Time for the Annual Sales Meeting

As the New Year approaches, many sales managers are prepping for their annual sales meetings to be held in January. These meetings can be one heck of a challenge for planners who are typically looking to accomplish the following things:

• Recognize top sellers
• Fire up the troops
• Get the reps ready to sell new products and services
• Update the reps on industry and competitive information
• Have fun and entertain the reps
• Provide important marketing updates
• Give the reps some executive visibility and updates on company direction
• And more . . . .

This can be a daunting challenge. Reps are one tough audience. Many are very tired and/or hung-over on day two and have a hard time paying attention. Key managers ask for limited mind-share during the meeting. New reps and seasoned reps are at the same meeting, making for challenging messaging, particularly as it relates to getting the reps up to speed on new products and services.

One of the most successful sales meetings I've been a part of felt like more of a trade show with conference sessions. Even though the company was fairly small, there were several meeting rooms made available and the reps had a schedule that included attending sessions in each of the rooms. After general sessions (how the company is doing, industry updates, etc.) the reps would then attend a breakout session. This way the seasoned reps could travel together as a group which meant that newer reps were also grouped together. This gave the presenters two very different audiences and they could tailor their message appropriately.

What have you seen that has worked for your organization? What is missing from my list above? What topics would you add? How many days make for a good annual sales meeting? What topics would you eliminate from the list?