Can we meet to discuss? Oh no, just 20 minutes!
There is so much to do! If you’re building an empire you know by now that you should be focusing on those things that only you can do.
This is top of mind for me because I’m currently reading:
How do you reconcile those two facts when you are the one who has to navigate interested leads through to contract sign-off?
Here are 5 things I’ve learned to have more efficient meetings.
2) Forget about your agenda
Agendas are good for if things get off track, but are useless when you are meeting with someone who is trying to get at a specific set of data to inform the decision to go with your team or another’s.
Communication styles rarely sync and unless you have been trained, you have likely designed the ideal agenda … for yourself.
Personally, I am a functional communicator. In 3 to 5 highly calibrated question and answer exchanges, I have all of the information I need, in the format I need it, to proceed with confidence. My wife calls me a thin-slicer, but it works for me. This makes it very difficult for a potential client who is an intuitive communicator to absorb and internalize my natural style of presenting my agenda, because they prefer to focus on big picture vs the details and implementation issues (which are important to me!!).
Letting go of the agenda and enabling a more organic process actually, and counter-intuitively, allows the meeting to proceed more efficiently.
3) Bring your presentation, but be prepared to start in the middle
As you embrace #2, naturally your presentations and slide decks will be affected. Imagine you are talking about a #business #strategy you have researched and know is right for company x and while presenting slide 3, the decision maker asks you about the resources you’ll need if you get the project.
But slide 4 talks about implementation strategy, slides 5 through 9 speak to schedule and timeline strategy, including critical path and agile concepts. Resources is on slide 10 (you know why… calibrated to navigate all of the goodies and your exceptional research and strategy, THEN touch on pricing).
The typical response is “Ah yes great question. That’s on slide 10 so we will get there soon”.
If you were presenting to me and I’m asking about resources, it likely means that I see the benefits and want to make a decision. Why would you force me to sit through seven slides that really add no value to my decision?
What you should do is go directly to where the valuable activity is, which is slide 10.
This is easier said than done for a number of reasons. You might have practiced this presentation for a few hours. You might have been tied to the concept that unless you prove your value (slides 4–9) the client might not value the budget. It is also difficult because slides are usually designed to be sequential so you end up going through each slide in order to find the right one. I can only help with this last issue in #5.
5) Design your slidedeck like a micro-site
Any presentation I manage is built like a small website. Powerpoint and other presentation software has the ability to embed links within text. This can be used strategically to enable each slide to have strategic links to more detailed information or back to a main slide with links to the major areas of your presentation. Add a little design and presto!
Each subsequent slide includes a link to this main slide, which allows you to take the conversation wherever the potential client needs most.
4) Send the presentation before the meeting
(not the agenda)
For some strange reason which I have not explored in detail, I’ve found that many business owners tend to shy away from sharing presentations. Typically, we convert to .pdf format (which changes the user experience) or send the presentation notes. I’ve heard that:
- I don’t want my presentation shared with the competition
- I have invested my brand and IP into this presentation, and I don’t want it copied
- I need to take the client through in this specific order to guarantee a favorable review
Without unpacking this too much, there are two strategies which will allow you to overcome the above resistance in order to reap the benefits of sending the presentation beforehand. These benefits include allowing the client to peruse in their leisure, follow any links and do their research before meeting with you. The meeting then becomes less of an ambush and more of an information-rich exploration into what is possible.
Strategy 1: You can lock the slides of the presentation so that editing is “impossible”
Strategy 2: You can email the presentation such that it “can’t” be forwarded and if it is, you can setup so that you are alerted whenever it is opened by a third party
I can’t go into the specifics of those options now, but if you’re interested, reach out.
1) Have a negotiation strategy
This might seem like a no-brainer, but I’ve found that many presenters come prepared to discuss only what is in their presentation.
If you know you are meeting with the decision-maker, at the very least you need to determine:
- what percentage of my proposed budget am I willing to forfeit for an immediate decision?
- when would I be able to start?
- what elements of my proposal are deal-breakers, i.e. what am I NOT willing to sacrifice for this project?
- how long is your proposal valid, as presented?
Most importantly, come prepared to sign the contract!
Thank you for your time
Do the above, and keep most of your meetings in 2018 to under 20 minutes. This is important because time is.
We can keep this discussion going on Linkedin.
