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| Sales Review Meeting |
Sales review meetings is not the favorite part of the job for any salesperson however meetings are important tools at the hands of a manager to share ideas, strategy, concerns etc. I have been a part of umpteen Sales meetings as a participant and the most common byproduct of sales meetings- overstretched, narrow focus, bad news etc which can be avoided by offering a structure to meeting.
As an experience victim of such meetings, I have attempted in this post to present a general structure to conducting sales review meetings
The major purpose of sales review meetings is to understand what has happened in the next week, fortnight etc and what is going to happen as far as sales are concerned for the same period. It is a good forum to coach individual sales person on individual deals, gather sales ideas , appreciate top performers and develop overall sales strategy.
A sales review meeting can be broken down into four major parts:-
1. Funnel/Forecast review
2. Important/Bigger opportunity review
3. Key Accounts Review
4. Territory Review
5. Overall Sales Performance and Deviation
It is sole decision of a sales manager to conduct these reviews on an individual basis or in sales meeting. I always prefer latter since it offers a good dialogue as well as a collaborative approach to problems.
1. Funnel/Forecast review:- The ideal period to conduct a funnel or forecast review is monthly however for businesses that involves large no. of transactions it is better to conduct it on a weekly basis.
Time allocation:- 15- 20 minutes per salesperson
Active Parties:- Sales Manager and Sales person for Territory
Frequency: Weekly, Fortnight, Monthly
- Critical opportunities that are expected to close in next 30 days
- What are the concerns to achieve these business.
- Support required from Product team, Procurement team and Higher management.
- Is funnel balanced- Does it have a right balance of all the products that company has to offer.
- How the leads are generated and are these activities sufficient to drive sales.
- What is the level of churn in the funnel. Normally 40% of churn is acceptable
Time allocation:- 5-10 minutes per salesperson
Active Parties:- Manager and Sales person for Territory
Frequency:- Weekly
- Where are we in Selling cycle of this bigger/critical opportunity
- Who are the key decision makers and what is our engagement at each level.
- Are our activities in accordance with Customer Buying Cycle
- What are our probability to win this business or what are our probability to lose this business
- How to improve our current position on winning this business
- Competition Landscape- Strengths and Weakness
- If possible one to one conversation with person in Customer's organization who is assisting us in the deal
- Involvement of higher management, if required
- Overhaul of our final proposal and things we can do to win Business
3. Retention of Accounts- Key Accounts Review
Time allocation:- 15-20 minutes per salesperson
Active Parties:- Manager and Sales person for Territory
Frequency:- Monthly, Quarterly
These are the accounts that are already on-boarded and hence review on their business, deployment of resources, KPI measurement is essential for retaining existing business.
- What is the performance of account on selected time frame basis
- What is the level of engagement. In general there should be 2-3 meetings with existing customers to maintain a constant level of engagement
- Our share of account and competitive share of account- Is it growing, declining or constant
- Overall review of Customer's business and what are the new opportunities where we can grow; What are the challenges that Customer is facing and What kind of value added services that we can provide to Customer
- Customer Satisfaction with existing services and what is the status of competitor on the same parameter
- What are the competitors doing to increase their share in Customer's business
- What level of resources do we need to employ to improve our services or to meet future needs of Customer
This kind of review should be conducted even with channel partners on a regular basis. A good review would help a sales guy in the introspection of existing sales strategy as well as help in formulating right road map for future.
It is inherent tendency of salesperson to have a passive view of these sales meetings so communicating right agenda, asking salesperson to set the expectations out of sales review is very important.
Doing Sales review right would definitely help a salesperson is to spend his time effectively in the field.
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