The coffee catch up
It’s January, the start of a new year and I’m confident BD teams up and down the country are rightly encouraging their revenue generators to get out there/shake the tree/take someone for coffee etc.
Problem is, once you’re there, in a one on one meeting environment, what do you do? What do you say? How do you get value out of the conversation?
Here’s three ways to ensure you’re getting the most out of that Cappuccino.
#1. Preparation
If someone has taken time out of their busy day to meet with you then you should, as a minimum, prep accordingly. Things to consider include:
- Purpose: what are you there for? Informal catch up? Shooting the breeze? Intelligence gathering? Feedback? All of these are great reasons to catch up but it’s useful to understand upfront the purpose of the catch up.
- Research: for new/less well known clients its always useful pre catch up to LinkedIn stalk them (do you have any shared connections or interests?) and use Google News to highlight major stories about their business.
- Guests: consider if it’s worth taking a colleague. Ideally, this would be someone with a skillset that would be useful to your contact.
- Venue: sounds daft but make sure you pick a meet up point where it’s easy to hear the other person clearly!
#2. In the meeting
Please, please, please do not approach the catch up thinking you need to instantly win work! View this meeting as an opportunity to get to know the person sitting opposite you. Other things to think about:
- Life then work: do not dive straight in with work chat! Talk about the journey in, the weather (English people LOVE the weather chat!), Love Island, the football last night, politics and/or your latest podcast. This will help to build a relationship.
- Find common ground: do you both have kids? Pets? Like running, travel, sports? Do you live near to each other? Again, bringing a human touch to the conversation will establish rapport much quicker.
- Listen more than talk: easy to say, harder to do! Be curious and ask open questions. How’s the job? What are you hoping to achieve this year? What does the next three months look like for you? What’s the biggest issue currently sat on your desk?
#3. The follow up
The catch up’s gone well. Your coffee mate has mentioned a couple of things of interest. All done right? WRONG! Missing the follow up opportunity is like being handed the keys to the sweet shop and not going inside!
- Say thanks: if nothing else a quick email/WhatsApp thanking someone for their time goes a long way.
- Do what you said you were going to do: if you mentioned introducing a colleague, supplier, vendor make sure you facilitate the intro. If you were going to send a link, article, document then prioritise this before you forget.
- Arrange the next catch up: us the follow up comms to get a date in the diary for another catch up.
