How will you ensure that you send an agenda before every sales meeting?THE MORE PROFOUND THE FIRST IMPRESSION YOU MAKE – THE BETTER

CREATE A WRITTEN AGENDA

A well prepared and thought through agenda does two things:

• It forces you to think about the purpose of the visit and forces you to prepare properly
• On receipt your future customer appreciates the fact that you are prepared and sees that you are not there to waste their time.

THE MORE INSIGHTFUL AND RELEVANT YOUR AGENDA IS, THE MORE EFFECTIVE IT WILL BE.

The agenda should look to address the following:

• It should address any questions you may have that would allow you to completely understand your future customers needs, expectations and values.
• It should address any topics or concerns you may have already discovered your future customer may have.
• The agenda should address the purpose of the visit and show your commitment to “HELP”
• The agenda must be as specific as possible
• The agenda should be engaging and energising
• The agenda should be functional and show that you have prepared for the meeting
  CREATING YOUR AGENDA It is really easy to create a generic agenda, which is not tailored to suite, a specific meeting or customer. Although it is better to have a generic agenda, than no agenda at all, remember that you have invested so much into just getting the meeting in the first place. Should you not try to make the best impression possible during any sales meeting? Is it not worth investing sufficient time into creating a powerful, tailored agenda that will have a profound and positive impact on your future customer?A typical generic agenda might look something like this:
  • Meet the team
  • Feedback from the research we conducted
  • Outline of the projects objectives
  • What we can do for you?
  • Your Investment
  • Handling of any questions you may have
  • Next steps

  Although using an agenda like this is better than no agenda at all, you have already done the really hard work of securing the meeting, with the right decision maker. Is it not wise to invest some time into personalizing the agenda, so that you will really stand out? The more energising and specific your agenda is, the better.

  ACTION IDEA:

  • Make sure that your agenda is not too broad to really inform your future customer, as to the purpose and outcome you want to achieve during the meeting.
  • Make sure that your agenda is so specific that you can control the topics under discussion and guide your future customer to see how your value proposition is aligned with their needs, expectations and values
    EXAMPLE:
  • Let’s take the above agenda and change the statements into questions as shown below:
    • Intro to the team
    • Questions to guide discussion:
      • What specific industry trends have you encountered that will help to shed light on the performance analysis?
      • What different testing options do you believe would best suite your organisation?
    • Research results
      • How will the findings as listed in paragraph one suite your current circumstances?
      • What are the implications of finding 2 on your bottom line?
      • How will these findings positively affect your organization?
    • Project Objectives
      • How can we utilize the research findings to optimize performance on your plant?
      • What maintenance intervals will best suite your organization?
      • What timeframe best suites you?
    • Next Steps
      • When does your current contract end?
      • How do we begin to roll out the new project?

    As you can see a laser focused agenda, which is compiled using questions is far easier to follow and it also allows all attendees, who receive the agenda prior to the meeting to prepare properly.

Using the above example, please design agendas for your next 5 prospecting meetings below: