The weekly 1-on-1 needs an overhaul—here’s why and how
One-on-one meetings are a critical touchpoint for sales managers and their direct reports. The meeting should be an opportunity to develop a trusting relationship, support learning and development, and provide coaching for deals in progress.
For CEOs, CMOs, CROs, and CHROs exploring ways to improve employee job satisfaction while meeting or exceeding revenue goals, institutionalizing effective one-on-ones is a strategic place to start.
This intervention is needed because of the reality in which we now live. Most people now attend more meetings than before the pandemic, and even if they’re getting shorter, the constant context-switching leads to fatigue. Organizations that partner with Numentum tell us that high-quality one-on-ones are the casualty. They’re deprioritized and often fall by the wayside.
Even when honored, they’re often only spent discussing the status of current opportunities. This isn’t the best use of time when sellers are already tasked with keeping this information up to date in their CRM.
A focused, strategic one-on-one can deliver so much more. Executives can use these five best practices to coach their sales leaders on becoming more effective managers. The results will be better team dynamics, accelerated deals, and stronger sellers for the long term.
Five ways to optimize the one-on-one
Setting a regular cadence for one-on-ones is critical. Whether your teams meet weekly or bi-weekly will depend on their specific operations, as will the choice between 30- or 60-minute meetings. The most important thing is to set a routine and stick to it.
Numentum has worked with several high-performing sales organizations and we have found that a 30-minute meeting is most effective, with a weekly cadence to maximize the many benefits of the one-on-one. Bear in mind that a canceled bi-weekly meeting could mean a month goes by without this valuable time for sales manager and seller to connect.
This five-step blueprint will empower your sales leaders to up-level their one-on-ones and get more from their sellers:
1. Advance preparation
A common misuse of one-on-ones using it to get up to speed on the deals a seller is working on. This is a bit like the internet joke of having to upload a résumé and then fill in a bunch of form fields with the same information contained in the attached résumé. Instead, sales managers should prepare by reading through deal notes and reviewing the highlights of any recent calls. This process is more efficient and demonstrates to sellers respect for their time.
Preparation also means being distraction-free for the duration of the meeting. Close email, put your phone away, set Slack or Teams statuses to away, and be fully present.
Finally, sellers should prepare by sharing discussion points specific to their current challenges before the meeting. Doing so helps to extract everything currently on their mind, rather than just what a sales manager can see in the CRM about their deals.
2. Be human
A key part of building a strong sales culture is that every one-on-one interaction should begin with the question: “How are you?”.
While the knee-jerk reaction for many is to respond with “Yes, good” and then swiftly move on to talk about deals, a great manager is comfortable showing compassion. Encourage sales leaders to practice pausing and creating space. Their goal is to find out how sellers are doing on a human level.
Why? Because the moment that happens, a different type of seller-manager relationship starts to form. Sellers will realize their manager and organization care about them as more than just a number. This develops trust and a sense of purpose in their role.
The Harvard Business Review sums up why this is so important on an individual and company level:
“Employees in high-trust organizations are more productive, have more energy at work, collaborate better with their colleagues, and stay with their employers longer than people working at low-trust companies. They also suffer less chronic stress and are happier with their lives, and these factors fuel stronger performance.”
This human approach is even more vital in the post-pandemic, burnt-out world—and the benefits extend beyond the relationship a manager has with their direct reports. It’s harder to build trust with potential buyers when more interactions occur virtually. By practicing a human approach in one-on-ones internally, sellers learn how to have the kind of authentic conversations they need to master to build human relationships with their buyers.
3. Skill development
The competitive landscape in almost all industries has ratcheted up a notch over the past few years. Disruption is the new normal, and, while it drives innovation and can improve the buyer experience, it can be challenging for sellers to keep up when they’re under pressure to hit a number.
One-on-ones are a regular opportunity to cultivate growth, not just discuss results or immediate fires to put out. Managers should coach sellers through best practices for today’s digital first-world—marrying exceptional people skills with high digital competency.
In an increasingly competitive environment where buyers expect so much more from companies, sellers need to be ruthlessly efficient and pursue only the highest-potential opportunities. One-on-ones are the ideal time to collaboratively interrogate the viability of deals, again coaching sellers to eventually do this independently.
4. Leverage networks
This best practice is an extension of the first recommendation: preparation.
Sales managers should be a high-value extension of the prospecting engine. While sellers focus on specific individuals relating to particular deals, their leaders can take a broader lens to the situation. As an executive, encourage your sales leaders to map their networks to the people their sellers have identified in the consensus pyramid.
The exercise will pay dividends in the future. For example, a seller stuck trying to organize a meeting with a decision-maker may find the door unlocked by someone in their leader’s network who can make a warm introduction.
The Numentum Connected Enterprise allows Sellers to map the entire company’s LinkedIn connections to the consensus pyramid facilitating warm introductions to economic buyers, champions, and coaches.
At a time when sellers' top challenges include building trust virtually, meeting with the right people, and navigating the post-COVID-19 world, sales leaders can help reduce these pains by investing in their networks. It will help bridge the gap between sellers and their buyers.
5. Come away with a plan
Sales leaders and their teams jump from one meeting to another. Even when a one-on-one is conducted well, both parties will likely leave and instantly join another meeting. It might be a few hours before they can begin reflecting on what was discussed, let alone start to act on it. Alleviate this issue by writing down action points throughout the one-on-one and using the last five minutes to agree on an action plan with next steps.
Encourage sales leaders to get into this practice and incorporate the next steps into the agenda for the next meeting to ensure they are primed and ready to resume the conversation.
Start running one-on-ones the Numentum way
The world of selling has transformed over the past decade. The human element has been left behind in the scramble to adopt digital processes. But the link between high-trust relationships and business results exists—it’s why strong brands can better weather economic downturns. It’s time to reprioritize the one-on-one, recognizing it as a critical touchpoint in helping sellers increase their job satisfaction and efficiency, driving new revenue momentum.
Revenue Forward
Numentum is a buyer experience consultancy that helps B2B organizations go to market faster, bigger, and more effectively without the need for an expensive and time-consuming overhaul of existing processes and systems. We partner with CEOs, CMOs, CROs, and CHROs to develop customized training programs that integrate brand, sales, and marketing to deliver accelerated revenue momentum.
By efficiently focusing on the buyer experience, we advance the skills, information, and interactions sales professionals must deploy to engage with today’s hyper-informed buyers effectively. Our approach aligns sales with marketing to maximize the utility of brand investments, content, and digital channels—dramatically improving pipelines, shortening buying cycles, and increasing conversion rates.
Learn more about our approach with this introduction to the Connected and Empowered Enterprise, and follow us on LinkedIn for more strategies and tactics that drive revenue forward.
