11 Sales Meeting Ideas to Motivate & Engage Your Team

When your weekly sales meeting falls into a stale routine of reviewing numbers and discussing targets, you know you need to do more to keep your team engaged and motivated.

With a few straightforward changes, can transform these dreaded 30 minutes into a time for collaboration, inspiration, and growth. Check out our tips to make your next sales meetings a success.

Why salespeople dread sales meetings

Sales team meetings bring everyone together to review the team’s performance, get alignment on the sales strategy, share best practices, and address any challenges. But often, these meetings can feel like an unproductive time-sink, especially when:

1. They have no clear purpose
2. They feel one-sided
3. There’s a negative atmosphere
4. Your team isn’t that comfortable with each other

1. They have no clear purpose

Without a clear purpose, sales meetings can become a hot mess. Your team may have different expectations. This can lead to everyone talking over each other and important topics left unaddressed.

How to fix it

• Set a clear agenda with sales meeting topics that need to be covered.
• Share the sales meeting agenda beforehand.
• Let everyone know their role in achieving the goals of the meeting.
• Have an appointed facilitator during virtual sales meetings to keep people on task and focused.
• Follow up with action items or a call to action (CTA) at the end of your sales team meeting.

2. They feel one-sided

If you’re the only person speaking (e.g., going over customer success metrics while your team zones out) this may give the impression that other people’s input isn’t valued. If this is the case, your team may only listen passively or find themselves doing other tasks in the background.

How to fix it

• Start your meetings with an icebreaker, so your team can build stronger relationships and trust.
• Split the team into breakout rooms and let them discuss their challenges, successes, and ideas.
• Ask open-ended questions that force people to think critically about the topic.
• Brainstorm solutions together as a group.

3. There’s a negative atmosphere

It can be hard to motivate people or help your team improve when the atmosphere is uninspiring. Negative attitudes can stem from pressure of underperformance, disagreements with targets, or difficult customer interactions.

How to fix it

• Celebrate successes with your team, no matter how small.
• Encourage creative problem-solving and collaboration instead of criticism.
• Have a clear code of conduct for your sales team meetings and hold everyone accountable.

4. Your team isn’t that comfortable with each other

If your team members aren't communicating effectively, it can lead to misunderstandings, missed opportunities, and a general sense of discomfort. Similarly, personality clashes, unequal treatment, and different goals can also lead to a breakdown in communication.

How to fix it

• Have regular check-ins with your team members to address any issues before they become bigger problems.
• Switch to a fun way to host team-building activities, like coffee breaks or games.
• Create an action plan to set clear expectations and goals for the entire team.

11 Fun and motivational sales meeting ideas

You want your team to walk away from each meeting feeling energized, inspired, and ready to meet their quota. Whether you're meeting in-person or virtually, these sales meeting ideas can help motivate your team:

1. Have a clear sales team meeting agenda
2. Respect your team’s time
3. Take meetings online
4. Start with a good icebreaker
5. Give team shoutouts
6. Set up individual objectives
7. Let others own the meeting
8. Encourage collaboration
9. Train regularly
10. Run sales role-plays
11. Host lunch and learn sessions

1. Have a clear sales team meeting agenda

Whether you're running an in-person or a virtual meeting, it's important to provide your team with a clear agenda. Generally, the duration of a sales team meeting ranges between 30 to 45 mins. So, you need to ensure that everyone stays on track and eliminates any unnecessary distractions.

And if you don't know where to start, here's a meeting agenda template to inspire you:

Attendees: [Employee names], [Sales manager name]

Date: [Time and date]

Duration: 30 minutes

Wins from last week [5 minutes]

What were your biggest accomplishments last week? Did anyone on the team go above and beyond or accomplish something notable?

Sales performance review [5 minutes]

Review the team's performance from the previous week. Highlight any trends, successes, or areas for improvement.

Discuss current deals [10 minutes]

Discuss any current deals in progress, updates on progress, and any potential obstacles. Identify action items needed to move deals forward.

Priorities for this week [5 minutes]

What are your top priorities for this week? Discuss any upcoming meetings, calls, or presentations and ensure that everyone is aligned on the goals.

Action items [5 minutes]

Identify any action items or follow-ups from the meeting and assign owners for each action item. Confirm deadlines and next steps.

