Annual sales meetings are vital to the success and growth of your sales force. It’s a time to come together to show new products, recognize the accomplishments of individual sales reps, improve strategies, teach new policies and to create a sense of community throughout your company.

Integrating Option Technologies’ OptionPower software into your presentations can take your sales conference to the next level and increase your ROI.

Planning Successful Annual Sales Meetings

Step 1: Find Your Why

Creating a bond between sales representatives, and between the sales force and the company is important. According to John K. MacKenzie with Multi-MediaWare Inc., creating a psychic bond between sales representatives that spend the most time out in the field is an important step to success. Ensuring that no team member feels that they’re alone is crucial.

Another important facet of annual sales meetings is career acceleration. Whether you’re introducing sales reps that are ready to take that next step into management, or connecting relatively new managers to executives, large corporate sales meetings are a great place to network and motivate your team.

Recognizing the success of the sales force as a whole, and individually rewarding sales reps who have had good years secures the loyalty of your sales force. It’s a big event that everyone looks forward to throughout the year, so it’s important that you don’t let your team down.

Step 2: Ask the Team What They’re Looking For

The annual sales meeting is the perfect opportunity to offer sales reps and management alike additional training that will enhance their performance and the company’s overall profitability.  There are dozens and dozens of session topics that you can offer, but the most efficient way to train your team is to use a tool like OptionPower from Option Technologies.

OptionPower will give your salespeople to the opportunity to engage on a deeper level, offering them ways to actively participate in the sessions and speakers. Additionally, you can use OptionPower to get feedback post-training, whether it’s about the sessions in particular or more general questions about their feelings toward the company and the products they sell.

Step 3: Stick to the Meeting’s Stated Goals

Creating a sense of accomplishment during meetings is key to ensuring the participation of your sales force. Using OptionPower to track of participation and even reward salespeople can create a sense of competition. Most salespeople are competitive by nature, and the thought that they’re going head-to-head with their peers will significantly increase their engagement.

According to John K. MacKenzie, salespeople have grown increasingly sharp over his 25 years experience, and they know when their time is being wasted. Outlining the overall goals of the meeting will help your team understand what the meetings are meant to accomplish, and they’ll see how the individual sessions clearly contribute to the greater purpose of the meeting.

Setting your annual sales meeting’s mission in mind from the start can help you plan sessions that adhere closely to your stated goals. This will also reduce the potential for redundancy between presentations. If your team doesn’t feel that you’re wasting their time by repeating the same information over and over again or straying far from the meeting’s intended purpose, they’re more likely to participate and engage with the speakers and in breakout sessions.

Option Technologies’ audience response tool OptionPower allows you to easily export data from training exercises, assessment activities, and feedback surveys to immediately evaluate the success of your Annual Sales Meeting.

You can compare multiple sessions at the meeting with ease, determining which sessions worked well and which could use improvement. The task of feedback surveys is practically eliminated with the in audience response. Request a proposal today to see how we can help you make the most of your annual sales meeting!