AN annual sales meeting is integral to the success of the year’s sales performance. It’s a one-time opportunity to recognise past performance and inspire achievement for the next 12 months. It’s also an expensive endeavour.
To make these meetings successful requires a lot of work months before the meeting takes place. Planning one? How will you take advantage of yours?
Here are some ideas and challenges to make you think and rethink the process.
Pre-plan. Choose an environment for relaxed fun, and learning. Maybe a resort or hotel with sporting options, nice sleeping rooms, and nice meeting rooms.
Pre-question the participants. Ask them about problems and needs – about strengths and frustrations – about themselves and their goals. Use the questionnaires to personalise the training portions of the meeting.
Pre-budget. A nice place. Transportation. Lots of fun. Great food. A first-class speaker-trainer. Awards. And more fun.
Seek professional help. Have someone in charge inside and/or outside who can make the dream meeting a reality. Arm them with a set of directives and objectives, and specific walk-away items that the meeting must accomplish. Partner with a professional meeting planner. Note I did not say ‘hire’. Partner means to ‘work with’.
Create a realistic, relatable theme. Have an internal contest with a $1,000 prize for the winner.
Start with a bang. Do group fun first. Play a round of golf. Have a big dinner. Show pictures of last year. Have a karaoke party (the best way to get everyone to get to know the others).
A regal welcome. A short and sweet welcome from the CEO at the first formal gathering – 10-15 minutes. Tell a few personal stories about the climb up the ladder. A personal thanks for the group’s hard work. And issue three challenges.
Spotlight one or two people. Have them tell the group how they made a big sale, saved a deal, or used a new strategy.
Thank everyone. Thank (and applaud) the people who made it happen. People love applause.
Award the best. The best salespeople deserve to receive awards from the CEO, VP of sales, and sales managers. Have high-quality plaques, trophies, and prizes. Have several categories so there can be lots of winners.
Plan your future together. The next 12 months has got to be a big focus of the meeting. Let the salespeople be part of the plan. Don’t just give them the game plan. Let the salespeople help make it. If you want salespeople to take ownership of sales goals, it’s only possible when they participate in the goal setting process.
Goal everything. Let each team member agree to his or her goals and create a personal action plan to achieve them. Create daily, weekly, and monthly numbers. Not just ending numbers, but what it takes to get to the end.
Train professionally. Hire an outside professional to present to the group. Plan the training to be inspirational, customised, personalised, and real world. Use the pre-questionnaire to set the agenda, and personalise the training. There should be workbooks, workshops, role-play and videotaping. The training should be a combination of inspiration and motivation with actual selling situations and answers. Training should be at least 50 per cent of the meeting time.
Success tactic: Management’s sales philosophy can be embraced and reinforced by the trainer as a third party (and expert) endorsement of your company’s practices.
A note about speakers: Often meeting planners or companies have a budget, and are looking to ‘fill a slot’. This is a big mistake. If you seek to transfer knowledge, hire someone who is qualified to do so; and qualified not just on the subject, but entertaining as well.
The CEO issues a final challenge. Ten minutes of a prepared (memorised), inspirational message that will keep the team talking (and achieving) for the next 12 months.
Want first class results from your annual sales meeting? Make the meeting first class.
Want a list of the 25 most popular sales training programs for annual meetings? Go to www.gitomer.com and enter ANNUAL MEETING in the GitBit box.
