Taking sales meetings from "have to" to "get to": in this article, relationship managers will learn the routines and activities that generate greater revenue. Sales managers will learn how to ensure top performance from their sales staffs

RMA Journal, The, Sept, 2005 by Jack Hubbard

It's Monday morning and your commercial bankers are driving to the office in anticipation of the weekly pipeline meeting. Are they thinking "I get to go" or "I would do anything to avoid this?"

More than 11 million meetings take place every day in American business, taking up more than 37% of employee time. Nearly 70% of participants bring other work to do during meetings, and 40% report dozing off. A full 50% of meeting leaders doubt that participants leave the meeting with concrete steps to improve production. When will this madness stop?

It's 7:30 a.m. on any given Monday at a Midwestern bank. The Business Banking sales manager has her troops gathered. As you eavesdrop, think about how her sales meeting compares to yours. She begins by reviewing today's agenda that was distributed to her bankers last Thursday evening to allow everyone to prepare effectively, since they are all expected to be active participants.

She begins. "Good morning. I hope you all had a nice weekend and are looking forward to this great sales week. Tell me one thing in your personal life that makes you the most happy and then tell me one thing you would like to improve." As this banker's coach, I certainly was curious about where this was headed. Her bankers all thought for a minute and then each offered something relevant. One associate opined that the best thing in her life was that her in-laws were coming for a visit. The improvement issue had to do with when they would be leaving. Everyone laughed.

What happened next was one of the more brilliant transitions I have ever witnessed at a team gathering. The manager used personal experiences to move into sales-related issues. "Tell me one thing in our sales process that is working well for you and one improvement need you can identify." That discussion led to some excellent learning points. One relationship manager indicated he was having some issues with making telephone appointments with prospects. The manager homed in on that issue, and a rich, strategic conversation ensued about how to make telephone appointment calling more effective. Was that training? Could it have been role playing? Was it coaching? Yes to all. Best of all, no one thought of it as that. What is guaranteed, though, is that each business banker got some great new ideas on how to make telephone efforts more effective.

We're 21 minutes into the meeting, and we have yet to go around the room to talk about calls made last week and what's in the pipeline. Now the manager brings out a baseball cap. She reaches in and pulls out a name. "George, it's your turn for Hot Prospect Lottery." George now has five minutes to talk about an A-level prospect he is working on who has yet to make it to his pipeline. (This bank only allows priced opportunities to move into its pipelines. This affords more accurate projections and avoids pipeline inflation.)

George talks about a $10 million company--what it does, how he got in the door, their needs, and his strategy to win the business. Five minutes are up (the manager calls time at five minutes), and now the other associates have an opportunity to ask questions about his sales approach. In effect, they become his sales managers for five minutes. Some of their questions he has ready answers for--others he does not. The manager captures the issues on a flip chart for a discussion about the who's, how's, and why's that will help all of her salespeople perform better when they hit the street. She also indicates she will circle back with George about some specific ideas she has to help him shorten his sales cycle.

We are 41 minutes into the meeting, and we have yet to go around the room to talk about calls made last week and what's in the pipeline. The manager calls on Meghan, a young trainee. Meghan has no portfolio, and she is not making calls on her own. Her job today is to report for five minutes on the salient points from the sales book she is reading, Secrets of VITO: Think and Sell Like a CEO, by Anthony Parinello. Meghan discusses a particular chapter about how to get in the door to see Mr. or Ms. Big. When she finishes, the manager leads a discussion that links how her bankers might use Meghan's learning points to help their daily sales conversations.

We are 53 minutes into the meeting, and we have yet to go around the room to talk about calls made last week and what's in the pipeline. The manager pulls out her calendar and asks, "How many calls do you each have scheduled for this week, and which of those will be asked to continue their relationship with you?" The manager does this to create peer pressure for face-to-face activities.

We are 58 minutes into the meeting, and we still haven't gone around the room to talk about calls made last week and what's in the pipeline. The manager then presents her Success Tip: On every call this week, each banker is to ask, "What initiatives do you anticipate at your firm over the next six to nine months, and what can our bank do to facilitate the financial portion of those initiatives?" She explains she will be reviewing the results of those questions with each of them at the beginning of next Monday's team meeting. (She tells me she does the Success Tip twice a month to foster the kind of behaviors that will give her bankers a better chance of succeeding.)