Wicked cold this AM in Vermont.  Deep snow in the yard out by the barn assuming I could see the barn, but it's pitch-black outside at 6:00 AM.

Stratton Moutain's up the road a piece and totally open after two months of snowmaking and a ton of natural snow so far this season. 

Bottom line on every January:

No surprise anywhere since "It's the winta' in New England", and it's supposed to be wicked cold and snow in January.  Just like holding sales meetings in January!

The rhythm of business:  It's that time of year...again!   

We're back in the saddle after a longer than usual holiday break allowing some extra time to think ahead on how we intend to kick off 2025 and nowhere is that thought process more important than at our upcoming sales meetings.  It's always good to open these meetings with an overview from the boss to cement in place a vision of the future and maybe remind everyone of the company's mission, but the reality of the result of these meetings is that we need to put in place tangible battle plans that our sales warriors can leave with and put into action immediately.  

In my career, I've both attended and run hundreds of these meetings, so I thought I would share a few ideas with you today to think about for your meetings in the next couple of weeks.  At any time, just connect with me if you want to explore any of these or kick around your own ideas.

Prepare Efficiently & Effectively 

• Of course everyone's going to receive an agenda on logistics, but that's just static information.  What you want to do is to use that opportunity before the meeting to provide an activity that everyone needs to complete...by themselves or ideally as a team...prior to coming to the meeting.  Perhaps that's a complex problem that most of the team is experiencing which would be posed to provide a series of 10-15 minute solution presentations over the course of the meeting.  

Don't Overschedule

• I know that there's an inclination to pack everything into these two or three days "since everyone's there anyhow".  Definitely the wrong strategy!  Provide both pre and post activities to deliver information in short reel video clips on things like future product plans or updates on plans for engineering or manufacturing.  Too often sales meetings are not optimized for learning simply because there's too much information that's not directly related to solutions, best practices and actual training that will result in improved practices of what the reps can bring to their customers and prospects during the following weeks right after the meeting. 
• Use 'The Rule of 3':  Focus on 3 absolutes that you want everyone to leave the meeting with not only "knowing about", but being trained in to bring to the streets during Q1.  Everyone can remember 3 if you make that the rally cry!  Impossible for 10!

Actively Engage 

• One of my critical lessons learned both in running planning and sales meetings and from 20 years of teaching at Tufts and MIT is to actively engage the people in the room.  If you want to move your reps from "wanting to change" to a point of getting them to "actually living new sales practices" , use portions of your sales meeting to work through role playing, specific live-in-the-room case studies, and "Best Practices" stories from their peers.   Follow each story with a 10 minute discussion on the specifics!
• Use breakout workshops to both learn, but most importantly to figure out how apply those best practices to specific selling situations.  Follow that up with immediate discussions and a few 10 minute solution presentations.

Feature Customer Stories 

• Invite 2 or 3 customers to the meeting to tell their own stories of success with your company and spread them out to one a day during the inspirational and motivational portions of the meeting at either the beginning or just before lunch asking that person to join in at lunch.  

Just a few ideas to kick off this Friday, now with the sun fully up on a bright, but still wicked cold morning in Vermont.   Have a great day selling today and the Best of the Best in 2025!!!

working on your 2025 Sales plans!

For a few ideas on your own sales planning for 2025, click here for our new "Writing the Winning Sales Plan in 2025, outlining ideas on structure, models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best. 

Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com, and let's discuss having us facilitate tuning up your 2025 planning processes in your business planning, in your marketing plans or in your sales processes.