3 Things You Must Change to Improve Your Sales Meetings

​One of my hero’s in the world of sales is a woman in the DFW area named Marcia Dillon. I was fortunate enough to report to Marcia when I was a performance coach in the new home sales world.

Marcia was brought in to our company as the new Sr. VP of Sales and Marketing. Her first task was not an easy one. She was walking into a culture that was highly negative and arguably toxic. The Division President wanted her to turn it around.

One day Marcia sat me down, along with the rest of the management team, and asked us to help rebrand the culture.

My role? My role was to rebrand the sales meetings. Marcia wanted me to create an environment that the sales people actually looked forward to coming across town to attend. Her philosophy was that if people were going to drive an hour to an hour and half to attend this “meeting”, it must be well worth it.

If you have ever read any of my other blogs you have probably heard me share that those sales meetings weren’t called sales meetings or sales rallies at the time. No, no, no. The sales team called it “Come to the meeting to get your beating.”

It was a difficult task, but we were able to do it inside of a few months.

How did we do it? There were three things we changed.

1. The Zero Negativity Policy

Prior to the new way of conducting the sales meetings, 99 percent was negative and one percent was positive. Every department in the company saw our meeting as an opportunity to “fix” the sales people. By implementing the Zero Negativity Policy (which wasn’t actually the name of it) sales people felt more comfortable attending.

Take a look at your agenda for your next sales meeting. If you have a negative culture brewing, you may want to implement the Zero Negativity Policy.

2. Individual Focus Instead of Company Focus

I recall opening the very first of these new meetings asking the sales team, “Is it okay if I don’t talk about the company and the company goals, but instead we talk about you and how to help you get what you want?”
For the first time…maybe ever, that team stood to their feet and started slow clapping. It was as if they were saying, “It’s about freakin’ time.”

I often have to remind sales leaders that nobody wants to be in a conversation where other people talk about themselves the entire time. That’s true when it comes to the company as well. Make it about the individuals and how to improve their lives.

3. Treat it Like A Seminar

I come from the seminar world. In fact, I just finished attending a three-day event with Jeff Walker yesterday. You know what Jeff did at his seminar? He made me feel I got more than I paid for. That’s what a great seminar leader does.

When I worked with Marcia to rebrand those sales meetings, every agenda had this thought driving the agenda, “What if each person paid $3,000 to attend this meeting? What would they need to experience, learn and feel in order to say they got more than $3,000 in value?”

If you don’t know the answer to that question, you may want to start attending some seminars to see how it’s done. Then implement what you experience into the sales meetings.

What I saw at seminars was:

High energy,
Upbeat music,
Humor and a bit of entertainment
Applicable job skills
Life skills (communication particularly)
Performance improvement
At the end of the day, people want to feel they have invested their time and attention wisely. Nothing is worse than driving for two to three hours round-trip, sitting in a room for another two hours, and feeling like it was all a waste of time.

Create a $3,000 sales meeting and watch what your team explode!

And…it might help to start calling them sales rallies from here on out.

Good luck!