You’ve done it! Hours of hard work cold calling, crafting email campaigns, and pulling all-nighters have finally paid off. You’ve convinced a prospect to commit the time to meet with you, and you have an appointment on the calendar. But if you’re not prepared, the next step might feel even more daunting than the last. So how do you ensure that when that lead comes in, your perseverance isn’t all for nothing? In this two-part article, we’ll take you step-by-step through our favorite methods for nailing that hard-earned discovery meeting. And to start, we’ll walk you through what to do in the lead up to the big day:

BEFORE THE MEETING

Setting yourself up for success starts before logging on to your laptop or setting foot in the prospect’s office. Begin by ensuring all your calendar invites are sent and confirmed within 24 hours by all parties from each company. Then, the day before, always follow up again just to make sure the date still works for the prospect. Not only is this courteous, but you’ll find it increasingly difficult to keep your prospect’s attention if they’ve squeezed your meeting into their schedule on a day where more important matters have arisen. If you’re meeting is still a go, then it’s time to gather everyone from your team who will be in attendance and do a thorough, no-stone-left-unturned prep meeting. This meeting before the meeting should update everyone on how exactly you got to this point with the prospect and review the following topics:

  • General Information – What do you know about your prospect? Any info you may have gathered about who they are, where they are from, and what their interests, passions, and desires are should be discussed so you have a sense of where they are coming from and how best to connect with them.
  • Roles Within the Company – Is your prospect the primary decision-maker in their company? If not, can they influence decisions? Will others be joining them? Ask the same question for everyone in the room and try to get a sense of who will affect the final decisions within this organization. 
  • Pain Points – What problem is your prospect trying to solve right now? What made them set this meeting? Knowing precisely what the prospect currently needs to fix is imperative to figuring out the best way to approach your meeting.
  • Relationship with Current Providers or Vendors – Does your prospect currently have someone providing the services they are asking you about? If so, you must know what is working or not working with that relationship so you can keep the positives and not repeat the mistakes.

Using these questions, you can now set up role-playing scenarios to practice different outcomes and prep stories or anecdotes that might help you win over the room. Especially prep experiences you can share related to the given vertical your prospect works in. If you’ve had successful working relationships with five different law firms and you’ll be talking to a group of lawyers, practice relaying relatable anecdotes of your time working in this field to help your potential clients imagine themselves in a similarly successful partnership with you. 

Now that you’ve done your homework, you should be ready to step up to the plate when the big moment arrives. In our next section, we’ll jump right back in and talk about how to put all this preparation into practice once you’re face-to-face. But if you’re eager to learn more about how to prep your team for every part of the sale process and hit the ground running ASAP, reach out to us at OSR Manage today. We have the expertise and experience to help you build a top-notch sales team in no time.