“All right, be that way. It’s your meeting. Why don’t you start talking and tell me what you want?” -Tuco Salamanca, Breaking Bad

 

I was modifying a document on my laptop when I got a meeting agenda invite from Richard.

Thirty minutes earlier, Richard had approached me with a sizable enterprise storage opportunity he was working on. He told me what the prospect wanted to do, brought up four major points, and asked if it was technically feasible.

Actually, it was a no brainer.

So I told him that we could do what the client was asking for and it would be simple to implement.

He also asked what times I would be available for meeting with the client.  So I gave him a few time slots and he walked off to go back to doing whatever he was doing.

A half an hour later, the email arrived in my inbox.

Using the Sales Agenda as a Conditional Close for the Sales Meeting

The email was addressed to the prospect and I was carbon copied on it.  In the email, Richard thanked the prospect for meeting with him earlier in the week and reviewed what they had discussed.  It also mentioned me as the sales engineer of his team.

Richard then outlined four key elements in bullet points that he wanted to cover in the next meeting. These were the same four points that we had discussed earlier. He also asked if either of the time slots I had provided worked better for their team.  He finished with asking if the bullet points were a fair summation of the items that they wanted to review and if they had any changes that they wanted to make to the agenda.

The prospect replied in less than an hour stating that Richard had summed up what they wanted and that they had no other additions.

In the next meeting, we arrived knowing exactly what the client wanted and what we wanted to accomplish. The entire meeting went well and we finished by selling a $150K solution to our new client.

Richard was the consummate sales representative.  He spent years as a sales rep for IBM selling some pretty high-end technical equipment.  He had acquired an arsenal of sales techniques along the way that served us well when we teamed up on storage projects.

Richard focused on being a sales consultant, creating business value for his clients.  He was not interested in learning the tricks of the trade, using the latest gimmicks, or any of the various fancy closes.  He created success for his clients and they trusted him for it. The sales agenda was just one of the many tools in his arsenal.

The Sales Agenda Establishes Your Business Credibility

Using a sales agenda to set up your sales calls is one way to establish rapport with your clients.  It’s a way of stating that you value their time. Its says that you want to understand the challenges that they face.   When you send a sales agenda, you send a message that you mean business.

An agenda is easy to use, yet few sales reps take the time to leverage that power. Remember, a sales meeting is a business meeting, and all business meetings proceed smoothly when everyone can follow an agenda.

If you want to create a favorable impression in your client’s mind, use a sales agenda to set up your sales meeting.  Not only will your meeting flow smoothly, but your clients will appreciate the value that you bring to the relationship.