If your sales meetings are failing to make any substantial improvements in your sales team efforts, you might want to take a look at your sales meetings themselves. The problems might lie, not with your sales team, but with the way the information is being delivered or even with the information itself.
As the following article shows, consider the following ideas for sales meetings – sales skill development for getting the maximum performance out of your next sales meeting.
Let Them Use Their Own Toys
Sales people routinely complain that their company’s IT department won’t allow them to use their personal devices to conduct business. The reason usually has to do with perceived company security and sensitive documents.
But if you move to a cloud platform, you can keep all your sensitive data behind password-protected firewalls. Make the announcement at your next sales meeting and you’ll have everyone sitting up and paying attention. You can even implement 2-factor authentication methods to further your security efforts for your new platform.
After you’ve made the switch to a cloud platform, invest in a collaborative software system that will allow your sales team to log in from anywhere around the globe with their own favorite device.
Whether they favor Mac or PC, Android or iPhone is up to them. They’ll be able to manage all their reporting, documentation and project status reports from their own dashboard.
You, as administrator, will be able to keep tabs on all developments, and your sales team will love being able to use their own toys to take care of business.
Put Repercussions in Place
Some people simply don’t respond to positive reinforcement. You might have rolled out all the incentives you could think of, and your sales team is still dragging their heels. However, in today’s economy, with unemployment still at all-time highs, you as the employer have the upper hand.
Put repercussions in place, verbally and in writing, that state specifically what will happen if employees fail to perform up to standards. You could implement a 3-strike rule, or cut to the chase with suspensions or firings unless your sales team meets projected financial targets.
This approach may sound harsh to some, but if your positive incentives haven’t worked, it’s likely that this will.
Look Outside for Help
If you’ve exhausted all ideas, you may need to look outside your organization for help. There are lots of companies and people that can come in and whip your team into shape using next generation motivation techniques. These may cost your HR department some time in research and your budget in paying for the service, but your increased profits down the line will offset any cost you incur.
Motivational speakers like Anthony Robbins get paid to come in to companies and help light a fire under lax sales personnel. If you can’t afford to have someone come to you, consider sending some of your key sales personnel to a seminar and bringing them back in to motivate others on your sales staff.
After you’ve implemented these suggestions, you’ll be able to get a clearer picture of your sales team, and see which people are worth investing more time into, and which ones might be better off in another organization.
About the Author: Kate Supino writes extensively about best business practices.
You must be logged in to post a comment.