Your Monday Sales Meeting Is Killing Your Culture

Watch or listen above or read below.

Leah Bumphrey: Monday morning sales meetings. I remember when I… The first one I ever went to, and I was like 19 and I wasn’t in sales. I wanted to be, and it was, here we go, and we sit down and it’s Monday, and you got to be there for 8:05. You’re in the big boardroom and somebody brings the donuts and who gets the fritter and who gets the one?

It’s the biggest waste of an hour. I think Monday morning sales meetings should be eliminated. I think they’re garbage.

Dennis Collins: Garbage?

Leah Bumphrey: Garbage.

Dennis Collins: Really?

Leah Bumphrey: Well…

Dennis Collins: So that’s interesting. I’m a little shocked hearing that from you.

Leah Bumphrey: I know.

Dennis Collins: Because one of your superpowers is that you are a great storyteller. And so Monday morning meetings, yes, I’ve had a tortured relationship with Monday morning meetings for my whole life. But here’s one thing that I… That you mentioned that I think can be beneficial. When I heard my colleagues around the table say, “Oh, hey, I sold this person, I sold this business, I sold this, I sold that,” and they told the story, the obstacles they had and what they had to overcome to get that sale, I actually learned something from that.

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, but don’t you think that organically it would happen if you’re all in the pit and you’re chatting?

Dennis Collins: Maybe.

Leah Bumphrey: Like this sit around the boardroom table and you…

Dennis Collins: That’s by chance.

Leah Bumphrey: Boring sales manager doing this.

Dennis Collins: Well, there you go. Maybe the leader of the meeting is what you’re objecting to. Are you objecting to the meeting or to the leader of the meeting?

Leah Bumphrey: Okay, well, there’s been moments where it’s been the leader, but sometimes it’s just the format. Is there not a better format?

Dennis Collins: Yes. What’s the format?

Paul Boomer: All right, Leah, you brought this up. What if you could change and control the format of every Monday morning meeting, what would it be?

Leah Bumphrey: I’m glad you asked. Paul, you’re gonna love this. It’s about the culture. So it starts with the, you gotta have the coffee, you gotta have the donuts. And then around, why not, instead of having every week it’s Leah in charge of the meeting, you rotate it so that it’s something a little bit different? I’ve been in meetings where someone was assigned to bring something fun, a video. Man, there’s so many fun videos on YouTube. But back in the day, even having a DVD where it’s get everybody laughing, get everybody talking, and then use that as a jumping off board. Just… But put the responsibility so it’s Paul one week, and then Leah, and then Dennis, and then Yahoo, and then… Don’t you think that would work better?

Dennis Collins: I don’t know. That’s an interesting thought. I like it. So, different leaders every week and different kind of icebreakers, like a video or some type of activity or exercise or something.

Leah Bumphrey: I would bring eggs, fill it in, and I’d make omelets for everybody. Like, what’s with the donuts? Why are donuts a thing?

Dennis Collins: Yeah, I don’t eat the donuts, so I’d come for your omelets or whatever.

Leah Bumphrey: And then you’re interested in coming and you have it all going, or I don’t even care if it’s something microwaved or you bring something from… There’s just gotta be a better way to keep it engaging as opposed to, oh.

Dennis Collins: So why do you think, apparently you have attended a few Monday morning meetings that were less than stellar.

Leah Bumphrey: Yup.

Dennis Collins: Why do you think that is? What’s causing that to happen? Like you said, you have endless possibilities of how you can make a meeting interesting, but most people don’t. What’s the problem there?

Leah Bumphrey: They’re agenda-driven. It’s boring. It’s this to this to this to this, and you gotta be there for an hour ’cause that’s what the magic book says.

Dennis Collins: You gotta be there for an hour.

Leah Bumphrey: You gotta stay for an hour.

Dennis Collins: Have you ever had a chance to lead a Monday morning meeting?

Leah Bumphrey: I have.

Dennis Collins: And what did you do?

Paul M. Boomer: Look at that smile, Dennis. Look at that smile. I have.

Leah Bumphrey: I have. Funny you should ask.

Dennis Collins: Funny, yeah.

Leah Bumphrey: It’s like The Godfather, you get drawn back into the stupidity every time you have to join a Monday meeting.

Dennis Collins: Drawn back into stupidity?

Leah Bumphrey: Yes. It’s that seat ’cause…

Dennis Collins: Well, what did you do that was different? Tell me… You know, you’re advocating here and you’re making a great point, but, I would like to hear what your solution would be. What did you do when you did it?

Leah Bumphrey: Simple stuff. Simple stuff. Sitting in a different chair. Whoever is chairing, don’t be at the front.

Dennis Collins: Sitting in a different chair.

Leah Bumphrey: A different chair. You know, you’re at the big boardroom table and you’re always at the head of the table. 

Dennis Collins: Yeah, but everybody likes to sit in the same chair. Ever notice that?

Leah Bumphrey: Don’t let them.

Dennis Collins: People like to sit in the same chair.

Leah Bumphrey: Don’t let them.

Dennis Collins: Don’t let ’em. Disrupt ’em.

Leah Bumphrey: Absolutely.

Dennis Collins: Make ’em feel uncomfortable. Yes, disrupt ’em.

Leah Bumphrey: Right. And do something… Like challenge something, do something a little bit different. I’ve had meetings where, you know what? Everybody all of a sudden has a different kind of chocolate bar where they’re sitting, or you give them coloring pages. Don’t laugh, you guys. Coloring pages.

Dennis Collins: Coloring pages?

Leah Bumphrey: Yes. They sit down and immediately they’re doodling, or they turn them over and they start using it for notes. It doesn’t matter. Change up. 

Dennis Collins: So how does this forward the business purpose for that meeting?

