Here’s How to Have an Outstanding Virtual Sales Meeting
Sales kickoff season is here. Every year, you gather your team together from across the country or around the world. It’s a chance to celebrate the successes of the past year, crank the energy up, train your sellers, and motivate everyone for the next twelve months. Go team!
What are you going to do this year?
This meeting might be the most important one you’ve ever planned. Companies around the globe are canceling in-person sales kickoffs and training sessions to help prevent the spread of COVID-19. The level of uncertainty and risk of error remain high. We’re facing Zoom fatigue, time zone conflicts, and work-from-home pressures.
Sales leaders, sales enablement managers, and sales trainers are wondering how to roll out 2021 plans, launch products, train on messaging, and get new hires up to speed. You’ve got to keep your teams on track.
Download our Virtual Meeting Checklist to engage your sales force and set them up for success in 2021.
A national sales meeting is critical. Now that 90% of sales are virtual, it’s more important than ever to make sure sellers have mastered the techniques of virtual selling. Teams must share goals for the upcoming year, align on key initiatives, and learn new strategies and tactics for succeeding in a virtual world.
But planning a virtual sales meeting when you’ve relied on in-person sessions may feel like an impossible task. You can’t bring everyone together for several days of training, breakout sessions, and banquets.
This year, you have to rethink every aspect of your meeting—from subject matter expert presentations to handouts to role playing—not to mention how to foster the networking and collaboration that goes on when you’re face to face. And what about fun? A big part of a successful sales meeting is ramping up the energy and giving reps a boost to hit the ground running for the next sales cycle.
You need an efficient and engaging way to run your meeting. Fortunately, there are several proven tactics that organizations can employ to adapt a live sales meeting to a virtual one. Follow the steps below to plan and deliver an outstanding kickoff that will set your team up for success and keep them safe when you can’t gather in person.
Leverage the Right Technology to Deliver the Right Content
A successful virtual sales meeting depends on a technology solution that allows every participant to connect without the benefit of sitting side by side. You know you can’t rely solely on live video conferencing. Simply hosting several long, grueling days of live video calls is not the way to run a virtual sales meeting.
Fortunately, you’ve got a lot of other tools in your toolbox. Don’t be afraid to use them. Tap into mobile, interactive learning platforms, peer-to-peer networking, and asynchronous video technology to deliver the information your sellers need in the most engaging way possible.
Allego customer Katie Stocker, Au.D., Sr. Manager, Sales Enhancement Team at WSAudiology, used our all-in-one solution to help make its meeting a success. “We asked our reps to share their best practices for selling one of our products. We asked them to make a short video and make it as creative and fun as possible. We then shared the top five at the meeting and had attendees pick the winner,” she said. “We sell products in a medical-based setting. However, our reps got creative in sharing best practices and dressed up in costumes and had props to help make their presentation memorable! We also use Flash Drills that start running after topics are covered at the meeting. The reps LOVE Flash Drills!”
Use a 3-Phased Approach
When almost every industry has been disrupted, it’s essential to plan a sales meeting that prepares your people for success. Use a three-phased approach to ensure that your sellers get the kickoff they need to be productive in a remote-first world.
Before the Meeting: Rethink the Agenda
You can’t simply host a three-day Zoom call. People will zone out and experience screen fatigue after just a few hours, and you can only see so many slides before you’re ready for a new format. The key is to identify which content must be delivered live and which can be presented asynchronously. Make as many components of your meeting interactive as possible.
During the Meeting: Put People First
As the stress and pressure of selling in a pandemic continue, you must prioritize the human element of your meeting. The underlying theme of the kickoff should center on fostering connections. After months of working from home, the last thing your sales reps need is more talking heads and one-way lectures. Incorporate simulated customer interactions and role play, best practices, opportunities for sharing, and activities that allow for lots of interaction and reconnection.
After the Meeting: Reinforce Learning
Research confirms that 80% of learning is lost within 30 days of a live training session if it’s not properly reinforced. Don’t lose the investment you’ve made in your virtual event. Serve up reinforcement exercises after the meeting on a regular cadence. Package meeting content and make it available on-demand in a dedicated channel, and develop knowledge checks that ensure knowledge is being retained. Over the following weeks and months, help reps build proficiency and reinforce newly acquired knowledge so they can articulate value, differentiate the company, and handle objections.
Invest in the Right Tools and Content
Don’t let time zone conflicts and geographically dispersed teams disrupt your national sales meeting. Even when your sales force is working remotely and can’t travel, there are still ways you can meet your goals, maximize the value of your kickoff, build connections, and recognize your top performers. Empower your organization with mobile, interactive technology and content built for the way today’s virtual teams work.
Learn More
To learn how to have an outstanding virtual meeting, download your copy of Re-Thinking the National Sales Meeting: How to Run a Virtual Sales Kickoff During a Pandemic today.