An Industry Trend We Will Regret
I was asked to keynote a client's annual company meeting and awards breakfast recently. A beautiful spread was laid out at an elegant, first class banquet-meeting facility. Prizes, awards, very important information about the future of the industry and the company were presented. The only thing missing was a red carpet and klieg lights.
And yet, only 108 out of 262 agents showed up.
They asked me to sit at the table with their top 8 award winners. All of them long time, loyal agents. The young man sitting next to me looked around the room and said, "I don't know anybody in this room." When I asked what he meant, he said, "We never get together as a company. We never have sales meetings. I've never even met almost all of the people in this room."
The other award winners confirmed what he said, and I thought, "I wonder if they even know what they're missing."
One of the casualties of having to reduce overhead and eliminate brick and mortar has been company sales meetings. They are disappearing, and it's a trend that will hurt our industry.
If my income were dependent on how productive my independent contractors were (and by the way, it is), I would insist on regular, mandatory face-to-face meetings (and I do). Why?
Because while there are things you can accomplish via email, or eyejot, or webinar, or conference call - there are certain critical things you lose without live, face-to-face gatherings. Things like attention level. It's too easy to attend a webinar and multi-task at the same time.
Meetings reward and motivate producers. Meetings eliminate the hiding places of non-producers. Meetings give everyone a sense of belonging to something, and a sense of community, basic human needs. Meetings create synergy, energy, enthusiasm and clarity. Meetings create business. Meetings foster teamwork.
Meetings give leaders the opportunity to communicate their vision, and gauge the buy-in. Meetings give leaders a true picture of what their salespeople look like - the people who are going out into the marketplace representing them.
My biggest concern with this trend is that once meetings become a thing of the past, it's nearly impossible to bring them back. So convert all that unused desk and office space into first class meeting space and let's get everyone together again!