2. Respect your team’s time

Your team members are juggling multiple virtual selling responsibilities like following up with prospects, closing deals, and meeting sales targets. So you want to avoid keeping them in the meeting longer than necessary.

Start and end meetings on time, limit the call duration, and provide a clear agenda in advance. Don't schedule more meetings than you need, and if you do need to extend a meeting, be sure to ask your team first.

3. Take meetings online

With virtual meetings, team members can participate from anywhere, allowing for greater flexibility in working hours and the option to work remotely. This eliminates the need to travel to a physical location, saving time and commuting expenses. Virtual meetings are the easiest way to get your distributed team to collaborate with others.

You can use video conferencing tools like Livestorm, Zoom, or Google Meet to host interactive, engaging sessions. For example, you can use a browser-based platform like Livestorm to get your team online without downloading any software. Plus, it comes with engagement features like live chat and emoji reactions, which can improve team collaboration and lead to fun sales meetings.

4. Start with a good ice breaker

Ice breakers can create a sense of unity among your team, as everyone shares a little bit about themselves and gets to know their colleagues on a more personal level. You can create your own ice breaker, like "Room 101," wherein each team member names something they would banish forever.

If you're feeling stuck, take a look at these fun ideas:

• Share a photo of your pet and describe their personality
• If you were stranded on an island, what are the 3 things that you’d like to have with you?
• What's a non-work related skill or hobby you're proud of?
• Share a funny or embarrassing moment from your childhood
• What's your favorite hobby or pastime outside of work?

Pro tip: If you're hosting a virtual ice breaker that asks team members to vote on something, use Livestorm's polls for quick feedback and a visual summary of everyone's opinion.

5. Give team shoutouts

When you shine a spotlight on your team's achievements, it can be a powerful source of motivation. For example, if your team member Usman closed a significant deal, give him a shoutout during the meeting. Or if Leila mastered a new sales skill or took on a challenging project, shout it out!

But you don't have to do it alone. Encourage your team to give shoutouts to teammates for their accomplishments too. When you celebrate achievements together, you foster a positive and inclusive company culture.

Pro tip: Use Livestorm's emoji reaction feature to give a virtual 'thumbs up' or 'celebration' and show appreciation during the meeting.

6. Set up individual objectives

You want your team members to understand how their individual performance contributes to the team's success. While key performance indicators (KPIs) are important, you don't want to go overboard with metrics. Instead, set objectives and key results (OKRs) which focus on outcomes rather than outputs.

Here are some examples to set OKRs for your sales team:

Objective: Increase sales revenue by 20% in Q1

Key Results:

• Close 20 new deals per week
• Increase average deal size by 15%
• Expand customer base by 10%

Objective: Improve customer satisfaction ratings to 95% in Q2

Key Results:

• Reduce customer complaints by 50%
• Increase customer feedback survey participation by 25%
• Implement 3 new customer service initiatives

7. Let others own the meeting

Are you always the only one in charge of your sales team meetings? It's time to let others take the wheel. Appoint a "Chief Meeting Officer" and take turns rotating this responsibility, so everyone gets a chance to plan and lead a meeting. This not only takes some pressure off you, but it allows your team to learn from each other, share new ideas, and build leadership skills.

Plus, you can add a segment to your sales meetings where each sales rep gives a 3 to 5 minutes presentation on an idea, skill, or other sales-related topics. They can bring their own material and use design tools like Visme to create illustrative presentations. This way, your team benefits from knowledge sharing, collaboration, and exploring different perspectives.

Pro team: If you’re hosting a virtual sales meeting, use Visme's Livestorm integration to present a Visme slide deck within the meeting room directly.

8. Encourage collaboration

The best sales leaders leave room for collaboration and brainstorming. If you're hosting an in-person meeting, you can use a physical whiteboard or flipchart to organize ideas. You can also assign group tasks or projects. For example, you can break your team into smaller groups to design a new sales strategy.

If you're hosting virtual meetings, there are plenty of collaboration tools that allow teams to work together in real time. Tools like Miro's digital whiteboard let you share ideas, map out processes, and create stunning visuals. Plus, if you're using a video engagement tool like Livestorm, you can create unlimited breakout rooms with up to 16 speakers. This way, your team can brainstorm ideas and share observations in the main room when ready.

