Sales Meetings That Sizzle

Your 10-step plan for meetings that agents want to attend.

By Larry Kendall

November 01, 2019

Your sales meeting is the culture point of your office or company. Have excellent sales meetings and attendance soars. Your community gets bigger, stronger, and more connected. Retention and recruiting improve. Momentum, rising market share, and profitability follow.

How do you create great sales meetings? Here’s a simple 10-step template that helps you plan for a one-hour meeting that sizzles.

Focus on ROI

Make sure your people feel that they’re getting a return on their investment of time. Make the meeting memorable. When associates stay afterward and talk about what they learned or are repeating it the next day, you know you’ve made a difference for them.

Achieve Goals to Create Energy

A great sales meeting accomplishes as many of the following goals as possible: connection, information, education, inspiration, motivation, and celebration. If you’re achieving these goals, your people will be drawn to your meetings to get their energy fix. They love the energy, learning, and being part of a community. Playing upbeat music before and after the meeting adds to the energy.

Appeal to the Four Personality Types

Power People want takeaways— something they can use today in  their business.
Party People want to know that  they’ll get to talk.
Peace People want reassurance  that the company and the market  are safe and OK.
Perfection People want to see  some numbers, so make sure you provide market statistics. Also,  have a printed agenda for your meetings. Everyone will benefit,  not just perfection people.

Start on Time—With a Video  (5 minutes)

Some people will be late no matter what you do, so start with a five-minute inspirational video. The perfection people will appreciate starting on time. The party people will get there by the time the video is over and feel they made the meeting without being embarrassed for being late.

Welcome Everyone and Lead a Group Activity (5 minutes)

One example is to ask attendees to turn to the person next to them and share what they are grateful for. Or ask them to get into groups of four or five and share the best deal they know about in the market. Party people—the largest group of associates—love this exercise because they get to talk.

Find Something to Celebrate  (2-5 minutes)

Party people love this because it’s fun. Peace people love it because it means  all is OK.

Make Announcements (20 minutes)

This is the information stage of the meeting, with property pitches and information from builders. Have market data for your perfection people. Format this section, so you have control of the time. Do not hand your meetings over to outsiders such as lenders, title officers, or builders. If you have a new home neighborhood to announce, make sure the builder knows the time constraints. Unfortunately, too many sales meetings stop right here and become only information meetings. When that happens, energy starts to leak out of the room, and people stop coming.

Present the Main Program  (20-25 minutes)

This should be the primary reason your people are showing up. The program needs to provide a takeaway—something they can use today! Your best programs often come from your people sharing how they do something. The takeaway needs to be consistent with your culture and vision. If resources are required for your people to execute the takeaway, you need to have the resources teed up at the meeting. Avoid telling people that they will be getting the tools they need in the next few days or weeks. They are motivated to act now! Keep the momentum going.

Finish With High Energy

If you need to present negative information, cover it earlier in the meeting. Always strive to finish on a high positive note.

End on Time

No one likes meetings that run over their scheduled time. People gradually drift away. Respect your people’s time. Control the agenda. Follow these 10 points, and your meetings will benefit your agents  and your company!

Larry Kendall is author of Ninja Selling and chairman emeritus of The Group, Inc.  

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