One of the most powerful business development tools for both an organization and individual sales professionals is the Monday morning sales meeting. It doesn’t have to be Monday morning, it is just more powerful if it is. There are an enormous number of benefits that are derived by regularly conducting a focused look at what is going on with the sales team and the pipeline regardless of the day. It is a crucial component of a systematic sales process.
At Bridgewater, this meeting occurred every Monday at 8:00AM. The timing alone of the session conveyed its importance. It was the first meeting of the week at a Company known for driven, successful professionals. While a few overnight traders were wrapping up and the rest of Bridgewater was filing in, the entire business development group (sales directors, associates, analysts and coordinators) was cranked up and ready for action. If you could not attend in person you were expected to call in. Want to come in late after a beautiful summer weekend on the Cape or in the Hamptons? Too bad!
The Meeting Agenda
With a meeting like this it is important to stay on point and keep it simple. The first order of business should be a quick review of what is going on over the next two weeks. What significant meetings and events are occurring, where are people traveling and with whom, which prospects are coming in house, and what issues might be developing with the firm and its strategies. This was one of my first gut checks when I started at Bridgewater. While a relationship professional’s meeting count was never really a key focus at Bridgewater, if you did not have a meaningful set of events coming up with important investors it did not take long for everyone to understand that you weren't keeping pace and for you to realize you better pick it up!
But the main focus of the meeting should be dedicated to reviewing the business development pipeline. In a systematic sales process, all prospects in a universe are classified by some ranking relative to where they are in the selling cycle from “unknown” to “about to invest”. Managing your pipeline well requires a focused approach to moving prospects along this continuum and doing it consistently so that the pipeline does not dry up. The primary emphasis of the sales meeting then is to discuss those prospects that are well along in the process and could reasonably be expected to close over the next six months. Secondarily, its crucial to think about how the pipeline will be get replenished and spend time discussing important prospects that have strong potential but are further away from establishing a relationship. These relationships need nurturing and require attention and a plan. These names could include high priority prospects where there is very little probability of working with them in the very near future but they are too important to ignore.
Information Requirements
There is nothing unique in the information that should be captured and shared with the team during the meeting; prospect name, investment strategy, dollar amount of potential investment, recent activities and issues relating to the sales process, probability of closing and timing. In addition, it is imperative to identify the crucial next step in the sales process. This simple item is an enormously powerful way to judge a professional’s thinking and to hold them accountable for implementing their plans. Like a leader board in golf or quarterback rankings in the NFL, when the pipeline is shared with the team you know immediately where everyone stands in the pecking order.
There are significant advantages that accrue to both the firm and to the individual professional through disciplined and transparent discussions like this.
Accurate and Reliable Real Time Information
The head of a sales organization must have reliable data regarding what is going to close in the foreseeable future and confidence that the process in place is repeatable. A disciplined process that includes a focused weekly sales meeting insures that what is reflected in the pipeline is accurate and up to date. Assuming that the sales team is doing this without prompting is not a winning strategy.
In addition, in some cases a prospect can be in the pipeline for a long time. They are always “about to close”. Separating the real deals from the hopeful ones creates much more accurate information. As Ray Dalio, the founder of Bridgewater, used to say, “you have to feel them on the line”. The weekly sales meeting provides the sales manager a chance to determine if the sales process for a prospect is still progressing or if it is stalled.
Discipline
It is very easy in the sales profession, with the constant demands of travel and meetings, to become a bit loose and sloppy with your process. Knowing that every Monday you need to discuss what is going on in your territory and with your pipeline requires that you set aside time at the end of the week or over the weekend to prepare. While all the information being captured is important because you will be held accountable for its accuracy, the most important item is the next step. Asking yourself, “what must I do to bring this to closure and when” means thinking very strategically about the sales process. Of course in many cases, there are multiple next steps that must take place. If you have a good plan of action for a prospect, these will flow naturally as the selling process unfolds.
Bias to Action
In the best selling book Designing Your Life, by Burnett and Evans, the authors encourage having a bias toward action. Successful selling is all about having this bias and nothing encourages it more than someone else reviewing what you have planned to move a prospect to closure and discussing this in front of your peers. Each week you will be asked about what actions have been taken and their impact on a prospect’s probability of closing as well as what is planned next. If important next steps grow stale it highlights some issue with the process and encourages healthy discussions about what is going on, what prevented the action from taking place and if there are other ideas that might help move things along. Often this leads to great brainstorming sessions with management and team members. And sometimes it surfaces issues related to the individual’s organizational skills, creativity, work load, and focus.
Constructive Competition
My first Monday morning meeting at Bridgewater was a real eye opener. The pipeline I inherited was minimal yet my colleagues, who were among the all time best sales professionals in the industry, had major prospects about to invest, robust pipelines and aggressive plans of attack to manage their territories. The sales team at Bridgewater was very tight knit and supportive of one another, but we all wanted to be the leader of the pack. Sitting through a review of my colleagues’ pipelines inspired me to excel and I hope over time, my success inspired my colleagues as well.
Cross Pollination
Some of my best ideas for moving a prospect through a sales cycle came from my colleagues. Being able to hear their strategies and to see the action steps they were taking were invaluable tools for helping me succeed at Bridgewater. Because our roles and responsibilities were clearly defined and did not overlap, there was a high degree of willingness to share best practices.
Evaluating the Team
For a sales manager there is probably no better tool to assess professionals than a meeting like this. If you are in business development you are evaluated on your success at bringing clients to the firm and maintaining a robust pipeline. But in order to do that you must systematically attack your territory and deal with a wide variety of issues relating to resources, product offerings, terms and conditions, closing dates, and a host of others. If run correctly, a productive sales meeting allows each professional to demonstrate their proficiency at dealing with these issues week in and week out. It doesn’t take long to identify the presence or absence of critical characteristics; discipline, organization, bias toward action, cleverness, team work and positive energy. Each member of the team will demonstrate these characteristics to different degrees and can be evaluated accordingly. In some cases, the issues that arise might be organizational, such as being understaffed. In other cases, additional training might be called for. And in some cases, talented people may just be in the wrong job.
A Challenge with Major Payoffs
It may sound simple to schedule a weekly sales meeting. But maintaining a disciplined approach to meeting each week, staying on track and making sure what comes out of the meeting advances the company’s goals is very challenging. But it is a challenge with enormous payoffs and well worth the effort. It may be the biggest bang for the buck in sales management.
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