B2B Selling on Zoom: Meeting Preparation (Part 2)
This article is Part 2 of a three-part series on B2B Selling on Zoom. There are two additional articles in this series:
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity." Seneca - Roman philosopher
Scheduling your meeting
The Agenda: Always create a written agenda before every sales call with your client. This can be a simple three bullet points agenda in email format or an in-depth one-page shared document outlining all the questions or topics to be reviewed around your product or service offering. By having a written agenda in advance, you can control and lead the meeting flow and ensure you cover everything that needs to be covered. Virtual meetings can be challenging to control, especially when working with large groups. Having an agenda set in advance is an excellent method to maintain control and leadership during a meeting.
The agenda should be co-created or agreed upon in advance with your client or prospect. An agenda will ensure you cover the topics that are most important to your client. One way to elicit co-creation is to ask your client to send a list of questions by priority that they would like to review in advance. This way, you ensure you cover their needs and requests during the call. It also enables you and your team to prepare for the questions and topics in advance. This way, you will be prepared for questions like; how do you compare against ABC company? What is your pricing for XYZ? How come XYZ feature has yet to be available? What is the SLA for your product?
Time of Day: If you have a choice, it is best to have your client meetings in the mornings instead of afternoons. People are more alert and have more energy than in the late afternoon when they are having a coffee crash or have already had five other back-to-back meetings. Timing is vital in sales, so you want to engage with your prospects when they are energized, have an open mind, and are ready to explore new ideas, products, and services.
Avoid Back-to-Backs: For important client meetings, try to avoid coming off back-to-back meetings. This will give you ample time to prepare and get in the right mindset for the meeting.
Scheduling Automation: Auto scheduling tools such as Calendly can be helpful for sales professionals doing high volumes of customer meetings every day. However, if you are selling complex high-priced B2B solutions, it is advantageous to point your client to specific times via email that works best for you. This way, you can avoid back-to-back client meetings and have the needed time to prepare and do your follow-ups post-meeting while the information you gathered is fresh in your mind.
Time Zones: Always be conscious of your client's time zone and when you propose a time for a meeting, list the options in their time zones, not yours. Do the time zone calculation for your client, don't make them do it for you.
Client-Side Attendees: Always know your audience in advance by asking for a list of people and titles attending on your client's side. This way, you can be prepared and have the right people on your side attend the call. Also, if new people attend, you can research their backgrounds, titles, and experience in advance. And to provide them with the same courtesy, send them the list of people and titles of the attendees on your side.
Sell Side Attendees: Only invite the essential people on your side to achieve the goal of the call. For example, if your goal is to focus on business instead of technical topics, you might not need to invite your sales engineer. You want to be conscious of your colleague's time, but you also want to drive the agenda, and sometimes less is more when it comes to getting your client to the next step in the sales process. Also, make sure you balance your meetings. If you are only meeting with one person, try to avoid bringing three people to the call on your side.
Length of Meeting: If you need more than the default 30-minute meeting, ask for 45 minutes. Depending on the situation, asking for a full hour might be too much, but 45 minutes is often more readily accepted if you frame it as adding an extra 15 minutes if we need to go over a little. And once you have 45 minutes locked in, if the call is going well and you need a full hour, people will have time to stay on since people tend to schedule their meetings at the top of the hour or half hour.
One-to-One Vs. Group Calls: There are often situations where you may need to have 1-1 calls with specific people at the company you are selling to. 1-1 calls provide a great opportunity because it is much easier to build rapport with someone on a 1-1 call than a group call. In addition, people are much more open and transparent when speaking via 1-1 versus in a group call. If you are at a stage in a deal where it makes sense to have a 1-1 call versus a group call, let the person know by asking for a 1-1 call, so they don't invite their entire team by default.
Sending the Invite: It is better to send an invite directly from your calendar application than through a conference call application. This gives you better control over the formatting of the invite.
The Invite: Make sure the meeting subject of the invite is clear, descriptive, and concise. When people view the invite subject in their calendar, you want them to be able to know exactly what the meeting is about. Therefore, the invite subject should have three components; your company name, the client's company name, and the key topic to be discussed. Example formats might look like this:
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And in the invite, include the agreed-upon agenda by putting it in text or a link to a document if it is a more complex agenda.
Mobile Numbers: Always provide your mobile number in your email signature and the invite in case your client needs to reach you in real time before the meeting. And always try and get your client's mobile number in advance, so you can quickly contact them in real-time in case there are any last-minute changes or technical difficulties on your side. Plus, once you have their mobile, you can use it for more personal 1-1 communication as your deal progresses.
Since meetings are so easy to schedule these days, people's calendars are bloated with back-to-back meetings all day long. As a result, you and your team will need extra effort to ensure your call is informative, compelling, efficient, and engaging.
Mindset: As a B2B sales professional, your job is to inspire and influence your prospect to take action based on your specific goal for that meeting. Emotion is contagious, so you want to exude energy and excitement about whatever solution you sell. However, virtual meetings do not give you the same sense of excitement that you get before walking into a large conference room for an in-person meeting, and it is much harder to connect with people over a remote call. Therefore, you need to have the time to consciously prime your state of mind before an important meeting.
For important meetings, especially first contact meetings, do your best to have at least 10 minutes in advance to prepare yourself. Take a quick walk, do a breathing exercise, or whatever approach works for you. To avoid back-to-back meetings before a critical customer meeting, mark your calendar as busy 15 minutes before so you can focus on your preparation.
People Research: Research the people who will be on the call in advance using LinkedIn and note their title, how long they have been with the company, what companies they have been at before, etc. The goal is to connect with your clients, bringing up common connections, companies, and interests. You can put this information into your pre-call prep notes so you can look at them during the call to guide you.
Send Advanced Communication: If there will be new people on the call that you have not met before, send them a quick, personalized email or LinkedIn Invite. Let them know you are looking forward to the meeting. This will positively influence their mindset and show them in advance that you have done your homework.
Internal Prep Call: Depending on the importance of the meeting and the size of the opportunity, you should consider scheduling an internal call with your team to review the meeting agenda, history, strategy, list of discovery questions, and goal of the meeting. It is also an opportunity to get your colleagues excited about the call and review each individual's roles.
Internal Preparation Document: For every new prospect meeting, you should create a one-pager for yourself and your colleagues. The document should have all the essential information, such as the agenda, company website link, LinkedIn profile links, company financials, number of employees, and a description of the goal of the specific call. Even if you are taking the call solo, having all this essential information in one place will help you do a quick prep before the call starts.
Happy B2B selling!
If you found any of the ideas in this article interesting, please see Part 1 and Part 3 in this series:
About the Author
Thank you for reading my article. I have a passion for B2B Software Sales, and I am constantly looking for ways to level up my performance. If you have any questions or insights to share, please feel free to contact me via my open LinkedIn profile.
Andrew Paulsen – andrew@andrewpaulsen.com / +1 415.269.7350