3 Tips for Holding Productive Remote Sales Meetings During COVID-19

As the COVID-19 epidemic continues, businesses are striving to adopt work from home models as productively as possible to ensure smooth business operations. While technological advancement has made this transformation a bit easier, companies are looking for better strategies to replicate their in-house organizational culture and values in a remote work environment, including shifting in-person meetings to conference voice or video calls.

When conducting virtual meetings with you sales team, stay mindful of these 3 essential tips to maximize success.

Email the Agenda of the Meeting Beforehand

The quality and effectiveness of your virtual sales meeting will depend on the understanding of the agenda. Having the agenda distributed before the meeting will allow employees ample time to go through it thoroughly and write down the points that they want to discuss.

It’s also a good idea to keep the agenda displayed in the chat room or via the share screen option, so every participant can look at it, while the meeting is going on. Whether the meeting agenda is to find out ways to boost sales or ponder over the reasons behind declining revenues, it will help to stay on track by having your stated topic and ideally stated goals for the meeting written out and addressed one by one.

When emailing the agenda prior to your session, offer a place for attendees to suggest additional topics for conversation, and do your best to address them all. You can bet that if one person expresses an interest, there are many more who would be benefit from the discussion.

Keep Control of the Meeting!

Encourage participants to use the “Raise Hand” option. Most professional online conference platforms have this option that notifies the meeting host when a participant wants to speak. Virtual meetings can turn into a disaster if all the participants start talking at one time.

As always, there may be disagreements and dissent, just like in an in-person meeting. You can turn off the microphone for all meeting participants, while you’re talking about a certain point, and turn it back on when you’re ready to take in reviews and recommendations.

Track/Report Numbers

All good sales managers should still be having their team track the various steps of every sale, to have a realistic view of their pipeline. Adding these numbers on a weekly basis to a virtual board, then going over those numbers as a team every week is a powerful tool to increase activity. Utilize Google Drive, or an online whiteboard, to allow your team to track their weekly numbers.

Pearson’s Law is real, and having your team take ownership of their numbers should dramatically increase their odds of achieving their sales goals.

In addition to having everyone take ownership of the previous week’s activity levels, it is also smart to have them share their biggest win and also their biggest challenge

When tracking numbers, please keep in mind this cardinal rule – if you are going to track activity, and address low activity, it is equally important (if not more so) to call out those who exceed their weekly goals.

Be creative and think up some nice incentives to award above average activity, and also come up with something you can give to the team as a whole for achieving certain group goals. By working together to achieve a common objective, you will encourage your team to think collaboratively and to work together for the common good.

International Search Consultants offers expert hiring services to ensure your team is equipped with highly skilled and motivated employees. By strategically targeting the top candidates who match your requirements, we’ll find the perfect match for your company.

Ann Zaslow-Rethaber is President of International Search Consultants and can be reached at 888-866-7276 or at [email protected].

Kara Onorato is Director of Recruiting for ISC and can be reached at 877-316-6249 or at [email protected].

ISC has been a leader in Executive Recruiting since 1999. Find out more about our proven track record to get started! You can get in touch with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.