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Running an effective sales meeting

Great sales teams don’t just happen; they are built.

One of the many important parts of building an effective sales team is formal training. Unfortunately, many companies neglect to invest in sales meetings, and when they do, they don’t focus enough on training.

Don’t make that mistake.

What Makes a Sales Training Meeting Effective?

If you ask salespeople, they would say an effective sales training meeting is one that makes them feel energized and prepared.

Sales meetings should be held on a fairly regular basis, such as every nine to 12 months, and timed, whenever possible, with new product introductions.

This article is intended for manufacturers that sell high-dollar items, more than $10,000 each, although many of the suggestions apply to all sales. Selling high-dollar items is difficult. Products and services are complicated, buyer needs are complex, buyer risks are high, sales cycles are long, and the number of orders per month is low. Salespeople need constant training, perhaps more so than any other group in your company, to ensure that they stay at the top of their game, especially if your reps are located remotely.

Keep your meetings focused on training. Sounds basic, right? But you’d be surprised at how many sales training meetings get bogged down with topics such as benefits, shop floor efficiency, tradeshow performance, sales reports by region, manufacturing updates, and travel policies. These items are important but better covered in regular sales conference calls. Revisit the agenda of your last sales training meeting. Does it concentrate 90 percent of the time on tangible, usable training and tools intended to help the salesperson sell? If not, you may want to rethink how you structure these important sessions.

Sales meetings can get crowded. Many executives, managers, and staff wish to participate in the sales meeting, so they can tune in to what’s going on in the field and build relationships with the sales staff. This is admirable and valuable. However, it is not as valuable as keeping your meeting small and intimate, allowing salespeople to open up and participate without judgment.

If you keep the meeting so small, how do you foster understanding and teamwork between sales and the rest of the company? Consider planning lunches, dinners, and social events where others can interact with sales. Open certain parts of the meeting to a wider audience, but always plan these general discussions right before a break, so you can easily clear the room and get back to focused training. Provide a sales and marketing summary for non-attendees after the meeting.

Make It Intense!

Selling is intense. The sales meeting needs to be intense too. Salespeople are not used to sitting in the office or in meetings all day. Take this into account as you design each day of your training meeting.

Get Them Moving. Schedule at least one activity every morning and afternoon that gets them up out of their chairs and doing something; see a demonstration, work with the product, conduct an exercise, practice a pitch, or work in small teams. Keep agenda topics brief and to the point. Provide at least one break each morning and afternoon for making sales calls and responding to emails.

Get Them Talking. Make sure the salespeople are talking at least a third of the time. They need to learn from each other.

A Few Key Sales Meeting Elements

Sales meetings are tailored to each company, but a few things should always be included:

  1. A review of the general sales approach to help them sharpen their skills.
  2. Competitive training to keep them confident.
  3. Product training to keep them refreshed and motivated.
  4. New sales tools to help them drive home important points.

Review the General Sales Approach. The sale of high-dollar products requires a good deal of work upfront before delivering a proposal. Offering a solution to a buyer too soon usually results in your more-thorough competitor getting the order. Train your sales team to follow the best practices of top salespeople by covering the three main preselling goals first: uncover buyer needs, establish credibility for yourself and your company, and understand the competitive landscape.

The three preselling goals should be woven into the natural flow of the first few interactions with the potential customer. Going over these fundamentals during your sales training meeting is a good refresher for your seasoned staff and helps get the newer salespeople off to a good start. Consider your top sales person as the presenter during this session.

Competition Training. Devote time to your top two or three competitors, and build confidence in your salespeople who interact with competitors both directly and indirectly, more than anyone else in your organization. They are your best source of competitive intel.

To keep the discussion relevant to all, focus on competitors who compete with most or all of your salespeople, and stick to commonly occurring sales scenarios, not one-off occurrences. Conclude with a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis of each major competitor and answer these questions:
1.How does this competitor sell against you?
2. What do its salespeople say and do?
3. How do you beat them?
4. What tools and strategies work best against this competitor?

