How to Structure Your Sales Team Meetings

There are two distinct types of sales meetings.

One is daily check-ins, where you might discuss that day’s new products, appointments, promotions, repair status, clienteling efforts and other daily business. These occur regularly — in many businesses, every day — before opening and typically last 10-15 minutes.

The other type is sales training meetings, which can last 30 minutes to an hour and often include the instruction of sales techniques, sharing of product knowledge and even sales role-play.

For each type of meeting, be respectful of your team’s time and set a strict time limit. Organize well and keep things moving along. These SHOULD be fun and informative.

For both types of meetings, reserve the first minute or two for praise. As Jimmy DeGroot says: “Point out something good that’s happening or what someone accomplished yesterday. Make it sincere and give praise for behaviors you want perpetuated.”

Have Staff Contribute

One useful habit for sales training meetings is to assign different team members to do short presentations on a rotating basis. This removes a bit of the organizational burden from you, introduces a fresh voice, and also expands the pool of knowledge you store has.

There are several subjects you can ask staff to present about:

• BOOK REPORT: Read a business book and highlight 5-10 useful takeaways. These can be favorite quotes from the book, or even thoughts about your business inspired by your reading of the book. Here are few ideas for titles to assign.
• LEARN SOMETHING NEW: Complete a course in a specific skill — public speaking, dress for success, SEO, social media, and summarize what you learned for your teammates.
• CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE REPORT: Talk about your favorite local retail or service businesses. Describe the experience of being a customer there. What do they do that you love? How do they treat you and talk to you? What can our store learn from what they do right? (Is there any possibility for a closer relationship between our two stores?) Alternatively, this could be a “mystery shopping”-type assignment in which you assign team members to mystery-shop other jewelers within an hour or so of your store.

Brain Squad Sales Meeting Schedules

Here is what the Brain Squad responded when asked how frequently they hold team meetings:

Daily Training

• “We meet five days a week with a 30-minute huddle. We have a 52-week training calendar that is built when we build our budgets in December for the upcoming year. The calendar defines the subject and context to be discussed. We talk about product one day, processes one day, sales techniques one day, role-playing another day, repair/shop one day …”
• “We have a sales meeting every day we are open, right after we put the jewelry in the cases, but before we unlock the doors. It takes between 15-30 minutes. We go over anything that may not be normal daily activity: appointments, etc. We start the meeting with a quote (we rotate who picks it). We talk numbers and come together as a group before we take on the day.”
• “Ours are daily since we are a small store, Who needs help today on what appointment, situation or sourcing followup? ALWAYS highlight the big sales the day before: 1.) That item is no longer in the case; 2.) Heads up if that customer comes back in for the add-on; 3.) Check all rush bags in the studio and be prepared to call ASAP when finished. These are everyone’s responsibilities. This morning warm-up creates a tick list, cohesion to help each other out if someone is tied up when a key customer comes in. The joy of a customer being recognized by a junior associate creates a professional jewelry store experience. Now we discuss, family, friends and social events. Bunco, Bookclub, Faith meetings and the wacko moments of recent events. Oh yeah, and every morning we ask Alexa for the price of gold TODAY.”
• “6 days a week. 15 minutes each day. Review customers needs, pending sales and sales goals.”

Weekly Training

• “Always on Wednesdays, but often each day as we set we are going over yesterday’s sales and tomorrow jobs that are due.”
• “Every Monday morning at 8:30 for 30-45 minutes. We talk about the previous week’s activities and what’s coming up in the week ahead along with some sales training.”
• “Every Friday morning for about a half-hour. We go over new products and general product knowledge. Sometimes we talk about upcoming special events. And sometimes we do general sales training with Jimmy DeGroot videos.”
• “Once a week on Wednesday mornings, one hour before opening (9-10am). Team building games are fun and we always bring in breakfast.”
• “We have 5-minute huddles every morning and longer sales meetings — around 30-40 minutes — on Saturday mornings. That’s the only day our entire staff is here to open.”
• “We meet once a week for about 30-45 minutes. We hold the meetings on Wednesday mornings. Topics: lab diamonds vs. natural, upselling, qualifying the customer, add ons, reiterating our company core values, selling points on the current month’s birthstones, etc, etc, etc.”
• “Quick sales pump every morning. Full sales meeting for a half-hour or more on Friday mornings. We’ll discuss our very own “Smoke Out” sales. Our pass-by with an item give to sales associate who says, “Don’t forget to show them THIS!” And keep walking by. And the old “Oh, don’t let me forget to show what just came in back in my safe before you leave!”
• “Weekly. Mid-week. 9:30-10:00 before open. Less sales techniques, but more current issues.”
• “We are just 3 family members so we have coffee in the store on Saturdays before we set up. Usually we just discuss things when they come up, but Saturdays we have a more focused meeting.”
• “Once a week, a half-hour earlier than regular arrival to store and then a 20-minute meeting. The half-hour is paid. Always start with “Any suggestions on how we can do better?” Wednesday is always a good time. We will often expand on an idea from INSTORE in training.”

