No Bull Sales Meetings

Hank Trisler

These are a few of my favorite things

Really good sales meetings are a combination of science and art. There are a gifted few who can put on a really productive meeting and not be able to tell you how they do it. For the rest of us it's just hard work and attention to details. Joel Weldon, a fine speaker and friend, says "Elephants Don't Bite; It's the Little Things That Get You."

Here are some often overlooked little things that can make the difference between a ho-hum meeting and one that will really get the troops talking about what a great time they had.

DEVELOP CLEAR, WRITTEN MEETING OBJECTIVES. Don't try to be all things to all people. If you can accomplish two, or at the most three important objectives at your meeting, you'll have a winner. Use these objectives to establish a theme and then keep this at the forefront of all involved the meeting creation. If a speaker, exercise or programs does not contribute to fullfilling a prime objective, it doesn't happen. Just that simple.

MAKE YOUR VENUE FIT YOUR MEETING. If you have brought your gang to Maui as a reward for great efforts, you will probably engender a mutiny if you try to keep them in meetings all day. If you must work them, work them hard from seven in the morning until noon or one and then cut them loose. This works less well at the casinos, where many of your group may be suffering brain damage early in the morning. If it is really to be a working meeting, you may be better off at an airport Hyatt near Cleveland, where temptations and competition for attention are fewer.

