Why Isn't My Sales Team Meeting Working? Pep Rally vs. Film Study

Short answer: your sales meeting is probably failing because of its format, not its content. Most leaders run one kind of meeting for two different jobs, broadcasting a message and coaching individuals, and those jobs need different formats.

What is the difference between a pep rally and film study?

A pep rally is a broadcast. You have a message, you deliver it, and everyone leaves feeling a little taller. Slides and volume are fine here, because the format is doing its job.

Film study is the opposite. Nobody watches the highlight reel. Everyone watches their own tape and hears what they are actually doing wrong. It happens in a small room, it is uncomfortable, and there are no slides.

What is the most common mistake in a coaching meeting?

Calling it a coaching session and then showing up with a deck. At that point you have run a pep rally for six people and labeled it coaching.

How do you know a coaching meeting turned into a pep rally?

It turns into a round robin. Each person says the pipeline is good and a few good things are working. Ninety minutes pass, and no one has been pushed on anything specific.

What two rules fix a team meeting right away?

•     Everyone brings an artifact. A real file, a listing, or a live prospect. Not a summary, the actual thing.

•     Everyone ends by saying one commitment out loud, with a name and a date attached.

Why do peer commitments work better in a group?

In my experience, peer commitment holds and manager commitment does not hold as much. That is most of the reason to do the work in a group at all: the people in the room are the ones who will notice if the commitment was not kept.

This is my own coaching view, not a published study.