Five tips for running effective sales meetings
Having structured meetings with effective goals and clear communication lines is one of the single best things you can do to contribute to your team’s success.
by Elliott Vigil
The key to running an effective sales meeting is to have a plan, structure and tasks in place. Here are five tips for running effective sales meetings.
1. Post rules for the meeting. A sales meeting should be one to 1.5 hours maximum, depending on the size of the team. Establish firm start and end times. Then, stay on schedule; sales reps can chat when the meeting is over.
Document topics and information that was discussed. This will avoid the sales reps saying, “You never told me that.” This also will create follow-up topics and items to discuss.
2. Choose the topics you are going to discuss including:
• New jobs that are kicking off – Whose territory are they in and who is covering them?
• Target accounts – What is the status and what are we doing to develop the relationship?
• Aging and accounts receivable – Who owes us money and why?
• Inactive accounts – What is going on with customers that haven’t rented in the last 120 days?
• New fleet/underutilitized fleet – Who could rent these pieces of equipment?
3. Plan your meeting structure wisel
• Do not have sales meetings on Monday mornings as it is the busiest time for the sales team and customers. You don’t want sales reps sitting in a meeting with their phones off when customers are calling on Monday mornings. The best time for a sales meeting is on Wednesday or Thursday afternoon.
• Have sales reps email or text any topics/issues they want to discuss prior to the meeting. Keep the meeting organized and structured.
• Allow rental coordinators, trucking/dispatch and service managers five minutes each at the start of the meeting to discuss issues and changes, and to resolve problems.
• Reserve time at the end of the meeting for learning and skills development
4. Encourage continual learning and skills development. Allow sales reps to renew themselves physically, mentally, spiritually and socially.
• Assign the sales team to read a sales book — audio books or podcasts are okay. End every sales meeting with a quick discussion on what they learned and what they will implement.
• Consider role-play on topics like customer damage, slow-paying customers. For example, have the sales reps break into pairs, assign each pair one challenge to role-play for five minutes and then rotate. Or, have one sales rep play a superintendent while others practice overcoming challenges.
5. Every meeting should have takeaways and a list of items the team needs to act on. Document items that need to be revisited or followed up on.
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This article originally appeared on ararental.org’s news site. Elliott Vigil is a rental sales coach with more than 25 years of sales experience in the equipment rental industry. For more information, visit elliottvigil.com.
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