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Today, a mentor client called and mentioned his agency's weekly sales meetings. The purpose of most sales meetings is to provide information, adulation, and motivation.

Information and adulation are better conveyed by mass-voice-mails or emails. The info is spread faster and with less investment by all.

That leaves motivation... Motivation that lasts is not delivered in a meeting with 10 or 50 people. Sure, you can have a "come-to-Jesus" session. The impact will not last though. When it wears off, it's back to the old ways.

Lasting motivation comes from regular one-on-one sessions with a leader, mentor, or coach. In most agencies that may be the sales manager or a department head. One-on-one sessions, where manager meets privately with direct-reports, involve setting objectives, providing feedback, coaching, and directing. Repeated reinforcement of objectives, strategies and tactics will provide lasting motivation and improvement. I advocate weekly one-on-one sessions. They can be in person or on the phone.

Here are some resources on One-On-One sessions.

I think you are right a lot of time is wasted over this sales meetings. Post is nice and suggest and alternative way for motivating team members. Thanks for sharing this information.

A few agency managers have commented to me on this post. All of them defended the use of sales meetings.
More than a few producers commented privately on this post. All of them agreed with my assessment.

Why is there such a disconnect between managers and producers?

Is it an age thing? Is it a control issue?

When managers tell me that they need sales meetings to get the pulse of producers I suggest weekly one-on-one sessions as a better way to learn what is really going on with a producer. The most common response to the one-on-one suggestion is, "Who has the time?"

Let's fall back to a sports analogy. Is there a professional baseball player who does not meet with their coach at least once a week? I can't imagine that there are many players who go a few days without some coach or another checking in, reviewing stats, viewing video, or just talking with a player about goals and objectives.

Why should an insurance agency be any different?

Yeah, you're probably right about the 'power & control' thing...most managers are still managing out of a 3 ring binder that was written in 1962. That's why many/most 'top down' sales meetings are peppered with sports analogies and the rooms are decorated with motivational posters laden with 'fly with the eagles' verbiage.

It's as if this type of manager is frozen in time from another era, and as you observe in your own consulting business, change into the present day best business practices is hard to induce.

Insurance is also one of those industries that is hard to change as well.

A side story, just for humor. My first insurance sales job was one where the primary motivator in sales meetings was the presentation of the monthly 'Salesman of the month' plaque. I was successful, and accumulated a bunch of them, which I threw into a drawer after presentation. After a couple of months of winning these things, I privately asked the sales manager if he would just give me half the money spend on the plaque and keep the rest, as the monetary reward was my real motivation. If looks could kill, I'd have been dead on the spot. Apparently my financial motivation was not in his process for motivating sales people, and judging from his reaction, I'd suggested a major insult to his old school mentality.

It was soon after that I left for a more receptive environment for my talents, and they lost their perpetual 'salesman of the month' That department took another 3 years to totally go out of business.