The best pitch meeting strategy (part 1 of 2)

For the most part, your pitch meetings follow a standard order: pleasantries, agenda presentation, a discussion about your offering, and finally, a quick chat about next steps.

Boom, you’re done. Everyone drives home happy.

It’s the agenda thingie that stymies most sellers. And it’s the single most crucial element for running effective pitch meetings.

And, it’s the easiest to control.

Use agendas to manage your meetings! The buyer wants you to be in control and is rooting for you to run an effective meeting. Using agendas demonstrates to the buyer that you won’t waste their time and that you can be trusted.

Today, create an agenda for your next client pitch meeting centered on one meeting goal.

Undoubtedly, you will have multiple goals for the meeting, e.g., discover needed info, uncover the decision power-base, etc., but the doc you create for the customer should feature one agenda item because you want to show that you’re focused. And, one-item agendas focus the buyer!

Next, create the top three open-ended strategic questions you must ask in the meeting. (If they’re not created before the meeting, you won’t ask them.)

Finally, send your agenda several days before the meeting to get buyer feedback. It’s a fantastic trust-building move.

Watch this incredible sheep dog masterfully move his herd.

(You know where this is going!)

Think of the sheep as your customers during pitch meetings…and the dog is your agenda.

Agendas work, but only if you take the time to create them.