Conducting Effective One-on-One Meetings

I think establishing a cadence to review individual sales performance is essential for a healthy sales team culture. As Michael A. Contes II said, “Inspect what you expect.” It is sound advice and sets the stage for you to create a culture of accountability. A continuous check-up process will improve individual, and therefore, team performance over time.

You may find this process can be established on a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly scheduled based on the experience level and past performance of each sales professional. There is not necessarily a need to treat everyone the same. For newer sales professionals, either to sales or your industry or organization, a weekly cadence will be much more beneficial in the beginning. As the person develops the right skills, you can adjust to a bi-weekly and eventually a monthly cadence as appropriate.

This dedicated one-on-one time can be done in person or virtually. Consider occasionally meeting over a meal, such as breakfast or lunch. This will make the meeting a little less formal and promote a better discussion. Remember, you need to be observant to what is not said as much as to what is said. Look for clues about your sales professional’s level of engagement, enthusiasm, and optimism. Are they on the upward trend or have they hit a plateau? This will give you important insights on how you can best help them continue to improve and realize success.

The key items to review at this meeting include:

· Activities (Appointments/Meetings/Demonstrations)

· New Opportunities (Organic vs. Company Provided Leads)

· Monthly Forecast and Pipeline (New Opportunities)

· Proposals or Recommendations Created and Presented

· Status of Key Accounts

· Where Is Help Needed?

You can certainly add additional items at your discretion depending on what other initiatives you have at the time. However, this is a baseline that should take about 30 minutes to an hour to review depending on the sales professional. Let them know in advance what you will be discussing so that they can come to the meeting prepared. Their degree of preparation will reveal a lot about their level of engagement.