7/12/2024-“Agendas aren’t my thing.”

It is undebatable that preparing agendas guarantees productive interactions. And yet, agendas prevent elements that may adversely affect your meeting intentions and goals.

"Meeting agendas are old and crusty…my dad used meeting agendas. I personally like to be fluid…I like to run my meetings in real-time…yeah, that’s it. Agendas just box me in – I’m a bird…no wait, I’m an eagle who needs to soar. And my clients love my meetings ‘cuz we laugh and horse around. That’s the way it should be, right? By the by, I’m one helluva relationship seller. They wanna have fun in meetings, right? But, hey, I’m all about bid’ness, too. I react with smart lines and witty witticisms. And then POW, I deliver a great value prop…umm, once in a while. Oh sure, I ask a few questions here and there, but I like to keep things loooooose. My clients…they love me…!"

Prepare an agenda for every pitch meeting…and USE the agenda on every meeting.

They keep you on track…they keep the meeting on track…and they help prevent the derailers from stealing your time.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve been selling for a year, five years, ten, or twenty…use meeting agendas.

In addition to using agendas to help you prevent professional meeting derailers from hijacking your pitch meetings, there are other things agendas help you prevent:

1. Agendas prevent you from running out of time. Meetings are hard to get…manage your time correctly, and you may get another one with that customer. Agendas keep everyone on track.

2. Agendas prevent you from rambling and losing sight of what’s important for that meeting.

3. Agendas prevent customers from thinking you’re an amateur. Seriously. To be viewed as a professional – one who is trusted with big money – you must act like a professional. Agendas are simple and powerful and represent you as a professional.

As for the derailers, if that’s a problem for you, try this line, "That’s all great, Mr. Prospect, would you like to keep talking about that or get back to our agenda (that’s sitting on the table)?"

This meeting, run by Dr. Evil (yay, Austin Powers) would have gone SO MUCH more smoothly if he had used an agenda…