A well run sales meeting can have a large impact on the confidence and development of your sales team. Conversely, poorly run meetings will hinder your leadership and slow the growth of your team.

The sales meeting is used as a critical link between management and the sales team, it is a powerful tool to update sales staff on product knowledge, selling skills, sales goals, marketing direction, and customer service needs. It is an opportunity to motivate, reward and inspire, there should be excitement and enthusiasm for these meetings.

However all around the country business owners, sales managers, VP of sales and sales people suffer through a tragic 60-90 minutes every week in a dull, frustrating sales meeting.

These are just a few remarks about sales meetings out of hundreds we have gathered over the years:

• the meetings are boring

• the meetings waste people's time.

• the meetings never accomplish anything

• the meetings don't focus on real-world customer situations

• the meetings cover old ground, seldom settling the issues

• the meetings are an opportunity to get together and complain

• the meeting has no agenda

• my boss can't run a meeting

• it's going nowhere and getting there far too slowly

Do management and sales have a different agenda or want different outcomes from sales meetings? Sales leaders want to motivate the sales team and sell more. Sales people want to be motivated and learn new skills that help sell.

So if everyone wants the same thing how come sales meetings are so busted? More importantly, what can you do about it? What should you put implement/in place to change it?

5 strategies for great sales meetings

1.Have inspiring goals

Goals are a powerful way to get people focussed and aligned towards a common objective. You should have a limited number (2-3) goals that are clear, precise and motivating. In order for them to work the team has to know what they are and be absolutely committed to making them happen.

2. Track progress

Make sure progress towards your goals is shown at each meeting. Develop some Key Performance Indicators that predict your future success. Get progress visible, display it on the wall or in front of the team. Prioritizing a small handful of Numerical Targets (goals) and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) enables managers to communicate their expectations to employees in a clear and unambiguous manner.

3. Help people focus

Get clear about the activities that will make a massive difference, everyone should be clear about their #1 Action Priority every week. Allow each team member a opportunity to briefly share how they are travelling and review the success of actions undertaken after the last meeting before moving on - spend time celebrating team members achieving. Encourage team members to take responsibility for this section of the meeting, they can show their appreciation of each other.

4. Hold each other accountable

Promote a culture of keeping promises. If you hold people tightly accountable for completing their #1 Action Priority every week they begin/start to be very careful about what they promise to do. Everyone's job becomes much easier when people get very clear on what they will do each week and you can count on them to actually do it.

5. Share learnings

Provide a forum for learning from each other and the teams collective barriers. Ask team members to share expertise and have role plays and debrief as a group. Ask: what happened, what worked well to share what they have learned and what could be done differently

5 must do's during your sales meetings

1. Start and finish on time

2. Stay with the agenda

3. Stay positive

4. Keeps things moving

5. Encourage ideas

Use this information to change your sales meetings into a powerful tool to encourage, reward and inspire. If you do there will be anticipation and excitement for your meetings.