Improve Credibility, Increase Sales: Save executive meetings from going off-course

The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. ― Jung

So what is a CxO customer meeting worth to you? In my sales leadership role, senior executive customer meetings are the ones you intensely lobby and prepare for.

The research. The detailed briefing notes. The preparatory calls. The dry runs. Not to forget those knots in your stomach!

Executed well, they have the power to transform the direction of any business relationship, big or small.

These are meetings that I consider to include 'engaging the elephants' from both sides.

But how do you feel when the meeting ends up resembling a successful clinical operation but that has yielded a dead patient?

Over the years I have observed 3 notable causes why such meetings go down-hill. I am sure there are many more.

Don't Distract but Attract - No loose cannons

“If what you sell doesn’t help me then why are you knocking on my door?” 

― Chris Murray, Selling with EASE

Incentive drives human behavior and acutely so at executive levels where attention and life span are limited. It is critical to align your own approach to that right at the outset.

Ray Wang of Constellation Research mention about how service providers need to constantly think and demonstrate how their product/service could help their customer get promoted or prevent them from getting fired. Making this key to your conversations rather than excessively chest thumping about your own company's successes is a far better strategy.

Forrester Research estimates that 76% of sales people do not understand their client’s business, 85% of sales meetings are not valuable to their buyers and as much as 93% of buyers do not accept follow up meetings.

Why do mature leaders then still fall into the trap of going being undisciplined and unfocused, elaborating on topics that don't matter to their counterpart?

Promises Made, Promises Kept - Avoid self-inflicted wounds

Yes, and Aladdin might fly out your a** on his magic carpet and take you for a spin too.” 

― Teresa Schulz, Barbed Wire and Daisies

Listen. Digest. Comprehend. Offer. It is less about acting on your leadership impulse but more about staying true to your company's abilities.

Great leaders take a pause before responding to the customer's stimulus. This pause helps you promise things that a team can truly deliver on and excel at.

Indifference and neglect of promises you make in executive discussions can cause significant damage to a relationship. Because as we all know, like the elephant, the customer never forgets!

Great promises do not need meeting minutes! They need rapid follow-through and implementation.

Give Me All You Got - Demonstrate credibility, not the invoice

“Most business meetings involve one party elaborately suppressing a wish to shout at the other: 'just give us the money'.” 

― Alain de Botton

Even senior leadership engaged in executive level conversations are guilty of short-term thinking when chasing an uncertain quarter.

The executive conversation needs to be tempered by appreciating that every customer's buying process is unique. The customer buys at his convenience, so a mad hustle can only take you that far.

If your leader helps her counterpart visualize a clear path, a set of actions and clear outcomes, you earn trust right from that point on. Revenue follows trust that follows truth!

In Summary

In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity― Sun Tzu, A Arte da Guerra

It's just a fact of life that not all executive meetings go to plan. It is also convenient logic to lay blame at each other. Failure, after all, makes easy scapegoats! But as they say, a customer will change their behavior, if you change yours.

However, it is incumbent for a leader to:

• Encourage participation from and rely on the team that knows the customer best while preparing for the meeting. A keen follower of the ‘all views have equal value’ rule, he should do so without fear or favor.
• Supersede her idealism with pragmatism. They stay on-script and on-course and still appear genuine
• Feed from and adapt to the customer's truth - unlearn, confess and salvage from the front by taking personal responsibility to rectify when initial conversations go awry.

Forest officials observe that when elephants go off into the wild they are free to do what they want, but what's great is that they are known to return. A great leader is characterized by returning quickly to get the team to work with the customer's reality.

Have you had experience of any executive level meeting where things didn't go to plan?

How did you overcome or recover from them? Did you manage to change the customer conversation and bring the relationship back on track?

I would love to hear your comments about how you handled your situation. If you liked this post, please feel free to share!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of my other articles have been featured on LinkedIn under Customer Experience, Leadership & Management, Career Development, Big Ideas & Innovation, What Inspires Me. Here are some quick links:

• Building great Customer Experiences: Be invested, Be Inspired, Be Personal
• Tips on leading a better Professional and Personal Life
• What's Cooking: Life Inspirations from Cooking
• From Grit to Great: Lessons from the Sales front line
• Learning from nature: Adapting for personal growth
• Striking the Right Note: Inspirations from a children's music concert

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Abhishek is Vice President, EMEA at Persistent Systems in London. Persistent is a market leading software product engineering services company and digital transformation partner to some of the world's largest technology brands and innovative enterprises. He has previously led regional sales and business development teams at Wipro, Cognizant and Cisco and holds an MBA from INSEAD. He has lived, studied and worked in India, U.S., Singapore, France and U.K. He considers himself a passionate globalist and in his spare time, a free-range foodie and an aspiring author. All opinions are his own.