Semi-Weekly

• “We typically meet 1-2 times per month for full-scale sales meetings. We meet on Friday mornings before the store is open for 1 hour. We usually have 10-15 minutes of housekeeping items to discuss, and then spend 45 minutes on sales training. The most successful meetings are usually “back to basics” meetings where we talk about team selling (why we do it and how to do it), “clerking” vs. “selling”, and selling value.”
• “I take out articles I read about sales from INSTORE and other sites. I underline what I want to talk about and then discuss them at the meetings. We give them twice a month before we open and they are about 30-40 minutes. A lot of the topics are reviewing what happened in the store and stories we were told by customers so we can use them for future improvement. I learn from my staff and they learn from me so it’s a win-win and we all enjoy it very much.”
• “Twice a month. First thing in the morning for one hour. We go over numbers, sales training, events coming up, repair take-ins and operations. Employees come in 30 minutes early.”
• “2-3 times per month. 30 minutes to an hour.”
• “Supposed to be once a week. Usually have some kind of pow-wow every other week for sure.”

Monthly

• “First Friday morning of every month from 9 to 10. Try to make it more about shared experiences and recognition than about procedural matters.”
• “Monthly and micro meetings weekly as needed. Monthly meeting on a Wednesday morning 30-45 minutes before open. Coffee provided and food sometimes too.”
• “Usually once per month on a Wednesday. Usually one hour in length. We discuss various topics usually related to sales training, successes, and learning experiences that didn’t work so well. I also discuss with each individual sales person weekly and monthly sales and receivable collections. Usually this also allows time to bring up anything that anyone on staff would like to discuss in the open with everyone else.”

Unstructured/Informal

• “My sales meetings are never scheduled and just go off of my thoughts and the time I decide to share them. Or when I see a sales associate say something to or act a certain way to a customer that I feel like needs to be corrected or applauded then I’ll say something right after the customer leaves.”
• “I just throw out ideas in the morning while we’re putting out the jewelry.”
• “No regularly scheduled meetings. As issues come up, we address them. Often while setting up or putting away every day we talk about who was in and what they were looking for and any issues positive or negative. We are a very small store with 4 employees who have been here from 7 years to more than 20 years.”
• “No sales meeting per se: but I do pop-up quick sessions on particular points — for example, ‘pearls’ — or take the salespeople to the back and show them the casting process, or another technical operation they can later use in talking with customers. With new salespeople, of course, we do a lot of training.”

---

Book Report Suggestions

Here are a few favorites from INSTORE readers and editors:

• Selling Luxury by Robin Lent
• Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer
• Purple Cow by Seth Godin
• Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard
• Rhinoceros Success by Scott Alexander

FURTHER READING: Here is Inc.com’s “Top 10 ‘How to Sell’ Books of All Time”: 1. Spin Selling by Neil Rackham, 2. The Little Red Book of Selling by Jeffrey Gitomer (tied with The Sales Bible by Jeffrey Gitomer); 3. Secrets of Closing the Sale by Zig Ziglar; 4. The Greatest Salesman in the World (Og Mandino); 5. How to Master the Art of Selling (Tom Hopkins); 6. Perfect Selling (Linda Richardson); 7. Strategic Selling (Robert Miller and Stephen Heiman); 8. The Psychology of Selling (Brian Tracy), 9. Mastering the Complex Sale (Jeff Thull); 10. Selling to Big Companies (Jill Konrath)