Time for another Sales Meeting?

For anyone in any type of sales profession, you are likely getting back from or preparing to head to your big “National Sales Meeting”. These events usually occur once (please) or twice (oh Lord, help me) a year. Zero times would be best but I guess companies have to spend some budget money and celebrate the “top performers” which can often mean people they favor or ones given the “golden” territories.

Now I could care less either way. Give me my annual raise for a job well done and then leave me alone to perform my duties. I’ve never been interested winning awards and in sharing a tropical vacation with a dozen co-workers and upper level management types. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again….a job is something that pays the bills and kills time between vacations.

But as a professional, I will keep a smile on, appear to stay engaged, be on time for all meetings, and generally fake it for a few days. It’s called being an adult.

For anyone reading this that organizes these types of events, try to make it tolerable for the attendees. We have to leave our families for a week to spend time in a destination (and it doesn’t matter where because all we really see is the airport and the hotel meeting rooms) so it’s already not enjoyable at all. Here is a brief synopsis of why we dislike these and it’s pretty spot on:

Why Sales Meetings Feel “Useless”

• Focus on the Past, Not Future: Meetings often concentrate on reporting past activities rather than planning for future improvements.
• Irrelevant Metrics: Discussions frequently revolve around “vanity metrics” or pipeline numbers intended to show busyness rather than drive real performance.
• Disconnect from Reality: Marketing materials often do not align with the actual, specific pain points and ROI questions that sales reps face in the field, leading to ineffective presentations.
• “Acting Out” Scenarios: Peer-to-peer role-playing during training can feel cringeworthy, unauthentic, and disconnected from real-world, high-stakes sales situations.
• Distraction from Selling: These events take reps away from their customers, practice, or family, wasting valuable time that could be spent on high-payoff activities.
• Meeting Recovery Syndrome: The mental fatigue and downtime caused by excessive, poorly run meetings can take up to 45 minutes to recover from, making long meetings highly unproductive.