Episode #127: Client Meeting Excellence

Salespeople are very busy, rushing around finding new clients, developing leads, networking, cold calling, attending client meetings, getting stuck into preparing proposals and later executing the follow through on what has been promised. Somewhere in this process some key basics start to go missing. One of those basics is the proper preparation for client meetings.

Listed client companies very conveniently include their financial details, strategies, corporate officer information, etc., in their annual reports on their web sites.

Invariably, we will see a modern besuited business Titan posing in the plush corporate corner office. In addition to the PR division’s photographic efforts, there will be a substantial article or interview with the CEO, outlining the way forward for the company. The key organisation goals and milestones are on display for all to see.

The financial section will also tell us how the entity is tracking against it’s declared goals. It may even get down to a breakdown at the divisional or country level, which is pure gold to someone about to meet a decision-maker from that firm.

Talking about your contribution to their ROI is of great interest to someone in that company, who has responsibility to deliver the goals established by senior management. So rather than talking about what you want – to sell something – the discussion is better focused around how you can help them achieve their goals.

We should be coming into that meeting talking about the most relevant issues facing the team we are meeting. We might say:

“I notice that your company President has made it a clear goal to grow the business by 12% over this next year. Given the current business climate, that sounds pretty tough. Is that also the commitment you need to deliver from the Japan business?”

This is a great question because we have indicated we have done our homework on the firm, we are aware of their goals and we are empathetic. We are also checking if the local business has the same issues or not. If they answer that the local unit has to grow by 30%, then that sets us up for a very interesting conversation about how they are going to achieve that and why their local goal is so much larger.

If they are really suffering from having such a large target, then perhaps we may be the solution and they will be all ears to hear how we can help.

If we are able to lead the conversation into a deeper stage quickly, the more likely we are to find out if we have a new client here or not.

Apart from the information on the firm, there is also information we will find on the individuals we will meet from the firm. They will probably have a Google, Yahoo, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube presence. A quick search on their name will turn up useful background information, which may allow us to draw out some connections we share in common. If you both studied at the same university or previously both worked in the same industry or lived in the same location (state or town) or have the same hobbies, these are speedy connectors between two total strangers.

Yes there are unlisted companies and yes, not so many Japanese business people use LinkedIn as yet. However, there are plenty of companies though who are listed and plenty of Japanese people on Facebook etc., so we should make the effort to do our homework on the client before we meet. In this Internet age there really are no excuses.

This is the age of readily available and free information. We need to differentiate ourselves from every other salesperson out there. A simple way to do that is to spend some time researching the company and the individuals. When we have these insights we ask better designed questions, we uncover more key information more quickly and we provide great context for our conversation with the buyer.