Running Effective Sales Meetings: 13 Tips & Best Practices

Are we meeting the target sales goals?

Are we doing better than our competitors?

How can we improve sales productivity?

As a sales leader, you should always ask yourself these questions. If you did not do it until now, then start right away. While you may ask these questions to yourself, you must also know that the answer lies in teamwork. Preparing an agenda, sharing important updates, and keeping everyone engaged in group discussions can always be effective. Thus, sales meetings are not a want but a necessity for your company’s success. 

They serve as a vital link between your product or service and the customer's needs and desires. However, the effectiveness of these meetings can often determine whether you reach your targets or fall short, and whether you turn leads into loyal customers or lose them to the competition. Having a poorly run and disorganized meeting can be a waste of time for everyone. 

But there's just so much that you can do to keep the sales meeting running, informative, and effective. That is why, I have put forth a list of best practices and tips that will help you get your sales meetings not only running but also keep your sales reps hooked till the end! 

Why is holding an effective sales meeting so important?

A sales meeting acts as an efficient platform to discuss strategies, challenges, and the progress of your business. So, holding a timely sales meeting plays an important role in your business growth. 

According to statistics, one useless meeting can cause a huge loss of around $300 million each year to a business. Well, this is just a statistical fact to make you understand how an unproductive meeting can shock your business with financial intricacies.

There are more reasons behind holding an effective sales meeting which are mentioned below 👇.

✅ Better team collaboration

In your sales team, there are higher possibilities that your team members hold multiple backgrounds and personalities, or they may have different opinions. To ensure this variation doesn’t create obstacles in the sales process, the sales meetings are conducted with the purpose of a healthy team collaboration. It has multiple advantages that you need to know:

• A shared vision.
• Better understanding of different perceptions.
• Building transparency at each level.
• Connecting with like-minded people.
• Adaptability to new ideas.
• Smart conflict management strategies, and so on.

✅ Encourages motivation

As we are human, we can’t get over expectations, just like in our personal lives. It’s equally applicable in the sales process too because your revenue growth depends on how effectively you nail the sales. And, you may already know that the sales process is a challenging part for your entire sales team.

Sometimes they nail the sales deal beyond your expectations, sometimes they may not. And, here the sales meeting comes into play while providing sales motivational tips to keep everyone motivated to achieve goals. Conducting the sales meetings ensures the efforts of team members are recognized and appreciated for their efforts.

Just like Marian Wright Edelman, you need to say to your sales team members, "You’re not obligated to win. You’re obligated to keep trying to do the best you can every day.” 

✅Crack SWOT analysis

Do you know the SWOT - Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, and Threat analysis?

I believe you’re quite familiar with this term, no matter if you’re a salesperson or a smart business pro. Now, if you ask me how it’s connected with sales meetings, then let me tell you when you host regular meetings, it helps your entire sales team identify certain challenges that have been hindering their performance. Let’s understand this: 

Take advantage of Strength

It highlights the positive attributes of your sales pros that they apply to impress your sales prospects. Well, it is one of the internal controlling factors that can be enhanced with your guidance.

Address your Weakness

This is the aspect that continues to create obstacles in your sales process. This factor places your business in a more competitive environment, be it understanding the intent of your buyers or smoothly reaching your target audiences’ satisfaction level.

Don’t let go of Opportunities

It implies that your sales team already made their best efforts to find a new path when it comes to modifying sales strategies or applying them to your target audience.

Make a note of Threats

With this last but not the least factor, your sales team can showcase if any external factors put your business in a high-risk zone and you must put your sharp eye on it.

✅Sales goals alignment

What could be your sales goals that you need to work on?

Your sales goals can vary based on different industrial objectives, but I’m quite sure that your sales goals somewhere evolve around the below-mentioned points:

• Identify the most productive sales KPIs.
• Boost quarterly, monthly, annual, or recurring revenue.
• Retarget and retain your loyal customers in the sales pipeline.
• Lowering the customer acquisition cost while maximizing sales revenue.
• Increase the profit margins while reducing the sales cycle.
• Expedite sales winning rates while working on unique sales opportunities.

