Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Welcome to the Grow show, brought to you by Marty Grunder's Grow Group, where we specialize in helping landscaping companies to clarify their platform, grow their people, build their processes and realize profits. Everything we teach is grounded in real experience. Our team is actively involved in the day to day operations of Southwest Ohio's Grunder Landscaping Company.
New episodes are released weekly on Wednesdays and are made possible with the support of Bob Yard. Remember to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Now, here's your host, Marty Grunder.
[00:00:28] Speaker B: Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever the case may be. This is Marty Grunder from Grunder Landscaping Co. And the Grow Group. Thanks for downloading the Grow Show. Today we're going to talk about running effective sales meetings. But first, a reminder. You can get the latest edition of the Grow show delivered to your phone, tablet or computer by subscribing wherever you get your podcasts or Watch us on YouTube for the enhanced learning experience. The Grow show is the greatest thing since Brian Davis, one of our most frequent listeners of the Grow show and our director of administration at Grunder Landscaping Company. Brian is a kind, quiet leader who helps me with so many things it's hard to put into words. He even drove a new lawn care truck all the way back from Dallas after Grow last year with my son Grant. Which might not have been fun as both Grant and Brian needed a chiropractor when they got back. Just kidding. Anyway, Brian, thank you for all you do here at glc. I love working with you and thanks for listening to the Grow Show. Yes, my team does listen to the Grow Show. How about that? Now onto the Grow Show. Running effective sales meetings. What if I told you the biggest problem with most sales meetings is that they're not actually sales meetings, that they're complaint sessions, that they update meetings, that they're motivational speeches, or worse, they're just a complete waste of time, which is what I truly think most sales meetings are. And here's the reality. If your sales meetings are boring, inconsistent, unclear, your sales team will eventually become boring, inconsistent and unclear too. It's just how it goes. And they will dread your sales meetings. They will be tuned out. They will think they're a complete waste of time. They will be a waste of time. And they will actually hurt you, not help you. Because meetings create culture, folks. Meetings create accountability.
Meetings create focus. And when they're done right, they create growth. So today I want to walk you through how to run effective sales meetings that actually move the business forward. And not meetings. People just hang on for Dear life and survive in meetings, people leave sharper, clear and more accountable. Let's get into it. So, number one, the purpose of a sales meeting. The first mistake I think leaders make is that they don't know the actual purpose of the meeting. A sales meeting is not there to entertain the team, fill an hour on the calendar, or simply review numbers. The purpose of a sales meeting is quite simple. It's to create clarity, accountability, alignment and momentum. That's it. Too many times we owners and leaders don't tell our teams why we do what we do. It's obvious to us. We're in the front seat of the bus, metaphorically speaking. We. We know everything. We know where the bus is going, we know where it's turning, we know when it's stopping. We got the controls on everything. But the further you get down the organizational chart, the further you get back on the bus, metaphorically again, the less we actually know. And I think it's very important to tell your people why you're doing a sales meeting.
And I think every effective sales meeting should help answer four simple questions. Where are we going? Okay, vision. What's working? Results. And what are those results showing? What's not working? Again, the results. And what are those results not showing? And what are we going to do next? So where are we? What's working? What's not working? And what are we going to do next? If your meeting doesn't accomplish those things, ladies and gentlemen, it's probably just wasting time. And here's the one thing I've learned over the years.
Your sales team does not need more information. They need more focus. Quite frankly, many of them have too many dials, too many metrics, too much information. Most salespeople are overwhelmed, distracted, reactive and busy. A good sales meeting cuts through the noise. I think it's a great idea to have the mission statement for the meeting read and have someone different from the sales department in there with you each week. Read that so that we make sure that there's alignment that you keep talking about. What matters most. Like Patrick Lencioni, the the legendary consultant and business author, says many of us leaders and organizations should be chief reminding officers. We should be talking constantly about the things that matter most. And so I think the mission of your sales meeting, it could be something like the mission of our sales meeting, is to drive accountability to the whole team, including the sales manager. We are all here to share, learn, get alignment in the top five best leads we can each close this week or something like that. There should be something that we're talking about. Okay, go back to the things I just said here at the top of this part about the things that a sales meeting should be a part of, Right? That it's not just a chance to fill the air with words is to create clarity, accountability, alignment and momentum. Clarity, accountability, alignment and momentum. So have a mission statement that talks about those things and drive accountability. Okay? So we'll never be negative in our sales meetings, all right? We can't be. And we'll show love for our fellow teammates about how we do things. Number two, why do most sales meetings fail? Well, most sales meetings fail for predictable reasons. First, they lack structure. We just go in there and we start talking. So back to that mission statement, please. The meeting goes wherever the loudest personality takes it. One rabbit trail becomes another. Suddenly an hour is gone and nothing meaningful happened. People are scrolling their phones and everything else. Do you know how I know this? Because that's what my sales meetings were for many years.
