The reason your sales calls aren't turning into sales may have nothing to do with preparation, content, fit or numbers. They might just be too big. Repeat after me:
Small meetings are always better than big meetings.
It's counterintuitive, but very true. Many of us grew up doing classroom presentations, went on to practice doing the company pitch in front of our peers at sales conferences, and probably dream of someday doing our own TED Talk. So it's understandable that we crave the spotlight that goes with a crowd. But in reality those presentations are not moving the ball down the field. And they never will.
Small meetings are always better than big meetings.
When you get a group of 3, 4, 5 or more people together in a conference room, the politics get bigger and the opportunities get smaller. People don't share in large rooms. They are less curious, more guarded, less honest. People don't surface real objections in a crowd. They may listen to you, but they don't work with you. Collaboration never gets started. Everyone is polite (well, except those jerk-offs checking email on their phones of course) but no one is truly engaged.
Small meetings are always better than big meetings.
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In workshops with digital sellers, I preach the value of the intimate, collaborative, one-on-one or one-on-two meeting. With the right decision maker of course. You'd be better off having five small meetings on the phone with key customers than ten big lunch-and-learns. In small meeting about the right things, customers lean in, they share, they object, they tell you the truth...and they collaborate. It doesn't just happen of course...you've still got to earn the opportunity and execute it well. If you go in and turn on the lawn sprinkler of PowerPoint and company bullshit, you'll still get a bad outcome in a small meeting. But if you prepare and plan and focus on doing good things for the client's business, your meeting will stand out like a candle in the darkness.
Small meetings are always better than big meetings.
Marketing departments, stop cranking out newer and slicker versions of "the company story." Nobody wants to hear them. Start helping your sellers tell the customer's story and the heroic role your company can play in it. Sales managers, stop confusing activity with progress. Counting the number of rooms filled with warm bodies is a fool's errand. Sellers, focus on really deserving the meeting with the CMO or Product Manager or Group VP and you will get more of them.
And for God sake, keep 'em small. Intimacy is the new power.
This post was first distributed in May 2016. Rumor has it that there are still too many big meetings taking place.
