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What Do I Do When..............?

This is the first in an ongoing series of our newsletter.  We encourage you to send us descriptions of times when you have simply not known what to do, and we will discuss those in this series.  Please send your anecdotes to wynola@huntbigsales.com.


Q.

"What do I do when my carefully-planned and rehearsed sales meeting suddenly explodes in my face?  There I was with my team, well-prepared for everything they could have thrown our way.  Or, so we thought.  But the wrong people came to the meeting, the meeting time was cut in half without notice, and two people had to sit on the floor because there were not enough chairs. It was a total disaster and not worth our time.  Or theirs.”


A.

You all know Murphy’s Law: if it can go wrong, it will.  The best way to minimize the damage from exploding meetings is to prepare ahead of time.  Think about it in terms of having an exit strategy for a bad blind date: before the date begins, you designate someone to call at a certain time to interrupt.  When the call comes through, you can decide whether to declare an emergency and leave suddenly or to continue with the date.  The same principle works here.


    Here are some tips that will help
    you avoid disastrous meetings.

  • Prepare the agenda yourself and send it to your client for review beforehand.  Include the meeting’s purpose and the outcomes both you and the buyer can expect.  If you don’t get a reply after you send the agenda, call and discuss it with your buyer.

  • Obtain a list of those who will be attending from the buyers’ side. Don’t hesitate to cancel a meeting if the wrong people will be in the room.  At that point, it’s clear the buyer doesn’t buy into your stated purpose for the meeting, so don’t waste everyone’s time.

  • Confirm date, time, place, and size of room before you set out for the meeting.

  • Select a leader for the sales meeting whose job is to call ‘time out’  when he or she clearly sees that the agenda is not going to be accomplished.  “I’m sorry, but we all agreed upon some outcomes for today’s meeting and, based on the circumstances, I think it will be difficult to achieve them.  Let’s reset our outcomes so that they reflect what we think we can achieve.  We want to make our time spent together valuable.”

  • Don’t accept the idea of “Well, let’s just see how far we can get.” This is a weak answer and doesn’t show respect for you or your efforts. Worse, a well-developed presentation requires all the materials that were designed, not just a sound bite or a SportsCenter highlight reel.  You have to make certain that you have come to a specific definition of outcomes that everyone believes are possible, or you have to cancel the meeting and re-schedule.

  • Never ignore a disruption if it is going to keep you from achieving your outcomes. Assert control over your time and the business you want to conduct.

— Tom Searcy


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Tom Searcy, The Whale Hunters Company, Large Account Sales, Business Growth, Sales Process Development, Fast Growth Strategies, RFPs, Key Account Management, Current Account Growth, Sales Management, Breaking Business Growth Plateau's, Prospecting System, Business Acceptance Process, Sales Management Development, Big Sales, Big Deals, Deal Coaching, Transform your company, Explosive Growth, Whale Hunting

FOOTNOTE: 1 COPYRIGHT 2006-2008, THE WHALE HUNTERS, LLC, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.