In many companies, the sales meeting is held on Monday morning.
An ancient and immortal sadomasochistic rite.
(At the beginning of the month, then, with the closure of the previous month, it is even more so…)
Low-eared salesmen present their situation. Always and only lower results than the targets.
Few sales.
Few negotiations.
Few visits.
And problems, problems, problems… just problems.
An infinite whining.
The first customer didn’t buy because we are too much expensive. The second because we are cheap. The third is hesitating because his accountant advised him to wait. The fourth one has his brother-in-law doing the same thing, but for free. Tom doesn’t renew because our assistance is always late and with the wrong spare parts. Dick fell in love with the new magic product from another supplier. Our products are obsolete. The competition is everywhere. I work hard to take orders, and then the financial company rejects all the paperwork. Marketing doesn’t support us. I always have to do everything. After-sales technicians say things to customers that hurt us. Do you want me to increase the turnover or enter the data in the CRM?
etc.
And what do the bosses do?
A bunch of reprimands: the Generate Director or the Owner scolds the Sales Director, the Sales Director scolds the Area Managers, and the Area Managers scolds the sellers. The sellers have no one “under” them to grope, but if they did, they would.
ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH, ENOUGH!
Is there anything you can do to change this useless torture?
Of course. There are solutions.
But the speech is so wide that it’s not possible to trace it all back to a single article. We’ll talk about it by dividing it into several pills in our new-born product, the monthly update paper newsletter for sales and marketing professionals.
Today I give only a tiny taste, just a crumb. So, I don’t distract too much everyone involved in their meetings…
There you go:
An old sales teacher of mine advised that the meeting should never be held on Monday morning, but on Friday afternoon:
– So, we earn a week” he said.
If the meeting’s on Monday, everyone spends half an hour muttering against the boss and the company in the inevitable post-meeting at the coffee machine, they finish making the offers they had planned to send, they manage an unexpected phone call from a customer… and Monday is gone. Tomorrow, Tuesday, I’m out (for visits or because I’m still in a bad mood). So, before Wednesday they won’t start to implement anything of what has been (maybe) decided.
If you’re meeting on Friday, everyone can think over the weekend about what to do, quench the anger, and be readier for action on Monday morning.
In short, a little psychological trick to speed up your sales activity.
Simple, but effective.
