If you are like me, you have been in meetings where you felt like it could have been an email or even worse — a total waste of your time. In this fast-paced, instant-gratification world, you need to make sure the meetings you have with your teams are informative and effective. Since time is the most valuable resource for your sellers, make sure you are making the most out of the time you spend with them. Here are a few things you can do to ensure that happens.

Be Optimistic

Have you ever been in a meeting where the manager is talking about all the things another person on your sales team didn’t do correctly? I bet that made you feel uncomfortable and, more importantly, it made that sales rep uncomfortable. It’s hard for anyone to take criticism, especially in front of colleagues. That is why it is important for managers and co-workers to say things that are constructive and proactive. When sales are slow, your meetings are a critical opportunity to turn things around. Use them to build up morale, not knock it down.

Make sure you go over what is going well and carve out time for addressing the areas that could use improvement.

Allow (and Ask For) Input

It is important for everyone on your team to be heard. Meetings should not be one person talking the entire time. When employees get the chance to speak, they feel like they are contributing to the team and that what they say matters. Letting others talk in meetings will help keep the team motivated and engaged, and it will also give you a chance to learn about what matters to them. Some great questions to ask during a sales meeting include:

• What kinds of objections and pushback are you getting from clients this week?
• What area of sales is your biggest pain point?
• What tools/resources do you need to make your day more productive and easier?
• Do you have a success story you would like to share with the team?

Watch a Training Video Together

Some sales teams do book clubs, where they read sales-related books and share what they learned during meetings. This can become expensive for sales teams, and it can be challenging to know which books to recommend. We suggest you use video sales training instead. What is great about video training sessions (with P1 Learning) is that they are short, entertaining, and can easily fit into a weekly team meeting. Not only that, but at the end of the video, everyone can get a chance to reflect on the lesson and discuss it together. Not sure what would be the best video for your team to watch? Contact support@p1learning.com — we can suggest videos based on what topic and goal you are trying to achieve during the meeting.

Invite an Expert

The team is bound to get bored of hearing each other each week. How about you change this up by inviting an industry professional to your meeting to discuss a topic that is relevant to what they need? Another idea is to invite other people from the company to come in and speak to the team about what they do. This will give your team a better understanding of how everyone works together in the company and open lines of communication that can help with future projects.

Have a Team Member Present

Give your team the ability to run a sales meeting. Have them come up with relevant training materials to teach. This will keep them engaged each week in the process and allow them to showcase areas that are strengths for them.

Celebrate Everything

Each day has a victory, make sure you are acknowledging them and celebrating those moments with your team either in person, over email, or in chat. Not only that but make sure you are celebrating other events such as birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries. Doing so will give your team members a sense of belonging to the group and that their efforts are seen.

Keep the Meeting Going All Week

Create a meeting group on your Teams or Slack chat channels where team members can share their experiences/success stories — and ask for feedback from others. Having a channel like this will help your team know where others are on company goals and projects. Encourage your best performers to share how they closed their latest deal so that others can learn from that experience.

Meetings are essential, but they’re only effective if your salespeople find them valuable. Make the most out of your sales team’s time by using the suggestions above. Hopefully, they will seem less like a chore, and more of an opportunity for growth.

Need more ideas for effective team meetings? Watch “Running a Sales Meeting” or “8 Steps to Effective Team Meeting.”

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