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When you hear the term sales tools, what comes to mind?  CRM, Blackberry, laptop?   As you mentally list the tools provided for your sellers, do you include your sales meetings on the list?  Think about it… In an effective sales meeting, the time you give, the experience of the team and a focus on sharpening everyone for success is one of the greatest sales tools of all! 

A tool is something regarded as necessary to the carrying out of one’s occupation or profession (this definition brought to you by dictionary.com).  Sound like any sales meetings you have been to?  A necessary part of being more successful in sales?

Meetings don’t have to be an information dump.  When you focus on using your sales meeting for more, your meeting does becomes a necessary tool to sharpen your teams’ skills, sales results and attitudes.  

An effective sales meeting tool helps you: 
• Motivate your sellers.
• Retain them as an employee.
• Help your team sell more.
• Beat the competition.
• Make your job easier.
• Strengthen the professionalism of your team.

Who wins with these benefits?  Everyone!  Your life will be easier and your career more successful.  The sellers will have more confidence and competence to sell even more.  And your boss will benefit from all your benefits!

Okay…it CAN be a great tool, but how do you “sharpen” it?  With a focus on MORE!  Most sales meetings I have observed or heard about, use most of the meeting time to share information – sales numbers, product updates, operational updates and complaints, and on and on and on – all items that could be summarized in an email.

Focus on MORE in your sales meeting by:
• Giving more time for input from the sellers. Ask them to brainstorm topics of interest, ideas for solving a problem, or how to tackle a difficult situation someone is working with.

• Equipping sellers to sell more.  Building skill and ability is an ongoing process.  Reinforce great book ideas, great articles, previous training seminars and more.

• Growing the team’s ability to capture more market share. Make time for competitive analysis. Ask sellers to research the different competitors and report in.

• Helping the team use their technology tools more effectively.  Share best practices and additional tips on how to use the technology to full advantage.

• Leveraging more of the expertise within the team.  Set your sellers up as the experts on certain topics.  Someone great at prospecting? Proposals?  Getting Referrals?  Let them give a 15-20 minute lesson to the rest of the team.

• Reinforcing more of what they are doing well.  Make the time to point out specific actions that have shown success.  Praise for specifics goes much further than general “You all did a great job last week.” 

For each sales meeting you have, decide on which MORE outcome you want.  Then use your sales meeting as the great sales tool it can be by including relevant activities, discussion, information and interaction to sharpen your bottom line!

And this message in from Nancy last week…..

A Really Big Announcment to Sharpen Us All

Today is a big day for me, and I’m thrilled to finally tell all my LinkedIn friends and business associates about it. I hope you will spare a few moments for me to share my excitement with you.

Today is the day I pushed the LAUNCH button on my new business venture…

Sharpenz… Half Hour of Power

I’ve partnered with Alice Kemper , another sales training expert I’ve known and collaborated with for over eight years, to create Sharpenz sales boosters. These sales boosters help sales managers beat quotas, increase sellers’ abilities and reduce turnover while increasing the bottom line…and that makes everybody happy.

Sharpenz…half hour of power sales boosters engage, equip and motivate sellers to sell more. Designed to be delivered with little prep time – no more than 20 minutes – to make busy sales manager’s lives easier!. They’re delivered digitally, as needed, at a price that doesn’t require a separate line item in the budget. Doesn’t that sound great?

In case you are wondering…yes, Sales Pro Insider (SPI) is still very much alive and well. This new Sharpenz venture supplements the comprehensive training and consulting solutions we provide through SPI.

I invite you to:
1. Learn more about Sharpenz by watching this short video I made, ( http://www.sharpenz.com/nancy-video/ ) now that was interesting, or visiting our new site at www.Sharpenz.com .

2. Try Sharpenz by downloading a free sales booster.

3. Help me get the word out by telling a sales manager friend (or two or five or a hundred) about Sharpenz.

4. Contact me to discuss any questions you may have about Sharpenz, I’m happy to share answers. I’d also love to hear any marketing ideas you have for spreading the word.

Thank you for your time and sharing in my excitement. I hope you have excitement in your business as well!

Nancy Bleeke is the CEO of Sales Pro Insider, Inc. combining her sales, human resource and leadership experiences to help companies “build performance, profits and people.”

Known as the “SalesProInsider”, her passion is to provide tools and training methodologies that can be immediately implemented inside companies to drive 5-25% sales increases in 60 days or less.

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