Best Way to Plan a Sales Meeting

There are several questions that you should ask yourself when planning a sales meeting.

Why – why hold a meeting? What are the specific reasons for it?

What – what do I want to achieve? The objectives?

Who – who should attend? Who will benefit from attending?

When – when is the most convenient time for all to attend?

Where – where should it be held? — the most suitable venue.

How – how should the topics be best presented for maximum effect?

Why

You should have clear reasons for calling the meeting. These should fall into one or more of the above categories.

What

Define the objectives carefully. What do you want the attendees to take away from the meeting: knowledge, skills, sense of involvement?

Who

In addition to the sales team, are there any other people within the company who could benefit from attending? Who is best suited to present each topic?

When

Which day of the week will cause fewest disruptions? Friday afternoons are not universally popular and can be demotivating.

Where

If possible hold the meeting away from the office. This will reduce the likelihood of interruptions and generally will be more motivating for the sales team, especially if they are scattered throughout the country.

How

How should each topic be presented: verbal presentation, workshop, syndicate exercises, video?

Setting agendas

Every sales meeting should be preceded by an agenda. This is a synopsis of the meeting which the organizer of the meeting should prepare and distribute to all concerned at least 48 hours before the meeting. Always give your salespeople as much notice as possible of an impending meeting. This will enable them to plan their activities accordingly.

Each agenda should contain the following information:

• title and objective
• date
• venue
• start time
• participants
• topics with timings and presenter
• finish time.

Any other business

This is the bane of every meeting as it so often degenerates into a general free-for-all and is a great time waster. To prevent this happening, it needs to be very carefully controlled. To help you manage it, here are some suggestions:

• Ask the participants to advise you of any points they wish to raise, well before the meeting takes place.
• Decide which items to include. They should only be those that are pertinent to the majority of participants. Personal matters should be dealt with outside the meeting.
• Allow a specific amount of time for AOB and keep within it.
• There is a school of thought that believes this should be the first item on the agenda as it gets it out of the way before proceeding with the main purpose of the meeting.
• Maintain strict control over supplementary questions.