If your sales team walks away with new ideas based on these four questions, their confidence and skill levels will rise.

Product Training. It’s always fun and exciting to present a new product or service. It shows your sales team that the company continues to invest in the future by bringing something new into the mix. However, even if you don’t have a new product to release, conduct training on important products just the same. Dig into smaller benefits where you have a competitive advantage. Refresh the team on legacy messaging and benefits, as well.

Here are some agenda topics regarding your next product training:

  • The need: Identify the end market and its needs.
  • Technical presentation: Make this brief and to the point. Include development team members, how the product was developed/improved, what problems were overcome, and the teamwork and effort that was involved. The technical presentation will build confidence as it shows sales people the effort put forth to bring the product or service to market and the depth of talent in the company, and it acknowledges the team’s behind-the-scenes contribution.
  • Feature/function/benefit review: The FFB is a helpful training tool. Always stress the benefits.
  • Overview pitch: The overview pitch is a carefully crafted sales presentation presented in two forms; a 30-second elevator pitch and an expanded version for formal presentations. They convey how your new product answers customer needs.
    The overview pitch should flow naturally into a conversation with the potential customer. The team should memorize only key phrases and short snippets, not the entire pitch. During sales training, focus the team on retaining the general elements and key points of the overview pitch, which should include the value proposition, credibility statements, explanation of the way you deliver on the value proposition promise, and objection-prevention statements. Each person’s final pitch should be in their own words while using the key points. Experienced sales people will appreciate the starting point as they develop their own presentation, and less-experienced sales people will benefit from a detailed game plan.
  • Commercial information: Clearly define product pricing, options, discounting, indirect partner involvement, lead times, and any other relevant commercial information. Review a sample quotation.
  • Competitive review: Review how the new product or service measures up to the competition and where it might provide new advantages.
  • Objections and responses: Boost your sales team’s confidence by predicting objections they are likely to face and providing thoughtful responses. Collect common objections from each salesperson before the meeting. Role play and discuss the responses during the meeting.
  • Important sales wins (and losses): Selling is more like a sport than almost any other function in the company. Like baseball batters, salespeople have more failures than successes. Celebrating wins is important, but learning from wins is even better. Select important sales victories that are common to all territories and highlight best practices. Your team can learn from losses as well, so explore them in the same way. However, focus on learning from wins versus losses in a 3-to 1-ratio, so that the learning is positive and motivational.
  • Company strategy review from the president or CEO: The larger the geographic area your company covers, the more likely your salespeople are based in remote locations. Remote salespeople often feel disconnected from the company, and this disconnection can lead to apathy and poor job performance. Ask your top leader to provide a brief and uplifting presentation describing the current state, future plans, and important company happenings.
  • Outside training resources: Third-party training can bring novelty and excitement to your sales training meeting and give the team new ways to look at their craft. Make sure any training consultants you bring in are in line with your selling approach.

New Sales Tools. Provide new and updated collateral and sales tools based on carefully created messaging. Consider providing or reviewing tools such as:

  • Physical samples or small components your potential customer can touch.
  • Printed and downloadable collateral.
  • Your company website.
  • Video and electronic image library that provides memorable visuals.
  • Visits to happy customers with potential customers.
  • Team-selling with other experts from your company.
  • Sales promotions.

Sales promotions not only offer a benefit to the prospect, they breathe life into the sales team and allow the company to focus the team’s efforts on a special product, market, or goal. Use the sales meeting to publicly announce the promotion and get the team’s competitive juices flowing.

Bringing the sales team together is expensive and time-consuming. Carefully plan and execute each session to maximize the benefits. Conducted properly, an effective sales training meeting will more than pay for itself in the long run.

About the Author
Fairmont Concepts

Chip Burnham

Co-founder

(833) 667-7889

Chip Burnham is author of MarketMD Your Manufacturing Business, and co-founder of Fairmont Concepts, a company dedicated to helping manufacturers maximize the performance of their commercial engine.