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Disguise Your Sales Meeting As An "Experience"
www.melindabrody.com
407-294-7614
Disguise Your Sales Meeting As An "Experience"
What do Mary Kay Cosmetics, Tupperware and Amway all have in common? They wrap a party around a meeting and make it an experience. When you attend a meeting with any of the above companies, it has a party atmosphere. The meetings have a theme, music, props, and noise - a real pep rally. You may not want to go full tilt but we all can improve the sales meetings from what I've personally experienced. As a sales manager, your job is to inspire and motivate your sales team. Your sales meetings become an opportunity to do so on a weekly basis.
It takes time and effort to create an "experience". If you apply some of the following to your sales meetings, you would start creating an atmosphere of fun that few sales agents would want to miss. Here are some tips:
- Plan an agenda with a theme in mind (delegate).
- Get help with the execution.
- Delivery your information in a fun, involving way.
- Wrap all the details around the theme.
- Start and end on time.
- Leave them wanting more and asking, "When's the next experience?"
We conduct on going shopper-training meetings so we can perfect our shopper's abilities to exceed expectations. All of our shoppers are independent contractors with busy lives and other jobs. We wanted to get full attendance and attention ay those meetings so we decided to create as "experience".
Our kick off meeting was our "Frequent Flyer" meeting last month. We printed boarding passes for each shopper with assigned seating, our staff wore matching outfits like flight attendants and Lisa, my Director of Operations, and I wore a pilot and co-pilot uniform. (One of our staff members works for an airline.) As the shoppers entered, we conducted a mock security check with a magic wand and occasionally checked purses. Once seated, we had two "flight attendants" go down the aisle with a cart to serve drinks and mini pretzels (We are not Northwest!) At each seat was a pair of flight wings. Southwest airlines gave me 50 on my last flight. We had our "lead" flight attendant give the safety announcement with a hilarious seat belt, life jacket and emergency exit demonstration (it's hard to describe).
Then we got down to business. We went over travel tips, do's and don'ts of out-of-state shopping, how to seem like more of a real buyer, etc. On breaks we played continuous music with an airplane theme such as "Leaving on a Jet Plane". We served lunch on a shrink-wrapped tray while they were seated just like the airlines.
Our door prize was a travel, toiletries bag with mini shampoo, soap, etc. We received an overwhelming response from our shoppers. One new shopper, who is in his 60s and a former sales manager, said he has been to hundreds of sales meetings and this was the best ever!
The irony is it wasn't really a sales meeting. It was a meeting to tell shoppers how to travel more efficiently and how to do their jobs more effectively. But if we called it that, do you think we would have had 100% attendance? We wrapped a meeting in an "experience". We made a meeting a party. Now, the word is out - "What will they do next?"
Our objective is to have a meeting no one will want to miss and everyone talks about. I did not do this alone but with the creativity and energy of my incredible staff - eight talented and fun women. I know you are reading this and saying, "Oh yeah, easy for you to pull off with all that help." So, my suggestion is to have a "WOW" themed sales meeting once a month. Pick 3-4 sales agents names out of a hat and they are in charge. They will need to come up with a timely theme, props, food, music, door prizes, etc. and discuss with you.
Well, what are we doing next? We are doing a ton of active adult shops in 2006, so in January, we are rolling out our "Old Fart" meeting. (Don't get me started!) March is our Oscar theme. We will all be in gowns and have a red carpet with flash bulbs of the paparazzi. You CAN do this and the results will be worth it!
Melinda Brody, MIRM has been inspiring and evaluating salespeople for almost two decades. She offers sales seminars, keynotes and video mystery shopping services for builders across North America.
