Startup Selling: Talking Sales with Scott Sambucci
SalesCast #3: Preparing for Your First Meeting with a New Prospect
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In this episode, Scott and Robert discuss different methods to prepare for your first call/meeting with a prospective client and the ways in which you can help keep the momentum moving forward before the meeting takes place. Some key areas discussed are:
We hope you enjoy the podcast and would greatly appreciate feedback! Any suggestions on future topics you would like to hear covered and/or podcast guests you’d like to hear would be great! Enjoy!
Podcast Notes
1:30 – Setting up a meeting and the hazards of not engaging during the time leading up to it.
5:30 – Spending weeks of preparation for a meeting with the top exec, only to find out that they don’t know why they are in the meeting (and how to avoid this!).
7:50 – What to do when you don’t have access to a top-level exec before the meeting.
9:00 – Creating a pre-meeting checklist.
10:00 – The importance of short calls before the meeting to help set expectations.
12:00 – How to use your pre-meeting preparation to bring additional buyers into the meeting.
13:45 – What to do when you can’t get the prospect on the phone ahead of the meeting.
15:00 – Techniques for leaving voice mails and emails that improve your response rate.
19:00 – Final preparation going into the big meeting.
20:00 – How to use LinkedIn for pre-meeting research to help you build better relationships faster.
22:00 – How to script out the meeting ahead of time and building in opportunities for questions and conversation.
23:30 – Making sure you allow yourself to find out every meeting participant’s needs so they can be including in the meeting.
25:00 – How to make you meeting not a demo, but a conversation with your product as the backdrop.
26:30 – How to use your meeting preparation to get other people at the prospect company involved and to prevent participants from walking in blind to the meeting.
31:00 – Number one piece of advice for preparing for the big meeting.
33:20 – How pre-calls with different meeting attendees can help you make them look better and the advantages this brings to the sale.