When you have a meeting with the sales team, do you feel that it is productive? Many team meetings are nothing more than hours spent with nothing defined. If there's one thing worse than sitting in an endless meeting, it's being in charge of that meeting.
It is essential that managers and leaders know how to make meetings with sales teams less boring and more productive. After all, it's essential that your team doesn't feel like they're wasting precious time they could be using to sell.
In this text we separate 10 tips for you to learn how to have a good meeting with the sales team. Check out!
1. Set a good meeting time
If the sellers are tired after a long day at work or hungry, you can be sure that this meeting will not be productive at all. So avoid scheduling meetings at the end of the day or around lunchtime. A good tip is to schedule the meeting with the sales team in the morning. Sellers will be fresh-headed and well-rested.2. Organize a meeting schedule
Last-minute meetings happen. After all, sometimes the matter is urgent and cannot wait. However, avoid them as much as possible. In addition to being more polite, you make sure employees have their agendas scheduled and thus come prepared for the meeting. To do this, create a schedule of meetings so that everyone can if you program properly. An example of this is to define, for example, weekly or monthly meetings. That way, everyone will always be aware of the meetings that will take place.3. Have an agenda for the meeting
It is important that you have structured the agenda that will be addressed in the meeting with the sales team. This increases the efficiency of the process and makes the meeting a better use of everyone's time. Thus, list the agendas that will be addressed in the meeting and order them by priority. Also try to predict the time each agenda will take and share this information with everyone. As you will see in the next item, time is a fundamental part of a good meeting.
4. Don't spend too much time
The human brain cannot sustain attention for very long. According to scientists, humans retain attention for a maximum of 18 minutes. This is even the reason for the maximum length of TED presentations. As you can imagine, timing your sales team meeting is essential to keeping salespeople on their toes and productive. One way to do this is to filter out subjects that can be dealt with at another time. Always remember the agenda for the meeting and try not to deviate from it.5. Engage the team in the process
In order for your team to feel free to offer opinions and actively participate in the meetings, you must engage them in the process. This means mediating the meeting, asking questions, creating a moment for discussion or sharing challenges, among others. It is also important to remember that people are different and may prefer to voice their opinions in private. Respect this process and give freedom of choice to your team.6. Present results
Salespeople love to be recognized by achieved results! What better time to share milestones than a team meeting? Take the time to present good results. Do this at every meeting and you'll see how eager salespeople will be to attend team meetings. Also, take the time to align the results with the goals and objectives set. In this way, it is possible to understand how close the team is to reaching them.7. Listen to the challenges the team is going through
Even if your meeting has an agenda and a time to start and end, it is important that you allow time for each team member to talk about the challenges they are facing. The meeting with the sales team is a good opportunity to listen to employees and also to align different processes. It also helps to identify issues that salespeople have in common, which increases the sense of team. By listening to the challenges, the team can understand where the flaws in the process are and develop strategies to solve them.8. Create objectives for the meeting
A good way to stay focused and make meetings more productive is to set goals to achieve by the next meeting. To do this, pay attention to what was said and what difficulties the sellers raised. If, for example, a difficulty in closing opportunities was identified at the meeting, the group can talk about it and think of solutions. You can then leave a goal for the salespeople, such as bringing ideas or tips, for the next meeting. This is a way to get them motivated and interested for the next meetings with the team.9. Ask for feedback
Ask the team for feedback after or during meetings. What worked? What didn't work? Use this information to adjust meetings to what works best for your team and your needs. Creating an ongoing feedback loop makes each sales team meeting better than the last.
