5 Sales Meeting Agenda Items That Will Help Your Team Grow

On this episode, Kenneth Vogt, owner at Vera Claritas asks: What do you cover in your weekly sales meetings? If you have a weekly meeting with your sales team, what is regularly on the sales meeting agenda? What is useful to you as a manager? What is useful to your salespeople?

Enhanced Video Script

When we are coaching sales managers, we often get questions about weekly sales meetings:

If you have a weekly meeting with your sales team, what is regularly on the sales meeting agenda?

What is useful to you as a manager? What is useful to your salespeople?

These are great questions, and questions that don’t get enough attention. Frankly, sales meetings can get a bad rap when managers aren’t using them constructively.

First, we should talk about what should be avoided.

Sales meetings earn a bad reputation when they are used as an opportunity for the sales manager to scrutinize the sales team, or worse, beat up on them where they’re deficient. They should not be used as a replacement for reviewing a report, or a one-on-one, which should be handled separately to address potentially difficult issues in a more sensitive, personal setting.

Ultimately, your goal is to create an environment for your sales team to feel comfortable raising concerns and seeking advice. If your sales team is dreading your weekly sales meeting, you’re not fostering an opportunity for growth.

A different approach to the sales meeting is to first think about the sales team. A sales meeting should be about motivating and training your sales team, improving their performance, and solving their problems. Here are five sales meeting agenda items that I recommend.

1) Highlights

Prior to the meeting, ask everyone to prepare a high point. What was the best thing that happened with a customer in the last week? What’s the best thing that happened in your sales world last week? Get everyone involved. Celebrate success.

Then have the team spend time sharing success stories and challenges. What was the biggest pushback from a customer? What was the biggest objection? What was a challenge that someone ran into that they overcame? Socialize and talk about those. These are useful and productive conversations that engage everyone and allow your sales team to solve problems and learn together.

2) Pipeline

What are the NEW opportunities and TOP meetings coming up that need help? Don't scrutinize every deal, that can be done one-on-one. How can the team help each other close more business?

3) Training

Keep a running list of sales training needs. Share a video, a blog post, or a key discussion topic. Ask your team members to present on a topic or share a customer story. Reinforce training not as an event, but an ongoing effort.

4) Walk-On Items

What's getting in the way of closing business? Don't try to solve every issue, but capture on a list to investigate.

5) Motivation

Remember, the meeting should be about your team, not about you. Can you create a team competition, fun event or stretch goal to motivate them?

Key Takeaways

Share the expertise, competencies and successes the team is having, not just as a team but as a company. End the meeting with an upbeat takeaway that everyone can feel good about what they're doing.

Remember that the meeting should be about your team, not for you to talk, scrutinize, or present during the entire meeting. Design your agenda to make your meetings fun and engaging, allow for collaboration, and ask your team to prepare both successes and challenges to share during the meeting.

💬 Join the Conversation

Do you have any additional tips for making the most of sales meetings? Share your tips and experiences here.