In commercial real estate brokerage, the weekly sales meeting can be a powerful tool when it comes to building the market share momentum for the real estate business and the sales team. The meeting can be well planned to achieve positive leverage and momentum across the agency.
With most agencies today, the weekly sales meeting is a good idea to keep the agents on focus and task. That being said, an agenda is required to achieve that. Minutes should also be created from the meeting to track and measure the efforts of individuals. Good salespeople thrive on positive recognition and individual performance tracking. They understand the benefits of the process.
Weekly sales meetings should occur in the mornings before the business day commences. They should also take no longer than 1 hour so that that the team can get back to the marketplace and the daily activities required.
So the goals of the sales meeting should be to achieve the following:
- To encourage the team forward with activities in listings and commissions
- To sustain the momentum and the focus across the group in a positive way
- To track and measure the activities of individuals
- To establish positive communication between the sales team and the administration team
It should be remembered that most salespeople dislike lengthy meetings. Any top agent or broker will prefer to have a firm agenda to stick to when it comes to weekly reporting and meeting attendance. The team leader or the sales manager should control the process.
Here are some tips to help you establish a positive process of meetings for your sales team:
- The location of the weekly meeting should be varied to encourage activity and attendance. You can move the meeting between different venues and times of day. Breakfast meetings are usually quite successful, and the same can be said for lunch meetings. You will however need an agenda for the process.
- Peer group praise will always be a useful tool within a successful sales team. The team leader or the sales manager for the agency should encourage that activity. When a salesperson has achieved great success or an extraordinary deal, share that information around the group at the right time and in the right circumstances.
- Once a month allow the full sales team and the administrative team to come together as part of social drinks. The interaction between both groups will be important for the success of the agency.
- Establish a points system between members of the sales team. The points system should be varied based on a number of different criteria. In that way you will be recognising and encouraging everyone, and not just the top agents with the best deals. Look at the different achievements of the week including the best deal of the week, the best marketing campaign, the greatest numbers of inbound calls, cold calling targets, exclusive listings, and new meetings.
Top agents and brokers like efficiency. They also like to get to the point quickly and effectively. Any sales meeting should take no longer than 1 hour, minutes should be created, and agendas should be circulated prior to the next meeting. Respect the time of your top agents, and they will respect the attendance requirements at your sales meetings.