A SALES MEETING CAN BE A POSITIVE EXPERIENCE!

A Sales Meeting can be a Positive Experience!!!

Imagine it’s 8.am and it’s Sales meeting Day. The meeting room is full, the whole team is present and waiting, even the office superstar has arrived on time.

Even the Manager is there, prepared and ready to run a positive and productive meeting.

And at today’s meeting no one is going to complain about anything!

Sound like your office?

Yes there are offices that have Sales Meetings that run like this – not many but there are some and they are amongst the most profitable in the industry – and the average earnings per sales person are amongst the highest.

The tone of an office is often determined by the quality of its Sales Meetings. A team of Positive and Motivated people sharing a common goal can make huge in-roads in any market place. We work in a very competitive marketplace and it is vital the every part of your business is working at peak, has a purpose and contributes to the business and personal goals – a poor sales meeting will work against you –every time!

1. So what makes a Great Sales Meeting?

• Remove the Negatives

• Be Prepared

• Have an Agenda

• Start and Finish on time

• Don’t wait for the late

• Stay in control


2. Sales Meeting Versus and Training Session

Firstly lets clear up this issue. A training session is a training session. Training is about Learning a new Skills or Learning new Product Knowledge. Sure, there may be elements of this in a Sales Meeting but it is more incidental than planned. A Sales meeting must not be hi-jacked by such issues. If there is a skills issue that needs fixing, then plan a training session to fix it, or if its for an individual set up a one-to-one time with them. The best practice offices have very specific training programmes, planned well ahead to address the teaching of the skills needed in their office.


3. A Typical Agenda

• Celebrations and recognition
• Matters Arising from Last week
• Housekeeping
• Marketing Strategies
• New Listings
• Listings to note because of changes
• This week’s Auctions, Tenders etc.
• Upcoming Listings and Appraisals
• Buyers we’re not closing on.
• This week’s targets
• Property Tour Itinerary
• More Bouquets

4. Celebrations and Recognition

Start on time and don’t wait for stragglers. This is a public forum and you set standards here that permeate all through your business. Start time is start time and your people need to know that time is precious, your and theirs. Start on time and end on time.

Begin with any celebrations and recognition. Celebrate sales and listings, closure of marketing campaigns, recognize special effort and present any awards that are due. Hand out network referral fees as reward. Have fun and get used to starting the meeting with an energy burst. There are plenty of books you can buy/read in the business section of most bookshops with little ideas of games and session starters should you need any extra ideas. Sometimes you may find a need to be creative in items you will recognize. This avoids the team being turned off because the same person wins all the time.

Things like framed picture and certificate of someone’s first successful sale or Auction.

5. Matters Arising from Last Week

Review any matters carried forward from last week. Of course you keep minutes at each meeting, including detail on listings needing price reductions, appraisals done, new listings due and any campaigns you are running. This keeps accountability on the ball. Naturally celebrate any successes and where people have not delivered now is a good time to get the diary out and make a time to review with them personally.

6. Housekeeping
Handle any details that need notification and BRIEF discussion. This could be the time to handler any issues with Administration and Marketing Departments. Upcoming events, training courses and any reminders are covered here, QUICKLY.

7. Marketing Strategies
Maybe you are about to launch a special campaign such as Winter Selection, Auction Campaign, Database Campaign, Sponsorship etc. Now is the time to launch to the team. For a major campaign you might prefer to have a separate function late in the day to make the launch that “Special Event”.

8. New Listings
Now is the time to review all new listings and understand their saleability. When the whole team has inspected the properties is the time to place them on the Listings Board. And the ranking is done by the sales team – not the listing salesperson. Place over-priced and less motivated vendors in the black zone, warm listings in the yellow zone and “hot” listings in the red zone. Sold listings go in the green zone. Once done its easy to see which sales person is effective. If you run an office that pays for marketing, then this should stop once a listing has been in the black zone for about 6 weeks. This makes sales people accountable for the management of their listings.

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9. Listings to note because of changes

Now is the time to review each sales persons column of listings. Note here the opportunity to discus with the team any changes in price and vendors expectations. Now is also the time to look at those properties, which are still over priced and seek a commitment from the listing agent. A commitment, to visit their vendors and deliver market feedback, to educate them as to the market value of their property. Such commitments are duly noted in the minutes and brought up again at next week’s meeting or in your one-to-one with the sales person concerned.
This is the time to have all people check their buyer logs to see that all connections between what these properties offer and what their buyers want, have been made.

10 Upcoming Auctions and Tenders
Not just a reminder, but who is coming? Who is bringing a bidder, who is bringing in a Tender and who is attending? At the Auction, who takes up the various roles, from host to Auctioneers assistant etc?

11. Buyers we are not Closing on?
Who has a buyer they can’t find the right property for? Get this on the table and let the team help suggest or locate a suitable property. All too often the salesperson is making a judgment that means the buyer does not get to see the right listing – now is the time to check that this buyer has seen all the best options. This avoids people saying, “Buyers are liars”, which properly translated means “Salespeople are deaf!”

12 This week’s targets
A little ra-ra to finish. Set some goals for the week, make them sensible but stretch the team a little and finish with a little fun. Perhaps a last recognition of an award or a fun prize for “Best Forgotten” achievement etc.

13. Now the Property Tour Itinerary
Make sure this is someone’s job each week to get the list and prepare the tour in a logical order to save time and avoid double backs- time is precious and let’s make the best use of the hours we have for this. Try to rotate who take vehicles if you don’t take a bus and also try to rotate who goes in which vehicle. It is so easy for a clique to develop who spend all this tour running down the properties or your strategies. The place to check for issues, complaints and objections is in a One-to-one meeting. Invite them and keep a record of their responses. It is so handy when they then complain in a public forum, such as a sales meeting.

Now for some further hints:

If you want to introduce a new idea or strategy always shop with your top people first. They are great at feeding the grapevine and will support your ideas if you have launched to them first. This avoids the possibility of some one in the team, with peer credibility and respect, sinking your new idea before it gets off the ground. The negative low performer is less likely to object if it is seen as being supported by the top performers. At that point their support from the “floaters” in the middle evaporates as they see which way the land lies.

And handling that negative blowhard can be made easy if you put them in their place early. Remember though that they are often doing “Notice Me” behaviour and often they have to have an input because that is just their nature. However, you and I both know that these people can wreck a positive meeting by objecting, or coming up with a compliant. DON’T DO INTERNAL COMPLAINTS AT A SALES MEETING. Ask the complainant how long this issue has worried them.
9 times out of 10 it’s nothing new – just a hobbyhorse, a strategy to divert attention away from their own non-performance. When they reply that it’s been of concern for sometime ask why they haven’t bothered to bring it up in the previous one-to-one sessions. “You see, if it was really important you would have raised it earlier wouldn’t you? Do you now want to make a time to discus it with me away from this meeting?” Don’t let people sabotage your meeting – keep control and always offer the opportunity for the issue to be raised in private. Mostly you won’t hear about it again.

So a Sales Meeting can be a positive experience – ask yourself about yours and then dare to ask your people. If you don’t score 10 out of 10 then perhaps there maybe some ideas here you could use

For the Manager – if you continue to allow the negative low producers to set the rules and tell you how to run your business, if you continue to allow the tall poppy to dictate the rules in their favour, if you continue to start meetings when they choose to arrive, you will always be recruiting, as disenchanted recruits leave to work somewhere else.

For the Salesperson – if the Sales Meetings are late starting, negative and repetitive, ask yourself – “Is this business being lead by some one who runs an innovative office, who demands performance standards, is energetic and positive, and who will help me build my business to the next level?”

IAN KEIGHTLEY