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A lot of annual sales meetings were canceled last year, for a lot of different reasons. That does not seem to be happening this year. Despite warnings from people who have never had real jobs, executives have decided to put the incentive back into the selling process.

Why? Easy answer: it works.

An annual sales meeting is integral to the success of the year’s sales performance. It’s a one-time opportunity to recognize past performance and inspire achievement for the next 12 months. It’s also an expensive endeavor.

To make these meetings successful requires a lot of work starting months before the event.

Here are some ideas and challenges to make you think and rethink the process.

Pre-plan. Choose an environment for relaxed fun and learning. A resort or hotel with sporting options, nice sleeping rooms and nice meeting rooms.

Pre-question the participants. Ask them about problems and needs, about strengths and frustrations, about themselves and their goals. Use the questionnaires to personalize the training.

Seek professional help. Have someone in charge inside and/or outside who can make the dream meeting a reality. Arm them with a set of directives and objectives, and specific items that the meeting must accomplish. Partner with a professional meeting planner.

Create a realistic, relatable theme. Have an internal contest with a $1,000 prize for the winner.

Start with a bang. Do group fun first. Play a round of golf. Have a big dinner. Show pictures of last year. Have a karaoke party.

A regal welcome. A short and sweet welcome from the CEO at the first formal gathering. Tell a few personal stories about the climb up the ladder. Give a personal thanks for the group’s hard work. AND ISSUE THREE CHALLENGES.

Spotlight one or two people. Have them tell the group how they made a big sale, saved a deal or used a new strategy.

Thank everyone. Thank (and applaud) the people that made it happen. People love applause.

Award the best. Have high-quality plaques, trophies and prizes. Have several categories so there can be lots of winners. Biggest sale. Most new customers. Highest volume. Fewest lost customers.

Plan your future together. Let the salespeople be part of the plan. Don’t just give them the game plan. Let the salespeople help make it. If you want salespeople to take ownership of sales goals, it’s only possible when they participate in the goal-setting process.

Goal everything. Let each team member agree to his or her goals and create a personal action plan to achieve them. Create daily, weekly and monthly numbers. Not just ending numbers, but what it takes to get to the end. How many leads it takes to make one appointment, how many appointments it takes to make a sale.

Train professionally. Hire an outside professional to present to the group. Plan the training to be inspirational, customized, personalized and real world.

Eat like kings and queens. Have the best food that money can buy. People will remember the quality of the meeting by the quality of the fun, training and food. Mostly food.

Have recreation time – but not “get drunk and act stupid” time.

Build relationships. Have free time for people to get to know each other.

Network for answers. Salespeople face problems alone, but can solve them together (with the help of a professional facilitator). Leave a few hours for problem solving, informal meetings and socializing.

The CEO issues A Final Challenge. Ten minutes of an inspirational message that will keep the team talking (and achieving) for the next 12 months.

Jeffrey Gitomer can be reached by phone at (704) 333-1112 or by e-mail at salesman@gitomer.com. © 2010 Jeffrey H. Gitomer