Second, they became reporting sessions. Everybody goes around the room and gives updates that nobody remembers. Here's. Here's what I'm working on. Here's who I talk to. Here's what might. Close. Might. The worst word to ever use in a sales meeting, by the way. We're not might, might, nothing. We're going to do this. That's not leadership, folks. That's administration. Just having people read reports.
Third, there's no accountability with that because people leave the meeting exactly the same way that they entered it, with no commitments, no ownership, no follow through. And fourth, probably the biggest issue, leaders talk too much. The sales meeting becomes a monologue instead of a coaching environment because we want to hear ourselves talk again. That was mar under 20 years ago. If you're doing 90% of the talking, your team's probably doing 10% of the thinking, and that's not what you want. Great sales leaders facilitate. They don't dominate.
Number three, the anatomy of an effective sales meeting. So what should an effective sales meeting actually look like? Well, here's a structure I think that works. Part one is we start with wins. We always begin with wins. Not fake positivity, not hype.
Real wins, closed deals, positive customer feedback, breakthroughs. We got into a neighborhood. We got into an office complex. We got a client we've been chasing for months. Improved conversion rates, referrals. Someone that overcame a major objection and got the job done. Why is this important? Because momentum, folks, that matters. And the flywheel starts spinning and people need to see progress. You want them to leave that meeting in an hour or 75 minutes and be fired up. Especially in sales, where rejection is constant. We close between 40 and 45% of all the leads that we get, which is pretty good. But that's after doing a really good job screening them. So more than half the time, our salespeople are being told no. And that can cause issues, but recognition creates energy, and energy changes performance.
So keep this section of the meeting intentional and fast. Five to ten minutes. Again, that goal is to elevate everybody in the room. Bring noisemakers if you want celebrate. You know, if you have. You got buttons. I got a button here in the Gross show studio. All right? You can have some fun with that kind of stuff. You can throw candies, you can have your championship weight belt, whatever you want. All right? But we got to show some energy in that room. Dawn that runs our sales for us, she's always trying to make things fun. One of the first changes she made when she started running our sales department was she got rid of the table in the middle of the room, and she puts the chairs in a horseshoe where everyone has to sit there and talk. And at first I thought it was corny, but it does. It makes it much more conversational. Nobody's there. They can't just sit on their elbows. It keeps them more engaged. I think it was a very good idea.
Part two of the sales meeting, review that scoreboard. Salespeople need scoreboards. Not feelings, not assumptions, not guesses, Data, not too much, but they do need enough. And I think you should be reviewing key metrics every single meeting.
Things like leads, appointments, closing rate, proposal volume, average ticket, pipeline value, follow up activity, referral numbers. Those things are all very, very important.
My son that works in sales, in our Cincinnati office, when he was working for a company in Chicago in sales, I remember him being frustrated because he was being coached that he wasn't making enough calls because they tracked calls. Well, he technically wasn't making as many calls as he was supposed to be making, but he was way ahead on sales. He had figured out who the best people to call on were, and he was spending time in a little niche making things work. And as I understand him telling the story, he spoke with his manager, and his manager understood what he was doing, and he was fine with it. Okay. Grant wasn't just going through the motions. He was. He was doing the right thing. So some of the data can be misleading. So when I say things like proposal volume or value of proposals, those matter. Okay? So we've got to look at things from all different levels. All Right. We just don't want robots, okay? You got to make 60 calls a week. Well, if you're in lawn care, that's probably good. But if you're selling high end residential design build that doesn't make any sense, you're never going to get that done. So we got to be thinking through this, and I think here's the important part to understand about numbers. Don't weaponize them.