MAKE YOUR ROOM FIT YOUR MEETING. If the meeting will run for much more than an hour, have tables and have them draped. Anything less makes the room look skimpy and the meeting seem unimportant. Set the room tight. If you're expecting one hundred people, set it for ninety. Then, as the latecomers straggle in, you can bring in additional tables and chairs from where you cleverly hid them. Those who cared enough to arrive promptly are glad they did so and all are impressed that the meeting is going to be so good that you have to bring in extra chairs to handle the overflow crowd. Bring in chairs. Check the sound system to be sure it works on ALL the speakers in the room. Sit in a variety of places all over the room while someone runs a sound check. Good sound makes a speaker's job a lot easier. Check the lighting. Most conference facilities want to keep the lights low to save electricity and air conditioning. I don't want to help them. Make sure the lights are bright and the temperature is no higher than seventy-two degrees, the optimum temperature for learning. Those inclined to chilling should be advised to bring sweaters. Tell me how many people you will have and how long you will have them for, and I will send a room set-up sheet that you can give to your conference facility to be sure you get exactly what you want.
HAVE A TERRIFIC SPEAKER/TRAINER. A really fine sales training session will be remembered and appreciated long after an after-dinner comedian or a luncheon quarterback is forgotten. The right speaker will be able to relate to the new hire and the grizzled veteran at the same time. He will bring your people strategies and tactics that work in the real world, not just the meeting room. Above all, your team should leave the meeting feeling better about themselves than they did when they walked in. It is immodest, yet prudent of me to recommend that you call the humble sponsor of this website at 1-800-448-4416 and see about booking him for your next get together. You'll be happy you did.
PROVIDE STRONG, UPBEAT INTRODUCTIONS FOR ALL SPEAKERS AND AWARD-WINNERS. A good introduction can set a speaker off on the right foot and a bad introduction can damn near kill you. I've had some that took over twenty minutes to get over, if I ever did. A good introduction tells the audience why the speaker's topic is important to them, why it is important at this time and why the speaker is qualified to address it. It should set the group up for the fact that they are going to have a really good time. Never discount the speaker or make a joke at his expense. This isn't a roast, it's a business meeting. Be positive that you know how to correctly pronounce the speaker's name. If you have several introductions, as in the case of an award ceremony, practice the pronounciation of the difficult names and be sure everyone to be introduced is actually there. It is so gross to introduce someone, get the obligatory applause and then stand there with everyone gawking around and wondering why they didn't have the God-given good sense to bail out too. If they aren't there, they don't get introduced and there are no exceptions.
GET BIG NAME TAGS. Almost every sales meeting will have name tags for the attendees, but the way they are presently used leaves some things to be desired. Most name tags are too small and the person's name is impossible to read at arm's length, particlarly when you're trying to pretend you don't need to read it. Get BIG name tags and have the person's name in letters at least 1/2 inch tall. The first name is most important and if people have to pull out cheating glasses to read them, it's way too small. Name tags are normally worn on the left breast where they cannot possibly be read while trying to shake hands. Wear the tag on the right breast instead and it will be thrust forward when shaking hands. When you have several divisions or regions meeting together, have a person's name from another division on the back of each name tag. Then, give a prize for everyone who manages to find a person with his name on the back of their name tag. If my name is on the back of your tag, I will meet you when I find you and you will meet someone else whose name is on the back of their tag. Sound confusing? It is, but that's half the fun. Think of all the people each person will meet before he achieves his goal.
SPEND LAVISHLY ON TROPHIES, PLAQUES AND CERTIFICATES. Napoleon found it interesting that "a man would give his life for a simple bit of colored ribbon." Money spent on recognition is some of the best money you'll ever spend. One company for whom I worked gave every participant a certificate of completion that looked just like a college degree. There were optional "break out" sessions and the certificate received was based on the number of sessions attended. There were Bachelor's degrees, Master's and even a Doctorate. People were falling all over themselves to get into the sessions. Base the awards on activities that anyone can do and win. If you give away a trip to Cancun for the top salesperson, everyone knows who will win as soon as the contest is announced and no one is motivated. Better to give lots of plaques to lots of people.
PUT COFFEE AND SOFT DRINKS IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM AND REFRESH ALL DAY. Not all of us are ready for a break at the same time, so you can tell the attendees that the coffee's there and they can take a break any time they feel like they need one. They won't run away, honest. They'll feel like they're being treated like big, grown-up, self-actualized people and they'll appreciate it. If you see more than a dozen, or so, people at the back of the room, you can figure you're having a break.
CONSIDER A "WORKING LUNCH." Set the lunch at round tables, each with a topic for discussion displayed on a card. If you have a speaker or other expert available to act as a conversational spark plug at each table, all the better. Discussion leaders should be told to solicit and distribute discussion, rather than having it serve as an extension to his lecture. People can learn more at these round tables than they do at the meeting proper.
A "BUTTONHOLE" SESSION IS A WINNER. Folks like to talk to the speakers one on one and tell what really good salespeople they are like information. Make sure your speakers hang around after the meeting, at the cocktail party, if you have one and make themselves available. Some speakers loathe this, but there are other speakers. Explain to them that it goes with the job.
PLAY UPBEAT MUSIC BEFORE, AFTER AND DURING BREAKS. If you resist hoopla, you're going to have trouble with this one, but try it twice and you'll never go back. I have seen people actually dancing at eight o'clock in the morning. Turn on the music and people subconsciously know it's break time and mentally "shift gears." As soon as the music goes off, people drift back to their seats and slip back into a business mode with a minimum of "bell ringing" and bullying. Instrumentals work better than vocals. The charge should be to set a mood, rather than entertain; rather like Musak. I've had good luck with "Hooked on Classics," "Star Wars" and "Hooked on Swing." They offend the fewest people, though there is the occasional crock who hates everything.
PROVIDE LOTS OF PHONES AND TIME TO USE THEM. Salescritters and phones are joined at the hip. Take a salesperson's phone away and he'll be thinking of nothing else until they are reunited. I used to try to fight this by asking them not to make calls at the break, as it would only be distracting to them, but I learned that separation from the phone was far more distracting. A client of mine scheduled his program from 8 to 9:45 and then a half-hour break. Sessions started again at 10:15 and ran until noon, when there was an hour-and-a-half lunch. Two more sessions were scheduled in the afternoon. Not only were the folks encouraged to make calls, they were provided banks of WATs line phones to call their offices and customers. Prizes were given for sales made while actually at the conference. The focus was kept on business and selling, which is just where it should be.
A SMALL, PRIVATE DINNER BEFORE THE MEETING. This would be attended ONLY by the salespeople and their manager. The benefits are twofold: 1) The salespeople will not be straggling in the first day of the meeting, as they have to be there for the dinner, and 2) it can reduce negative input. As we all know, many sales meetings are planned and conducted by marketing to pump up the sales force. The sales force comes in with myriad reasons they should not be pumped up and tons of gripes and whines for the factory. The pre-meeting dinner can be used to air these beefs and for the group to agree on which one they will collectively pursue. That's right, just one bitch per meeting. Would that be a massive improvement?
HIRE A GOOD PHOTOGRAPHER. A really good shutterbug will wander around and get candid shots throughout the meeting. These pictures are GOLD. They can be randomly shown on a huge screen during the closing festivities and will stimulate conversation, reminiscences and bonding. After the meeting they can be used in company publications which will not only remind the attendees what a good time they had, but will tell the folks who didn't go what a good thing they missed and why they should be sure to catch the next one.
GO LIGHT ON THE BOOZE. Now I'm not a teatotaler, but booze and business meetings don't work. Heavy lunches put the group to sleep and booze is a lot worse. Many companies are now providing only beer and wine and letting those who want hard liquor belly up to the bar themselves. A sober group is a lot more fun to work with.

This page will be in a constant state of flux as I participate in other great meetings and see what the smart folks do to create winners. Be sure to bookmark this page and check back often to see what's new.