Stopping running sales meetings might be the most effortless lift in morale and productivity you can implement.
We surveyed 1700 sales managers and salespeople from both Australia and New Zealand on their sales meetings. It’s not pretty.
58% of all sellers we surveyed said they were LESS motivated AFTER their sales meeting than they were before the meeting. What could be causing this level of motivation drop-off?
Your terrible meeting. So stop it!
Running sales meetings is a core activity of every sales manager. Yet, based on these results, I say the vast majority of sales managers should immediately stop running them. Not only are they not adding value to their team, but they are also actively DEMOTIVATING them.
The teams’ productivity levels and morale will IMPROVE by merely not having a meeting. Running a bad meeting is much worse than running no meeting at all.
Stopping running sales meetings might be the most effortless lift in morale and productivity you can implement. Nothing for you to do and the entire sales team get their hour back. Win-win.
Our first-hand research of those 1700 sellers found that.
- 58% of sellers are LESS motivated AFTER their sales meeting than they were before.
- Yet 69% of sales managers say they run great meetings.
- 57% of salespeople see sales meetings in a negative light.
- 49% of Salespeople say meetings have ZERO impact on their sales activity.
- 63% of Salespeople say their meetings have ZERO effect on their sales skills.
IF YOU WANT ACCESS TO THE RESEARCH – SEND ME A MESSAGE.
What should you do?
If your sales meeting is currently an activity readout, such as listing whom you visited last week, your wins, your losses and what you hope to achieve this coming week – it’s simply not worth having. Stick all this detail in your CRM and review it from there.
Are you running through admin, marketing, the latest promotional campaign or product updates? Then it’s not a sales meeting; it’s an admin meeting.
Typically, sales meetings are high-jacked by the high performers in the team leaving those who need the most help feeling isolated and most certainly not looking forward to their turn to contribute, most likely they are attempting to hide. You probably think you’re making people accountable in these meetings. Accountability is better managed through an individual coaching session rather than in front of the entire team. You’re only demotivating your team.
So ask yourself, are you actively increasing your team’s sales skills in your sales meeting? Are you sellers leaving your meetings with something new to do that is relevant to their current selling priorities. If so, well done. If not, why not?
I ran terrible sales meetings for 15 years. I now know better. Helping your team to grow their skill base and overcome their current selling challenges is real sales leadership. Yes, these types of Sales Meetings are harder to run and require preparation and planning. It’s also where SalesITV excels. If you’d like to run a Sales Meeting that drives better sales results, please let me know.
