Most sales team meetings fail because they aren’t actually about selling. Mike Weinberg says the fix is simple: stop running status updates and start running meetings that make your team more aligned, more energized, and better equipped to sell.
Key Takeaways
- Most sales meetings are status updates, venting sessions, or manager monologues — not sales meetings
- The only real test of a good meeting: do reps leave more aligned, more energized, and better equipped to sell?
- Stop meeting until you can pass that test
- Get your best reps to help design the agenda, and let them run parts of it
- Five topics that work: Success Stories, Best Practice Sharing, Book or Blog Review, Practice (not “role-play”), and Non-Sales Inspiration
Most Sales Team Meetings Suck— But They Don’t Have To
Last week, I was in Chicago and San Diego leading sales leadership workshops for two different large companies. We had a blast, and it’s energizing seeing sales managers get refocused and recharged.
What I always find intriguing is how interested managers are in one particular topic: help with upgrading their sales team meetings. It’s almost as if most managers have come to the place where they simply accept that their sales team meetings are awful and always will be. That’s silly. Let’s fix that – right now.
Most Sales Meetings are Awful
Before offering a few tips and potential agenda topics to supercharge your sales meetings, let’s take a quick look at why most of them are so awful.
They’re not really sales meetings
Oh, there’s a meeting, but very little of it has to do with how to sell (or sell more). It’s a status meeting, ops planning meeting, sales manager monologue on various topics, an admin-update meeting, a venting session… But it’s definitely not a “sales” meeting.
Too little interaction and mostly one-way communication
This is the formula for a lame, unhelpful meeting.
An inappropriate venue for hard accountability
Lazy sales managers who don’t do 1:1 meetings cheat by doing cheap accountability in team meetings. I’m sorry, but that’s just wrong. Reviewing results is one thing (and I’m a fan of that), but embarrassing and demeaning salespeople in a group setting is another.
Salespeople show up with lousy attitudes
They are “present” but not really present. And too often, meetings devolve into negativity and venting sessions.
Meeting for the sake of meeting
No one stays engaged in a meeting with no clear objective and no good outcome.
Boring
Same old, same old. Zero excitement.
I could go on, but there’s no reason to. We’re all on the same page here. The bottom line is that in all of the cases described above and the many more running through your mind, salespeople are leaving sales team meetings with less energy and no better equipped to sell than when they arrived for the meeting, and that’s pathetic – and stupid.
Sales Team Meetings Should Align and Inspire
I have one very simple litmus test for sales team meetings.
Do your people leave the meeting more aligned, more energized to sell, and better equipped to do their jobs?
If the answer is no, then it’s time to make significant adjustments. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that until you get that figured out, I would suggest you stop meeting.
If you’re serious about upgrading your meetings, ask your best salespeople what they would like to see covered in team meetings and inquire about what they have seen work well elsewhere.
Another key is for the manager to offload as much of the burden for the meeting as possible! I’m convinced the reason so many sales meetings are bad is that the manager owns too much of the meeting prep, content, and facilitation.
Nowhere is it written that the manager must be solely responsible for everything surrounding the meeting. That’s ridiculous.
Five Topics For Your Next Sales Meeting
Success Stories
Have reps brag about new deals, new clients acquired, or major cross-sell/up-sell victories. Ask them to come prepared with details to share, not just the “what” but the “how,” so everyone benefits from the story.
Best Practice Sharing
Rotate through your various people who excel at different aspects of selling and the sales process. Give Susie ten minutes to coach the group on why she’s so effective at getting C-suite meetings. Ask Shawn to expand on why his lead conversion rate is double the average. Have Holly deliver an example of her drop-the-mic presentation that’s been closing business left and right.
Book or Blog Review
Have your team read a book and run a book club together. Before each meeting, assign a chapter to discuss – and appoint a salesperson to lead/facilitate the discussion. Or rotate through each seller, selecting a blog post relevant to a topic your team is facing, and have the person send out the link with some primer questions so reps come to the meeting prepared to discuss takeaways from the article.
Practice!
I don’t like to call it role-play; I like to call it “practice.” Toss out real-life scenarios that happen on prospecting calls, discovery meetings, or during presentations, and have team members practice right there in the meeting. Crazy thought, I know: salespeople actually practicing instead of just winging it.
Non-Sales Inspiration
Bring in a war veteran or cancer survivor to share their story (and remind salespeople that they should stop whining about how hard sales is! Sales is not hard; war is hard. Cancer is hard). Or ask sellers to tell the group about a real hero in their lives who inspires them. Or rotate through sellers, sharing some of their personal life philosophies that keep them motivated. Use video clips from movies or interviews with world-class athletes.
Better sales meetings start with better coaching. See how Sales Gravy’s CLEAR Coaching program helps sales managers build teams that actually want to be in the room.
Common Questions About Sales Team Meetings
Because they’re not actually sales meetings. They’re status updates, ops planning sessions, admin reviews, or one-way manager monologues. None of that helps a rep sell more.
Ask one question: do your people leave more aligned, more energized to sell, and better equipped to do their job? If the answer is no, stop meeting until you fix it.
No. Managers who own all the prep, content, and facilitation are usually the reason the meeting is bad. Hand pieces of it to your best reps.
Five that work well: reps sharing success stories (the how, not just the what), best-practice sharing from top performers, a book or blog club, live practice of real scenarios, and non-sales inspiration to reset mindset.
Reviewing results as a group is fine. Publicly embarrassing or demeaning a rep in front of the team is not. Save hard individual accountability for 1:1s.
