Client Management: How to Prepare for Any Client Meeting

By Jay Andrew, Vice President, Corporate

We all know that client meetings are a great opportunity for productive and meaningful face time. They’re even better when you’re able to score attendance from a CEO or others on the leadership team. But these opportunities also present their own unique set of challenges and require a different type of preparation.

When a CEO agrees to attend your meeting, you need to recalibrate and move away from the approach you might use with your everyday client contact, such as providing project updates or discussing plan deliverables, timelines etc. While a CEO might find some of these things interesting, they will likely not care to be caught up in such detail.

I faced this situation a few weeks ago and had no feedback from the client on what the focus of the meeting would or should be. I knew that I really needed to prepare for this opportunity, but the question was how? I want to share with you a link to a PDF newsletter published by Andrew Sobel, a leading authority on client and business relationships, entitled Client Loyalty: Strategies for Building Inner Circle Relationships.

This particular issue of the newsletter couldn’t have been more timely or on point: How to Prepare for Any Client Meeting. Mr. Sobel isn’t kidding. While these tips are certainly common sense, there’s always value in going back to the basics, even for the most seasoned PR pro.

By the way, the meeting was a hit, extending well beyond the fifteen min utes we were promised. I credit Tips 8, 9 and 10 for this. Take a look.

8) Do you fully understand the perspectives of the various constituencies that surround your client? (e.g., senior management, subordinates, customers, capital markets, as well as different functions and organizational units?)
9) Will you present yourself and your views in a way that reinforces your standing as a deep generalist --someone with outstanding expertise but also possessing a broad, top management perspective and an understanding of the entire business “ecosystem” that surrounds your client?
10) In your meeting, will you exhibit a mindset of “independent wealth”? (i.e., you are totally focused on your client’s agenda, you demonstrate a love for your work, and you treat your client as an equal).