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We run two business lines at Trinity (you're reading the Sales Development Line right now).
About 19 contractors and a small full-time team.
Some of my best friends do some work with us.
And guess what? I don't take meetings with them.
There's nothing to decide.
The work is running, they know how to reach me, and neither of us needs thirty minutes on a calendar to confirm it.
My calendar is a game of Tetris, trying to find a spot will take some doing for a 30 minute call, with anyone.
So when a CEO gives your rep half an hour, something happened.
- Maybe a lease is up.
- Maybe they hired twelve people and there's nowhere to put three of them.
- Maybe they have too much space now and they're paying for an empty floor.
- Maybe they don't like their broker and haven't said that out loud to anybody yet.
Whatever it was, it moved recently. Recently enough that he put your rep on his calendar.
Your rep's job is to walk out knowing which one.
Most Of Them Walk Out Without It
I ran a workshop with a brokerage a couple of weeks ago and asked the room where their deals go sideways.
One of the younger brokers told me how he knows a meeting is going badly. They bring a handout to every meeting. "If you have to start reading from the handout, things are going poorly."
Then their most senior man volunteered something nobody asked him for. He's the one the young brokers ride along with to learn how it's done.
He'd sat in a meeting the same week. A full hour, and he'd done his homework going in.
He came out with answers to some of his questions. Not all of them. He said he let the conversation wander instead of steering it toward the ending he wanted.
Same problem as the young broker had just described to him, from the man who trains him.
Ask Them Why They Came
I've listened to a lot of first calls. Most reps open by explaining themselves. "I heard about you from Dave," or "We met at that conference in April."
Every one of those is the seller telling the buyer why the buyer is there.
Try this instead. "Why did you want to meet?"
They all have a reason. Sometimes it comes out right there.
Then set the agenda out loud. "We've got thirty minutes. What do you want to get out of this so it's worth your time?"
Some of them will say they just want to hear what you've got. Ask a second time. "I'm happy to tell you what we do. But specifically for you, what would make this worth the half hour? You probably don't want to hear when we were founded. You don't need to know where our headquarters is."
Push it the second time. That's where the answer is.
Then Make Your Reps Say It Back
Pull the last three first meetings your team ran.
Ask each rep why the buyer took the meeting. Not what they discussed. Why that person agreed to give up the time.
Then ask what the buyer actually said, in the buyer's words.
Your competition won't have that either. Nobody asks.
What I Wrote About On LinkedIn Recently
This Isn't A Sales Call Somebody cold called me last month and opened with "this isn't a sales call." It was clearly a sales call. A sales leader I work with hears the same thing from his own team. "I don't want to sound like a sales guy." So they sat down and listened to their own calls together, and he told them that is exactly what they sound like. The worry produces the thing they're worried about. Listen to how your reps open their next three calls and count the disclaimers.
Hope Dressed Up As A Stage I've run this exercise with CEOs at companies between five and a hundred million in revenue. Take five deals marked Qualified or higher, sit down with the rep who owns each one, and ask what the prospect actually said that moved it out of Prospect. The rep gets through one, maybe two, before the pattern shows up. The prospect was "interested." The meeting "went well." The proposal got "good feedback." That's hope dressed up as a stage in your CRM. It takes about 30 minutes, and most CEOs won't do it, because they're afraid of what they'll find. Run it this week.