They bring clarity, not shame. Numbers are tools, okay? They are the activities that, if done right over a prolonged period of time, lead to sales. They help identify bottlenecks, weaknesses, opportunities, and coaching needs. The mature sales culture does not fear metrics. It uses metrics to improve.
And if you remember, I've said this many, many times, and it's not me that came up with. I think Seth here is the one that first started saying it. And I don't even know that he came up with. I think he probably heard it someplace else. But what gets measured gets managed, or said another way. And this is how Seth would say it. What gets managed gets improved. And I can tell you, if you have the right salespeople, I really feel that they love this stuff and they thrive off winning on the scoreboard.
Part 3.
Discuss opticals and opportunities in your sales meetings. This is where real coaching happens, folks. And asking questions like, okay, everyone, what objections are you hearing? Where are deals getting stuck? What's changing in the market? What are you hearing? What conversations are getting harder? What are top performers doing differently? This part of the meeting should be collaborative. Your best ideas are often already sitting inside your team. But you got to facilitate a discussion and as the sales manager, not be the person that's speaking first all the time. You should speak last. Tony, what do you think? Jimmy, what do you think? Oscar, what do you think?
Again, the mistake leaders make is in assuming that they always need to provide the answers you don't like. I'm struggling right now. We have a situation with a client that I had to fire because in three years we've had 19 warranty tickets for just ridiculous stuff like they're impossible to please.
And I don't even really understand how it got to this point. And I don't blame my sales team. And what I'm struggling with is like, I'm struggling with how to teach them when someone is not a fit for us. Like, it's okay to walk away.
So next Tuesday, when we go into the meeting, I'm going to say instead of, here's how you do that. I'm struggling with how to Teach this. Can we please, as a group, crowdsource this and try to come up with a way that we don't get stuck with these clients like this. And it doesn't happen a lot, but we do have to prepare our salespeople to be able to handle things like a client that's not a fit for the business.
I think what I'm saying here is if you're a leader or you're a sales manager, or you have a sales manager that you're trying to mentor, their role is to facilitate discussions. It doesn't mean they have to have all the answers. And we don't want that meeting turning into, excuse my language, a bitch session or a complaint session. Problems are welcome. You should be comfortable enough to bring those to the meetings to talk about the victim. Mindsets are not allowed. We're not going to listen to your excuses.
Every obstacle discussion should end with what are we going to do about. And as the leader, you should always speak last. Give your team a chance to speak and feel heard. Part four of the sales meeting. Training and skill development.
The best sales teams train constantly. Not once a year, not at a conference, but constantly. Sales is a skill, and skills, quite frankly, deteriorate without repetition.
If I don't play golf for two weeks, my chipping becomes very difficult. There's so much feel in that part of the game. But if I practice and I stay with it, I find I go out and play and the worst part of my game is a little bit better. Okay, so we should be spending part of every meeting sharpening our team. And I think the regular things that you want to be talking about is. Objection. Handling discovery questions, closing techniques, communication, presentation skills, follow up systems, time management.
You could even have a discussion on emotional intelligence. But all that should be done whenever we can with role playing. And I think one of the biggest mistakes companies make is assuming experience automatically equals improvement. It doesn't. Repetition without coaching simply hardwires bad habits and training creates intentional growth. And back to that role play. I honestly think it's one of the most underutilized tools in sales.
I get why some people hate it. It's awkward, but that's usually why they need it. Because if someone cannot confidently communicate inside a meeting in front of their peers, how in the world are they ever going to do it at Ms. McGillicuddy's house, at her kitchen table, or in a boardroom in front of two decision makers on a very large job? And it reminds me of my daughter's friend. She played college soccer at Auburn University. And C.J. uzama was a friend of hers. He was on the football team. He got drafted by the Bengals, played for the Bengals. And CJ's a family friend.
And I remember we were watching him, rooting for him, and he scored a touchdown in Arrowhead Stadium. And then he was at our house the following day, and we were talking to him, and I said, hey, cj, I said, did you know that that pass was going to come to you? And he's like, yeah, I was the first option on that. And I said, well, it's so loud in Arrowhead Stadium. Like, how did you concentrate? And he's like, Mr. Grunner, he's like, it's. We had run that play so many times in practice. If I don't make the play in practice, there's no way I'm going to be starting as a tight end, and I might not even be active or I might even get cut. So I had to practice that. And he said, you know, I just had practice it so much. Like, it was just natural. And when you see sports, when you see sports and players, like, thrive in primetime, you know, you see them, it looks like they're under so much pressure. Or you see, like, a police officer, some of the things they do, or a firefighter or a Navy SEAL or an emergency room doctor or a pilot, it's because they practice. You could also call it role playing. And so when you role play with your team, you. You get them to be in a spot when, when the skill is needed, it comes out naturally. I can't say enough good things about role playing. If you're not doing it, start doing it.
Part five of the sales meeting is commitments and accountability.
Never, ever, ever end a sales meeting without being clear on the next steps. Not only in the sales meeting that you're having with your team, but that can also be said for every sales call. So every person should leave that sales meeting. And by the way, every salesperson should leave the meeting they have with prospects and clients. What are they responsible for? What are they working on? What are they improving? And. And what does success look like before the next meeting?
Because this type of mindset and accountability will drive execution, naturally. And accountability only works, ladies and gentlemen, when the expectations are clear. Here's one of the things I've learned. Vague expectations create vague results.
When you don't leave a meeting with it buttoned up on, who's doing what, where, why, all that, you have no reason to complain about where you're at.
And strong sales cultures are built on clear commitments, not assumptions.
So let's talk about a couple other things. We're talking about sales today on the grow show. So how often should you meet? Well, I think a lot of meter leaders either meet too much or not enough. And I think this is what you should do.
I think daily you should talk to each of your salespeople. Maybe it's just a short little focus conversation. How's it going? I know your two leads were these, you know, what's going on. Is there any barriers I could help you with? Just real quick like that. Okay. It shouldn't be a whole bunch of specific things because that's what the sales meetings are for. We want these people selling. But I do believe as the sales manager, a check in is something you should be doing all right. And you should be making sure that they're following up on their priorities. The things that you can see in your pipeline management. For us, it's aspire. If you saw they made a sale, tell them, hey, listen, how's it going on that? Do you need anything? No deep dives, no rambling, no speeches, just to check in to make sure we're in alignment and focus and let them know that you're there. The weekly sales meeting, that's your primary coaching and accountability meeting. Those are normally 60 to 90 meetings. And this is where we go deep. And you have every right to ask any question you want to ask. Metrics are reviewed, skills are sharpened, strategy is discussed and accountability happens. So we've got an agenda we're putting up right now. On the YouTube version of this, you can see what we kind of follow and give you a little bit of inspiration mainly. But that weekly sales meeting is very important.
And then there's some other things I think make sense. And we work on this and we're not as good at this as I would like, but these are things I'd like to see us move really towards. In some level of consistency are some monthly strategy reviews.
This is higher level thinking. And I think in a perfect world I will start meeting with dawn, our sales manager to talk about this. And you know, what's the market showing us? What bigger opportunities are there, what's the long term goals? How is our marketing doing? Bring Emily in. That does our marketing. Where do we need to adjust things in the sales cycle? The lifetime journey of the customer there. How does that work? You want both tactical and strategic meetings, but most teams only operate tactically and that limits growth. So I think once in a while you got to zoom out and this isn't a meeting for everyone, but we got to make sure we're focused on the right things in the right neighborhoods, in the right developments, doing the right things on a daily basis. The next side of this I want to talk to, and we're almost done here today, is the leadership side of sales meetings. And talking about leadership. I think the quality of your sales meeting is usually a direct reflection of the leader that's running it. If the leader is disorganized, reactive, inconsistent, negative, unclear, unprepared, that meeting is going to reflect it. Sales meetings should create confidence. That does not mean pretending everything is perfect. And it means leading with clarity, composure, honesty, and direction. Your team is constantly asking, do we know where we're going? And meetings answer that question.
And another important leadership principle that I think needs to be woven through all of these sales meetings. Don't embarrass people publicly. All right? Coach with honesty. Challenge directly. Don't humiliate. I always say praise in public, chastise in private because a fear based sales culture eventually collapse.
People perform best when there's both accountability and psychological safety. And here's another big one. Consistency matters way more than intensity. A decent meeting every week is better than one incredible meeting every quarter because that rhythm creates the culture that you want. And the obvious thing, I say it all the time, is that you, you as the leader, the sales leader, the owner, whoever it is here, if you want other people to follow you, you got to be great at what you want your sales team, your followers to be good at. So never forget that. It's just such a basic leadership tenet that I think we miss and just don't take enough value in.
Last thing here, a couple things common sales meetings, mistakes. These are just things I've seen.
No agenda, huge mistake. If you don't control the structure, the meeting controls you. You always got to have an agenda. Number two, talking about the same problems repeatedly, that's a poor reflection on you. And it's probably silently or passively, I guess, pointing out one person's issue in the room or a couple people. If the same issue appears every week, folks with no action plan, the meeting becomes emotional theater. It doesn't solve problems. Okay, solve the problems, don't recycle them. Mistake number three, making the meeting too long. I've seen this. I've been guilty of it. Long meetings, usual, usually signal a lack of clarity. Respect your people's time. We want them selling, not sitting in there. Get done what you have to get done, but get on and move on only focusing on numbers. Metrics matter. But sales is also emotional and your team needs some encouragement, some coaching, some clarity and belief. They need hope coming from you, not just spreadsheets and a bunch of numbers. Mistake number five. No follow up. A meeting without follow up is just conversation. Execution is what matters. There may be things that come up in that meeting that you don't like. You don't let your team see you sweat. You make a note of it and you go address it with that person later. All right? But follow up.
Great sales meetings create great cultures, folks. Great sales meetings create alignment, ownership, consistency, confidence and momentum. They reinforce culture. They sharpen communication. They expose problems before they come disasters. And most importantly, in the world according to Marty Wham, I think they create intentional growth. A lot of businesses drift away from center because nobody is constantly bringing the team together around clear priorities and sales meetings, or rather effectively run sales meetings solve that. When done correctly, they become one of the highest ROI leadership activities in the company. Return on investment.
So in closing folks, if your sales meetings feel repetitive, chaotic, unproductive or draining, don't ignore it. If you don't have a sales meeting, it's okay, start doing them. Because weak meetings usually signal weak alignment. And a weak alignment eventually impacts performance terrible, Culture terrible, Accountability terrible, and revenue devastating. But when you create a rhythm of clarity, we all know what we're doing. Accountability expectations are clear. Coaching. I'm here to help you. I'll help you get this over the line. I'm going to show you how to do it. I'm there with you in the boat, rowing with you. Recognition. I feel recognized. I feel appreciated and a focused execution. Your sales team starts operating differently and meetings stop feeling like obligations or PowerPoints. Death by PowerPoints if you will. They start becoming momentum builders and the flywheel starts cranking. And ultimately that's what leadership's really about. Creating environments where people can perform at a higher level consistently. And remember, growth doesn't happen by accident. It happens intentionally. Well, that's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow show. Folks, be sure to come spend 27 hours with us at a Grunder Landscaping field trip. You'll be amazed at what we can do. All the details are here in the show notes and if you haven't done so already, subscribe to this Grow show and if you can give it a rating or share a comment that would really help us. It helps draw more attention and helps more success minded landscape professionals find us. And if you really want to help us and you're listening to this on your phone or you're watching on your phone or your laptop or your computer, share it with someone, fire off a text, fire off an email and say, hey, I liked what this Grunder guy had to say. It helps a lot. All right. We really appreciate you. It's an honor and a privilege to join you every week. I hope you're having fun. Hope your spring is off to a good start and I hope after today you do a little bit better with your sales means. That's going to do it for this week's edition of the Grow Show. We'll talk to you next week.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Join Marty and the Grow Group team at Grunder Landscaping company. This year we host GLC Field Trip events at our living laboratory, Grinder Landscaping company where we show you how we operate and how you can too. This event features small groups so you get the one on one attention you need and features a full 27 hours on site at GLC where we dive deep into everything from operations to sales to administration.
Find more information and sign up at Growgroup Inc. Com and do it quickly. These events sell out every year.
