The Benefit of Planning Well

If you prepare well, and really get your story down pat—well enough to pass the elevator test—then you can sell your core message well in any situation. A friend of mine, Jim in Singapore, sent me an e-mail sharing a good example of what can happen when you do this work in the preparation stage.

Dear Garr... got this new prospect and have been trying to get in front of the guy for months. Finally get the word he’ll see me next week. I know he is a super short attention span guy so I used a simple approach and agonized over the content and the key message and then the graphics. We get to the office and begin with the usual small talk that starts a meeting and suddenly I realize we’ve gone over the points of the presentation in our conversation and he has agreed to move forward. Then he looks at his watch and says great to see you thanks for coming in. As we walk out of the building the two guys that work for me say hey you never even pulled out the presentation and he still bought the deal—that was great!