Keep your sales reps trained and up to date
Everyone is busy, but in the sales world time is money. What this means is that business development people maximize the hours of the day to increase their income. Not only will they resist yielding parts of their schedule for anything not directly related to income creating activities, but they also have more autonomy in scheduling their time (usually).
Most managers in agencies know the importance of keeping their teams up to date on new processes, technology or even reviewing all of the updates to the company’s services. Emails are glanced at, Zoom calls can have distractions but in person Lunch & Learn’s are often seen as the best way to hold their attention and helps to keep them focused for one hour a week, a month or whenever possible.
Here are the keys to get buy in from the team to have a successful meeting and provide valuable sales training.
Make it worthwhile – give them a good lunch and good information
They can grab a Subway sandwich anytime. If the time investment is worth it, buy them something they will like and gets them look forward to the meeting. You will have more willing participants, I assure you.
Also plan the event well. Make the presentation impactful and show them why this will help them make more sales. Set it up to be interactive when you can or you will have reps on their phones half of the time. (If you can, confiscate the phones before the meeting.)
Keep your promise of time
Be considerate of them and their schedules. Start the meeting when you say you will and end it no matter what, end it when you promised. If you have meetings that go over on time, you will start having defiant senior sales reps refusing to RSVP to the next ones. And everyone else will be soon to follow with that same behavior.
If you are keeping your promises, then you can hold those accountable that show up late and/or not at all.