All it takes is practice

I recently did a joint visit with one of our clients - I was playing the Sales Director role, he was acting as the Technical Specialist. It was the first time that we had done a joint visit and it worked brilliantly. I can't claim that we had a highly detailed strategy before going into the room, but all our ideas seemed to strike a chord with the senior manager we were meeting. Sometimes, less is more and we were determined not to make the mistake of making a presentation before understanding the manager's issues in more detail.

This was close to my ideal for an initial meeting - exploring a business problem with an enthusiastic, curious manager and a client with real expertise who could add significant value to the manager's business. We have been invited back to meet the rest of his team at the next of their operations meetings with room on the Agenda. The date and the location are already in our diaries. That's an outcome I would have regarded as highly satisfactory in our planning session for the meeting.