Better Sales Meetings In 3 To 30 Minutes - Softcover

Terreri, Malinda A.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0966173406 ISBN 13: 9780966173406

Publisher: mtm Marketing, 1998

Synopsis

Increase your sales and motivate your sales force through more effective meetings. This book features 50 proven exercises to increase involvement, interest, focus and fun during sales meetings. Specifically written for sales managers.

About this title

From the Publisher

To get everyone's undivided attention at a sales meeting, you could suspend your team over vats of boiling oil, but vats are expensive and so are workers' comp claims. An easier method is to order Better Sales Meetings In 3 To 30 Minutes. This 8.5 x 11, 130-page book with reproducible handouts, offers a year's worth of exercises that will wake up a sales force and get them involved. Specifically written for sales managers, these exercises are designed to reinforce important sales topics.

Each exercise is easily adapted to any organization and includes: 1) An objective which summarizes the challenge. 2) A mini-lecture which provides a reference and introduction to the exercise. 3) Instructions to implement the exercise. 4) Discussion questions to help further adapt the material to an organization. 5) A list of materials required. Many exercises come with reproducible handouts requiring little if any additional materials. 6) Estimated time to do the exercise. 7) A lesson summary.

The exercises tend to involve clever twists of logic that bring the message home. For example, in a variation on a children's memory game, an assistant briefly displays a tray of objects. After the assistant leaves the group is asked to describe everything they can remember -- about the 'assistant' holding the tray of objects. The message: be prepared for the unexpected and pay less attention to products and more attention to the customer's needs. The other 49 exercises are similarly intelligent, simple and effective. They've all been refined through real-life testing. The book has a clean, easy-to-use format with numerous photos. But it's Terreri's writing that really sets it apart; she's funny, frank, and obviously a seasoned veteran of the sales trade.

Why hire expensive sales trainers? This collection of 50 proven exercises will give you the tools you need to make your sales meetings more productive and profitable. If these exercises help you motivate just one salesperson to make just one more sale - what is that worth to you - $100? $1000? $10,000+? The best investment you can make is in your sales force. Don't wait another day to put these valuable tools to work for you!

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Is this how you sounded at your last sales meeting? If so, then drastic times call for drastic measures. It's time to put away those beloved overheads with all the teeny, tiny type no one can read and start making Martian transportation pods from plastic straws, masking tape and cool cocktail umbrellas; holding one-hundred-year birthday celebrations; and getting blindfolded people to form a square with a rope. Exactly how are these things going to improve your sales efforts? The answer: they are all high-involvement exercises designed to wake up your sales force and get them involved in your meetings. But maybe you're not sure you need 'goofy' activities for your meetings. Consider this: according to the U.S. Department of Justice, a property crime occurs every 10 seconds, costing the country millions of dollars each year. But every 9.2 seconds, someone in the United States is sitting in a sales meeting thinking about his/her stomach growling, or wanting to go back to bed, and this unproductive time (which should be a crime) is costing billions of dollars a year. Okay, so I made up that last statistic, but the point is, if your salespeople aren't paying attention in a sales meeting then the meeting isn't paying off. So assembled for the first time is this collection of fifty exercises designed specifically for sales meetings. You'll find most of the exercises take from three to thirty minutes each and can easily be adapted, altered, and enhanced to reinforce your message. While some activities require the purchase of inexpensive props, most can be implemented using supplies found in your office (if you would clean it). Each exercise includes: 1) An objective which summarizes the challenge. 2) A mini-lecture which provides you with a reference and introduction to the exercise. 3) Procedure instructions to implement the exercise. 4) Discussion questions to help you further adapt the material to your organization. 5) A list of materials required. Many exercises come with reproducible handouts requiring little if any additional materials. 6) Estimated time required. 7) A lesson summary. But how do you implement these activities without risking a spot in the unemployment line? Take your time in selecting an activity. Make sure you are comfortable facilitating the activity and that it is relevant to the message you are delivering. On some of the more advanced exercises you may want to try them out first on family and friends before debuting in front of your sales team. Still not convinced you should give these a try? Then remember that if you continue to do what you've always done, you will continue to get what you've always got. Sample Exercise: Pay Attention Objective: To determine whether we pay more attention to the product or the customer. Activity: Conduct the children's memory game of remembering different items on a tray, but the twist is you will be asking details about the person holding the tray. Mini-Lecture:

Everyone knows the importance in sales of paying attention. In fact, Henry Ford once said, "Paying attention to simple little things that most men neglect makes a few men rich." With that in mind, let's do a familiar memory game.... Procedure:

Imply that this is the commonly known memory game and have everyone move their chairs into a circle. Have an assistant that is not well known to the group bring in a covered tray. Remove the cover and have the assistant show the tray to everyone for about 30 seconds. Once the assistant leaves the room, tell everyone they have three minutes to write down as much as they can remember...about the assistant. Mini-Lecture Continued: I purposefully implied that this was the old memory game many of us played as kids. As a result, many of you focused on the items on the tray. In sales it is very easy for the same thing to happen; we focus on what we expect and miss signs to the contrary. Today, success in sales means looking for the unexpected, and being capable of reacting. Discussion Questions: 1. Are you sure you know what your customers want? When was the last time you profiled your customers' needs and objectives? 2. How can you adapt your prospecting or sales presentation to focus more on the customer? 3. Who has an example of an opportunity that was lost because of an assumption? Materials Required:

Paper, pens, a tray with an assortment of items, and an assistant. Time Required: 5-10 minutes. Lesson: Pay less attention to your products and pay more attention to customers and solving their problems.

About this edition

• Publisher: mtm Marketing
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0966173406
• ISBN 13: 9780966173406
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 130