So you got the meeting….. now what?
Do you turn up and hope for the best, or do you prep?
Yesterday I was invited to a meeting with a potential new client regarding sales training and, as usual, I did some research first.
There is a lot out there if you look:
? Companies House (I checked their financials and their directors)
? LinkedIn (of course …. we’ll come to that in a minute)
? Their website
? From that I could see they were recruiting, so I checked out the sales roles they advertised
? Twitter – lots of company posts
? Now, back to LinkedIn – I discovered hundreds of employees, searched by job role and then had a look at some of their profiles to see how they presented themselves and how active they were on LinkedIn
? I also had a look at the people who were going to be in the meeting
I found out a ton of stuff.
Some wasn’t that relevant, but loads was – it helped me understand about the size of the company, the culture, I could quickly see some of their issues as well as what they were good at.
It made the meeting more focussed, more relevant and personalised.
They liked that I took the trouble.
I wouldn’t do it any other way.
You see, I think it’s about respect, but it is also about positioning yourself as being better than the competition (I haven’t got the faintest idea who I am up against, but I can only be the best version of me).
And that’s how I like to work.
So, back to my question, do you prep before a meeting?