Kaizen: The one meeting we've run religiously for 9 years

Building Your Sales Engine

• 24 min

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The Kaizen meeting is the one 90-minute block Mark McGraw has protected for nine years — and it's the reason his sales operation stopped running on firefighting. Most sales managers spend their week putting out fires, and the uncomfortable truth is that the same fires keep coming back. In this solo episode, Mark McGraw lays out three types of sales managers — the firefighter, the arsonist, and the fire marshal — and makes the case that your success and your sanity depend on which one you default to. The answer is a weekly Kaizen meeting: a blocked, recurring 90 minutes dedicated to constant and never-ending improvement. Not planning improvement. Doing it. Mark walks through real examples from his own business — a client resource hub built and launched in under 45 minutes, a hiring scorecard and interview criteria, a documented onboarding sequence, and a proposal tool refined across eight or nine sessions. He also shares the seven guidelines that keep the meeting alive after nearly a decade, including the counterintuitive rule that the meeting is 100% optional for everyone except him. Do the math: 13 weeks in a quarter, 10 sessions at 80% compliance, and you've made ten permanent improvements to your business. This is quadrant-two work — important but never urgent — and it only happens if you put it on the calendar. Host: Mark McGraw — Building Your Sales Engine In This Episode The three types of sales managers — firefighter, arsonist, fire marshal — and why the category you live in defines your sanity Why firefighting feels good: importance, validation, and the dependency it quietly creates on your team The fire marshal mindset — good code, inspections, and prevention instead of reaction HubSpot's two-part daily focus: reduce friction, increase velocity — and how that applies to a sales org What a Kaizen meeting actually is: 90 blocked minutes a week for constant and never-ending improvement Doing the work vs. planning the work — the rule that keeps you from leaving with another to-do list Real examples: a client resource hub, a hiring scorecard, a documented onboarding sequence, and an upgraded proposal tool Quadrant-two time blocking and why this work never happens by happenstance The seven guidelines that have kept this meeting running for nearly a decade, including making it optional The quarterly math: 13 possible sessions, 10 realistic wins, and a business that feels completely different Links Sandler: https://www.Sandler.com Episode page: https://www.BuildingYourSalesEngine.com/ Show links: https://linktr.ee/buildingyoursalesengine Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markmcgraw/