Sales development team meetings serve a variety of purposes. First, be clear about the type of meeting you are holding. Sales development meetings should be concise, brief, well-organized, and well-run, with a clear goal and agenda.
Types of Sales Development Team Meetings
1.) One-on-One. A one-on-one is a sales development strategy meeting. It is between a sales development manager and his/her immediate report, a sales development representative.
A common purpose of a sales development strategy one-on-one meeting is to discuss sales leads, sales pipeline status, and quota,. In addition, support, stalls, obstacles, wins, losses are also topics. Not only, can one also brainstorm but also develop fresh ideas, gain advice, and discuss problem-solving recommendations.
2.)Team Meetings: Sales development leaders meet with their team. Together with sales development representatives and possibly supporting staff, such as marketing or technical support representatives.
Purpose of Sales Development Team Meetings
A common purpose of a team meeting is to make positive assessments of the sales lead and sales pipeline goal. In my early sales career, I worked for a company that held a weekly Tuesday night team meeting. Each salesperson reviewed the deals they had closed that week. Motivational gatherings were followed by a night out with your peers and sales leaders, We collaborated and celebrated success.
These sessions are also an opportunity to analyze a case study. It can include educational topics, training, guest speakers, company, department, or team announcements. These include leadership or organizational shifts, adjustments, new partnerships or company investments, or directional changes.
Tips for Productive Sales Development Meetings
One-on-One Meeting
1.) Sales development managers will get the information they seek if their questions are specific, not vague. What do you have for me? is vague. Start the meeting in a structured, time-sensitive fashion. What is preventing you from meeting your sales lead goal can help uncover obstacles that can be addressed and removed.
2.) Good performance should always be praised. It’s a tough job. If poor performance needs to be addressed it should be done with motivating tips for improvement and insights.
3.) It takes a village. Sales development leadership needs to support their reps to get the resources to generate a sales pipeline or secure sales leads. For example, they may need marketing sales and marketing messaging for a particular target audience and event.
Host a Lunch and Learn-
Not to mention, as a young sales development representative, I was a sponge for information and intrigued by how the organizational departments functioned. It is critical to understand how sales representatives can secure information from other departments to gain insight and support in securing new leads. Sales development leadership would invite department representatives to speak and provide a resource for our team to contact should we have questions.
Sales Development Team Meetings
Marketing
Equally important marketing would address the sales group to educate sales representatives about the campaigns they were conducting and provide the details of each campaign: its purpose, dates, location, target audience, messaging, call to action, etc. For example, I was tasked with inviting prospects, customers, and partners to a golf outing following an annual industry event. Having a forum that explained the conference and golf outing details was helpful for inviting and confirming attendance.
Product
Additionally, product representatives would address our group if a new product was launched or enhanced. At one point, I was an inside sales representative responsible not only for generating sales leads but also for closing smaller sales, such as education packages or additional licenses. It was important to understand the product details and pricing for new and improved product packages and who to connect with if a prospect had a question I could not answer.
Sales
As well as , sales representatives would address our group if they won a sale. Since our team was generating sales leads and building a sales pipeline, it was either an introduction or a refresher call to explain why clients were choosing our solution and the benefits they derived from it.
Uniquely, storytelling is part of effective sales communication, and knowing the story behind a deal helps to better qualify a lead, relate to a prospect, and build a relationship. Listen in on a sales lead call you set up for your sales representative with the prospect, and share your findings with your sales development peers during a sales development team meeting.
It is a valuable training exercise for each sales development rep to participate in a lead call they booked for the sales representative and have them discuss the call in an organized fashion with their sales development peers to share insights and lessons learned. Also, this is particularly helpful for learning how to improve lead quality by observing a live sales call.
Invite guest speakers to address the group
Guest speakers were usually informative, insightful, and inspirational. A non-company resource can bring a perspective outside your company experience, helping you see and approach or address a situation in a new way. It can be a thought-provoking experience.
Invite speakers who can train
Outside professional trainers in the sales development field work with a wide variety of clients, bringing skills from a cumulative body of clients that provide valuable insights, points of view, or different angles on a situation.
Here are a number of sales meeting ideas I hope will keep your sales development teams engaged, motivated, and productive.
Elisa Ciarametaro, Principal at Exceed Sales, Inc., offers sound sales suggestions that make an impactful difference and better sales outcomes to individual contributors, managers, and executives in sales, sales development, marketing, and customer service. To learn more about Elisa Ciarametaro get more information at www.exceedsales.com, sign up for our newsletter, call Elisa at 917 653 0125, email elisac@exceedsales.com or follow her on LinkedIn.