By Jason Jordan
Lunch with Friends…One Was a Little Late
Last week I was scheduled to have lunch with two close friends – Burke and Jon. Burke is a seasoned salesperson for an industrial services company, and Jon was a sales manager for a multinational manufacturer, so we always talk a little sales shop.
Very apologetically, Burke appeared 30 minutes late to lunch, saying that he was in a meeting that ran long. He continued, “So I represent three different product divisions within my company. Each division decided this year to have (he makes air quotes with his fingers) ‘pipeline review’ meetings. And that’s okay. Each one meets twice each month, so I have SIX ‘pipeline review’ meetings to attend. And even that’s okay with me. What’s NOT okay with me is… (he leans forward, locks eyes, and slows his pace of speech)… pipeline reviews are COMPLETE waste of my time.”
Burke went on to say, “Each of these sales pipeline meetings has eight to ten participants, and we take turns providing our manager updates on our top deals. It’s ridiculous to have ten salespeople on the phone…for an hour…six times each month… NOT doing anything productive. And all we do is read out loud information that we’ve already typed into CRM. At least I have six hours each month that I know I can dedicate to responding to emails.”
This exchange was particularly comical for me, because I just launched a new sales manager training workshop on how to conduct productive pipeline meetings. And no, what Burke described is NOT the way to conduct productive pipeline meetings. However, this is the way that thousands of pipelines are ‘reviewed’ each day. It’s practically a Standard Operating Procedure in the sales world, as I’m sure many of you know.
Why the Madness?
So why ARE thousands and thousands of sales meetings covered each week to update sales managers on information that is, in theory, already accessible in CRM? I never really understood this myself, until I took on interim Chief Revenue Officer roles for a string of companies. My observation is that this behavior is driven by perceived necessity.
In one of my first stints as a CRO, I was leading sales, marketing, and customer onboarding for a $400 million services firm. I was shocked that my CEO constantly asked me for updates on specific deals in the sales pipeline. And often. In my mind, my role was to hire, enable, motivate, and lead the sales team to success… not to engage with individual deals. But the CEO was relentless, and I couldn’t risk appearing out-of-the-know.
My FIRST thought was obviously to create a weekly team ‘pipeline review’ meeting, so I could most efficiently hear updates on all the top deals. It was a completely selfish notion, which I knew was a bad idea. But I didn’t have 100% confidence that deals were getting updated adequately in our CRM, and I needed to have the latest insight for my weekly meetings with the CEO. Sound familiar to anyone?
Did I implement such a team meeting in the end? Of course not. But I seriously considered it for maybe 2 minutes. And I believe this conundrum is the key reason why ‘pipeline reviews’ exist in such a wasteful format. I’ll write another blog post on how I believe these meetings are conducted most effectively, but let me share with you some data on just how wasteful these meetings might be.
How Wasteful Are They Really? Very.
Several years ago, I did a research project with the Sales Management Association to explore common (and potentially best) practices in managing the sales pipeline. Among other things, we asked B2B sales forces about the logistics of their pipeline meetings. We learned that 72% of companies hold sales pipeline meetings more than once per month, with 51% conducting them weekly. The average length of these meetings was 53 minutes. Now imagine 72% of all sales forces… and all of their salespeople… meeting more than once each month… for 53 minutes… to review their sales pipelines. That’s a lot of time spent in pipeline meetings.
We also asked what percentage of these sales pipeline meetings was conducted one-on-one versus as a group. Only 9% of respondents claimed that their pipeline meetings were exclusively one-on-one. In other words, 91% of sales forces are to some degree holding team meetings to update their sales managers on deals in their sales pipeline. And at any given time, only 2 people in those meetings are paying attention – the manager and the salesperson at the mic. Every other salesperson is zoned out, responding to emails. Why, oh why.
For fun, let’s do some back-of-the-envelope math. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that there are around 2.7 million salespeople in manufacturing, wholesale, and non-retail service industries in the United States. Assume each of those is in a 53-minute pipeline meeting twice per month. That’s 57 million hours each year spent in pipeline meetings in the US alone. Most of which are apparently ‘a complete waste of time.’ Geez. Someone call the productivity police… I’ve uncovered a crime.
Please Join Me
If you too see the insanity in this prevalent misbehavior, please join me in my crusade to transform pipeline meetings from complete wastes of time into highly productive manager-rep interactions. Start by exploring my new sales manager training workshop, The Pipeline Playbook, and continue to tune in as I delve more deeply into pipeline management practices that actually move the revenue needle. There’s no time to waste.
FACT CHECK: Actually, Burke’s comments contained instances of well-placed profanity. Those comments were omitted for the sake of reader safety.
