How to Structure a Sales Meeting: Efficiency and Productivity to Achieve Desired Conversions

Meetings are an essential tool for mobilizing ideas, business purposes, and even an expansion plan that involves different players in the same industry. How many times in life and the corporate world have we heard or uttered the phrase, “we should have a coffee”? This connection reflects a space that permanently provides the opportunity to strengthen ties, align expectations, and close deals. But beyond these good intentions, there must be preparation and an appropriate way to structure business meetings.

The above makes it clear that, in sales, meetings are crucial to any sales plan and to the day-to-day processes they represent. They are a platform for the team to debate, present, discuss, and share progress, strategies, and challenges. Furthermore, effective meetings can help increase motivation, collaboration, and the performance of a work area and its management indicators: increasing leads, fine-tuning conversions, and growing online sales.

However, planning meetings correctly and accurately, structuring phases, and defining a purpose will allow you to better connect with those participating, their interests, and needs. It’s essential to structure and conduct effective meetings that keep everyone interested, informed, and motivated. Even more so when today’s attention and concentration levels range between 20 and 45 minutes. Just enough time to promote an idea, a proposal, and achieve clear objectives.

Relevance is a key element in understanding how to structure business meetings

In addition to being crucial for success and the clear possibility of achieving sales objectives, these meetings go beyond socializing progress, strategies and challenges; they are essential because they generate collaboration, they identify and address possible obstacles, threats and challenges in the short and medium term, and at the same time, they reinforce motivation and ensure that everyone is aligned to achieve what in the business world is known as a “win-win”

Depending on the sector and the needs, a sales meeting can be structured based on the objectives of different areas or on what the company is looking for at a global level, based on its core business. To hit the mark and be more productive as a team, the moderator or facilitator of these meetings is crucial because they must receive the contributions, comments, and challenges posed by the team, to optimize these spaces and choose the key points on which to focus.

But the good news is that with the right amount of planning, clear alignment through review of performance metrics, and the right approach (as mentioned above), these meetings can be turned into productive, focused, and engaging sessions that add value to the team, establish achievable goals, clarify the next steps, and prepare salespeople for the “real” moment when they need to generate needs in a prospect or close a deal.

Step-by-step instructions for structuring an effective sales meeting

Defining clear objectives, creating a detailed but concrete agenda, inviting and involving the right people (those who can add the most value to the process), and then ensuring active participation from all attendees are key pillars for achieving an efficient and productive business meeting structure. It is also part of what specialists in the field know as: psychology of a great sales meeting. And as a complement to this, preparing relevant presentations and following up afterwards can ensure a large part of the success:

Define clear objectives:

• What do you want to accomplish with each meeting? Discuss strategies, analyze results, train your team, or launch a new product?
• Define specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals.

Create a detailed agenda:

• Includes a list of topics to be covered, activities, presentations, and time allocated to each.
• Prioritize the most important topics and ensure the agenda is concise and easy to follow.
• Consider sending the agenda to participants in advance so they can prepare adequately.

Invite the right and most qualified people:

• Identify key sales team members, managers, and other relevant stakeholders.
• Consider the structure of the meeting and who can best contribute to the objectives.

Ensure active participation:

• Promotes an environment of dialogue and collaboration.
• Ask questions, solicit opinions, and encourage attendees to share their ideas and experiences.
• Consider team-building activities to strengthen team cohesion.

Prepare relevant presentations:

• Use data, charts, and examples to illustrate your points.
• Make sure the presentation is engaging, easy to understand, and relevant to the meeting objectives.
• Don’t just present information; look for opportunities to generate debate and discussion.

Follow up later:

• Make sure that notes are taken of the decisions and agreed-upon actions.
• Assign responsibilities and set deadlines for task follow-up.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of the meeting and make adjustments for future meetings.

An ecosystem where inefficiency prevails?

“This meeting could have been an email.” That phrase, heard in office hallways, appearing on coffee mugs and in countless memes, and on the faces of unsuspecting teammates and professionals after the sixth or seventh video call of the day, could be a motto of the modern era.

The post-pandemic era redefined the parameters of remote work and corporate culture. New processes and untested systems allowed inefficient processes to creep in, such as meetings scheduled for unnecessary discussions or even basic human interaction, rather than for productivity, where generating value and transmitting it to others is essential. This may answer the big question: Why aren’t your potential clients showing up to meetings?

According to a survey conducted by the firm McKinsey, by 2023, 61% of executives say that at least half of the time spent making decisions, much of it likely in meetings, was ineffective. Only 37% of respondents said their organizations’ decisions were both timely and high-quality. And, in another survey, 80% of executives were considering or already implementing changes to meeting structure and cadence in response to evolving ways of working through hybrid or 100% remote models.

“The only thing on Earth that never lies to you is the calendar,” said business author and McKinsey alumnus Tom Peters. This corporate specialist is a fanatic about proper time management, recognizing it as the most valuable asset today. Good time management involves strategic thinking and pursuing what matters most.

Given all of the above, it is vital to understand what structures a sales meeting. A successful meeting requires planning, effective communication, active participation, and follow-up. By recognizing these steps, you can ensure the meeting is productive and helps the sales team achieve its goals.