CHAPTER 17
Sales Meetings That Inspire Action (from Everyone)

The tribe is hyper‐aware of what's being celebrated, and when you celebrate those that are moving in the right direction, you create a powerful push in that direction.

—Seth Godin, author, entrepreneur, and teacher

Sales meetings are a chance for celebration and sharing. The question is, what are you celebrating, and what are you sharing?

Sometimes people think Noble Purpose means ignoring sales numbers or, even worse, getting rid of sales targets. I say “even worse” because if you're serious about your Noble Sales Purpose, you need to measure it. Your numbers reflect how well you serve your customers, so you want to celebrate that every chance you get.

You also want to connect the dots for your team to show them what the numbers represent, which is customer impact. A few small tweaks can dramatically improve the impact of your sales meeting effectiveness and create a deeper emotional connection to customers for your team.

Let's look at the traditional approach versus what happens when you frame things through the lens of your NSP.

Comparison of the traditional approach versus Noble purpose selling discussing the facts about sales results, rewards, and products that are actually the same.

What strikes you about the difference in approaches? Look closely; the facts about sales results, rewards, and products are actually the same. It's the framing that changes. This is how you as a sales leader can point your team toward customers. This approach can be used in a small weekly huddle or your big Sales Kick‐off. I cannot emphasize enough how these seemingly simple reframes can impact your team's beliefs and behavior. It jolts them out of the traditional ho‐hum, here are the numbers, here's the pipeline, rinse and repeat meetings that so many salespeople are used to.

Kurt Shreiner, president of corporate financial services for Atlantic Capital Bank (see Chapter 2), once told me, “I've been going to the same sales meeting since June 20, 1985.” How many salespeople feel the same way? Each meeting can be summed up with “Here's how much money we made. How can we make more?” As Shreiner says, “I lived through the Gordon Gekko era.”

Shreiner changed his weekly sales meetings to recalibrate his team. “Now we start with our Noble Purpose (We fuel prosperity) and then drive the rest of the meetings toward client impact.” He adds, “You have to be clear: you're doing this for the client.”

After the shift, Shreiner's meetings became more engaging. Instead of the traditional internal focus, the sales team is pointed toward customer impact. They're more creative and innovative. They review opportunities and sales from the client's perspective. When they have a win, they describe the impact on the client. This builds belief and reinforces that we are here to fuel prosperity.

Why Traditional Meetings Can Unintentionally Erode Morale

Let's take a closer look at the two different approaches for celebrating sales success and how they impact your team.

Traditional Sales Celebration

Imagine you're a sales rep, sitting with your peers at your annual sales conference. It's time for the awards. You had a good year, but you know you're not going to be the top rep. The VP of sales starts the awards. She announces everyone who went above quota. You stand with the rest of the group over quota and get a round of applause. Like we said, it was a good year for you.

Now it's time for the big winner. With a drum roll and a bit of fanfare, the VP announces, “Stan is our top rep!” She brings Stan onstage, and everyone cheers. The VP recounts some of Stan's big deals. Stan is beaming. He gets a trophy and a big bonus check. Stan is the rainmaker.

How do you feel? Maybe you're a super‐generous human being and you're really excited for Stan. Maybe you don't care much one way or the other; you're just wondering when they're going to open the bar. Or maybe you're the more competitive type, and you're looking at Stan on that stage and thinking, “That should be me.” Your face is smiling, but inside, your thoughts are, “Stan, I hope you enjoy it this year, buddy boy, because next year you're going to be sitting in my seat, and I'm going to be onstage.”

Or maybe it's a little bit of all these. Maybe you're happy for Stan, you want a drink, and you're also plotting to annihilate him next year. The meeting breaks, you head to the bar, and you buy Stan a drink and congratulate him with as much graciousness as you can muster.

I've seen it hundreds of times. Watching Stan get his award will motivate your most competitive salespeople. The fiercely competitive will want to beat Stan, and several of them will go to great lengths to do so. But most of the team will stay in the middle of the pack.

A 2017 study from Fred Miao of the University of Portland, published in the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management, revealed that “top‐performer rewards have a double‐edged sword effect on fellow salespeople's selling skills, opportunism and sales performance. The issue is not the rewards, it's the way we handle them.”

There's a way to evolve this scenario. You can frame Stan's award in a way that will inspire everyone, propel your top‐end people, build pride and belief, and have an even more dramatic impact on Stan. It starts by including the voice that was missing from Stan's celebration: the customers themselves. Let's look at a different approach.

The Noble Purpose Flip

It's the same sales meeting. You're sitting there with your peers as the award ceremony begins. The VP of sales starts by putting up a big number on the screen: 1,000,000. “Do you see that number?” she asks the team. “That's how many customers we helped this year. Every single one of you played a role. Let's stand up and cheer! Look around the room; you are looking at a team who made a difference.”

While everyone is standing and clapping, photos and client logos are flashing across the screen. The VP says, “These people are why we're here.”

When that cheering is over and everyone is reseated, she starts calling out the top‐tier performers, including you. When she calls your name, she announces the number of customers you helped this year. She flashes all their names on the screen. She says, “Congratulations! You are a change‐maker.” Your friend takes a picture of you with the customer logos on the screen behind you. You text it to your kids.

