The annual sales meeting will drive success.

Does your agency have an annual sales meeting? If you don’t should you?

My answer is an emphatic “YES!”

The meeting held late in the year or in very early January offers an agency many opportunities to plan, organize, and campaign for support for the following year.

It is the agency’s obligation, in my opinion, to put on a once-a-year meeting that sets up all of the employees of the agency and many of the principals for the New Year.

There are many elements that have to be addressed as a part of the meeting planning and development. A comprehensive agenda for a two day meeting will assure success.

Timing

Holding the meeting in December or early January is very important. Ending the year and getting the New Year started with your meeting is very valuable. The meeting is a perfect focusing device.

External Focus

The meeting provides an excellent vehicle for getting focus on things external to your company but vital to your success — training, product marketing, product promotion, and detailed sales development are key topics for a significant portion of your meeting.

• Training — the meeting provides an opportunity for one or more of your significant principals to hold training sessions with your team.
• Product marketing — the meeting provides the perfect vehicle for your principals to present their products and how they are supporting your team with marketing, merchandising, advertising and sales promotion.
• Product promotion — the meeting provides an excellent setting for announcing and reviewing promotional programs on one or more of your manufacturers’ products.
• Sales development — the meeting provides the principal’s management time to discuss and plan ways to develop one or more substantial customers.

Internal Focus

The meeting provides your company a comprehensive opportunity to review and reinforce company materials from HR issues and requirements to reporting requirements and compensation programs.

Whatever is on the mind of management can be reviewed and discussed with the entire team. Everyone gets an opportunity to hear and see what needs the agency has for the coming year.

Backselling Plan

How is the agency going to work with principals to define and reinforce the value of the agency to each of the key principals? The sales meeting provides a time to discuss key principals individually and to reflect on what the agency has to do to stay in favor with the core principals. This includes plans for visits to factories, field selling discipline and customer development with individual principals.

Awards and Recognition

The sales meeting is the perfect time to recognize accomplishments by individuals and teams within the agency. Whether it is a plaque for most improved salesperson or special recognition for especially outstanding service from a coordinator or project manager. Whatever management wants to acknowledge can be made a part of the awards ceremony.

Building Esprit

Team building activities and team activities are important parts of an agency sales meeting. Whether you have teams to compete with each other for prizes or individuals compete in activities as simple as bowling or various video games, building activities like this into the meeting adds to the value of the meeting and provides a format for bringing people closer and having them get to know each other better.

Marketing the Agency

It may be a new version of the profile or the line card. Any and all of the activities planned to promote the agency, the principal’s products, or specific activities like the opening of a culinary center, presentation at a trade show, or other activities by the leaders of the agency. Whatever is going on or going to be happening during the year needs to be reviewed and explained. You never want to miss an opportunity to get everyone in the agency to be in the know. You never want the people to say, “we’re always the last to know….” You want your team to be the first to know.

Summary

The agency sales meeting is the ideal vehicle for setting a course for the next year and helping everyone in the company to know what to do and when to do it. Getting everyone on the same page is extremely valuable and will produce outstanding results.

For sure, planning is key! The management must start early — a December sales meeting should start to be planned in July or August. By October everything has to be locked down — location, meals, activities, room setup, hand-out materials and, of course, guests and key topics.

Getting the sales meeting organized early and in depth is key to a successful meeting. Making sure that the speakers are well-focused, dynamic and exciting is critical. You don’t want anyone to be bored or annoyed. Making the meeting active, exciting and very informative is the key to getting the year off to a fast, focused start.

Good luck with your sales meeting. Good selling , always!

MANA welcomes your comments on this article. Write to us at [email protected].