Your Action Plan for More Efficient Sales Meetings

Here’s a quick action summary that will make your next sales meeting immediately more productive. This plan assumes you have the right technology in place. If you don’t have a distribution-centric CRM or are unfamiliar with the best ways to use your CRM, you should first spend some time investigating new technology or training options.

1. Stop using sales meetings to discuss non-sales issues. Instead, consider using concise emails to communicate product updates, HR issues and other non-sales information
2. Prepare for your next sales meeting by running a report of your sales reps’ activities, pipeline and key metrics. Your CRM system should make this a push-button operation that takes minutes, not hours. Train your team to prepare for meetings by accessing their own information so you are on the same page.
3. Explain to your team that from this point forward, sales meeting will be about helping each other improve—no more griping, brow-beating, complaining or other distractions. From now on, sales meetings will be about:
   1. Reviewing key metrics
   2. Tracking and discussing decisions and action items inside your CRM system
   3. Reinforcing key communications with carefully crafted templates, scripts and marketing assets
   4. Laying the groundwork for coaching and collaboration both inside and outside the meeting
4. Commit to coaching your team by creating playbooks inside of your CRM system.
   1. If you haven’t already done so, outline the steps in your sales cycle and map key actions sales people should take in each stage.
   2. Make your marketing and sales assets easily deployable in your CRM system.
   3. Track and monitor your sales peoples’ activities to help them mirror each other’s best behavior. Send notes daily for ideas and encouragement based on their actual activities and metrics.
5. Find reasons to celebrate weekly if not daily.