Three days left until the end of the month and you could really do without having these two meetings that you scheduled… you don’t want to be rude and cancel at such late notice, sound familiar? So how do you make sure that you maximise your meetings and make sure you rule your schedule rather than having your schedule rule you asks dluxe Birmingham & Solihull’s Business Editor Bart Dalton.
Here are the ABCs of finishing off the month in style. The hard part is that you need to prepare them ahead of time so if you are reading this with 3 days left…sorry.
Preparation:
Agenda is a necessary element to establish where the meeting is going to begin and hopefully end in a direction that will be beneficial for everyone involved.
Background, get info on the people who are attending the meeting so that you can focus on the business at hand. This is where LinkedIn and social media will allow you to learn more. (Use your staff to make sure that you do not spend too much time on this) The more you can prove you understand your contacts personally then the deeper your meeting will be.
Contact, email or call or text to remind that you are going to be discussing a certain topic, new product or an event or a client. Texts and professional reminders using LinkedIn messages will give you the platform to remind your clients why you are going to be meeting and tee up one or two items that you want to discuss. Invite them to share anything that they are looking to present to you.
Place and Pace:
Action: If you can meet with them on a walk and wander then you will probably be the first person that they have met with on a Business Walk. Museums, city centre tours or a walk around a park will make this a meeting to remember. The movement will spark different conversations and it is not too bad for the waist line any way.
Breakfast: If you are going to meet and you are not in the school run parenting stage of your life then an early morning meeting can be the best. It means you are meeting with people before they have gone in to work to get lost in the minutia of their jobs.
Conferences and events: Surrounding yourself with the fervour and noise around what you are trying to sell will create true gravity towards you and your products. If you sell building goods or services then find a place in your town where there will be a large volume of your clients, contacts and influencers and use it as the basis for planning or rescheduling meetings around. You can schedule a round table off the back of people being in town. One of the things that I get asked the most when I am doing talks to sales teams is: “How do I know when I am going to have a meeting that is going to take my Energy, Time and Focus and get me nowhere?” My response is that, “You never know for certain, but if there are any doubts then use one of the tests above. If they respond positively by agreeing to a walk around meeting or a early meeting, then you are in a good position.”
As you read through the dluxe Paperwork there are so many great articles. Choose a few and put your plans into place. ABCs or 3s keep it simple, and we all know that even the most complex things are made of simple functions. That is how you use easy things to make Networking power moves.
Bart (BD) Dalton, Director of Taurus Wealth Management and Author of True Gravity, has a passion for helping people maximise wealth. Wealth is the ability to live life in a manner that makes you feel successful and fulfilled.
www.tauruswealth.co.uk
