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There are an almost infinite number of ways to motivate your sales team from the monetary (individual, group and goal-based bonuses) to the ephemeral celebrations (“Sales Person of the Month” plaques). I want to focus on an often overlooked vehicle for motivating your sales team -- The All-Hands Team Meeting. Now many of you small business owners reading this are probably saying to yourselves -- “This is not an overlooked vehicle for motivating my team, I already have a weekly team meeting to go over last week’s sales stats and discuss the upcoming week’s goals/targets etc.” It’s understandable to think an All-Hands Team Meeting and your current Weekly Sales Team Meeting are the same but they’re not.
The All-Hands Team Meeting is a special opportunity to introduce/reinforce the goals (long and short including weekly sales targets) of the business with your sales team AND other non-sales employees. The biggest mistake is isolating your Sales Team. Make the goals and expectations you have for them part of the broader picture for your company. Here are a few ingredients that can make up your recipe for All-Hands Team Meeting success:
Ingredient #1:
Always include a light food option for your staff to enjoy during the meeting -- bagels or fresh fruit are always good choices.
Ingredient #2:
Schedule the meeting for the earlier part of the week. The momentum you create through this fun and engaging meeting will be lost if you’re pulling it off on Friday afternoon.
Ingredient #3:
Include a personal celebrations segment at some point in the meeting. This could be highlighting upcoming staff birthdays and work anniversaries. Gathering this information will take some effort - it won’t fall into your lap.
Ingredient #4:
Orchestrate a fun team building/bonding activity. This can take many forms. My favorite example is a small business owner had each member of his staff tell him the model and year of their first car. The owner then built a simple PowerPoint presentation showing a picture of that exact model/year of each employee’s car simply by using Google Images. To bring a smile to everyone’s face and generate some positive, fun energy at the beginning of his All-Hands Team Meeting, he showed the presentation with everyone guessing which car belonged to which fellow employee.
Ingredient #5:
Have one or two employees talk about an interesting problem they encountered and fixed over the past week.
Ingredient #6:
Read a positive customer testimonial
Ingredient #7:
Give updates on the different activities of the company
Ingredient #8:
Discuss upcoming sales goals and targets/prospects for the upcoming week
Conclusion
This last ingredient is obviously the one that is most directed at your Sales Team. With the inclusion of your whole company’s staff and ingredients that focus on fun, celebration and general firm updates - your Sales Team can feel and see how their efforts fit into the short and long-term health of the whole company. Hearing about successes and achievements in other areas of the company’s operations can add much needed morale boosts to your front-line Sales Team. Without the efforts of the non-sales employees, the Sales Team can not be successful. Bring everyone together with a well planned and executed All-Hands Team Meeting so that all employees feel connected to the efforts of every other employee. It won’t take long for results to show and your bottom-line to benefit.
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