Leah Bumphrey: Well, what is the purpose of the meeting? 

Dennis Collins: Well, it’s a business. You’re in a business, and I assume that it has to have something to do with that business, right? So how does coloring relate back to the goals of the business?

Leah Bumphrey: Because if you change, you change how you’re thinking about something. If you are surprised, WizardAcademy.org, what does it teach us? Surprise Broca. Surprise the brain and all of a sudden something else happens. Roy’s Monday morning memos. It’s about you go down the rabbit hole because when you look at something over here, all of a sudden I’m gonna have a solution for this problem here.

Dennis Collins: So you’re saying use these different activities to stimulate creativity or stimulate idea generation?

Leah Bumphrey: Yes.

Dennis Collins: Is that what you’re talking about?

Leah Bumphrey: And connection. And yes, just something completely different. In high school, I had a great teacher and she…

Paul M. Boomer: I’m gonna point out the fact that, Dennis, you keep saying it’s a business meeting, it’s a business meeting, it’s a business meeting. Yes, it’s a business meeting. But what operates a business? Who operates a business? People. People operate a business. So why would you not engage them the way that they want to be engaged with so that their productivity, so that their creativity, so that their problem-solving solutions, so all these things are heightened and even better?

Dennis Collins: How do they want to be engaged with? That’s a great question.

Paul M. Boomer: Well, Leah for president is what I’m saying. But if Leah can’t be president, you know what? Fine. The leader of the business should ask, “Hey, how do you guys want to make this Monday morning meeting happen?”

Dennis Collins: Ah…

Paul M. Boomer: Ask the damn question.

Dennis Collins: Ask the damn question, Paul says. Yes, ask the damn question. So what do you guys think would be the answer to that?

Leah Bumphrey: I have been on a Monday morning meeting where it was a walk.

Dennis Collins: A walk? What do you mean? You walked somewhere?

Leah Bumphrey: A walk. Take the team on a walk. Yeah, go for a walk. Go for a walk.

Dennis Collins: How did that work out? How did that work out?

Leah Bumphrey: It was great. It was great except it’s wholly… When you go for a walk, you have no control over the conversations that are happening, right? But it starts your week differently. So it was good. It was actually… It was very positive.

Dennis Collins: So what did you personally get out of the walk? What did you take away from the walk?

Leah Bumphrey: It was a refreshing, different way to begin your day. Right? So you walk across the street to the coffee shop. So the sales manager just was walking across here.

Dennis Collins: You could have done that by yourself. You didn’t need to walk with a group.

Leah Bumphrey: But again, back to what you were saying, it’s about business. So we’re trying to inspire people in business so they come back, they sit at their desk, and they’re like, oof. I think one of the best things that can happen in our day is after you meet with someone and you go home at the end of your day because you love going to work, you love coming home, and then you’re able to say, “Oh, Shawn, you’ll never guess what happened today. For a sales meeting, we ended up walking over to the picnic table and the sales manager had coffee there waiting for us. And man, there was this bird that was singing and kept everybody cracked up because it was crazy. And then we started feeding the squirrels and then, yeah, then we went back to work.”

It’s something engaging. Changes your mind. I just want all of our listeners, all of our viewers, if you’re a small business owner, change how you react to people. Paul, you’re the big culture guy. Dennis, you lived this. But when we’re willing to do something different, I think it’s important. 

Dennis Collins: I totally agree. The way we ran our business in Miami was exactly like that. Total surprises. We surprised people. We did things they didn’t expect. We had events both during the workday and after the workday. We did family events. We did lunches. We would cater a lunch at a hotel or something nearby and have a guest speaker, have somebody that had something to offer for like a lunch and learn. So I agree with that. I agree with that. But why don’t more people do that? It’s available to everyone.

Leah Bumphrey: I think people get into this little box of business, the box of business, box of business, box of business, and they forget business is part of life.

Paul M. Boomer: Business is operated by people.

Leah Bumphrey: Yeah.

Dennis Collins: Or is it life is part of business? 

Leah Bumphrey: I love it. Okay, so I want everybody listening, if you have an interesting way to keep those things…

Dennis Collins: Yeah, send it to us.

Leah Bumphrey: Let us know.

Dennis Collins: In our episodes, if you’ve been a faithful listener to Connect and Convert, we have talked about sales process. We’ve talked about sales problems. What’s the root cause of your sales problem? The Sales Trust Playbook gives you a head start without spending any money, zero money, to get an idea of what your process is like. In other words, is it something you trust or are there signs that there are things in your sales process that are flawed? Like one episode we had here, we talked about a flawed sales process. So Paul, how do you get that? It’s in the notes of our podcast.

Paul M. Boomer: Yep. Look for the notes in the podcast and on YouTube and you can just click on the link.

Dennis Collins: Just click on it and there it is.

Paul M. Boomer: Yep. All we ask is for your email address. We are not gonna spam you. We do not email very often at all. I don’t think we’ve ever sent an email, actually. 

Leah Bumphrey: Is your business process an apple fritter or is it a donut with sparkles? Sometimes you want an apple fritter, sometimes the sparkles work best.

Dennis Collins: No, I want a chocolate. I want a chocolate iced one. That’s my business.

Leah Bumphrey: Really?

Dennis Collins: Yeah, I do. Yeah.

Leah Bumphrey: Aw.

Dennis Collins: Oh, yeah. I want it, but I don’t eat it.

Leah Bumphrey: Walnut crunches, those are the best.

Dennis Collins: Okay, kids…

Leah Bumphrey: Unless you’re allergic to walnuts, then they’re not that good.

Dennis Collins: Probably not. So avoid those at all costs.

Leah Bumphrey: See you next time.

Dennis Collins: Hey, see you next time. Bye.