To smoothly achieve all aforementioned needs while getting the most mileage from different types of sales, successful sales meetings can help align a range of ultimate objectives. When everything is strategically aligned, your salespeople don’t need to compete or freak out on misconceptions, rather they can collaboratively work on achieving every target.

Tips on executing effective sales meetings without being salesy in your daily sales life

Learning sales meeting tips is easy, but implementing them all together to craft an engaging, effective, and outcome-driven one is a different task. I’ve minutely curated some of them that you can tactfully implement in your daily sales meetings and achieve the desired results. Here, you can go 👇.

Ask for current sales deal statuses

Although in this advanced sales era, a tech-savvy sales CRM is your sales buddy, it is advisable to constantly ask for deal statuses (sales discussions with the customers) that your sales team members are working on. You can always consult the respective representative for updates about the particular sales in your sales meetings. You can politely ask several questions to your sales team members, likely:

• What is the total number of sales deal closures?
• What is the total revenue that we are achieving after deal closures?
• Have we already achieved our sales targets?
• What is the status of our loyal customer retention program?
• Have we already contacted our potential customers or is it yet to apply?

Well, these questions benefit you in two ways. One is that if your sales reps haven’t taken any steps then your inquiries will create an urgency to contacting the particular person. On the other hand, you’ll get a transparent picture of the current scenario and that will help you cover deals in the early stages.

Conduct mini though impactful sales meetings

There is no hard and first rule that you have to conduct a long-duration sales meeting to make it a counterproductive one. Rather, you can always take a smart approach and add value by conducting mini-sales training sessions.

Why? If you notice, you may find that a continuous session for a longer period and almost daily can make you feel bored. You may not be interested in discussing with or listening to the speaker. This is quite a common approach when it comes to the longer session. However, vice-versa, if you’re attending short meetings, you sound more energetic as well as proactive. 

The same goes for your sales teams as well. Whether it's improving objection handling, product knowledge, or improving pitching skills, these mini-sessions provide a dedicated space for skill development. Also, it’s a perfect time when you emphasize the importance of role-play where your sales reps practice the newly known sales techniques on each other.

Furthermore, expressing all sales-related information within a short time can improve the pitching skills of your sales team members. Also, to share knowledge, you and your team members can share experiences with a short but crisp storytelling approach, or you may share knowledge from any lessons.

For example, if you’ve already watched the movie The Pursuit of Happiness and gained sales lessons, you can share the knowledge with your team members. You can share the knowledge on how this movie drives you to build a positive attitude, work hard, be disciplined, or make your belief towards your strength. And how would you apply this all in your sales game?

Share sales winnings & cheer with team

“Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” - Philip Stanhope.

Setting sales targets and successfully achieving them is not a cakewalk that anyone can smoothly finish. It is a quite high-pressure operation that needs brainstorming, patience, and an uncountable number of tryings. And, you know that your sales team members always try hard to put their all efforts into the right place. This is where you need to take charge and celebrate every victorious step in the sales meetings.

Why? Before I give you the reason if you remember the winning moment in your educational, personal, or professional life when you were appreciated because of a small contribution that boosted your morale. 

Well, if you recognize individual efforts by your team members, appreciate them after every small achievement, and reward them after every huge success, it will make them feel listened to, connected, and motivated. Furthermore, it will highlight the team's efforts and foster unity within the team. 

Moreover, the celebrating moments can help burnout, especially for those who are newbies in your sales team, and inspire them to crack the nut of how to put emotional intelligence in sales and make the most out of it.

Ask for feedback & share with sales team members

Do you know that Google research says if you have an open culture in the workplace that potentially drives success in your projects?

How is it connected with asking and sharing feedback? Well, till the time you do give an open space to present individuals' thoughts, be it their success, or challenges, you’ll not succeed in building physiological safety.

Before you train your sales team members on how to trigger sales psychology, you need to build a worthwhile work culture. For that, you can ask for feedback, take notes, summarize it, and share it with your sales team.

