If you’ve ever sat in a meeting, letting your mind go numb as your colleague drones on, and watching the clock as the minutes tick by, you’ve given away part of your life that you’ll never regain. If you’ve ever had a chance encounter with the president of your company or a mover and shaker at a rival company and found yourself tongue-tied, you’ve missed a golden opportunity to shine. Whenever you have an interaction in which you’re present in body but not in spirit, you have no control over the outcome and won’t benefit from the encounter.
Implementing outcome-driven thinking, as discussed in Chapter Two, involves preparing for every interaction. People with Career Intensity focus their preparation just as a detective focuses as he builds a case. They spend the time necessary to develop a solid understanding of the desired outcomes for each party in each situation. This preparation allows them to anticipate the needs of the other party and to develop a deep and lasting relationship, the rewards of which will continue to reap over time.
Each interaction you have with another person represents an opportunity. At a minimum, you have an opportunity to build a relationship. Interactions with others are black and white. They either have a positive outcome or they have a negative outcome. There are no neutral interactions.
One quality that separates people who have outstanding careers from those whose careers fail to live up to their expectations is preparation. Successful people are always well prepared. The most successful individuals even appear to be prepared for seemingly random encounters.
Investigate Your Target
Your meeting has been set and you have a prospect or a target in mind. You have conducted preliminary research to prepare your own position. You now need to put yourself in your target’s shoes in order to help you prepare for any questions or issues that may arise, as well as to help refine your approach to presenting information to the other party.
The best way to get inside your target’s mind is to approach the process as though you are a detective trying to solve a case. When building his case, a good detective looks for three elements: motivation, means, and opportunity.
Motivation refers to the reason why the other party would request or attend a meeting with you. If you understand the motivation of the other side, you immediately have a lever you can use to help get what you want from the meeting. Essentially, you are looking for a problem that you can help that other organization solve.
When it comes to motivation, you should try and find answers to the following questions: What do they want? Are their goals in alignment with ours? Is there a way we can meet their needs and achieve our objective?
If you are meeting with a person or an organization that has a specific problem, and you have a solution to that problem, your value to that person is high. If your value to your target is high, then you will have a greater opportunity to get what you want out of the meeting. Research is critical to the preparation for any meeting because finding a problem to solve – finding the motivation – is essential.
What means does your target have to achieve his objective? Specifically, what resources are available to him? Are there any missing resources that are necessary for the target to achieve his goal? Can you be the means to provide those resources? When you research the means, you can define your role in solving the problem and will be perceived as valuable by your target.
The final area of research is opportunity. What opportunity is your target assessing? Why does he feel that these opportunities are great? How is he attempting to capture these opportunities? How can you help him in his quest? Can you source other opportunities for him?
Understanding the motivation, means, and opportunity of your target is essential. At a minimum, such an understanding will help you set a framework for your discussion. Beyond that, it can be a determining factor in driving your relationship forward.
Define and Execute a Plan of Attack
Now you have all the information you need for your meeting with your target. You understand your objectives, you’ve crafted a message, and you have a handle on the motivation, means, and opportunity of your target. The next step is to put together a plan for the meeting itself.
This plan can be as simple as jotting some information on a piece of paper and sharing it with your team members, or it can be as complex as scripting out the entire meeting as if it were a play. The level of depth depends upon your mastery of the information and the amount of time you have to prepare.
A good meeting plan has three key elements: an objective, an agenda that your side wants to advance, and a call to action.
The meeting objective is what you want to accomplish. This should be at the forefront of your mind before and during the meeting. You should be focused on this objective the entire time you are with your target.
Your agenda should include the steps that may be necessary for you to lead up to achieving your objective. What conversation topics must be covered prior to achieving your objective in this meeting?
Finally, there should be a call to action. In a sales meeting, the call to action is to ask for the business. In a negotiation, the call to action may be to get the target to disclose some critical information necessary to make an offer (or the offer itself). In any case, before you enter the room, you must be clear on the call to action. If you’ve done your research, you will know your target well and can maneuver the meeting to a successful call to action.
Once the meeting is over, you should sit down with your team for a debriefing. Determine what went well and what did not occur as planned. Map out the next steps that must be taken and who will take them. You should also identify two or three specifics that you would like to improve for the next meeting. This can be particularly helpful if you attend several meetings in similar industries or with similar targets.
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