Here’s an example. Let’s say you have a range of new prices on some of your current products. You are planning to spend an hour presenting them and answering questions. That sounds good. Who could object to that?
So, your sales meeting agenda looks like this:
1. Present new prices.
Let’s dig through it to come up with the end. Why are you presenting the new prices? You might say, “So the sales people will know them and understand why we are changing prices.”
OK, why do you want that?
“So they will be able to convey them to the customers.”
Why do you want to do that?
“So the customer will accept the new prices without too much objection.”
What you really want, then, is the customer to accept the new prices without raising too much of ruckus about them?
“Yes.”
And you want sales people to convey the prices in a way that accomplishes that?
“Yes.”
OK, so let’s start there. In order to get what you want, the sales people will need to make some commitments with deadlines as to when they will present the new prices, and then they’ll need to be trained in the best way to present them.
The question now becomes: What can you do in the sales meeting that will ensure that your sales people will convey the new prices to their customers in a way that will be acceptable to the customer?
At this point, if it were me, I’d start at the end – having the sales people make specific commitments to deliver the prices to the appropriate customers. That’s the behavior you want. But, you’ll also need to equip them to do that – that’s the training piece. So, It’s about ending up with the sales people filling out a document as to when they‘ll convey those prices to the impacted customers.
In order to ensure that they knew how to do that well, I’d think about doing some role-plays so the sales people could practice conveying the prices. The role-plays would also allow them to identify some common objections, and practice responding to them.
Before I could do the role-plays, I’d have to demonstrate to them some of the best practices for communicating the price increases.
And before that, I’d have to describe the price increases, the rationale, and the best way to communicate them.
Now, I have my agenda:
1. Describe the rationale for the price increases.
2. Describe the best way of communicating them.
3. Demonstrate the best way to communicate them.
4. Organize a role-play so everyone can practice.
5. Discuss what they learned in the role-play.
6. Repeat the role-play.
7. Have each sales person create a list of which customers need to have the new prices.
8. Have each sales person identify a date by which he/she will have communicated the new prices.
9. Ask each to report, by a certain date, on how well it went.
Look at the difference in the two agendas. The first is unfocused, and emphasizes the time and general subject matter. The second is precisely focused on an end result, incorporates interactive exercises, and is very practical.
The difference was where you started. Start at the end.