Why? Whether it's about your customers’ approach towards your brand, or it’s your internal teams’ mindset, constructive feedback full of different perspectives helps you identify areas of improvement. This is essential for your sales pros when it comes to addressing problems, refining strategies, generating innovative solutions, and continuously enhancing their sales performance to drive worthwhile results.

Let’s take an example to understand how it works. I believe you’re already well-known with the brand name of Apple. Apple utilizes NPS surveys and gathers feedback to polish its approach toward sales and generate over $25 Million in additional revenue.

Surprised? Ah! Don’t. Rather take this short glimpse as an inspiration especially if you’re in the sales arena.

Prioritize start & end time to eliminate off-the-cuff discussions

Once upon a time the Founding Father of the U.S., Mr. Benjamin Franklin said, “Remember that time is money”.

Umm, I guess, as an experienced professional, you already know how every second counts for each invested penny. The reason why you need to make sure of the starting and ending points of your sales meeting schedules while respecting your sales team’s roster as well.

Your dedicated sales reps are well organized and they schedule their time in a way that they can squeeze the maximum profits by attending customer calls, smoothing lead conversions, answering follow-up emails, and so on.

If somehow your meetings go over, consider savings inquiries or feedback that are less important, and reach your sales reps later to clarify the same. And, if you want to eliminate this kind of situation, you need to be very precise on action points while drilling down how you convey the message to get it across.

For instance, when you sell a product to your customer, you pitch them short though compact information, create an urgency to rush the dopamines in their psyche mind and close the deal just like Amazon. The same approach is 100% applicable when you’re on the way to cut off-the-cuff discussions in a sales meeting and closing it within pre-scheduled time.

Start conversation with a icebreaker note

“Our blades are ridiculously great. Shave time. Shave Money.”

Oops 🫣 Do you start thinking about how I could inspire you to create your icebreaker note with this witty statement?

Hah, hah! Let me tell you, this is a YouTube advertising glimpse that was used by a U.S. male grooming brand, Dollar Shave Club. Well, let’s take a look at Dollar Shave Club and know how they just say Sayonara to the boring product demonstration, engaging the audience with charm and a witty sense of humor.

And if you ask me how it’s connected with your sales meetings, then I’ve already got some pretty good reasons to connect both. 

Starting the sales team meeting with an icebreaker can help to relieve the stress a little. You don't always have to keep the meetings professional or remind your team members with engaging sales rules to achieve success; instead, you can have a little fun. This helps break the stress and makes your sales experts relax a little. 

A well-executed icebreaker like Dollar Shave Club Can set the stage for a productive and engaging sales meeting, where ideas flow freely and team members feel more connected. It also acts as an efficient resource to keep colleagues informed on a personal level. There's no reason to keep following the herd; you can also create an icebreaker alone. 

Share about the competition to stay competitive

Knowing what your competition is doing can play an important role in moving forward. You should schedule some meetings to share information about your competition. Monitoring your competition can provide insights into emerging trends and innovations within your industry. 

Let’s take an easy example to understand. If you already know Zomato and Swiggy are the leading food service industries of India that make the craziest strategies to lure especially the young generation. Both are quite impressive when it comes to serving delicious dishes, igniting taste buds, and flaming the craving for fast foods. 

Recently, when Zomato had pitched a 2-6% hike on restaurant chains to expand its outreach, Swiggy came with an unbelievable claim that it will add 10,000 restaurants on its platform within a month along with 2.5 lakh restaurant partners on its app. 

Now, from here, you may get the idea of how each piece of information can inspire your team to adapt and innovate, ensuring your product or service remains relevant. If you have any information about how competition creates differentiation in the market, be vocal about it. 

You can ease out this process by keeping tabs on your competitors with the help of Zixflow. You can make a thorough list of your competitors and keep tabs on their activities within a single dashboard.

Make space for ideas and collaboration

Hey! Are you a bit familiar with the name of BrewDog?