Pro tip: Use Livestorm’s Miro integration to share and annotate ideas and visuals directly from your meeting room.

9. Train regularly

Make a point to invest in training and development so your team can stay on top of the latest technologies (like LinkedIn Chrome extensions), sales process strategies, and product updates. Whether you set up a formal sales training program or host weekly training sessions, focus on high-value topics like:

• Running successful virtual sales calls, product demos, and cold calls
• Building and managing customer relationships
• Negotiation and closing techniques
• Prospecting and lead generation
• Sales techniques and strategies
• Psychology and emotional intelligence

Plus, you can have everyone take regular assessments or tests to help the team measure their progress and make sure they’re up to date on key topics.

10. Run effective sales roleplays

Roleplaying is a powerful training tool for sales teams. It helps employees develop and refine their skills, learn to think on their feet, and improve communication. For example, you can run a sales pitch roleplay where team members must pitch a new product or service to a potential customer, addressing their pain points and highlighting the unique features of the offering.

You can also add customer personas into your sales role-plays. For example, create a scenario where team members must sell to a specific customer persona, like a small business owner or a C-level executive.

To make sure your roleplays are effective:

• Create a realistic scenario
• Choose actors for each role and assign the roles in advance, so everyone is prepared
• Designate a moderator to observe, take meeting notes, and provide feedback
• Allow practice time before the actual role-play begins
• Provide constructive feedback after each round of the role-play

Pro tip: If you're using Livestorm, use the transcript app to generate texts in the sidebar of your room automatically and follow up on key points made during the meeting.

11. Host lunch and learn sessions

Hosting a lunch and learn session is an effective way to keep your team motivated and engaged. Put together team-building exercises and courses aimed at skill-building and personal development to get the team together. You can invite a speaker within your organization to share different perspectives.

For example, invite someone from the customer success team to discuss customer service best practices or invite someone from the marketing team to discuss lead generation strategies. Or you can also invite external speakers to share their knowledge and experience. Host the session at a local restaurant or outdoor venue, providing a change of scenery and an opportunity for team members to bond over a shared experience.

How to run an effective sales meeting

To run an effective sales meeting, divide your efforts into three buckets to know what to do before, during, and after the session. Most of the advice is applicable to all session formats, but we've also added useful tips and tricks for effective virtual sales meetings.

How to prepare for a sales meeting

First, you'll need to figure out what day, time, and agenda will work best. After that, it shouldn’t take you longer than 20 minutes to fill up your meeting agenda template or adjust your presentation.

Here’s how to prepare for your sales meeting:

1. Find a time
2. Come up with a meeting agenda template
3. Craft a presentation (optional)
4. Host virtual sales meetings
5. Assign a note-taker (optional)

1. Find a time

It may be difficult to find a time that works for everyone, especially if your team is remote and working from different time zones. However, once you set up a weekly or monthly date and time, people should be able to build their schedules around it.

To identify when to host the sales meeting, run a poll with your team and pick the day and time that suits them best. Then, set up a recurring event in your company’s calendar or directly on your online meeting software if you’re using Livestorm. That way you won’t have to schedule the next meeting every week or month.

2. Come up with a meeting agenda template

Once you’ve hit on the right format for your meeting, turn it into a template agenda to simplify the weekly or monthly prep. In the lead up to each meeting, invite attendees to collaborate on the agenda using a collaborative app like ClickUp or Notion. You can also let others present the topics they’ve suggested to avoid monologuing throughout.

For instance, if someone wants to share their learnings on closing a large deal, allow them to do so during the meeting. Then, keep the other items short or solve them asynchronously to avoid running out of time.

Pro tip: It’s important that you’re mindful of the meeting length when you’re setting an agenda. If you’re booking it for 30 minutes, then your agenda should be short and concise so you can keep the meeting on track.

3. Craft a presentation

Not all team meetings require a presentation. You can simply share your agenda on whichever platform you use and talk through it. But, if you’d rather use a presentation, make a simple, visually engaging template that you can repurpose for each meeting.

If you’re hosting this meeting online, use Visme or PowerPoint and embed the presentation into Livestorm. That way you’ll be able to go through it without having to switch tabs to pass slides.

