Meetings can be a bore, especially if all you talk about is business. But that is something you have to live with if you want to generate good B2B leads for your company. Come to think of it, meeting with business prospects, whether in person or on the phone, is an important step towards making a successful sale or business deal. The only challenge here, at this stage, is actually making your meeting interesting (and impressive) enough for them to sign up with you. With time very important for both parties, you want to make the most out of your lead generation meeting, right?
That is why you need to plan things first. For example:
1. Schedule during off-peak hours – we all know how important time is for us. Be it us in looking for B2B leads, or your prospects in their business operations for that matter, you need to make sure that your meeting will not affect everyone’s important activities. Try to be as flexible as possible for your prospects, and make sure you show up on time. Understand that everyone values their time highly. If they so much as think that you are wasting their time, then they would walk away.
2. Add some humor to the mix – of course, this advice will be dependent on whether the other party is receptive or not. Try testing the waters first, and if you find a willing audience, then subtly add some levity to your discussion. Just make sure that the jokes are tasteful, professional, and relevant to your appointment setting meeting.
3. Stand up – let us face it, meetings can be a bore, or it can downright slow our minds down. You could add life to your meetings by doing it standing up. Not only will it help you get your body moving, it will also compel you to hurry up your talk. This will shorten your time of discussions, and give you more time to do what matters.
4. Get everyone a chance at closing time – this is a very good tactic that you can use to help everyone be more involved in your meetings. Before you dismiss your meeting, have each participant say something about the discussion. In this way, you can be sure everyone is on the same page. At the same time, it will give everyone the opportunity to get out whatever their keeping in their chests.
Meetings will always be part of your business operations. It may be boring, it may be tough, and it may be outright a pain in the neck when things go rough. But we all have to face one at some point in our time. It is up to us to make it better, more interesting, or more rewarding. While this may just be a stage in our marketing process, almost no different to what telemarketing, social media, or email promotions is, it is how we use our creativity and resourcefulness that makes all the difference in our efforts.
