At the first meeting, the customer himself determines the circle of suppliers with whom he will continue to interact. Together with his colleagues and the leader, for communication with the customer. We offer best services and products for Digital Marketing Services for Small Business.
Our article dedicates to how to properly prepare for the first meeting with a potential client.
Tasks Of the Stage of Preparation for The First Meeting:
If you leave the first get-together, then most probable there will be no coincidental for additional expansion of dealings. But on the other hand, if you spend it well, then the chances increase a lot.
For quality and complete preparation for a business meeting, it is necessary to allocate at least one working hour for one employee and 20 minutes for all other participants.
As a result of preparing for a meeting with a potential client, all participants from your side should have the same idea on key points:
1. Anamnesis
What do we know about this company?
Who is the initiator of the meeting?
What stage is our relationship with this customer at?
2. Counterparty
Who precisely will characterize the client business at the meeting?
What are these employees responsible for and at what level of decision making in the company?
3. Objectives
What is the purpose of our negotiations?
Also, the antique of collaboration do we visualize with this client?
What can prevent the initiation/development of cooperation from our side?
4. Script
Main Script
Alternate situations. It is improved to formulate numerous decisions in advance (“what if…”)
5. Distribution of Roles
Each squad participant has a character to performance in the team willing. Who you are? Leader, expert, observer, recorder, etc.
What internal information do you NOT bring up to discuss with the client?
The Manager’s Role in Preparing for A Meeting with A Client:
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Must act as a leader and mentor to his employees – sales managers. The manager’s task before meeting with the customer is to prepare the sales manager, for example, using the following practice: training, demonstration, motivation.
Pullman. After examining earlier gatherings with clients, you can debate with the executive what strong point and faintness he had in converting and final deals. As a result, a constructive analysis of the existing experience will help the sales manager not to step on the same “bag” or, on the contrary, to consolidate success in proven ways.
Projection. Live pictures and examples always work better than conversations. Use all available tools to prepare for the meeting – draw diagrams, act out the key stages of the meeting.
Motivate. Explain the importance of these negotiations and the outcome itself, not only for the company as a whole, but also for him personally. Include the auctions executive in the procedure of making for a gathering with your contribution.
What should be checked before the meeting?
The checklist we offer will allow you to check the most pressing issues of a manager’s self-preparation for a business meeting.
1. Client and Meeting Agenda Discussion
This will require a short phone call or EMAIL customer to discuss the following matters:
Who plans to attend the client-side meeting?
What questions are the customer initially interested in?
Do you need a presentation from us? And what would the customer like to see in the presentation?
2. Resolve Organizational Issues with The Client
Order a pass to or from the domestic territory
Agree how long before the meeting it is desirable to be at the venue
3. Communicate the Objectives of The Meeting
Think about and converse with your executive the objectives you need to accomplish at the end of the meeting. You have one main goal and 2-3 additional goals that would also be good to achieve. Write down these goals and then you will check their achievement.
4. Consider Compliments to The Customer
They will help, as well as defuse the “heated” situation in the course of the discussion, if the situation calls for it.
5. Consider the Questions to The Client
Prepare and write in advance 5-7 questions about potential problems of the customer. It is value declaring that knowledgeable sales executives have a gathered collection of favorite queries. Here are some of my examples of such questions:
What is the most important thing for you in this matter? Why is this so important to you?
Have you tried to solve this problem yourself? Why did you decide to turn to a third party for help?
Why did you start working on this project at this time? What was the reason?
Why did you approach us for this job?
Are there other circumstances that may affect our agreement?
What are your alternatives? Which of our colleagues (competitors) contacted?
6. Prepare A List of Possible Difficulties on Our Part
State and list 3-5 potential barriers to working with this client. Examples of problems from our side:
Probably, we will not be able to take up the implementation of the project quickly, as our capacity is loaded
The client may think that we have no experience in implementing similar projects
As you probably guessed, if you understand in advance the potential obstacles, then you can think about their solution. By the period you encounter with the client, you must have solutions to all of these doubts.
Compassion means understanding your customers and their lives – knowing what they are doing, thinking, and feeling. There is no need to sit in an office and search for ideas online. It is about communicating with potential customers to find out if there is a problem and how you can solve it.
Also, you did everything right in the Compassion stage, your notebook should be full of problems, needs of, and comments from your audience by this point. If you interview 10-15 people. Then you should have enough data to highlight their common problems. If you interview more than 20-30 People, Also, you should also be able to segment those audiences a little more to determine commonalities between people with similar demographics and psychographics.
7. Prepare Presentation Materials
What should I bring to a client meeting?
Also, what will I show?
What will the customer get after the meeting?
8. Prepare All Necessary Accessories and Documents
Business cards, document for entering the customer area, notebook, laptop with charger, map, printed materials, branded brochures and gifts for the customer.
Conclusion:
The purpose of the first meeting with the customer is to ensure the progress of the transaction, i.e. to get the customer to take the next step towards us.
In practice, this is best implemented through interviews.
Immediately observe what users are doing, ask them what they want and try to understand what motivates or discourages them from using your product. The goal is to get enough information to start empathizing with your target audience.
This helps you map the buyer and customer journey, as well as analyze the relationship between the customer, their problems, and your product (or a competitor’s product, if you have not already).
The customer journey map includes individual customer needs and issues. This helps you understand pain issues and take steps to resolve them.
We do not recommend neglecting the preparation for the first meeting with a potential client – the risks of losing valuable meeting time are too great. To do this, all participants in the meeting must agree in advance on the main points.
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