3/8/2024-The Power of Meeting Agendas

Think of agendas as coins you drop into the parking meter…using agendas will build trust, which will hopefully mean the buyer rewards you with more time.

Creating and using agendas for customer meetings is more for YOU than them. The comprehensive meeting prep you’ll do is key to turning on the buyer’s trust button.

Your senior customers will appreciate that you’re buttoned-up and respectful of their time.

Your junior customers will recognize what it means to be called on by a pro they can and should model.

The prep your agendas force you to do will distinguish you from the competition.

Practice how you’ll introduce an agenda in your meetings with various buyer types:

1. Junior buyers: present your agenda and add, "…but we’ll go where you want to go in this meeting." They’ll appreciate your flexibility and inference of informality.

2. Buyer BFFs: suggest you "catch up" about their kid’s soccer game after you talk biz. Then, use the agenda to get started.

3. Senior buyers: dive right into the agenda. Your seriousness about their business and respect for their time will be appreciated.

Seller reticence using prepared, printed meeting agendas in F2F customer interactions mostly derives from the fear of being perceived as too formal.

As time with customers gets shorter and shorter (i.e., sellers are getting fewer meetings and buyers are offering less time per meeting), pressure on sellers to build relationships mounts.

Think of agendas as coins you drop into the parking meter…using agendas will build trust, which hopefully means the buyer rewards you with more time.

Don’t overthink when to use agendas – and with whom.

Buyers will appreciate your preparation and efforts to run efficient meetings. If you keep your agenda items to one or two and use the agenda to align with your buyer about meeting goals, you can’t help but build trust and keep everyone moving forward together.

Unfortunately, this silly 1-minute clip is more the norm than not for internal meetings.

But if customer pitch meetings were run this way, the seller wouldn’t get another shot.

Being a pro means consistency – agendas are not only for the big pitch meetings; they’re for ALL meetings.