4. Host sales meetings virtually

Making it easy for everyone to join helps reduce meeting dread. That’s why virtual meeting platforms like Livestorm are so useful. They make meetings more flexible and accessible no matter where you are.

Even if you’re not a remote team, you can host hybrid meetings to support colleagues who might not be able to access the office that day. Plus, you get access to automatic recordings, engagement analytics, and in-app features like a Q&A tab.

For example, if a team member is on their way to a client meeting or working from home due to unexpected childcare issues, they can join your meeting remotely while everyone else attends in person. Or, if you record the session, they can simply watch the replay from their desk at a more convenient time.

5. Assign a note-taker

Sometimes people come to meetings expecting them to be boring and unproductive. So, they work on other things while they’re at it or simply stop paying attention. But if they’re not listening, you have no room to potentially change their minds.

To encourage focus, you can assign a different note-taker each week. Since this person is responsible for writing meeting minutes, they’ll need to pay attention. Changing the role every week gives everyone the opportunity to focus and possibly be more attentive at your next sales meeting.

How to act as the sales meeting host

You want these sessions to be the best use of your people’s time, so the first thing you need to do is to start on time. Then, you should:

6. Avoid tired ice breaker questions
7. Kick it off right away
8. Encourage interaction

6. Avoid tired ice breaker questions

Ice breakers don’t have to be awkward. You can get creative and think of something new every week or simply rotate ideas. Don’t forget to let your team make suggestions too! One of our favorite ideas is sharing “culture recommendations”, where each team member shares a TV show, book, or podcast they’ve enjoyed in the last week.

If you’re using a platform like Livestorm to host sales meetings online, invite people to unmute themselves or share their answers through the chat. You can also ask them to use emoji reactions to share how they feel about what people are sharing, or even vote for the best recommendation on a poll by the end of the ice breaker round.

7. Kick it off right away

As soon as you finish the ice breaker, share the agenda and start going through each point. If this is the first time you’re hosting the session, you might want to take time to share the rules of the call. For example, if this is an online session, you might want to explain if it’s a camera on or off call and how you want people to interact.

8. Encourage interaction

If when you review the agenda prior to the meeting, it looks like you’ll be the only one talking, ask other employees to present one of the items. For example, if you want to talk about specific sales skills and you know that someone recently took a class on it, ask them if they’re willing to present the topic.

Pro tip: If you’re hosting a live meeting, ask people to share their ideas through your team chat before the event and compile insights. If you’re hosting it virtually on a platform like Livestorm, open a digital whiteboard or send people to breakout rooms to get them to interact in a more focused environment.

How to close a sales meeting

Wrap up your team meetings on time and make sure you:

9. Set action items
10. Follow up by sending the recording and meeting notes

9. Set action items

Recap everything you talked about during the session and revisit the next steps. Get the note-taker to use Asana or Notion to compile notes and assign tasks. If you run out of time, move pending agenda items to the next sales meeting agenda.

10. Follow up by sending the recording and meeting notes

If you’re having the sales meeting in-person, get the note-taker to share a summary with everyone on the team as soon as the meeting ends. If you’re having a virtual meeting, notes are also useful, but you can simplify work by sharing the recording. You can use Livestorm to automatically record the meeting as soon as it starts and send the video through email. That way, everyone can rewatch the call or catch up in case they couldn’t attend.

What to include in your sales meeting agenda

Sales teams already spend too much time in meetings. If you want them to see the value behind your team meeting, include them in the ideation process before you set the agenda. As a starting point, use this list to spark ideas to motivate your team:

• Ice breakers
• Meeting objectives
• KPIs
• Wins
• Updates
• Blockers
• Next steps

Ice breakers

Come up with multiple ice breaker games that get people to chat, laugh, or vote on a poll. This is a simple way to check in with your people and shouldn’t take longer than five to ten minutes to avoid taking most of the meeting time. Remember that these are voluntary and you should avoid putting anyone on the spot.

Pro tip: If you’re hosting these sessions online, use a virtual meeting platform like Livestorm that lets you break the ice with polls, emoji reactions, or Miro or Mural virtual whiteboards.

