What does a great meeting look like?
I absolutely love this topic and would wager that I have discussed, strategized around, and thought about running perfect sales meetings more than 99% of the people in growth technology. In my opinion the overwhelming majority of technology sales individuals either have no idea what an impactful meeting looks like, or they know what the outcome of a good meeting is but don’t understand how to get there. Over the last several months I’ve worked with our talented enablement team at Bamboo Health to create what we believe is the perfect methodology around running and executing meetings within a sales process. Let’s talk about how people generally think about meetings and some tips for improving on your approach to meeting with customers and prospects to ensure it gives you the best chance of earning their trust and partnership.
You could ask anyone who has ever worked for me and they’ll share how frustrating it is to send me an update from a customer or prospect meeting they had that they’re very excited about. I say that half joking because it always leads to progress and positive outcomes but my follow up questions to hearing about a “great meeting” are always grounded in my definition of great which is often different then others. In my experience, most sales people believe a meeting is great based on how the discussion made them feel. By that I mean, I hear a meeting was great because the feedback was all positive, and that they received good questions, or that there was a really great fit between the prospect and our solution. These kind of things naturally make someone feel great about the conversation and therefore, translate that to a successful meeting. Perhaps a demonstration was performed and it received good feedback on how awesome and intuitive the tool is. I mean, this all sounds really fantastic doesn’t it?!
Unfortunately, those kinds of things don’t always translate towards real progress and velocity in the direction of a sale. Quite the contrary. I often find the best meetings are grounded in more awkwardness, challenges, having to overcome disagreements, and a commitment to next steps that require us to create a review process that proves we’re the best possible vendor for this prospect to work with. This applies to all phases of the sales cycle the approach just changes depending on the goal of the specific meeting. There are a lot of reasons for this but one important one to keep in mind is that when an organization buys technology they are fundamentally changing how they operate and do business and with that comes contemplation, deep consideration, anxiety, and a requirement to overcome any concerns. If they’re simply agreeing with everything you say and not sharing any type of concerns or skepticism, then it’s very unlikely they are actually contemplating purchasing your solution. Outside of negotiation meetings, I find that in every meeting you need to learn at least one if not many of the following things to be able to feel confident it was a great meeting:
-What problem or opportunity does this organization have that we can help them solve? Who is responsible in their organization for solving it? When do they want to and/or need to solve it by?
-How have they tried to solve it up to this point? Why is now different? Why do they believe we can help solve it and what do they need us to do to prove that? What reasons do they have for being skeptical we can solve it?
-Have they made the decision they want to review a solution with the intention to make a purchase? Have they made the decision they want to purchase from you?
-Who in the organization can benefit from this partnership? Who in the organization needs to be involved to review/buy technology like this? How does that process work?
There are many more but hopefully that’s a good starting place for everyone. Now if this was all so easy then everyone would be able to do it! What sort of tactics and approaches can help to create this kind of meeting and get clarity on some of the points above? This is where the meeting methodology I mentioned earlier comes in. If you’re interested in learning more please feel free to reach out but I’ll include some general tips that could be helpful below.
The meeting doesn’t start when everyone jumps on Zoom. Prepare, prepare, prepare. Challenge yourself to establish a “hypothesis” that you enter the meeting with for why this organization should work with you. Make sure this is as specific as possible. “Based on my research I performed on your organization and my discussions with you and your colleagues to this point my hypothesis is that X initiative is unable to be successful because of ABC. We have experience solving this same problem with similar organizations such as (1,2,3) and I’m confident we can deliver these results at the same or higher level for you all.”
Back up that hypothesis with a clear and aligned purpose for the meeting. This can be different depending on sales stage and whether you’re speaking to a customer or prospect. Following up on the prior bullet, you could roll into a purpose with something like this. “I’d love to use the time in this meeting to pressure test this hypothesis. No two organizations are the same and I don’t want to assume anything so I’d love to ask questions and provide examples of why I believe this hypothesis to be true. My goal is to confirm that the problem we’ve identified is one important enough to solve, and earn your agreement that our solution is compelling enough to review in detail to be what solves it. I’d love to spend 5-10 minutes before we wrap up confirming if that goal has been accomplished and what the most appropriate next steps are based on where we land. Does that sound fair?”
Ask pointed questions and do not shy away from friction. Attack the areas that seem problematic and engage the audience with questions that get to the impact that comes from resolving their problems.
When dealing with large groups, find ways to get them involved without simply asking them “do you have questions or comments?”. Here is one trick I like to use with my team. When kicking off a call with 5 or more attendees, start by asking each person one reason they’re excited to be meeting with you and one reason they’re concerned about evaluating your solution. Note those down and find opportunities to come back to those points during the meeting to maintain engagement from each attendee. “So Jim, you mentioned one concern you had around our solution was XYZ, can you tell me if you see any reasons how this could help overcome that?
These are just a few examples but hopefully they can be helpful in your upcoming meetings. Prospects appreciate productive conversations that save time and are grounded in an evaluation that’s specific to their organizational needs and problems. Give them an opportunity to intelligently and fairly evaluate what your solution does and if/how it can help them be successful. Please reach out if you’d like to go deeper into a full meeting running methodology!