Have you ever noticed how meetings in general can be a bit drab? Meetings are supposed to bring your most talented sales professionals and sales consultants together for an empowering conference where the stakes are high and the outcomes are even higher. If you want to stop having sales meetings that flop, you need to start looking at your meetings differently. Patrick Lencioni wrote a popular book called “Death by Meeting.” In it, he outlined a few ways to make meetings more powerful. Let’s take a look at some of his suggestions:
- Your meetings need focus: All too often, people try to focus on too many issues at once. You can’t discuss every high priority sales issue or critical need your business has in a single meeting. Before you get everyone together, figure out what the most pressing issues are, and plan your meeting around those. Focusing too broadly will only ensure these issues never get resolved.
- Inform everyone about the stakes involved: You’ve noticed a point of contention within your sales funnel. If something isn’t done soon, you know it’s going to grow into a bigger problem. Make this topic a priority for your sales meeting, and inform your team of the implications if the correct decisions aren’t made. Once you have everyone on board, come up with a plan of action and start tackling the issue head on.
- Every good meeting needs a “hook”: Just like in the movies, if you want to captivate your audience, you have to hook them right at the beginning. If you don’t engage your team from the outset, then they’ll be bored for the remainder of the meeting. A great hook might be that you’ve just brought on a Chicago sales consulting team to revamp your sales structure and modernize your sales techniques.
- Conflict is Your Friend: For many professionals, the desire to avoid conflict in meetings is strong. Whether they’re scared of wasting time, or afraid of challenging the status quo, there are a number of reasons people keep quiet during meetings. But here’s a challenge for you: encourage conflict. Being able to hold a debate on two separate ideas can be invaluable for your sales process. Conflict forces people to find the bottlenecks in their own thinking and those in their opponents’. Seeing the ups and downs of two competing sides will eventually lead everyone to make better, more informed decisions.
Sales meetings should never feel like a waste of time. Here at Acquirent, we understand the value of bringing your sales consultants and team together to hammer out the main issues plaguing your sales process. If your sales meetings have focus, a great hook, and insight debate, then you’ll be on your way to improving your business for the better.
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