The Monday Morning Sales Team Meeting is a critically important hour in the week of a salesperson. The right meetings can motivate and inspire a salesperson for the week ahead. Unfortunately, there are so many things that can go wrong in this one little hour - .025% of a salesperson's week can set the course, good or bad. Do not be discouraged. Pulling from years of experience - and trial and error - I am sharing the Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter one trouble at a time.

Solve your sales meeting problems with The Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter.

Problem:

You, the Sales Manager, start your weekly sales team meeting every Monday morning at 9am and, yet, every week sales team members are joining the call at 9:02, 9:05 even as late as 9:10. They always have a good excuse, usually something customer-related because who could fault them for that. Then, you find yourself repeating your greeting and opening remarks over and over as each new person joins the call and finally starting the meeting at 9:15. Already off schedule and off to an unorganized, awkward start.

Solution:

• Make sure everyone knows what is expected of them in regards to sales team meeting ettiquette. A pro-active way to avoid some of these problems in the first place is to set team standards for sales team meetings. As a team, set ground rules for your weekly sales team meetings. One of those rules should be that everyone must arrive on time ready to participate in the meeting. If someone violates the team rule, it is much easier to address it with them and resolve the problem. (For help setting team ground rules, download the Kick-Off to Great Sales Team Meetings Workshop to use at an upcoming sales team meeting.)
• When someone does join late, do NOT stop and tell them what they have missed so far. Let them be lost. It is rude to make the rest of the team hear the same thing twice because one of their team mates is late.
• For fun, let everyone know that all latecomers will need to sing the National Athem or some other "punishment". Make it clear that being late is something to avoid. You can have some fun with this if it is rare. If you have a repeat offender, you'll need to address that more seriously outside the meeting enviroment.
• If you have the type of conference call system that you can "lock" and not allow entry to a call, "lock" your call at the meeting start time and do not let latecomers in. If you don't, let everyone know not to bother calling in if they are calling in late. It's disruptive.
• As a Sales Manager, show respect for your team's time by being on time yourself, ending calls on time, using their time wisely and expecting the same level of respect from them.
• Make it clear that the sales team meeting hour is an important hour that the team should plan their schedule around attending. Then... make it a valuable hour - everytime.

Stay tuned to the Meeting to Win blog for solutions to all your sales meeting troubles as we continue adding to The Meeting to Win Sales Team Meeting Troubleshooter. To get new sales team meeting topics every week, complete with a 60 minute agenda, join Meeting to Win. We'd love to work with you and your team!