Prepping for A First Meeting
It’s surprisingly easy to feel ready and excited for an initial meeting — with a potential client, employer or professional contact. And yet, I’m amazed by people who don’t seem to plan ahead.
A few tips:
- Do your research. Sounds simple, right? Look beyond their website, which is how they describe themselves, their brand or products. To understand what everyone else thinks, read reviews, critical press or my favorite source—forums. No holds barred on how people stick up for or complain about products they love or hate.
- Learn who’ll be in the room. You don’t need to talk about how you know they graduated from Cranbrook in 2004 or that you know they just went on a trip to Thailand. But you’ll know…and you’ll be able to relate to them just a little better.
- Prepare questions. Please, please, please don’t be the person who says “Nope, no questions” at the end of a meeting. Have a few prepared, but even better if you can come up with some on the fly that relate to what was said in the meeting.
Easy, peasy! Also, here’s a great NYT article about successful professional networking.
