Hey there, Dean Mannix here and I’m excited that we’re running a webinar on first meeting strategies in a couple of weeks. And it made me think I should share a story about the first ever sales meeting that I had as a photocopier salesperson and it’s vivid in my mind. The memory is very strong and I guess that’s because of a combination of the fact that I was very successful in that meeting—I actually got the deal—and I learnt a lot and got very excited about sales as a result of that meeting. When I got back to the office after the meeting, one of the sales guys that I was doing this induction program with actually said, “Wow, that was so lucky you got the sale across”, and I remember turning to him and said, “Well, actually, no it wasn’t lucky at all.” The bottom line is that I’d done the work.

I knew exactly how I was gonna set context for that meeting and create a shared agenda with the person I was talking to, to make sure we were talking about a solution, not a problem.

I knew exactly how I was gonna create comfort to make them feel a rapport with me and I knew how I was gonna create confidence and build credibility in their mind so that they saw me as the person who could solve the problem they had and do business with going forward.

I knew exactly how I was gonna clarify the way forward, how I was gonna create concern with doing nothing and how I was going create the commitment to moving this thing forward, down to the clothes I was going to use and the objections I would probably have to handle.

And so I was labouring under the correct knowledge as my old Si Gung (Grandmaster) Malcolm Sue used to say when I trained kung fu, “Luck is just labouring under the correct knowledge.” And one thing I was really lucky about was that I had a fantastic sales trainer called Pete McKlusky who took me through all the things that I needed to do in that meeting to be more successful. All the things I had to do in first meetings to make sure that they were converting into either genuine opportunities, people that were qualified out of ever doing business with me. Or basically a deal, which is what I achieved at that moment.

So the question you’ve got to ask yourself is, not only are you doing the work—Because I’ve got to say that most salespeople wing it way too much with first meetings, and they’re far too important to wing it—but also, do you know what the work is? Do you know exactly how to prepare for and plan for success in a first meeting? Because that’s what the 6C model is all about. If you’ve seen that in our content and in our library, and that’s what first meetings must be about. And that’s what this webinar is all about. So please check it out and no matter what, check out our content on first meeting because every meeting should feel like a first meeting. And ideally you’ve gotta start moving from conversations into conversions and that means you need to achieve all of the 6C’s. Wishing you a better sales life, wishing you a fantastic first meeting today. I hope you’ve got one in the diary and speak soon.