Sales meetings are one specific change we can make that produces immediate results.  The businesses I work with experience exceptional results. Why, one reason is they all run excellent sales meetings. People who participate in sales meetings gain significant personal and financial benefits. Increased opportunities and improved performance are the product of these sales meetings. They result in significant revenue that benefits everyone in the organization and high ROI marketing campaigns which drive high quality leads.

The most important one to two hours of your week is the time spent with your team in weekly sales meetings. The power of this event, when treated with the ”thou shalt never miss or be unprepared for the sales meeting” priority it deserves, includes motivating your sales people, building teamwork, developing skills, and staying on track toward your most important business objective: The revenue goal.

Here’s the top 10 reasons why sales meetings are critical to your success

1. Culture: A Total Sales Culture (TSC) is the cornerstone of every high performance business. The underpinnings for TSC are activities that build, support and sustain growth. Effective sales meetings are one of these critical activities. Sales meetings bring us together to accomplish much more than we could alone. Sales meetings are part of the foundation that supports a thriving sales culture.

2. Assessing: Pointed questions to the team regarding their call planning for the upcoming week or reported activity from the prior week, when used properly, are very powerful tools in helping you to evaluate how effectively your sales people are executing the strategies you have laid out using the techniques they’ve been taught. The key here is to measure the volume and quality of sales activities (calls, meetings, networking events, etc.) against the Plan and to constantly analyse the relationship between the activity and the results.

3. Communication: Many businesses are plagued by poor communication. One reason is sales teams are a very independent group. The nature of our job requires us to operate like sole proprietors. Sales meetings require us to come together as a team and communicate. They foster teamwork and identify opportunities for us to help each other.

4. Direction & Numbers: Numbers are a direct reflection of results. Numbers are the only true, impartial measurement of success. They never lie, they are brutally honest. Numbers give us hope, determination, incentive and recognition for our successes. They also give us a kick when we need it. Sales meetings are all about the numbers, and we need to fall in love with numbers.

5. Motivation: We are all motivated by different factors. For some it’s the pursuit of excellence, for others its money, and others are motivated by competition. We all have personal forms of internal motivation, but peer pressure and competition are a powerful form of external motivation that gives us that extra spark to jump start our efforts. External motivation stirs our competitive spirit. Sales meetings touch on many forms of motivation both positive and negative. Sales meetings create needed competition and pressure.

6. Skill set development and reinforcement: Selling isn’t winning. Winning is winning. We win business from the competition by being better. Sales meetings test and hone our abilities, and force us to learn and apply new skills and processes that are good for us, and make us better than our competition.

7. Lead generation: Creating sales funnels that are packed full of the right quality leads is essential to hitting targets. Sales meetings join up the marketing activity to the sales result. It makes sure that the marketing is doing its job and the budget is focused in the right way.

8. Sharing: On what we find and experience in the market. Subjects include actual performance vs. goals and objectives, success stories, opportunities, competitor actions, and sales strategies that result in success. This is also an opportunity to provide an update on the general status of the business and on any changes within the organisation.

9. Training: Providing training for your team on products and services, specific markets and how to satisfy their needs, sales techniques, competitors and how to sell against them, and new processes or technology improves the consistency with which your messages reach their target. Your sales people all hear the same message at the same time and have the opportunity to interact, question and understand how to apply it in their work.

10. Celebrating Success: A powerful element in motivation and team-building is recognising and celebrating successes. Sales people are motivated to produce results so they can share them with their peers. These frequent opportunities for positive reinforcement from the Sales Manager, and other team members, shouldn’t be missed.

Finally, one of the most critical factors in successful selling is consistency – consistency of effort, consistency in the message, and consistency in the quality and service that are provided to the customer. This idea of consistency is reinforced when you hold your sales meeting at the same time, on the same day of the week, every week; when the agenda for your meeting is essentially the same every time; and when every sales meeting is made up of the same components.

Effective sales meetings are a critical element in reaching your revenue goals. Consistent, well-run, weekly meetings will help to build teamwork, develop skills and techniques, motivate your people, and keep your sales team focused on the markets and prospects that offer the greatest opportunity for success.