Signs You're Having a Bad Sales Meeting

With "Annual Sales Meeting" Season right around the corner, we decided to put together a list of those elements that make these meetings so memorable.

Thank you for those who contributed including our friends at www.linkedin.com

Pre-Game Show

• Your boss wants to share a flight and makes you change yours to a much later one. Then on the last day, he comes in late and announces he is too depressed to carry on the meeting because his prized Corvette broke down and he has to write the IRS a check for $25K because he made too much last year. Then you try to catch an earlier flight, all to find out they are all booked. Then your flight is cancelled and you are stuck there for another day and have to take a 6:15 flight that next morning.

• The sales book that was purchased, and then paid to ship to each rep, so that they could prepare for an engaging and productive discussion during the sales meeting, hasn't been opened yet

• The meeting begins with bumper music at 90db, from Mariah Carey's late 80s hits, while the lame managers attempt to dance a Jim Carey version of hip hop

• Ignoring the lessons learned about knowledge comprehension and retention, the opening meeting is highlighted with the phrase "We have every minute planned out....." or "we have a team building event every night!"
  

• In addition to the joy of traveling around the world for 30+ hours only to arrive at a crap hotel. You are informed that you will be sharing a room with a local who is too cheap to pay for a cab ride home.

• You have been asked to watch the movie "Boiler Room" in advance of the meeting - and to be prepared with suggestions on how to implement some of the "tips" you picked up in order to improve next quarter's results.

• Entire management team dresses in drag during an opening session and attempts to sing a lame song or act out a skit.

Purgatory Factor

• You drink as much water as possible not to cure hangover, but to force restroom breaks

• The sales rep from a warm client is closest to the thermostat and has the rest of the hungover, bad coffee filled guys sweating bullets by 9:04 am.

• The wireless is mysteriously 'down' in an attempt to make people focus.
  

• Most intense discussion is around describing the rules of NFL to the British colleagues

• You bribe select customers to call your cell during the role playing exercises with some 'urgent end of year cash they have to spend'

• The VP is asking individual reps to talk about how they successfully closed business. There are more I's in the story than in roman numerals

• You have strategically mapped out exactly how you are going to execute your new job search as soon as "The Role Playing Exercises" are complete and VP of Sales allows you to go home (roughly around 8pm)....and dont forget kids "We have a hard start time tomorrow at 8am so be on time!"

• The meeting co-chair begins to doze off....

The Elephant in the Room

• The Department of Corrections could have provided higher quality food and refreshments

• A speaker opens and says “I hope I’m not going to bore you, but….” and consequently does just that with death by PowerPoint… slides full of words… which he dutifully reads to you… and if that it not bad enough he also has a monotone voice… however, it gets worse… by slide 6 you look at anything that might look vaguely interesting and notice in the bottom right of the slide the heart sinking words… “slide 6 of 122”
  

• The CEO doesn’t stick around to see the presentations given by the directors of the departments

• The host has to continuously explain how funny his jokes are.

• The company is too cheap to hire someone to present Spin Selling and simply ask one of the directors to read the book and teach it.

• The most compelling directive comes from a VP that proclaimed that in order too have an effective User Group meeting you must put out brochures so clients could take them.

After Hours

• CEO of the company gets so drunk he starts to hit on the ugliest sales reps

• Sales rep stays out too late, gets too drunk, winds up in wrong part of town, at the wrong time. Never heard from again. VPs are pissed because his absence really screws up the schedule for next team-building exercise.
  

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