Sales Meeting

Sales meetings have not always been enjoyable.  As a gruff old timer explained it, “I called my employees together every week whether I had anything to say or not.  It kept them on their toes – let them know I was the boss. Besides, there was always something to jump on them about.”

Since sales can always be higher, salespeople caught the brunt of it. Even when other personnel were excluded, salespeople were often made to suffer through such meetings.
But the boss finally realized that his tactics were wrong.

As American business grew up, the boss grew up with it.  He learned that good sales meetings are conducted on a positive plane, that salespeople must be encouraged rather than reprimanded.  He found that emphasis should be placed on the successes of today and the plans for tomorrow—not on yesterday’s failures.

A supervisor may be extremely dissatisfied with his salespeople.  Even so, there’s little to be gained from “reading the riot act” to them.  An open admission that things are all wrong is an admission that management may also be at fault.  It usually causes a group of salespeople to defend themselves and, if possible, to strike back.

Good planning, therefore, sometimes includes restraint.  Mistakes are covered with sufficient tact.  An error is referred to as possibly an isolated instance. The meeting is then better received.

A Case in Point

Here’s a case history – An appliance manufacturer developed a “canned” sales presentation.  It worked very well. But the salespeople didn’t continue using it. They became “too smart” to use it. They added things, omitted others.

Before long there was little resemblance between how they were selling and how they should have been selling.  Result: sales dropped sharply.

When the sales manager discovered the trouble, he hit the roof! “Those idiots, I ought to fire every one of them!  I’ll really tell them a thing or two!”

Did he?  Of course not. He was too intelligent for that.

Instead, he planned a sales meeting in a positive vein.

The meeting covered:

-    Why a “canned” presentation was developed
-    How it was developed
-    The expense incurred in development
-    Proof of its success, including several examples
-    How to use the presentation
-    Demonstrations of its use
-    An appeal for its use in the field.
-    The announcement that several of the staff would be asked to report their success at the next meeting.

As might be expected, reaction to the meeting was quite favorable. Instead of being bawled out, the salespeople were sold on the idea of using the presentation, shown how to use it, and were inspired to follow through.  Sales volume started climbing immediately.

The point: a sales meeting is not a place to blow-off steam.  Good meetings are usually based on a positive tone.

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