There are some people who are important to us, but are hard to get meetings with. Bosses, customers, prospects, decision makers… other people who are more important to us than we are to them…
And, with people like this, we can be delighted to get a meeting with them.
The problem is – that might be the only meeting we ever have.
But they’re important! We want to see them again. So, what’s the best way to ensure they want to see us again, and have Meeting #2?
My favourite way to help us secure Meeting #2 is my ‘2Is’ technique – where we make sure that our Meeting #1 is:
- Invaluable – so they get lots of value from seeing us in Meeting #1
- Incomplete – there’s something missing from Meeting #1, so they want to see us again in #2
For example, I recently met someone who was much more important to me than I was to them. During our meeting, he asked me what price he should charge for his potential next career – after dinner speaking. I replied:
“I’ll give you a quick answer now; and a better one later! The quick one – the average prices I’ve heard for what you’ll be doing is in the range £X-£Y. But I know lots of people I can ask for better info. So I’ll ask around, and do some research for you. We can then schedule another call, where I can give you a better answer. Sound fair?”
You can see this is both:
- Invaluable – I gave them useful information now, plus also…
- … Incomplete – they need to see me again, to get even better info next time
And he said yes. And he was very grateful.
And then we had meeting #2 - which was also Invaluable and Incomplete.
And then #3… and we ended up working together.
But it would have been easy for me to do my extra research, and then email him all the pricing information. But that would have made it “complete” – not “incomplete”. So he wouldn’t have needed to see me again.
Qn 1: Who are you seeing today, who’s hard to get in front of? And…
Action Point
…Qn 2: What will you do, to ensure they want to meet you again for Meeting #2?