I was asked once to help a senior manager to develop as part of a longterm programme. During this process, I sat in one of his regular sales meetings and observed. The meeting was pretty unspectacular to say the least and I could see that the other attendees were far from pleased having to sit through the early evening and getting very little in return. There was little ‘passion’ shown by any one!

Does this sound familiar?

Firstly why do we hold meetings? When I asked the manager this, the look I got said it all. The reason why this meeting took place on a monthly basis was purely down to habit. It’s what managers do. The meeting was a fixed item in the monthly round of events and the style of the meeting had been copied and handed down over the years from one predecessor to the next.

So we set about changing things

The first issue we addressed was why the meeting was held in the first place. There could be several reasons: to spread information, to build the team, to instruct, to share best practice or to plan. The manager thought about this and decided that normally he wanted three things from this monthly get together. Firstly to have impact by building a sense of team and purpose, secondly to share ideas that work and finally to make sure everyone was going into the next sales period with a workable plan. I could see that he was starting to feel much better and developing a better attitude toward next month’s meeting.

If you know what you want from a meeting in the first place the preparation is simple.’ Philip Bowden, BOWDENTMS

The second issue was to look at proper preparation. Like most sales people his time management was poor, his priorities ruled by too many demanding issues. I could see that sometimes this was inescapable; however, it not always the case. I do not expect line managers to spend days preparing, however, to go to the meeting with no preparation is unacceptable. If you know what you want from the meeting in the first place it makes the preparation much simpler.

The third issue focused on the skills to run the meeting with impact. The main problem was that the meeting was all one way. A ‘tell’ session with little room for sharing and discussion. We looked at his role as the meeting chair. This is a highly skilled role. Firstly, he knows what he thinks about an issue, but he doesn’t always know is what others think. This means using big open questions that get people to reflect on what they feel or think. “What do you think would get us better fees?” for example. The secondary skill is to shut up, listen and encourage others to speak. You may be surprised what ideas people have, a willing worker is worth many pressed ones! You are still the boss and can veto ideas if they are impractical or expensive.

A huff and puff approach merely covers up the lack of a plan.’

The fourth issue was the involvement of the team. This can be seen as a personal development tool. Delegate some items to selected individuals to prepare, it’s a good way to spread best practice and improve individual’s personal skills. Take people out of their comfort zone and stretch them. Consider the involvement of external people occasionally. This really changes the tone of the meeting and the team can see you are delivering more impact for them; maybe invite solicitors to talk about sales progression or a surveyor on house construction. This also has the added benefit of building local networks.

The last issue we addressed was progressing business by going into the next sales period with a workable plan of action. The poor sales meetings I attend usually fail because there are few concrete decisions from the meeting and therefore little sense of purpose or outcome. Managers beat their chests and are enthusiastic in terms of imploring even more effort but little of substance arises. This comes from lack of managerial technique. The huff and puff approach merely covers up the lack of an action plan.

The objective must be to develop a workable plan to improve business, the most important thing is what plans each person makes for themselves for the next month. Get people to talk about their successes and lessons learnt from last month and then quickly switch to the plan for next month. It is here that the manager needs to spend time on the detail avoiding any generality. A great phrase used by a colleague I once knew was, “So what is it specifically that you are going to do?” This colleague repeatedly asked the question until he got a specific answer. Your team are sales people and should be always planning to increase their sales results and thereby their income.

So what happened to the manager I was helping to develop? Well, his meetings immediately had more energy and those attending became more involved. Results did improve. I can’t say that the meetings were directly attributable for this result; however, I would like to think so!

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