Now it's time for the top rep award. Before she announces Stan's name, the VP says, “I want to show you a video.” It's one of Stan's customers. The customer says, “I want to tell you how much we appreciate our relationship.” The customer goes on to describe the impact your firm's solution had on their organization. Then the VP calls Stan onstage and hands him the big check, saying, “This is because you made a difference to your customers. You enabled their success, and when they're successful, we're successful. I'm giving you this award on behalf of the team and on behalf of all the customers you helped. Congratulations.”

How do you feel now? This framing shifts the focus from Stan to the impact Stan has on customers. Stan is still singled out. He still gets his big check. But the whole tone of the room has changed. Now we're in this together; we're celebrating the fact that our entire company is changing our industry. We're making a difference, and we're lifting up the person who had the biggest impact of all.

You might still wish you were Stan, but it's unlikely you're plotting his demise. You're probably thinking, “Wow, did you hear what that customer said about him? I want my customers to say that about me.” You no longer want to beat Stan—you want to be Stan.

Do you see the difference in the thought patterns? Now every single person in the room is thinking about customer impact. This isn't fantasy land. This is exactly how G Adventures, Supportworks, Atlantic Capital Bank, and other companies you're read about in this book run their sales conferences.

Small Shift, Big Impact

Here's how making a shift from an internal self‐focus to an external client impacts the sales team:

  • Lower‐ and mid‐level performers get the message loud and clear: this is what success looks like here. Hearing a customer describe Stan's impact gives them a story they can repeat to their own customers. This drives engagement and performance.
  • Top‐tier performers have more pride in their own contributions. Instead of being embarrassed about not winning, they are thinking about the customers they did help and how they can do more of it. This helps retention; they're not going to leave because they lost. It also drives behavior: they know what it takes to win.
  • The big winner is still going to text his wife a picture of the check. But now when he calls her, he's also going to tell her the customer impact story. They will probably share a moment of pride together, and it's something Stan's going to repeat to his kids and his parents. He goes home knowing he made a difference, his work matters, and he matters.

You want people to leave your meetings inspired and excited about making a difference to customers.

This kind of meeting also impacts two other groups of people:

  • Home office staff. People who don't have regular contact with customers think, “Wow, we really make a difference.” They're going to be more likely to help out your sales team when they know it matters to someone.
  • Senior leaders. If you're the CEO, this helps you get your other functions dialed into client impact. If you're a sales leader, you want everyone on the senior team to see your Noble Purpose in action.

The financial recaps, new initiatives, product rollouts, decision‐making, recognition, rewards, and everything else you do in meetings should be framed to point your team toward the impact you have on customers. Meetings are about advancing, brainstorming, celebrating, explaining, measuring, and rewarding how well you're achieving your NSP.

Here are some things you can do in any meeting—large or small—to point your team toward your purpose, build belief, and align your actions around the impact you have on clients:

  • Start each meeting with a customer impact story. This ignites everyone's frontal lobes and reminds them why they're here and resets their brains toward your Noble Purpose. If you do nothing else, this one simple thing shifts belief.
  • Frame sales figures in terms of the number of clients helped. Instead of “We sold this many widgets,” say, “We helped this many clients.”
  • Introduce products and initiatives in the context of client goals. Instead of “Here is our new product,” say, “Here's the client challenge or goal, and here's our solution to address it.”
  • Celebrate customer success. If one of your clients wins an award or closes a major sale, showcase it. Tell your team, “We're part of that. When they win big, it's a win for us, too.”
  • Ask: “How will the customer be different as a result of this deal?” When you're discussing opportunities and initiatives, ask the game‐changing question. This provokes your seller to think that way, and they all benefit from hearing other team members respond.
  • Lose the deathly dull slides. Instead of simply presenting information to your team, ask them what that information will mean to clients. This enables them to assimilate the information more thoroughly and use it more effectively in the field.
  • Bring the client into the room, physically and metaphorically. Bring in a client, or put a photo of a client up on the screen. Tell the team, “Everything we do in this meeting is about improving life for this person.” You'll be surprised at just how much your conversations change.
  • Leverage the senior team for client impact. If your CEO or senior team members are present, ask them to share their vision for the clients. Prep them in advance to make sure they focus on client impact. Ask them the game‐changing question: “How are clients different as a result of doing business with us?”
  • Brief all your speakers. If someone is going to speak at your meeting, they should know your NSP and be able to connect the dots. Set speakers up for success in advance by saying, “Our purpose is to (fuel prosperity, redefine, etc.). Before you share your information, let's talk about how it will help us do that.”
  • Share your own story. People want authentic leaders; share your own story about why your NSP matters to you. Be real: What's your personal experience with the topic? Did you grow up poor, and you don't want others to experience that? Or maybe you grew up well off, and you want everyone to have that. Whatever personal connection you have, share it.

These are all things you can do within the context of your usual meetings. They do not require any extra money, and none of them takes more than five minutes.

Sales meetings are a chance to inspire your team and build belief in your NSP. They can be ho‐hum, or you can use them to tell your team, “Our work matters, and so do you.”