Preparation
On a Sunday in July, our teammate Brian was driving in the car with his 3-year old son Bryce in the back seat…
BRYCE: You know what dad?
BRIAN: What’s that?
BRYCE: That’s where we dropped off our Christmas tree…(as the 3-year old pointed to the exact empty lot where they had discarded their tree 7 months prior.)
BRIAN: You’re right! How did you remember that?!
BRYCE: Because I’m handsome.
Bryce is handsome…but who knows how he actually remembered that random fact about where they discarded their tree? The way kids’ minds work is they just say what’s on their mind—they wing it without a lot of thorough planning. It works for them because they’re kids. As salespeople, winging it can work sometimes, but we’re typically more successful when we take the time to thoroughly prepare.
When we prepare carefully we come off as more confident, even if we do not end up using all the materials/ideas we prepare. Your clients and prospects prefer to work with confident sales and service people because they expect us to be experts in our area.
There are a number of things you can do to prepare that are specific to your industry and clientele (research in advance, assemble marketing collateral, etc.) Regardless of the industry, top performers tell us they take the following steps before any important call or meeting.
- Identify the purpose and desired outcomes of the meeting. Write down the answers to these two questions: 1) Why am I conducting this call or meeting with this client/prospect? The answer to this question is your meeting purpose. AND 2) How specifically will I know if I achieve my purpose? The answer to this question is your desired outcome(s). For example, will you set the next meeting with another decision-maker, sign a contract, get the prospect to say “yes, I’d be interested in learning more and meeting more of your team”? Taking the time to identify your purpose and desired outcomes drastically increases your likelihood of achieving them because all the questions you ask and the comments you make are aligned with that mission.
- Contact the other party in advance of the meeting. Ideally this is done by phone, but email can work too. This contact confirms the meeting, demonstrates that they’re important to you, and ensures you address what’s most important to them. It’s important you frame this correspondence in terms of their interests. E.g. To make the most of your time on Thursday, I thought we’d provide a quick overview of our progress, learn a bit more about your priorities for this year, and discuss the best ways to work together moving ahead. How does that sound? What else would you like to include in our discussion?
- Think in advance about key parts of the meeting. The San Francisco 49er football team of the 1980s was a dynasty of success. One of their key practices was to script out the first 15 offensive plays of each game. You can do this too by preparing the following:
- rapport-building topics (e.g. local current events, questions about their life outside work, etc.);
- questions you’ll ask;
- potential solutions to problems you think the client has;
- approaches to handling objections you think you’ll receive; and
- next steps to recommend at the end of the meeting.
One of the key benefits to preparing these items in advance is that it frees our minds to listen well during the meeting. We all know we’re better in these meetings when we listen well—we’re listening to understand vs. listening to respond. If we have many of these key areas prepared in advance, we are truly able to focus on the client and his/her problems because we don’t have to be as concerned with what we are going to say next.
It’s simple, it takes discipline, and it makes a huge difference. If your upcoming meeting is important to you, make sure you: identify the purpose and desired outcomes of the meeting; contact the other party in advance of the meeting; and think in advance about key parts of the meeting.