Do you regularly hold stand-alone sales pipeline meetings? They’re crucial to any high-achieving sales team. These meetings are a chance for sales reps and sales managers to review pending deals and keep them moving through the funnel. Sales pipeline meetings also allow you to plan accurate sales forecasts, adapt to any new challenges and get an overall picture of what your sales team has working.

Despite their importance, many sales pipeline meetings fall flat, says Keri Brooke, a senior vice president at Salesforce. This could be the result of poor sales data or inadequate planning or communication. Fortunately, sales leaders can take steps to make their sales pipeline meetings more productive.

We share Brooke’s eight ways to improve these meetings in this issue of Promotional Consultant Today.

1. Meet one-on-one with sales reps. If you typically hold teamwide sales pipeline meetings, you might want to adjust your format. Brooke says group pipeline reviews are almost always a waste of time. Instead, these reviews should take place between individual sales reps and their manager to ensure both are focused on the deals of that matter.

2. Clean up your data. If you’re dealing with dirty data, you can’t effectively assess the strength of your sales pipeline. Brooke recommends automating parts of your pipeline, such as automatically logging calls and emails. Just be sure to train your sales reps to update information as it comes in.

3. Eliminate the chit-chat. For better sales pipeline meetings, stay focused on the conversation. Skip the small talk, in-depth strategy discussions and company updates. Brooke suggests keeping your reviews to 30 minutes. If you still have items to discuss, take them to email or Slack.

4. Establish a clear agenda. You should always go into your sales pipeline meetings knowing what you plan to discuss. Instead of focusing on one problem lead, Brooke advises addresses three leads. If you allow about seven minutes per each problem lead, plus time for an overview and wrap-up, you’ll be right at the 30-minute mark.

5. Outline when leads should move. Sales reps sometimes aren’t certain when leads should complete each stage of the pipeline. Brooke notes that this can make pipeline reviews fuzzy because managers and reps have different ideas of when a lead should move down the pipeline. You can get ahead of this issue by defining exit criteria for each pipeline stage.

6. Hold team members accountable. This goes for both sales reps and sales managers. Everyone on your team should follow through on action items. Brooke recommends that managers follow up with reps about a week after the pipeline meeting to follow up on progress.

7. Don’t point fingers. Instead of putting pressure on sales reps for not closing a deal, use pipeline reviews to look for opportunities to do things differently. Instead of asking, “How could you miss this?” try saying, “What can we do to make this work?”

8. Hold check-ins separately from pipeline reviews. If you usually combine your check-in with a pipeline review, you could be missing opportunities to help your sales reps grow. These discussions should stand alone. Brooke advises holding two monthly one-on-one check-in meetings per month and two pipeline reviews per month. Try different cadences and see what works best for your sales team.

Running effective sales pipeline meetings can lead to more successful sales reps and a more profitable bottom line for your business. If you don’t take time to maximize these discussions, you could be leaving money on the table. Consider the points above to hold more productive sales pipeline meetings.

Compiled by Audrey Sellers

Source: Keri Brooke is the senior vice president of sales cloud marketing for Salesforce. She has more than 20 years of experience in the enterprise software and cloud technology sector.