Do you ever attend a meeting without doing a quick online search on who you are meeting? What their company is about, who the person is like, what opportunities may exist between you both?
It has never been easier to research and be prepared. And this works both ways.
If you are having a meeting to pitch your services, the chances are your prospect will check you out beforehand. With a short impressive video on your site, your LinkedIn profile, your Facebook page or your YouTube channel you can presell your client without them even realising it.
After watching your video(s) they will have heard what you have to offer, why you are the people to deal with and how your type of service or product can benefit them, before you even walk into the meeting.
And of course video has the power to engage people much more emotionally than mere words can. Your audience can be excited about you before they even meet you.
This is amazingly powerful on many levels.
1. If they go ahead with the meeting it means they like what they have seen and consider your business to be a good fit with theirs.
2. When you are at the meeting you can focus on their needs and their business and discuss very little about yours. If the client has a need then they will want to talk about that and will just assume you are able to fix it for them. So you get to listen and customise your offering specifically for them without getting bogged down on how and what you do.
3. If they like the first video they check out before the meeting, the chances are they will look for more videos from you. Each video provides more connection with them and more opportunities to presell your services before the meeting commences.
But don’t be shy in coming forward. If you are confirming a meeting then provide a link to your video in the confirmation email – “to give you a quick overview of our services here’s a link to a short 90 second video …” or a link to your YouTube channel or your website with the video on it.
And of course if you have a series of videos for different market sectors you can direct them to the relevant one for them.
This previewing of services beforehand means the meeting can be more productive for both parties. Ideally your video will summarise clearly and impressively what you have to offer. In the meeting you won’t need to spend your client’s important time trying to sell your services. If you are having the meeting after they have watched the video, they are interested – they just want you now to complete the promise and give them what they want.
When has some pre-meeting research paid off for you?
Geoff Anderson is the Managing Director at Sonic Sight
He has over 20 years experience in corporate video production. You can follow him on Twitter on @geoffsonic
