I have worked in companies where it felt like we had meetings just for the sake of having meetings. Meetings can be extremely valuable but, if not planned for, can be a terrible waste of time. As a sales person, the last thing you want to do is to waste the time of your client. There are certain things that you should do in advance of and during any meeting to ensure that they are of high quality, both for you and your client.
1 Know who you are going to meet
Don’t just know the name and role of the person you are going to meet, find out their background and any specific information about them that you can. Look them up on LinkedIn – see where they have studied, where they have worked, what they are interested in. This may give you something to talk about when you first meet, a way of breaking the ice and building rapport. More importantly, it may prevent you from saying something inappropriate or being blind sided by their knowledge. There may be some past history with your company, whether positive or negative, that you need to know.
2 Do your research
As well as knowing who you are going to meet, know what’s going on in the industry and in their company before you meet them. They may have made a big announcement recently that will change their strategy or have an impact on your proposal. Make sure that you understand the general conditions in their industry so that external influences can be managed. Again, you don’t want to be caught out by some information that you didn’t know that changes the shape of your opportunity.
3 Know what you want to achieve
Always know what your objective is for the meeting. Is it about learning information about your client or passing on your knowledge to them? What is the next stage of the sales process after this? If possible, have a series of objectives. Always aim for the most ambitious but be prepared to settle for a lower one. Try to agree next steps with your client before you leave. This way you gain a shared way forwards that your client is more likely to accept than if all of the onus is on you.
4 Plan your questions
No matter what type of meeting you are planning, there will be information that you want to get from the client. If you are meeting early in the sales cycle, then you will want to know as much as possible about their activities and the issues that they have with them. As you move through the sales process, you may need to know more specific things like budgets and budget approval. At each stage in the sales process, there are likely to be new things to know that were not appropriate to ask earlier in the process. Make sure that you know what you want to know. I always have my questions written down so that I can tick them off once I have asked them so that I know I have all the information that I want.
5 Listen carefully
In all meetings, you need to actively listen. This doesn’t just mean paying attention to the speaker but demonstrating that you are paying attention. At points in the discussion, try to summarise what you have heard. This tells the speaker that you are listening but also gives you more chance of remembering and understanding what they have said. If you didn’t catch something first time, ask them to repeat or explain it again. Not all of our communication is verbal so watch both their body language and your own. Try to be as open as possible to give yourself the best chance of hearing and understanding everything.
It should be no surprise that four out of my five tips are all about the time before the meeting. Like everything in the sales process, you need to prepare in advance.
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