Umm, thinking? Well, let me tell you that it’s a multinational beer brewery brand based out of Scotland. Although it has specialized in the production of over 800,000 hectolitres of beer with different flavors, its outstanding stunt took center stage in 2020. This was the time when BrewDog took an out-of-the-box approach while taking an oath to plant trees for the Lost Forest and they succeeded in 2022 when they got permission to do the same.

What do you think- Is this a publicity stunt for marketing and strengthening the brand’s position, or is it genuine?

Well, whatever the reason is, I’m not pointing out one’s approach. This question is to push you to think about how different approaches of individuals can drive profit in business. This is why your sales team meetings shouldn't only be about achieving and celebrating goals, such as nailing customer engagement strategies to boost sales but also about ideas and collaborations. 

There should be space for brainstorming and open communication in the team meetings. This is a unique way to foster team building. You can also share a few tips that can help your teammates in the long run. You don't have to multitask, but you can take it slow to achieve your goals just like BrewDog. 

Encourage subject matter experts to think off the beaten track

“We are drowning in information but starved for knowledge.”- John Naisbitt.

Want the thirst for knowledge over info?

If so, then try to encourage your existing team to come up with some brain-pricking ideas and extract their knowledge of off-beat approaches just like a sales influencer like Anthony Iannarino can do. 

Why? Your herd of Sales SMEs is already well-known for what your brand is about and what’s in it for your customers. Also, they are well-trained on how exactly to sell your brand. But think once, if it sounds limited to you because most probably any of your competitors can do it. 

This is where you should take the initiative to provide space within the meetings to learn and do something new. Therefore, you can always encourage the subject matter experts to take a step forward. If there is someone within the team who has knowledge about a certain area beyond sales and that has the potential to drive sales, you should encourage that individual to share their expertise. 

Create and share an agenda beforehand 

Do you remember the year 2014 when Nike launched its 3D billboard outside the Shinjuku station in Tokyo?

Nah! Oops! 😱 Don’t tell me you just forgot that Nike Shoe’s eye-appealing floating in mid-air. Well, let me take you to the back of the stage. This intuitive project was crafted by Nike Tokyo’s in-house brand creative studio along with CEKAI, Kota Iguchi. 

Before their launch program, the whole team sits together, jots down a product launch strategy, analyzes its challenges and opportunities, and the execution strategies too. Now, if you notice, you will get enough data on Nike’s Billboard Japan success. And this would not ever happen if they didn't have a full-fledged agenda.

Well, I guess, now you can relate to the importance of having an agenda for your sales meetings while trying to simplify your sales process. This will help you avoid any unnecessary discussions and ensure the team knows what is to be discussed. Furthermore, a study by Otter.ai suggests that unproductive meetings can cost the company between $70 and $283 billion. There is no way you can put that on line! 

Having a sales agenda ready ensures your team is prepared for their input. It would be best if you could describe the agenda and divide the time slots too. This will help in staying confident about your goals while eliminating the possibility of a topic huddle.

Stay updated & upgraded with technology

Whether you're holding an online meeting or an offline one, staying updated with technology always helps. 

Therefore, you should check all the technology-related aspects are running thoroughly within the system. The technological setbacks can hinder both in-person and online meetings. Testing the technology ensures everything is running smoothly, and you will not face any challenges in the long run. 

But I’m quite sure that you may start thinking about modern tech-savvy software that can ease your sales meetings without any intricacies. Well, If you ever feel needy, just take a sigh of relief at that point because you can go with one of the top-notch CRMs in the sales industry, while just tapping a free demo with Zixflow.

Most probably, you may miss meeting reminders under work pressure, or you may miss sending an important note. But don’t worry though. Zixflow enables you to set up meetings, edit timings, and send you a gentle reminder to pick your brain so that you never miss a crucial one. 

And, if you want to send email notes while mentioning the sales agenda and its future process, you can utilize Zixflow's email writer to write, rewrite or summarize your meeting content. The short email notification will surely keep your sales pros alert and push them to think about how they should take steps toward applying sales intelligence to smooth sales engagement.

