Running a Productive Sales Team Meeting - Part Two by Louis Jordan
Knowledge leads to confidence and confidence leads to better performance. During your meetings your Team should strive to:
Know their customers better than anyone else
Know their products better than anyone else
Know their competition better than anyone else
I understand the amount of pressure many of you are under to attain quota and sales goals. I have also experienced the urges generated by that pressure to focus exclusively on the present, on the numbers.
Too often, in our attempts to keep our teams focused on "this month's quota", today's performance or to make sure we are not "keeping them out of the field" we simply fail to provide them with tools for tomorrow.
Do not take this the wrong way. Staying in the present, not clinging to past victories or worrying about future issues is essential for great sales people. But, you are no longer a sales person, you are now their leader and, as a result, you need to be looking toward the future for your team to ensure they are prepared for it.
As an example, take a moment to think about how Tiger Woods approaches his profession. When competing in a golf tournament, the only thing he thinks about is his current shot. He never worries about what happened on a previous hole, or concerns himself with what will happen later in the round.
He is focused exclusively on the present.
He can only focus on the present because during his practice times he is able to learn from past experiences and look forward to future challenges.
He will work on specific shots for specific holes on specific golf courses he is scheduled to play in the future. So that when he reaches that hole he has already hit the shot hundreds of times and has complete confidence in his swing.
During his practice time he will also focus on areas of his game that he feels need improvement - thinking back to where he dropped shots in previous rounds. How he practices, and the fact that he does actually practice, allows him to fully focus on the present when competing - he is confident that he is prepared for anything, so he can relax, he can focus and execute his plan.
As their leader you MUST create an environment during meetings that allows your sales reps to become confident, prepared and relaxed, so they can focus and execute their plan.
One of the best tools I have used with my teams to increase their knowledge is a short quiz. Often referred to as the "dirty dozen", it contains twelve questions about products/policies, customers and competitors.
The team is given ten minutes to complete the quiz, in silence, so they are forced to think for themselves. Upon completion I would call on each member of the team to read a question and provide an answer. If you are animated about the answers, whether right or wrong your team will join in the fun and start calling on each other.
If you have a member of your team who struggles with policies or keeping up with current products, assign them to produce the quiz for a few weeks. You will quickly see an improvement in their knowledge, confidence and performance. If you announce that the person with the lowest score produces the following weeks quiz the level of competiveness increases and the whole concept takes off.
But, be consistent - if you decide to institute a quiz you need to have it on your agenda for every meeting, you should not cancel it because you are struggling for numbers. This is a tool for tomorrow's business. Do not sacrifice it because you are concerned about today.
For more information on this subject, and others like it, please join us at http://www.integrity-sales-leadership.com/Effective-meetings.html
Our goal is to provide honest recommendations on all aspects of sales and leadership, including: Sales Strategies, Selling and Leading with Integrity, Cold Calling, Telemarketing
About the Author
My colleagues and I hold Sales Leadership positions within some of America's largest and most successful companies and have complained, often, about the lack of good quality sites our sales people could visit for advice and sales tips.
So, we decided to build the type of site that we would like our sales people to use. It has integrity as its corner-stone and relies on real sales people, real sales leaders and industry experts for its content.
Knowledge leads to confidence and confidence leads to better performance. During your meetings your Team should strive to:
Know their customers better than anyone else
Know their products better than anyone else
Know their competition better than anyone else
I understand the amount of pressure many of you are under to attain quota and sales goals. I have also experienced the urges generated by that pressure to focus exclusively on the present, on the numbers.
Too often, in our attempts to keep our teams focused on "this month's quota", today's performance or to make sure we are not "keeping them out of the field" we simply fail to provide them with tools for tomorrow.
Do not take this the wrong way. Staying in the present, not clinging to past victories or worrying about future issues is essential for great sales people. But, you are no longer a sales person, you are now their leader and, as a result, you need to be looking toward the future for your team to ensure they are prepared for it.
As an example, take a moment to think about how Tiger Woods approaches his profession. When competing in a golf tournament, the only thing he thinks about is his current shot. He never worries about what happened on a previous hole, or concerns himself with what will happen later in the round.
He is focused exclusively on the present.
He can only focus on the present because during his practice times he is able to learn from past experiences and look forward to future challenges.
He will work on specific shots for specific holes on specific golf courses he is scheduled to play in the future. So that when he reaches that hole he has already hit the shot hundreds of times and has complete confidence in his swing.
During his practice time he will also focus on areas of his game that he feels need improvement - thinking back to where he dropped shots in previous rounds. How he practices, and the fact that he does actually practice, allows him to fully focus on the present when competing - he is confident that he is prepared for anything, so he can relax, he can focus and execute his plan.
As their leader you MUST create an environment during meetings that allows your sales reps to become confident, prepared and relaxed, so they can focus and execute their plan.
One of the best tools I have used with my teams to increase their knowledge is a short quiz. Often referred to as the "dirty dozen", it contains twelve questions about products/policies, customers and competitors.
The team is given ten minutes to complete the quiz, in silence, so they are forced to think for themselves. Upon completion I would call on each member of the team to read a question and provide an answer. If you are animated about the answers, whether right or wrong your team will join in the fun and start calling on each other.
If you have a member of your team who struggles with policies or keeping up with current products, assign them to produce the quiz for a few weeks. You will quickly see an improvement in their knowledge, confidence and performance. If you announce that the person with the lowest score produces the following weeks quiz the level of competiveness increases and the whole concept takes off.
But, be consistent - if you decide to institute a quiz you need to have it on your agenda for every meeting, you should not cancel it because you are struggling for numbers. This is a tool for tomorrow's business. Do not sacrifice it because you are concerned about today.
For more information on this subject, and others like it, please join us at http://www.integrity-sales-leadership.com/Effective-meetings.html
Our goal is to provide honest recommendations on all aspects of sales and leadership, including: Sales Strategies, Selling and Leading with Integrity, Cold Calling, Telemarketing
About the Author
My colleagues and I hold Sales Leadership positions within some of America's largest and most successful companies and have complained, often, about the lack of good quality sites our sales people could visit for advice and sales tips.
So, we decided to build the type of site that we would like our sales people to use. It has integrity as its corner-stone and relies on real sales people, real sales leaders and industry experts for its content.
Powered by ScribeFire.
View my complete profile
0 comments:
Post a Comment