5 unique meeting formats that will positively impact your dealership staff

Welcome to another edition of Mind Your Own Business. Today, host Jonathan Dawson, founder of Sellchology Sales Training, discusses how to take your training meetings to the next level with these five themes:

1. Motivational: The goal of this type of meeting is to motivate behavior. You want your staff to walk out of the meeting feeling genuinely motivated to reach their goals and make specific behavioral changes. This is the time to set benchmarks for your employees and incentive their performance and behavior. Discuss current challenges with them and explain the outcomes you are looking to see.
2. Inspirational: This meeting aims to inspire thought and encourage employees to reflect inward. Consider bringing in a guest speaker who faced and overcame a difficult challenge. A moving message might inspire your staff members to make changes internally and grow professionally.
3. Informational: While informational meetings are the most exciting, they are vitally important. An informational meeting is where you talk about valuable information to the employee’s department or day-to-day role. Try making a list of the things your team has to have to be more effective at their jobs.
4. Educational: Different from informational meetings, educational meetings are learning experiences. These meetings are the closest to ‘traditional’ training sessions. This is an opportunity to look at specific skill sets, techniques, and approaches. Roleplaying, discussions, and scriptwriting might play a large part in these meetings. 
5. Relational: This meeting format is all about camaraderie.

Don’t worry about incorporating all five themes into every meeting, says Dawson. Instead, think of the themes as different approaches you can take to the meeting. Think about the big idea you want to present at each meeting and choose one of the five formats that fits best.

To make sure your meetings are consistently hitting the five themes, Dawson suggests keeping a calendar. Determine the goals you want to accomplish each month, the number of meetings you need to have, and what type of meeting theme each one will be.

Did you enjoy this episode of Mind Your Own Business? Please share your thoughts, comments, or questions regarding this topic by submitting a letter to the editor here, or connect with us at newsroom@cbtnews.com.