Meeting can be a scheduled call, a video conference or a face-to-face meeting.
Let's check in before you take your meeting.
But first check:
Is it really worth having a face-to-face meeting? Or can it be a video conference or even a call?
The criteria are:
- Proximity: If the transfer takes more than 40 minutes, reassess the need for face-to-face.
- Number of people: If you are one and your conversation partner is one, think about a skype call.
- Agenda: If it is long, detailed, investigative, multifaceted (many people present), prefer face-to-face.
- First meeting when prospecting: If you have approached a company, qualified via call and they have asked for a meeting, go face-to-face.
Now let's get to the checklist:
1. Plan to arrive 10 minutes before the scheduled time. Yes, arrive early and wait.
2. Before you leave for meeting, in hand you need to have:
- Full address of the venue;
- Phone number of the venue;
- Name(s) of interlocutor(s).
3. Remember to take your smartphone charger with you. The meeting may last longer than expected and you may find yourself without even enough battery power to call a taxi or turn on waze.
4. A notepad and pen to write down what you are told. This shows that you are in this opportunity for real.
5. Business card.
6. Dress accordingly. If you are going to make a mistake, do it by being too formal, not the other way around. Don't wear torn jeans to a meeting with the directors of bank X, for example.
7. Materials: Presentation of your company (printed) or to open the pdf/website on the spot.
8. Meeting agenda: This is what needs to be accomplished at the meeting and what information you need to collect.
9. Conduct of the meeting.
Listen more, talk less.
Do not interrupt the other under any circumstances, no matter how anxious you are.
Ask investigative questions. You need to know 4 things
- If they need the solution you provide.
- For when.
- If you have a budget for the acquisition.
- How the decision-making process works in the company.
Do not talk about yourself or your company. To illustrate how good you are, give examples and talk about cases.
Put your best salesperson at the table. If a meeting is worth having, then go with your best.
It all sounds obvious, but when you have 30-40 face-to-face meetings a month it's very easy to get lost in the most basic things and arrive in half your best condition at some important meeting....
On your way back to your base, don't waste time typing the notes you took at the meeting into your CRM. Simply keep the note sheet in an easily accessible folder.
And if your boss complains, ask him: Do you want me to sell or do you want me to type things into the system? Typing notes into a system in a way that is intelligible can easily take you an hour.
"Ah, but isn't history important?"
That is, why you will put away your note sheet with fondness and set off again, with everything, to your market.
Good buyers are one connection away from buying from your company.
