Its great advantage is the opportunity for personal contact between buyer and sales people - the opportunity for give and take, for questions, for discussions, for showing merchandise, for giving demonstrations, for arousing or renewing enthusiasm.
Another advantage is its great flexibility. It can take many forms, ranging from lecture, to skit, to symposium.
Its weakness is that it tends to become routine. Good planning can prevent this; so can a determination on your part that no meeting you run will be allowed to become dull or pointless.
Another weakness is that the meeting does not always reach every one. Where there are part-timers, staggered shifts, and outlying branches, it is seldom possible to get all the sales people together regularly. Supplementary methods must be used to convey the substance of the meeting to those who did not attend.
Steps in Planning Meetings
Plan your meetings as a teacher plans a lesson for her class. Consider:
- purpose, or the message you want to get across
- introduction, or how you will arouse interest
- development, or how you will present your story, including the visual aids you will use, the garments you will show, the skits you will present,
- summing up, including possible preparation of leaflets and sales-book inserts for the sales people to take with them, and for distribution to those who were not present at the meeting
- review, or check-up to see if your message got through and what may be required by way of re-teaching.
If you have a clear idea in your own mind of what you want to accomplish in a meeting, you will not allow it to degenerate into a series of announcements and haphazard remarks.
For your own guidance, put your purpose into words. Make it a capsule statement of the message you want to put across. For example, your message may be: "The new look is long - and we have it in stock," Then key everything you say or do as much as possible to that message.
For example, if you are showing dresses that achieve a lengthening look in various ways, concentrate your attention and your audience's on the lengthening devices-narrow pleats, shoulder-to-hem closures, vertical lines, etc. Subordinate any other purposes served by these features to your main idea-length.
Don't try to cover too much ground in any one meeting. If you hit one point and hit it hard, you'll drive it home. If you diffuse your efforts, you may achieve no impact whatsoever.
Introducing Your Subject
Make an interesting start on your meeting. Let your audience know that you have something useful and important to give them. Motivate them to listen! For example, "There's a new, flattering, long look coming in that your customers are going to like, and that you will find easy to sell." Even if you have a dozen announcements to make at your meeting, begin with something that ties in with your main subject and that will attract and hold attention. Then interrupt yourself for the necessary announcements.
If the approach sounds familiar, it is one that you hear often on TV. It is a favorite device of Ed Sullivan, who has reigned so long. He recounts the goodies that await his audience each time he announces a pause for a commercial or station break. He reminds people that they have a reason to stay tuned. You can do the same thing.
Developing Your Subject
In presenting the factual core of your meeting, try to keep your audience mentally active, rather than passive.
If you simply lecture, you can cover a great deal of ground very quickly, but at the risk of having your audience drifting along - possibly into near coma.
If you ask questions and develop ideas from the audience, you keep them alert, you make them think, and you get your story firmly set in their minds.
For example, if you are explaining a new long look, you might ask the sales people to tell you what features of each number emphasize the lengthened line, instead of reciting these points to them.
Or, try something like: "When I saw this number in the showroom, I was simply thrilled. Can you see why?" And, if they miss some of the points, prompt them a bit. "What about the neckline? Did you notice this cuff treatment?" You can make finding the selling points of the garment a community sing, so to speak, instead of a solo performance. Participation creates enthusiasm. And enthusiasm creates sales.
Summing Up
Whether you are the sole speaker or whether you have been successful in getting your sales people to join in the discussion, you will need to sum up what has been developed.
Do this as you go along. For instance, "Good. Now we have established that the straight skirt, the vertical seaming, and this unobtrusive self-belt will all make the customer look taller and slimmer."
