Meeting Preparation

Meeting Preparation

Despite the digital revolution, the business meeting remains a place where billions of dollars of revenues change hands every year. Indeed, meeting in person enables you to build a strong personal relationship with people who can become a very useful part of your network. Whether it is a client meeting, or a job interview, performing well is important. Your behavior increases greatly your chances and pre-meeting preparation can be crucial to success in business.

The rules are quite simple:

Pre-meeting preparation:

– Before the meeting send an e-mail confirmation, or an invitation confirming the meeting. Do so as early as possible to all concerned and involved.

– Carry out market research on the company and executives.

– Diligently work on anything that has been asked of you and respond to any request of information.

– Canvass people you know who have knowledge of the company or the sector in advance for advice. Use this information to begin forming key messages to communicate in the meeting.

Times Square is always crowded. Photo by Elena.

– Prepare a presentation on your company, and try to anticipate anything else that the client may find useful.

– Plan an agenda for the meeting: (add location, attendees, date, start and end time. Introductions – 10 min., briefing of project – 5 min, proposed project methodology – 10 min., questions and answers – 10 min., agreement on next stops – 10 min., etc.)

Arrive 10-15 minutes early for the meeting, so that you are calm and have not had to rush to get there. Give a summary of that a going to be talked about and briefly go over the points of the meeting.

On a sales meeting, take notes on everything the client says, which will give you a full understanding of the client’s needs that you can refer back to later.

Following the meeting, write up your notes and store them. Then send a summary to all attendees, highlighting the key points discussed and the next steps to be taken.

At the meeting never be pushy, but politely and courteously prompt people into action. Busy professionals have many priorities and you will need to remind and prod them toward your objectives. If they reject your offer, be gracious in defeat and politely thank them for their consideration, leaving the door open for another opportunity in the future.

Record everything you do. During your life you can build a database of thousands of contacts. Record every single interaction you have on a Client Relationship Management system (CRM).