Have you ever worked out how much it costs to run a sales meeting? Not just the direct cost of having all your team in the room together, which by itself is expensive, but what about the opportunity cost of missing out on improved sales performance or having a detrimental impact on sales culture?
Many sales meetings are not only costing companies a fortune but may also be causing a negative return. Meaning that many sales meetings are not only delivering little in value but more importantly they could be causing a negative impact on sales culture and sales performance.
When our friends from Sales ITV surveyed 1500 sales leaders and sales people they found that 69% of sales leaders used their sales meetings as a primary motivational strategy for the sales team but 57% of sales people stated that they found their sales meetings de-motivational! Wow that is a significant disconnect.
Money talks
I’m half way through an interesting book by Daniel Pink – DRIVE! It’s very interesting and worth a read.
Daniel says the model of incentivizing people with money is outmoded and “rooted more in folklore than in science”.
My initial reaction to this (and I stress this is solely my personal opinion, it’s not based upon research) is “that’s just not right”. It just doesn’t align with what I’ve observed over many years in, and running sales teams. Money talks. (IMHO) – especially for the good reps.
Is my reaction biased because I’m a very coin operated person? Maybe yes. Maybe I’m an outlier to his research.
But then I realized that Daniel’s research wasn’t for salespeople, it was for the population as a “whole” (my speech marks).
Ok, so that may make more sense – I think sales people are different to the general population. That’s what often makes them sales people.
And maybe I should qualify this position even more –maybe my position is even better suited to hunters – the Bus Dev people! The “outside” team. And not so much (still is , just not so much) to “farmers”.
So, what am I saying?
Just about every single time I have seen a company’s sales slump or slow down I can go back to the sales cycle duration, and see a corresponding slump in leads or prospects.
Who is it for?
Designed for sales people, sales managers and executives who need to operate in a highly productive state.
The days of hitting the phones trying to get sales meetings from cold prospects are not yet dead, but certainly, they seem to be dying. This will cause some sales people to breathe a little easier, as most hate the thought of cold calls, but others will be left wondering how to reach out to new sales prospects.
