Top Ways To Sabotage a Client Meeting

It was 10 years ago when I walked out of a client meeting embarrassed, angry, and frustrated.  I had just met with one of my most important target clients and brought along a colleague. This colleague happened to be our national practice group leader and a partner at the firm for more than 20 years. He was visiting from out of town to meet with some of the West Coast target clients. The result of this one client meeting I set up – we not only turned the client off but never heard back from him again.

​Here is where it went wrong. First, we went into the meeting unprepared. I did not do any preliminary research on current news of the client, nor did I prep my colleague. Second, I assumed that my colleague was good in client meetings.

Within the first 5 minutes of the meeting, I heard the dreaded words come out of my colleague’s mouth – “I assume we are meeting today for you to learn more about me and my practice.”

Gulp.

That was the beginning of the end of our meeting. My colleague went on for more than 30 minutes talking about himself and his practice without any pauses for me to cut in to prevent the train wreck. He didn’t bother to ask the client one question, nor did he really seem to care. He just droned on at a painfully slow pace. I saw my client glaze over within the first 10 minutes and that is when I knew the conversation was “over.”

Recalling this story prompts me to share the top ways to ruin a client meeting. Here you go.

• Show up unprepared. Talking about what cases the other person is working on is table stakes nowadays. It can take valuable time away from learning what really matters – the needs, challenges, and objectives your client has in the year ahead. Come into the meeting with some thoughtful questions to ask. Simple online research of current news on the company website, and a brief visit to the contact’s LinkedIn profile will often suffice. If you bring colleagues, make sure you are all on the same page on how you want to conduct the conversation, what you want to get out of it, and what role each person plays in the meeting. There is nothing worse than having a colleague hijack the meeting and steer the conversation in the wrong direction.

• Poor body language. How you communicate through body language can make a difference in how your client receives the information. Someone who slouches, cannot hold eye contact, leans too far in, crosses their arms, or tilts the chin too high are all physical signs to the client that you don’t care, are insecure, desperate, uninterested, or arrogant. This not only applies to in-person meetings, but it can also come across in virtual meetings.

• Don’t Listen. Asking questions without really caring about hearing the answers can easily be detected by the client, especially if you take their answer and redirect it back to you. Looking for cues on not just what they say but how they say it can be critical in learning more about their business and identifying what they might need.

• Try to be too smart. Using acronyms and speaking at a level that could go over one’s head is a real danger. The listener may nod like they are tracking yet not understand what you are talking about and start to lose interest. Understand who your listener is and error on the side of bringing the conversation to layman’s terms. You will have a more captive audience.

• Talk too fast. There can be a tendency to increase one’s tempo when excited about a particular client meeting and/or topic. This can make the speaker seem nervous, insecure, and even too anxious. The listener might also struggle to keep up with the conversation which can be exhausting.

• Talk too slow. When talking too slow the risk of losing the listener in the conversation is high. It can also be frustrating to follow when the listener wants the person to get to the point.

• Talk too much.  Too many professionals make it about them and not the buyer. This can come across as arrogant, insecure, or both. Try to follow the 80/20 rule – 80% listening and 20% talking. Not the other way around. The more you get the client to talk about what is important to them, the better.

• Sell every service under the sun. Many professionals want to pitch every service they offer to increase their chances of winning work. This often has the opposite effect. It can not only waste precious time in the conversation but also turn the buyer off. Stay focused on what they want, not what you hope they want.

Conducting the “perfect” client conversation is never easy. There are several things to consider to make sure it goes well. Understanding some of the classic meeting saboteurs listed above can put you in a much better position to execute a successful client meeting. If I had paid more attention to some of them ten years ago when I brought my colleague to such an important client meeting, we would have had a much different outcome that day.