeting can be those in which sales team members are tapped to share feedback, ideas and solutions. Many sales leaders will shy away from a format that solicits sales rep input, for fear of kicking off a complaint fest; however, this need not be a concern if the session is structured properly with a clear objective to be met or challenge to be addressed. This exercise will not only provide valuable insight to company leadership, it has proven to be a very rewarding experience for the sales team members involved. Seeking the input of your sales team members makes them feel valued and respected, and appeals to that part of their human nature that wants to help make things better.

Your national sales meeting is a significant investment in terms of travel and lodging, and sales reps’ time out of the field. Why not leverage the event to maximize the benefits for all involved?

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