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MenuHow do you prepare for a client meeting?
What insights you need to close the deal? Do sales call prep document help? If yes, what to consider?
Answers
First of all, it's a 'prospect meeting', not a 'client meeting', if you haven't closed them yet.
Any system is better than no system.
"Flying by the seat of the pants" is a recipe for disaster.
Have a qualifying system. Do they need or want what you offer? Do they have a problem big enough to warrant your involvement in solving it (that's Budget)? Do they have a personality that you can work with? That's qualifying. That's what you should be doing in your prospect meeting.
If you limit yourself to a list of questions on a sheet of paper, you'll never cover everything. Have a consistent sales process. That'll guide you on what questions to ask in the meeting.
If your plan is to present your solution right away, you've goofed up.
Your system needs to give you feedback: why the sale advanced or died. And it's perfectly OK if it died--you just need to know why (not a fit on budget, for instance).
I teach a proven, ethical, consistent sales process. If you want to learn it, let's book a call.
Yes, yes, yes - always prepare.
Key things to consider
1 - a public agenda document shared with the other attendees. What do you want to achieve by the end of the meeting
2 - a private document just for your team about HOW you will overcome objections, pricing negotiation points etc
I always start a sales meeting by getting the other people to say what they want to talk about. So I let them set the agenda and it gives me a clue about where to focus my attention e.g. don't spend time discussing something which is not a priority (I say things like, I will email you that afterwards).
Always do a post-meeting debrief with your team so you can see if you succeeded in your goals. If you did not, why not?
See if it's because the other side introduced something new which you didn't anticipate in your list of objections. Learn from it and improve your pre-planning for next time.
Go forth!
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