Unique Content Article: {tukhoaseo} {autoblog}

How To Prepare For And Run Successful Sales Meetings

by Paul M Balzano

A substantial number of sales reps waste time with people who are not empowered to choose or purchase the goods and services they sell. Meeting with the most appropriate senior managers is one of the best ways to accelerate your time to success with your customers. Therefore, it's essential to be sure that each of these meetings are worthwhile for the executives you meet with.

If you demonstrate that you can help that person/company in one way or another, you will have a much greater chance to quickly identify and close new sales opportunities. Conversely, if your meeting is a waste of time for that executive, you will prolong and potentially destroy any sales opportunities you had, and it will likely ruin your chances for a follow up meeting. Here are the top 10 steps you should complete before, during, and after your meetings to ensure they are both productive and valuable for your customers:

<b>Be familiar with the executive(s) with whom you are meeting.</b> With a little bit of research, you can usually learn a good amount of important information regarding your customer and should understand where they've worked before, the areas of success they've enjoyed, special interests they might have, groups they are part of, and other common contacts they might have with you or other people in your company.

<b>Understand their role and responsibilities.</b> The best way to get this information is to ask others you know in their department/division, or at a minimum, search the website for executive profiles, presentations they may have done, or articles they've written. Knowing this will enable you to build credibility by referencing it during your meeting, and ultimately help you determine how your products would map to their interests and initiatives.

<b>Schedule the right resources to join you and be sure they are briefed and prepared before hand.</b> Make certain that anyone you bring is well aware of the above items along with the agenda including their role and any of the topics they're to cover. Role play in advance of the meeting to be sure everyone knows who, when, and how they are expected to participate.

<b>Share your agenda with your customer before hand and confirm who else will attend.</b> By doing so, you can be certain that the topics you intend to cover are relevant while soliciting input for other areas or topics they're interested in. This straightforward step provides you with the chance to change course if your initial agenda missed the mark, and enable you to reach out to other executives you weren't aware were asked to join.

<b>Prepare an executive summary presentation or discussion document to follow during your meeting.</b> Don't just wing it. Having a professional looking document or presentation to review will demonstrate that you have invested time preparing, will help guide your discussion to be sure all important points are covered, and will prove that you care and value your customer's time.

<b>Complete proper introductions.</b> Always make sure that everyone introduces themselves, and ask them to describe their role and responsibilities, and convey any particular areas they would like to cover and what they need to get out of the meeting. Be sure you also briefly describe what if any relationship exists, and how and where both organizations have worked together previously. This is usually a easy way to break the ice and build instant credibility for you and also your company. Don't assume the folks in the room have an understanding of any prior relationships or successes.

<b>Review the agenda items up front and confirm the amount of time you have for the meeting.</b> Ask your customer to prioritize your topics and determine any others that need to be covered before jumping in. This ensures you review the most important items first, and less important ones last or not at all if you run out of time.

<b>Ask open ended, relevant questions, and listen carefully and take notes.</b> Always make sure your valuable time isn't wasted with you or your team doing the majority of the talking. The simplest way to identify new sales opportunities is to understand your clients challenges and the way your products and solutions may help them. Don't make the mistake of jumping into a hard core sales pitch before you have had a chance to clearly identify the value add you can actually provide. Periodically pause throughout the meeting and ask your customer if the content being reviewed is important and is also resonating with them. If it's not, switch onto another more important subject.

<b>Before the meeting ends, recap the items covered and determine next steps.</b> Set aside time to briefly review and prioritize what you covered along with any action items that were agreed to. You should get concurrence for follow up meetings, and determine the focus areas along with any other individuals that should participate. Solicit feedback from all attendees to determine on the spot if they received the value they expected and covered the topics they were most interested in. Ask for guidance on how you can improve the next time.

<b>Deliver what you promised.</b> After the meeting, it's critical that you follow through on what you said you would do. Send a thank you note to all that attended and document the action items and provide any information you promised. The value you can add begins when the meeting ends. You should also call each of the customers that attended to get their feedback. Many times in an open forum, individuals will not chime in during the meeting and might have valuable information to share in a private setting.

By completing these 10 steps, you will be guaranteed to have successful executive sales meetings, and prove to your customers that you are a valuable and credible resource for them.



Visit here to find out more about how to <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/sales-techniques2">Conduct Effective Sales Meetings</a> as well as many other Proven <a href="http://www.salestechniquesonline.com/">Sales Techniques</a>. By Paul M. Balzano

---------------------------------------------------
You are receiving this because you signed up for it on 2012-01-11 from IP
To fine-tune your selection of which articles to receive, just login here:

http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/bloggers/

using your username:

To unsubscribe please use the following link:

http://www.uniquearticlewizard.com/unsubscribe.php?mail=chiakhoaseo.thanhcong@blogger.com&code=be8dd06bc389a1220ca7344b6083f28f
---------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------
New Unique Article!

Title: How To Prepare For And Run Successful Sales Meetings
Author: Paul M Balzano
Email: pbalzano@optonline.net
Keywords: executive meetings,sales techniques,sales lessons,sales training,sales education,sales methods,sales tips,sales,business,careers
Word Count: 989
Category: Sales
---------------------------------

Posted in: