How to Run 2X Productive Sales Meetings in Half the Time!

Today’s professionals not only hate meetings – a large number of them, about 46 percent, think some meetings are a waste of time.  This was just one of the findings from a recent survey of more than 1,400 professionals conducted by an online collaboration and project management company Wrike.

And I agree – as a marketing guy, many a time, I have felt the same way during some the sales meetings that I have attended.

(I am a strong advocate for marketing-sales alignment, and I think, if not all, some of the high-level sales meetings should include members from marketing teams).

Also, the same survey revealed that only 54 percent said they had the clarity of action when walking out the meeting.

Surprising right?

So with that said, now how do you think your last sales meeting went?  Well… may not be very different!

Well, ‘sales meeting’ is an important ritual for sales teams.  It is an instrument that helps align teams’ effort with business objectives.

A meeting can be effective only as long as it’s ‘lean’!  And for sales meetings to be effective, the focus should be on mapping efforts versus outcomes to come up with actions plan to address the gaps.  That’s it, everything else is a diversion!

But how do you make sure your sales meetings are productive?

There are so many posts out there on the internet, and they all seem to revolve around the same things over and over again stating the obvious.  So here are 3 easy to implement hacks that you can try in your next sales meeting

Many sales managers use sales meetings to get updated on the status.  Status meetings are important.  It helps sales managers gain insights into training and coaching needs of salespeople.

But status takes away a good chunk of the time and the team’s energy.  Besides, individual ‘status updates’ may not be useful for everyone in the meeting.

So try and schedule status meetings on a 1-1 basis, preferably before the sales meetings.  It helps stay on course with the agenda and keeps a check at any unintended digression.

A good CRM platform with a 360-degree activity dashboard can simply eliminate the need for 1-1 status meetings by providing a bird’s eye view of all the activities, so you, as a manager, can intervene only when needed.  This can save you and your team loads of time that can put back into… well selling!

You know that numbers and metrics are the key indicators that quantify effort.  But the idea it to keep it ‘lean’!  So resist the urge to discuss everything during sales meetings.  Pick only those data points that quantify effort which impacts ‘sales’ numbers.

For example:  If you know that every deal that closes would engage in pricing discussion, then one of your metrics to discuss in your meeting can be the total # of deals in negotiation stage as opposed to the complete stack of SQLs (Sales qualified leads aka opportunities).

Things that doesn’t directly impact sales numbers can be discussed outside of sales meetings – with a post or pre-meeting.

Again, you can easily pull out the information with the help of a CRM without breaking a sweat. A modern tool can help visualize the numbers during the meetings with a visual sales pipeline analytics & insights dashboard!

The purpose of the meeting is to drive actions that address the gaps between effort and result.  Almost always, good decisions are an outcome of accurate data & sound analysis.  The metrics and data at your fingertips help take instant decisions opposed to crowdsourcing opinions.

From the previous example: (say) If you notice that there aren’t many deals that are engaged in a pricing conversation, then, one of the decisions could be for the reps to start forcing the issue with their contacts and getting into pricing conversations.

So that’s it! These are the 3 hacks that you can implement for your next meeting.

What tips do you have for running an effective sales meetings? Are there any other aspects you have had trouble with?  Leave a comment right now!