This is How You Have Successful Sales Meetings

successful sales meetings

Want your team to be successful? Sales meetings that motivate and inspire dealership staff are essential.

When numbers are down at your dealership, it’s easy to blame the salespeople. If they would stop checking Facebook on their phones and try harder, they’d be making more sales…right?

The reality is that great auto salespeople work for great sales managers. And great sales managers have an exceptional ability to nurture, motivate, and train their teams. Are you using your weekly sales meetings to step up to the plate and inspire your salespeople? Are successful sales meetings just a pipe dream for you at this point?

In too many dealerships, sales meetings don’t get the respect they deserve. Employees may see them as a waste of time, boring, or just an overall negative experience. Successful sales meetings, however, are so crucial to your team because they bring your salespeople together, get them motivated, and prepare everyone for a productive week.

The secrets of running successful sales meetings at your dealership

Every dealership sales team is different, but in general, certain guidelines can help any sales manager run successful sales meetings every single week. Here are some helpful tips:successful sales meetings

Choose a day and time (and stick to it).

In the world of auto dealerships, Saturdays tend to be a favorite day for weekly sales meetings. Since Saturdays are usually the busiest day, a good sales meeting first thing in the morning, before the dealership opens, primes your team for success. If you don’t see this day/time working for your team that is fine—but make sure you choose a specific day and time and stick to it every week.

Be positive.

Successful sales meetings leave salespeople feeling motivated and ready to sell — not beaten down and afraid of getting yelled at again. Your meetings should focus on solutions, not problems. Take time to praise employees who rose to a challenge in the past week; maybe they sold the most cars, helped another salesperson save a deal, or created a successful email campaign that reengaged former customers. You want to reinforce positive behavior instead of berating your employees for their failures.

Have an agenda.

Some managers think they’ll be fine if they walk into a sales meeting with a sheet of numbers for the past week. They tell themselves they’ll just improvise and figure things out as they go along. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work. Every meeting should have a point — and that point should be clear as day in the agenda you create each week. successful sales meetings

Keep it short and impactful.

The average attention span currently clocks in between 10 and 18 minutes — that’s why all TED Talks are 18 minutes long. It may seem almost impossible at first, but try the same length for your sales meetings. Start and end on time to show your team you value their time and punctuality, and make the most of every precious minute you’re in that meeting. Keeping sales meetings short will ensure you’re staying on topic, keeping the team’s attention, and only focusing on what is essential.

Ban computers and phones.

If you’re hosting a short but impactful sales meeting, you are going to need your team’s full attention. Ask them to leave phones and laptops at their desks before entering your conference room, so you’re sure to have their full attention. If they claim they need their laptops to take notes, tell them to bring a pad of paper and a pen. successful sales meetings

Incorporate technology.

Breaking up the meeting with different visuals will hold your team’s attention and keep things interesting. You can show motivational videos, virtual tours of new makes/models, or tap into your auto CRM for reports, information on current leads, or to conduct tutorials.

Invite guest speakers.

Successful sales meetings often involve more than one speaker. Consider assigning a weekly topic to a different salesperson and schedule them to speak during the sales meeting. This keeps everyone engaged and keeps you from doing a monologue every week.

It’s okay to have longer, more in-depth meetings on a quarterly or monthly basis, but when it comes to the weekly sales meeting, you need to use your time as efficiently as possible. Motivate your team, get everyone on the same page, and prepare them to get out on the showroom floor and sell, sell, sell.

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Patrick H.
Patrick H.