Meeting objectives

Conversations can often get derailed from the initial meeting intention. Take a minute at the beginning of every session to remember the goal of the meeting and keep it in mind throughout. That way, you’ll have a more focused session where people only bring topics up for discussion if it aligns with your meeting goal.

KPIs

Use this space to talk about sales goals. Review the numbers and ask if anyone needs help reaching a particular KPI. If your reps are already reviewing the sales strategy with their managers and are on top of their KPIs, this should just be a short reminder. However, if this is the only place where your sales reps get to review metrics, take a bit more time to explain expected milestones and objectives.

Wins

Especially on remote teams, people’s work can go unnoticed. You can solve that problem by inviting everyone to share their peers' or direct reports' wins. This space isn’t only for top performers, you can also celebrate specific behaviors to promote company values that you want to reinforce. This is a simple way to make your team feel valued and get them looking forward to the meeting.

Pro tip: Some teams are oriented towards team building and would love to get to know their teammates and celebrate wins. However, that’s not always the case. Avoid pushing an agenda that works for you but will cause sales team members to disengage. In Livestorm, you can use virtual polls to gauge your team's feelings towards this segment during the meeting.

Updates

You want people to see value in this meeting, so use it to share relevant, team-wide information. Allow them to add updates to this list and skip it if there’s nothing to discuss.

Here’s an example of a relevant update. Let’s say one of the team KPIs is to reach one million in sales by the end of the quarter. But, one of the biggest clients was acquired by another company and there’s a possibility that they’d end the contract with you. A weekly sales meeting is the place to share this so others can find ways to

• Shorten the sales cycle on their open conversations
• Upsell to current clients
• Help build an action plan
• Revisit their pipeline
• Work together on a sales pitch for the new owners

Blockers

Being in sales can often cause teams to work in silos and forget that they have peers that are probably facing similar challenges. That’s why you should encourage people to ask for help to solve roadblocks during team meetings. This can lead to a brainstorming or knowledge-sharing session in the future.

Next steps

Meetings should always facilitate other things to happen, so make sure you assign actions rather than letting them slide into next week. As part of your meeting management tech stack, you need project management software that lets you keep your action items on track. Remember to review the progress of open tasks in the next sales meeting.

Energize and engage your sales team

Your sales team meetings don’t have to be the dreaded part of your team’s workweek. The key to a successful sales meeting is to make it both informative and enjoyable.

Here’s a quick recap:

• Set a clear sales team meeting agenda
• Start with a good ice breaker
• Recognize your team's achievements
• Set goals and OKRs
• Keep your meetings short, sweet, and to the point
• Give everyone a chance to lead
• Build confidence and sales skills with role-plays
• Provide ongoing training and development opportunities

And if you're hosting virtual sales team meetings, you need a video engagement tool. Livestorm offers interactive features like live chat and polls, integrations with Miro's whiteboard, design tools like Visme, and 1000+ other widely used apps. So your team can walk away feeling engaged, motivated, and inspired.

Sign up for a free Livestorm account and set up your next virtual sales meeting today.

Frequently asked questions about sales meeting ideas

How do you motivate a sales team in a meeting?

You can motivate your sales team in a meeting by celebrating wins, encouraging positive competition, and setting attainable goals. You can also use role-plays during meetings to give your sales reps practice in real scenarios and provide constructive feedback after each round of the role-play.

What are good team meeting topics?

Good team meeting topics depend on your business goals and objectives, but some ideas include:

• Progress updates on ongoing projects
• Brainstorming ideas to improve processes, and customer experience and increase sales
• Reviewing key metrics like close rates or customer retention numbers.
• Communicating new product/service launches
• Sharing best practices from other teams in the organization

What should a sales meeting not do?

A sales meeting should not:

• Micromanage or criticize team members
• Be too long or drawn out
• Make meetings all about numbers and targets without addressing the bigger picture
• Be disorganized or lacking in structure
• Ignore the input or ideas of team members
• Be too negative or discouraging

What makes a great sales meeting?

A great sales meeting makes your team members feel engaged and motivated. It should have a clear agenda, interactive team-building exercises, and opportunities for collaboration. Keeping your meetings short and sweet with clear objectives helps ensure everyone stays focused and gets the most out of their time.