Hi, this is Mo Bunnell, your business development expert and author of “The Snowball System: How to Win More Business and Turn Clients into Raving Fans”. In this video, I’m gonna get really precise and I want to help you decode what you’re doing right or not so right in the first five minutes of your client and prospect meetings. Here’s what I don’t want you to do.

What I don’t want you to do is send signals that you’re a schleppy salesperson. These are things like – Saying generic things like “We want this to be your meeting” or, “Hey I’m really looking forward to figuring out what keeps you up at night”, or for gosh sakes, don’t use words like pinpoint.

“Hey, I’m really looking forward to finding out what your pain points are so I can sell things to you”. That’s what it sounds like. Those are words that people might use. Things they might do are just as powerful. Are you pulling out a PowerPoint out of your bag? I hope you don’t even use PowerPoint, but if you do, for gosh sakes, use it as a follow up later or as a leave behind. By pulling PowerPoint out of our bag, we’re sending a signal to the prospect that says, “I’m now gonna bore the heck out of you. I hope you got Red Bull because this is gonna be really tiring”.

So what I want you to do is think about your first five minutes of your meeting and think, “How am I conducting that? What am I saying? What am I doing that’s either positioning me to look like a schleppy salesperson, or am I doing things that positions me as an advisor, as somebody that’s gonna be helpful?”

Here’s how that might look. “Hey, I’m really looking forward to today. So glad that Jane introduced us. I really love what she’s doing over at XYZ Corp. She thought that you might be billed to benefit from just knowing us and you know, we’ve got 45 minutes or so. What I’d suggest if this works for you is let’s spend about 25 minutes or so I’ve got several questions. I’ve done a bunch of research. I’ve talked with Jane about the kind of things you’re doing. And I’ve got six or eight questions I would love to ask you to dig in and find out with certainty exactly where you’d like to take things. And then maybe we spin with that context. I’ve got some ideas, but something else might pop up after we talk. I’ve got some ideas that it might be able to help you. And some of these are things we might do that are paid. Others are things that there’s some people I think you might need to know that could really help you move things forward and do a lot of things on your own. I’m just looking for ways to be helpful in your life. Maybe we spend about 10 minutes talking about that, and then maybe we just save 10 minutes the end to figure out some next steps. You know, from my side, I wanna leave this meeting with ways to be helpful. And that’s what I’m gunning for. So how does that sound?”

Well, by having a look at each other in the eye and a dialogue about what the frame of the meeting is – this is what we teach in our classes, What’s the frame? What’s the context of the meeting? What’s the goal? – Then we can actually start the journey as human beings as opposed to what a lot of people do, which is sending signals verbally. Or pulling the PowerPoint out, things that are basically saying, “I’m now gonna bore you to tears, and I’m looking for something to sell you. And if you don’t buy it, I’m gonna go the other way, and you’ll never hear from me again.”

So think of the first five minutes of your meetings. What are you doing that sends signals? Said motions or activities you’re doing. What can you do to come across as a professional, as an advisor, as somebody that’s just striving to be helpful? Do more of those.

And what are you doing that sends the opposite message? “I’m here to grab your wallet”, and do fewer of those. And start to shift that first five minutes. Here’s the deal. You’re gonna win or lose meetings in the first five minutes. Not with some crazy thing you say in the last five. If you set the right frame, and if they’re excited about meeting, good things will happen because you’re all marching in the same direction.

So think about that. You’re gonna win or lose in the first five minutes. What are you doing to help you win more? So that’s today’s topic. As with all our videos, we hope this one helps you help your clients succeed. Well, that’s it for today. Thank you so much for watching. For more content like this, check out my most recent video and be sure to like them so other people can find out about us, but make sure you subscribe.

That’s how you’ll be automatically alerted to the great content that we put out. And if you want access to a comprehensive system for business development, then just buy my book: “The Snowball System” at Amazon. The link is in the description below. Thanks again.