HARDISON’S TIPS – OCTOBER 5, 2021- Steps to Successful One-on-One Company Sales Meetings
Do you have weekly one-on-one sales meetings in your company? You know, regular progress reporting and strategic planning meetings designed to help your salespeople understand how to surpass their sales goals and contribute to better overall company sales performance? If you do, you probably know that these can be a challenge, sometimes fraught with misunderstandings, anxiety and defensiveness. It doesn’t have to be that way. Consider these 5 tips for how to conduct more effective one-on-one sales meetings in your organization:
Come Prepared:
Before beginning a sales meeting, make sure you and your salesperson are prepared with all necessary sales reports, sales performance results and other deliverables, including:
- The sales rep’s pipeline report
- A list of the action items to have been accomplished from the previous week
- Goals for next week’s performance
- A copy of the call report and/or previous week’s sales call activity
Converse; Don’t Interrogate:
To set the right tone for the meeting, be personable and start with conversation. There will be plenty of time to dig into the numbers (sales metrics, deals in the pipeline, sales forecast analysis, etc.) as the meeting progresses, but first…
- Ask your salesperson how his or her week went, in general terms
- Ask about the week’s successes and challenges: Did something really good happen? Did any unexpected troubles arise?
- Use this information to shift the focus to more detailed analysis of the numbers and suggestions for the week ahead
Review Performance Against Expectations:
Having set the right tone and gotten a broad view of the salesperson’s weekly performance, you can move into a more detailed discussion:
- Is your salesperson on track to hit their sales quota?
- Is the sales pipeline sufficient to overcome any quota deficiency?
- Are daily, weekly and monthly sales metrics on track to generate the opportunities needed to hit/exceed the salesperson’s continuing quota?
Adapt Your Style:
Everyone is different and has a particular communication style. If you are having trouble communicating effectively with your salesperson, go back to the questions you asked when you first hired him. Draw on what you already know and adapt your coaching style to improve communication.
Be Clear With Forward-Looking Expectations:
We all want to know in advance what is expected of us. With that in mind…
- Make sure your salesperson knows what is expected each week
- Reward positive sales behavior quickly, so your sales rep will do more of the same!
- Set consequences so poor behavior doesn’t go on too long
It’s important to hold these company sales meetings weekly in most cases. Holding them less frequently can make it more difficult to make proper corrections or performance adjustments, or even to give relevant and timely praise.
