If youre a sports fan, or an athlete, as I am, you know when you or your team are flat and are just phoning-in their performances, and when theyre juiced, and ready to go.

It makes a crucial difference in sports, as well as in selling.

In both situations, we have to get up for the game, and if youre a sales manager, its your duty to psych up your players before every engagement, whenever possible.

As a former sales manager, and as a sales coach and consultant, I advocate having frequent sales meetings for this purpose. Meet, greet, and motivate your people before every shift, if they sell from inside.

If theyre outside sellers, try to arrange frequent telephone conferences to achieve the same thing,

Remind them of their sales targets, and try to tell inspiring stories, or share recent customer testimonials with them.

Every meeting should give them another reason to feel proud of themselves and what theyre selling.

You can use these get-togethers to review closing techniques, or to introduce better techniques of any kind. And most important, team members can discuss whats working for them, which their peers dont get a chance to see and to hear for themselves.

But the key deliverable from a successful meeting is emotion. They should get a boost, feeling higher and more energized than before.

One of my salesmen said to me, after our umpteenth meeting, Gary, I might be able to make more money somewhere else, but nothing is going to be this much fun!

Mission accomplished!