Set up individual targets to extract more efficiency

What do you think fuelling someone’s dopamine level to clinch the deal without being salesy is as simple as blinking your eyes?

Nah! Then you’re on the right path to icing cherries on the cake while taking charge of smartly offloading the burden by segmenting individuals' responsibilities. 

As a pro sales player, you probably support my thought that until and unless you get rid of pressure and focus on your core task, the extraction of ultimate sales efficiency is quite harder. Well, You can set key performance indicators to meet the goals.

While setting up the sales rep meetings, you should ensure that you're not going overboard with the metrics. Apart from KPIs, you can set objectives and key results, focusing on the outcomes and output. This will eventually play an important role in achieving the overall goal. 

For example, Reebok has multiple segments to take care of and in each segment they have expert individuals be it a technical, sales, marketing, or customer support professional. They have their task boundaries and they don’t need to follow up with each other. However, the team internally works collaboratively so that they can add extra gain to overall profitability. And the same goes with your sales team too.

Always get the meeting notes ready

“The majority of meetings should be discussions that lead to decisions”, said Patrick Lencioni.

I guess, you agree with the fact and this is important especially when your target is to get the desired result after each sales meeting.

Taking meeting notes will help you understand what is being done. Throughout the meeting, you can take notes about the insights shared by the team. Although a note of a sales meeting is informal, it is insightful. 

How? A sales meeting note includes several factors, likely

• A list of attendees along with missing one.
• Personal tips.
• Sales incentive ideas for inner team motivation.
• Key aspects that one should work on.
• Any action points that are relevant along with deadlines, and so on.

By taking meeting notes, you will be able to document the feedback, specific action items, and takeaways. It will also help everyone stay refreshed about what goals are to be achieved. These documents can serve as an effective recap measure for the team members who did not attend the meeting. 

Bonus tip: Have an awesome product and service in place

At the end of the day, what you are selling in your sales meetings is your product and service. That’s why to make your sales meetings really work and close the deal, you need an awesome product and service. 

In today’s market, people have so many options to choose from, no matter if they are buying a software for sales and business, an app for meditation for personal growth, or a household item to make living comfortable! The options are endless. So, if you want to nail it in sales meetings, you need a product / service that is not just 2X or 3X better but 10X or 20X better than what’s available in market. Here is some inspiration from brands who are killing it with outstanding products and services:

Zixflow: New way to manage, engage, & retain customers, with AI

Zixflow offers XCRM which allows anyone to manage contacts, sales, marketing, and entire communication in an easy to use dashboard. When the market is flooded with traditionals CRMs which are hard to customize, Zixflow stands out because it not just allows to build customized pipelines but also enables managing engtire marketing and communication from one place. 

Amerisleep: Technologically advanced mattresses that provide refreshing, eco-friendly sleep

Did you notice the words “technologically advanced” there? Yes, that’s what Amerisleep, a mattress company did with, well, mattress. In a world where people find it hard to find really good mattresses that can help them get comfortable sleep, Amerisleep went a step ahead to incorporate technology into mattresses making it like a mattress-tech company.

Fireflies.AI: AI notetaker to transcribe, summarize, analyze meetings 

Fireflies is an AI meeting assistant that automates note taking for meetings. It analyzes the tone of meetings and also lists down the action points for all participants. Since it works so well, the app gets a lot of sales by word of mouth and definitely makes it easy for their sales team to sell it to enterprise clients. 

So, always have an incredible product and service in place before you even begin to sell and go on with your sales meetings.

Sales meetings can make or break your revenue targets! 

One of the worst mistakes one can ever make is underestimating what sales meetings can do from them. From uplifting the spirit of your team to motivating them to nail prospect calls, you can get all in action through the sales meetings you have with your team. 

Make these meetings not only goal-oriented but also fun and watch how your revenue skyrockets with just 30 minutes of weekly insightful sales meetings. All the tips above are tried and tested, you just have to start implementing them now to increase your online sales. 

We are done talking, so you go and nail another sales meeting now!